Sunday, March 11, 2018

Keys to the Kingdom – The Sermon on the Mount - 04 SELF-CONTROL


As Jesus described life in God’s kingdom, how would He treat the old, moral “do’s” and “don’ts?” Would He cancel or destroy them? No! Instead He fully explained them. He rejected the faulty external interpretation that was so common. He exposed murder and adultery as the outward results of anger and lust. Self-control is therefore a primary key to the kingdom.
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Matt 5:17-30
What stories most often make the 10:00 news and the front-page headlines? Murder and adultery. The latest school shooting. The latest shocking revelation in the “me-too” movement.
What were the first two specific moral matters Jesus addressed in Matt 5?
What does our society propose to correct these problems? More laws. More police. Fewer guns. More cameras. More tape recordings. More background checks. More expensive programs.
What can $500 million dollars not buy in Florida?
Florida’s governor Rick Scott proposes $500 million school safety program. Will any of that work? What if we spend a billion dollars? Or ten times that amount?
No! Why not? Because these efforts do not address the root cause: the heart.
What single key would prevent every murder and every act of adultery?
Self-control. It’s a key to the kingdom.
Self-Control: Deciding to say “no” to what one strongly desires or feels, because one desires something else far more.
Self-control includes balance, calmness, determination, confidence, and willpower.
Clarification and Caution – 5:17-20
Mt 5:17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
No wonder Jesus has been compared with Moses as a lawgiver. Each ascended a mountain. Each proclaimed God’s commands. Jesus even quoted the Ten Commandments regarding murder and adultery.
Here Jesus gets down to the nuts and bolts, the nitty gritty, where the rubber meets the road. How do those in His kingdom, who have met with Him on the mountain, practice kingdom morality? How does Jesus’ teaching compare with that given through Moses? What about the things that people have always heard? They’ve been told, “Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. You may divorce your wife, if you give her a legal document. You may swear, and you may decide which oaths to fulfill.” They have redefined and limited God’s commandments so that they only apply to externals.
Jesus’ disclaimer: “Do not think that I am rejecting or refuting what God has revealed in the past! Do not misinterpret what I am about to say! I came, not to abolish God’s moral law, but to explain its full meaning and intent.”
Perhaps some had already questioned or criticized Him as one who rejected Moses and the Law. He did not! Instead, He rejected the Pharisees’ oral misinterpretation of the Law.
This is clear when He says later:
Mt 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’
“You have heard … ‘hate your enemy,’” but God never said or intended that.
So Jesus contrasted, “You have heard” (the rabbis’ oral interpretation) with “but I say” (the original intent and full meaning of the command). He never challenged  “It is written,” but rather , “You have heard,” or, “The ancients were told.” Then He declared the true intent of the Law when He proclaimed, “But I say.” He did not correct the written Word of God, but the false ways that the Pharisees had interpreted it.
 “But I say” – Jesus interpreted what God said by explaining what God meant.
In six areas: Murder. Adultery. Marriage. Oaths. Justice. Love.
It was this authority that the listeners noted when Jesus finished.
Mt 7:28 When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; 29 for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
The “hedge around the Law.” The Pharisees made all kinds of external rules so they could claim perfect obedience to God and see themselves as worthy.
Jesus may have clarified a misunderstanding that some already had. Had He, for example, broken the Sabbath law and taught others to do the same? Mark notes early the Sabbath “violations” – plucking the grain and healing the man’s withered hand.
People said He brought “a new teaching.” Was it really new? In what sense?
Mk 1:27 They were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”
Fulfill – The verb (plērōsai) means literally ‘to fill’ and indicates, as Chrysostom expressed it, that ‘his (sc. Christ’s) sayings were no repeal of the former, but a drawing out and filling up of them’.
Ryle summed it up like this: ‘The Old Testament is the Gospel in the bud; the New Testament is the Gospel in full flower. The Old Testament is the Gospel in the blade; the New Testament is the Gospel in full ear.’
