The Way of Humility

--- Welcome to week three of our Bible study on the Sermon on the Mount, which I called The Way of Jesus. And this week I titled The Way of Righteousness, and you'll find out later why I chose that. So last week we went through the Beatitudes. To me, the Beatitudes seem like the preamble to the entire Sermon on the Mount. And then these first four verses in our lesson this week seem like the preface for the remainder of chapter five, opening thesis, maybe, if you will, for chapter five, and these topics that we're going to cover in these lessons. So we have six practical topics now that we're going to cover, three this week and three next week. And each one starts, Jesus starts, you have heard that it was said, or it was also said. And then he goes on to say, but I say to you. So it's very tidy how we can find those topics. And to the listeners there, Jesus knew that they were familiar with the law of Moses. So I think it was important to him that he prefaced these topics with some assurances. Here's the assurances in these first four verses that we've studied. He wasn't bringing a new teaching, okay? This was not a new law. He wasn't even making adjustments to the existing law. He was merely restating the existing law from a new perspective. And I've called it the perspective of a beating heart. Remember when we talked about the law that was given to the children of Israel through Moses, and God gave them something that showed what his character was like and how they could resemble him, but it was external. It was good, it was right, it was righteous, but it was external. And we had learned from Jeremiah that God had said, but the day will come, there will come a day when I will establish a new covenant and this will be different. I will write my law upon their hearts. And so we talked about the fact that as we see Jesus here, this is the beating heart of the law. That's the beginning, excuse me, of that new covenant where God writes his law upon our hearts. So I'm gonna use that phrase, I kind of like it, but it's interesting that the original law was written on stone. What are the characteristics of stone? Well, first of all, it's cold. Stone is cold. When I was a little girl growing up in the Midwest and it would be hot in the middle of summer, 95 degrees, 95% humidity, and we'd be in town and I lived near, well, our shopping town was this quintessential little town with a courthouse, one block on each side, it was called the square. And then all the shops were around the square, really sweet place. And this courthouse was just a magnificent building, wide steps that would go up about a whole level, 50 feet wide, but in those days, if you needed to use a restroom while you were in town, you went to the courthouse because you didn't go to the merchants, they didn't have public restrooms. So you'd go to the courthouse and you'd slip in this little side door at ground level and you would walk in on a hot day and immediately it was cooled down. Why was that? It was all built from marble and quarried stone. I think they did that on purpose because of course this is before the days of central air conditioning. So stone is cold and there's some good purposes for marble floors and quarried walls. It has a cooling effect. Stone is also hard and it's dead. But the characteristics of a beating heart are that it's warm, soft. We don't build our sofas from marble. We build them from soft fabrics that we wanna cozy up on and of course it's alive. So even though he was speaking about the law from the perspective of the beating heart, he did not want any misunderstandings. So we have this preface. It starts in verse 17.

Even a small adjustment can have a dramatic effect. And Jesus was not, he wanted them to know I'm not changing this. Dot, an iota. In our language, of course he was referring to small marks in the Hebrew language. In our language, in English, we also have small marks that can make a dramatic effect. For example, let me show you a sentence. The sentence is let's eat, grandma. And there's a small mark after the second word. And if you remove it, you get let's eat grandma. And it has a dramatic effect on the change. And Jesus was trying to tell them listen, I'm not changing anything. So just sharing from the beating heart. Verse 19, he goes on to say

So to recap, here was the important things that he was laying down for a foundation. He didn't come to abolish the law and neither should they relax the law. He came to fulfill the law and they should do and teach what was expressed in the law. The difference is not like they had learned from the scribes and Pharisees, but rather as they are learning in the way of Jesus. This is how they should fulfill the law. So our three topics for this week are life skills, definitely bringing anger into submission, bringing lust into submission, and bringing relationships into submission. These are all fairly practical. And we need to remember in all these conversations with all of these topics that this presupposes someone who has handled those two gospel words that we talked about at the very beginning that were the first words of Jesus's ministry, repent and follow. Someone who has already repented, chosen to turn the other way, to change their mind, to make God the boss of their life and to follow Jesus. These things presuppose that. This isn't a message for the world. These are not messages for people in the world. These are for followers. So let's start with anger, all right. Verse 21,