Jesus fulfilled all the various types of Law:
Doctrinal – Jesus brought it to completion by his person, his teaching and his work. Sin, grace, worship, obedience, repentance, sacrifice.
Prophetic – He did all that it said He would.
Moral – He brought out its full meaning.
Ceremonial – He completed it. The substance of which it was the shadow.
18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
“Not one jot or one tittle …”
A “jot” is a Hebrew yodh (similar to the Greek iota), the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, almost as small as a comma or apostrophe.
A “tittle” is a serif, keraia, a horn, referring probably to one of the tiny hooks or projections which distinguish some Hebrew letters from others. Tittles make the difference between the “1” and the “l” (lower-case “L”).
Even the smallest letter or stroke has God-given, lasting, unchangeable authority.
Note Jesus’ view of the OT as it existed in His day. Inspired, God-breathed, inerrant, and authoritative.
19 “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
“Whoever then (therefore)” – therefore greatness in the kingdom of God will be measured by conformity to it.
Stott: Christian disciples must both obey and teach to others the permanently binding nature of the law’s commandments. Even one of the least of these commandments, precisely because it is a commandment of God the King, is important. To relax it—i.e. to loosen its hold on our conscience and its authority in our life—is an offence to God whose law it is.
What is “surpassing righteousness?” Pharisees counted 248 commandments and 365 prohibitions. Do Jesus’ followers have 249 and 366, respectively?
Must certainly have astonished his first hearers as it astonishes us today. But the answer to these questions is not far to seek. Christian righteousness far surpasses pharisaic righteousness in kind rather than in degree. It is not so much, shall we say, that Christians succeed in keeping some 240 commandments when the best Pharisees may only have scored 230. No. Christian righteousness is deeper, being a righteousness of the heart, an inward righteousness of mind and motive.
Next Jesus noted six parallel paragraphs which illustrate the principle.
Murder and Anger
Mt 5:21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. 23 “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. 25 “Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. 26 “Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.
“The ancients were told …” First part is Scripture. Note all caps to indicate this is the NASB. Second part is oral interpretation.
The prohibition of murder was interpreted to forbid only the act itself. That left the door open to allow hatred, malice, rage, and unjustified anger. Only murder itself – the act – was worthy of judgment.
Is that what God intended? Of course not! Jesus will “fulfill” this.
“But I say …”
Anger – guilty before God’s court!
Insults – calling our brother either Raca (probably equivalent to an Aramaic word meaning ‘empty’) or mōre (the Greek word for a ‘fool’). It appears that ‘Raca’ is an insult to a person’s intelligence, and mōre expresses contempt for his heart and character.
1 Jn 3:15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
Stott: Jesus extended the nature of both the penalty and the crime. Not only are anger and insult equivalent to murder, he said, but the punishment to which they render us liable is nothing less than the divine judgment of hell.
‘So if …’, Jesus continued (23), and declared the positive side of the commandment’s prohibition. Reconcile with those you have offended, before you begin your worship! Pay your unpaid debts, before you go to court and land in jail!
Stott: if anger and insult are so serious and so dangerous, then we must avoid them like the plague and take action as speedily as possible.
Stott: Yet how seldom do we heed Christ’s call for immediacy of action! If murder is a horrible crime, malicious anger and insult are horrible too. And so is every deed, word, look or thought by which we hurt or offend a fellow human being. We need to be more sensitive about these evils. We must never allow an estrangement to remain, still less to grow. We must not delay to put it right. We must not even allow the sun to set on our anger. But immediately, as soon as we are conscious of a broken relationship, we must take the initiative to mend it, to apologize for the grievance we have caused, to pay the debt we have left unpaid, to make amends. And these extremely practical instructions Jesus drew out from the sixth commandment as its logical implications! If we want to avoid committing murder in God’s sight, we must take every possible positive step to live in peace and love with all men.
Adultery and Lust
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; 28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Stott: Rabbis again tried to limit the scope of the commandment to cover only an outward action, while ignoring the thoughts, desires, fantasies, and plans that might lead to that action.
Narrow definition of sexual sin. Convenient, broad definition of sexual purity.