Such a great opening to use this as an example of taking the cold, hard law and overlaying it with the beating heart. And you say murder, really, that's a great example? Yes, I'll show you why. The law focused on murder. Now all cultures instinctively know that murder is wrong. Everyone, every culture instinctively knows that and that is because we're made in the image of God. So natural law comes naturally to us that we should value life. This is instinctive in us. But overlaying the heart of Jesus, the heart of the law shows us that murder doesn't just suddenly or randomly happen. Something has been allowed to survive that devalues human life. Something has to be around that devalues human life. And Jesus' examples of things that devalue human life are anger and insults. These diminish the value of another person's life in small but incremental ways. So the cold, hard law says murder is wrong and the murderer is liable to judgment. But the beating heart, the way of Jesus, now informs us that not only anger, but irritation, exasperation, impatience, aggression, temper, all have the potential to devalue another one's life. And it is the life that God is concerned about. That is the point here. So Jesus instructed those who follow him to deal with it. Don't be like the scribes and Pharisees who think to themselves, I'm righteous, I haven't murdered anyone. Rather, take action on the attitude. Do it right away. So we come to the next verse, starting in verse 23, where Jesus gives us the remedy. He says,

So that's the remedy. Now offerings in the Jewish culture were something that were a regular part of their life according to the law which was a good thing because it put into their mind regularly their relationship with God, their vertical relationship and that was very good. The point is you cannot stay close, righteous in your vertical relationship if you are at a kilter in your horizontal relationship. So I love this example, just leave the offering, go first reconcile with these horizontal relationships. Jesus is basically saying stop and fix it. So even if you're in the middle of church or ministry, hit the pause button, deal with your attitude, make it right, be reconciled to the one whom you have devalued. Now I've raised children, how many times have I gotten irritated or impatient and spoken words that truly have devalued the life of that child? You're in a rush to get going and you're exasperated and you say you are the slowest creature ever created. Now that might not sound terribly shocking to say something like that, I tried to use a more mellow kind of an example. Some of you were raised in a home where it was very harsh. There were harsh words spoken to you that devalued your life and you're thinking, oh if only my mother had said something that, you know, innocuous. But it just happens and it's our impatience, it's our exasperation and pretty soon we say words that are inappropriate. So according to the way of Jesus what he's saying here is, okay so you said it, it came out of your mouth, you're on the way to soccer practice and there's this little voice saying you shouldn't talk to her like that and you say, I'm justified, she is slow, like I think she is the slowest creature. But that little voice is guiding you in the way of Jesus, right? And the best thing you can do is pull over and stop and deal with it and just look at your little sweetheart and say, I'm so sorry I said that to you, that was wrong, would you forgive me? Make it right before we move on. Ephesians 4 26, I'll remind you by putting it on the screen here, says, do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. And this informs us through the Apostle Paul also of the the haste with which we should deal with inappropriate attitudes and words. But he gives us some more insight, look at the potential there, the enemy gets involved in these words and we don't want that. Not every strained relationship is the result of anger, but anger will make every relationship strained. So we don't want strained relationships, we need to practice reconciling, maybe even doing this lesson or being right here in this room has brought to mind, perhaps the Holy Spirit has brought to mind a bruised relationship and he's saying to you, so when you leave here you need to fix it, you need to reconcile. And you go to that person you say, for my part, I'm sorry, I'm sorry about what happened, the words that were said, whatever they are. Maybe this lesson has caused you to say, I need to deal with my temper. And you've said to yourself all this time, it's DNA, like I caught this from my mom or my dad or whatever, I don't think I'm ever gonna change. And then you're in Bible study and you read this lesson and the Lord says to you, no you can, you can. And I think that one anger management technique is, if you get in the habit of this reconciling business, it really does make you stop your words because it's like, I'm apologizing all day long and I'm getting so sick and tired of apologizing, I think I need to back up here and try to resist. And resisting is biblical, resisting is like the Apostle Paul says, you know, like put away anger and rage and all that. But I do like how Jesus focuses here, not on the resisting, but on the remedy. It's almost like he's saying, when you are unable or unwilling to resist, you need to know how to reconcile. And I think that that's, that's good. So now we read the second example of reconciling. Maybe someone who even started the problem in the first place, Jesus calls him an accuser, verse 25,

And both of those examples state the urgency with which we should deal with dangerous attitudes when God makes us aware of them. It is pride that keeps us from settling accounts. It is pride that convinces us we are justified in this matter for whatever reason, maybe because they started it. Pride makes us drag our feet until the memory sort of fades. And sometimes that's what we want to happen. Let's just let a few more weeks go by and my conviction won't be quite as strong and I can move on with my life, right? But that's not the point of the way of Jesus. Come to terms quickly, okay? There's a proverb I want to show you. I'm sure you may know it. Proverb 15.1, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Now sometimes we're in a difficult situation and the other person truly is at fault. And you know, this situation happened. I have a fun little story. When we were in Illinois this spring, this summer, and we were leaving Illinois. We're driving. We got our pickup. We got our trailer. We're headed north and we come to a crossroad. We're just on a little two-lane county highway, you know. And there's a pickup in front of us. We're at this crossroad that's a little bit busier and there's all these things were going on. There's a train going too and all these things. And we're stopped waiting to, you know, take our turn crossing this highway. And an 18-wheeler comes from our left to turn in our path. And I don't know if he was a new driver. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. But he clearly was not making that corner well. And he was going to hit the pickup in front of us. So the pickup in front of us starts backing up to make room for him until he backs right into us. And it did give the semi enough clearance to turn the corner. But then here's this guy in the pickup who backed into us and he's hot. Talk about road rage. He is madder than a hornet because it's not his fault he had to get out of the way. So my husband gets out of the car and, you know, I'm watching. I wish I could say I was praying. I was more or less like, what's going to happen here? But he gets out of the car. And the Holy Spirit must have just given him everything that he needed in that moment because the guy's hot coming at us. And, you know, my husband gets out and and he's like, I'm sorry. I didn't, you know, that is that guy? He was gonna hit me? And he's just pacing and using all kinds of X, you know, bad words. And Paul's not a huggy guy. He doesn't go around hugging people. He puts his hand. He goes, what's your name? Jim. I don't remember what his name is. Jim. Jim, let's look at this. My truck's good. I think your truck is good. We're all okay. Things could be much worse. And it's that soft answer. And I watched him. I'm like, way to go. Like, I was super impressed. And when all was said and done, he got in the car. And I quoted that verse to him. I'm like, a soft answer turns away wrath. Not that the guy was gonna maybe put out his wrath on us, but I'll tell you what, you know, I mean, sometimes that rage gets it going. I was fearful for what would have happened in his day, you know, when he left there. But anyway, I thought you would enjoy that story. So just a small life hack here. Learn in all the small things to say, I'm sorry I messed up on that. I'm sorry I didn't think you cared about that. You know, and just learn for that reconciliation to be part of your life. You know, in all of our Bibles, this section is headed anger. But I think, I feel like I want to cross it off and say dangerous attitudes. Because I truly don't have a temper. But I'll tell you, I get exasperated. I get impatient. I have other attitudes that are, that have equal opportunity to do the same thing here. So, all right, now we're gonna move to lust. In verse 27,