As the prohibition of murder included the angry thought and the insulting word, so the prohibition of adultery included the lustful look and imagination. We can commit murder with our words; we can commit adultery in our hearts or minds.
Of course sexual relations within marriage are God-given and beautiful.
Jesus here refers to unlawful sex outside marriage.
He does not forbid us to look at a woman, but to look lustfully.
Jesus’ allusion is to all forms of immorality.
As to men, so to women. As to the married, so to the unmarried.
Any and every sexual practice which is immoral in deed is immoral also in look and in thought.
Note his equation of looking lustfully at a woman and committing adultery with her in the heart. It is the relation between the eyes and the heart which leads Jesus in the next two verses to give some very practical instruction about how to maintain sexual purity.
The argument is this: If to look lustfully is to commit adultery in the heart, in other words, if heart-adultery is the result of eye-adultery (the eyes of the heart being stimulated by the eyes of the flesh), then the only way to deal with the problem is at its beginning, which is our eyes.
Righteous Job claimed that he had learned this. ‘I have made a covenant with my eyes,’ he said; ‘how then could I look upon a virgin?’ Then he went on to speak of his heart: ‘If … my heart has gone after my eyes, … if my heart has been enticed to a woman …,’ he would acknowledge that he had sinned and that he deserved the judgment of God. But job had not done these things. The control of his heart was due to the control of his eyes.
While we’re on the subject, let’s commit ourselves as godly men and women, young men and young ladies, to dress modestly, speak modestly, and behave modestly.
We must control our eyes, our hearts, and our desires!
We must also be careful (in dress, appearance, and behavior) not to entice or draw others.
Our culture is saturated with this message: if you want to get the attention of the opposite sex, dress and act so as to get others to look at you and desire to be with you. Book: 5 Conversations You Must Have with Your Daughter.
Simple example: chocolate cake. I must be strong and refuse it! But since you know I have a weakness for chocolate cake, please don’t dangle it in front of me!
Second example: illegal drugs. Guard yourself, so you won’t take them! But also, do not offer them as a temptation to others! Supply and demand. We approach the drug problem from both sides. We tell one another: “Say no! Walk or run away! Control your desires! Don’t start!” But we also tell the dealers: “We will stop you from supplying, selling, enticing, and destroying lives!”
In the same way, we are not to look lustfully.
29 “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
We cannot always judge for others what they may read, watch, or do. We are not all the same. Not all things affect us in the same ways. We do not judge.
But we WILL say what Jesus said.
If your eye causes you to sin, don’t look; if your foot causes you to sin, don’t go; and if your hand causes you to sin, don’t do it.
Stott: The rule Jesus laid down was hypothetical, not universal. He did not require all his disciples (metaphorically speaking) to blind or maim themselves, but only those whose eyes, hands and feet were a cause of sinning. It is they who have to take action; others may be able to retain both eyes, both hands and both feet with impunity. Of course even they may need to refrain from certain liberties out of loving concern for those with weaker consciences or weaker wills, but that is another principle which is not enunciated here.
Stott: Jesus was quite clear about it. It is better to lose one member and enter life maimed, he said, than to retain our whole body and go to hell. That is to say, it is better to forgo some experiences this life offers in order to enter the life which is life indeed; it is better to accept some cultural amputation in this world than risk final destruction in the next.
Stott: Of course this teaching runs clean counter to modern standards of permissiveness. It is based on the principle that eternity is more important than time, and purity more important than culture, and that any sacrifice is worthwhile in this life if it is necessary to ensure our entry into the next. We have to decide, quite simply, whether to live for this world or the next, whether to follow the crowd or Jesus Christ.
That’s why we have come up the mountain to listen to Jesus.
Whether we have heeded His words will be evident when we come back down the mountain to return to everyday life.
Self-control. It’s a key to the kingdom.

Possible hymns:
Lord, Take Control
Have Thine Own Way, Lord
Let the Beauty of Jesus Be Seen in Me
More Like Jesus
Take My Life, and Let it Be

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