And what I'd like to add here is that in the moment, the audience was predominantly male, and looking and visual attraction is a predominantly male trait in general, but there's plenty in this section for women to take to heart, and that's what I wanna focus on, because this is a women's Bible study. So the cold, hard law taught that God's people should not engage in adultery. The law is good, the law is right, the law represents God's character. But the beating heart teaches us that adultery is merely the harvest season for seeds that were sown long time ago. So for a woman, what sort of seeds of adultery might be planted? I've thought of a few things. First thing I thought of was discontent. When we are discontent with our life, with our husband, with our home, we can convince ourself that someone new might fix all of this for us. Loneliness, which is a condition, it's not a deficiency, it is just a condition that sometimes we are lonely, but it's making lonely girl decisions. So the seeds that could potentially reap a harvest of adultery. Lonely girl decisions. And you know, single girls can be lonely, married girls can be lonely. Loneliness is really no respecter of marital status. Our lives are complicated. I haven't talked about it in this Bible study, but remember when we were at retreat and we talked about one of the things to strengthen our faith is live like you're on a mission. Live as though God has put you on a mission, given you purpose, given you things to do. I think that that is a fantastic antidote for making lonely girl decisions. Because it's like, well, I'm pretty busy going about the work that God's given me to do. And it may help. What other seeds might be planted? Well, meeting someone who seems to be a good fit or a good fix for your life. And lingering in conversations with said fixer and imagining what your life might be like with said fixer. Those are all the seeds that might be planted that could germinate and grow and produce a harvest of adultery. And so to me, for a woman, that's what lustful intent might look like in a woman's life. So Jesus gives us the remedy. What is it in verse 29?

The remedy is swift and the remedy is severe. Just like it was in the case of anger. If we approach God's law, the way that the scribes and Pharisees did, we'll say to ourselves regarding this topic, well, I haven't gone to bed with the guy, so I'm good, I'm righteous. But if we approach God's law in the way of Jesus, then we begin to see some seeds that need to be picked up like little weeds in your garden and gotten rid of. I think that's the heart of what Jesus is saying here. And our modern life tempts us to think there are no real boundaries because we don't have boundaries between genders anymore. That seems like such an old-fashioned thought. But as we ponder the wisdom of God, God will give us wisdom of what the appropriate boundaries are to be. I thought I actually put some pretty good questions in the study guide, so I'm just gonna read those to you. Is there anything that I indulge in that could lead me to lust? Is there anything I say or wear or do that could lead men to lust? Do I entertain vain imaginations that I need to cut out of my life? Those are real good questions that we should ask ourselves regarding this topic. So I think that these topics that we're on this week and next week, you have heard that it was said topics in chapter five. I think that these go really, you could file them under the fourth beatitude that said blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. When we talked about that beatitude, we were saying that there's two kinds of righteousness, righteous before God, clothed in the robes of Jesus, he sees his son, we are righteous before God. But then we talked about the horizontal righteousness between people, whether we're in right standing with people, honest, truthful, upright, honest in our dealings with people. That is why I titled this week, The Way of Righteousness. Even though it's probably not a great YouTube video title, I don't think very many people are gonna see the title and go, oh, I'm interested in that, let me click on that one. But it describes how we maintain a righteousness, how our sanctification on the horizontal level between other people. Jesus was teaching his disciples and now teaching us through his word to be righteous toward people in our words, in our actions, in our responses, in our imaginations. These all have an effect on our righteousness. And the last topic we have is divorce. It is a difficult and delicate subject. It's obvious that the two verses we have in this passage don't contain the full content of what the Bible expresses on the subject, and neither is divorce the focus of this Bible study. But broken marriages are part of our lives. And look, they were part of their lives 2,000 years ago. That's kind of interesting. We didn't invent broken marriages. Jesus was talking to people with broken marriages. Verse 31,

And the reader might wonder, well, where in the world is there a command in the law to give a certificate of divorce? But in our study guide, we went to Matthew chapter 19, and we realized that Jesus' words said there was a concession given to you by Moses because your hearts were hard. But then Jesus went on in that passage to talk about God's intention. And so I'm gonna put it on the screen so that we can refresh our minds with it. This is Matthew 19, starting at four.

That is the heart of the law, that is the intention of God. He created marriage for comfort, for beauty, for family, and for prophecy. Why do I say that? Well, when he created and in the law, the church was not in view, but we know that marriage is a symbol of the union of the church and Christ. So even in marriage, there was a drama being played out. There was a prophetic drama there. So the reason that this is difficult and delicate is because in a room like this, and for those watching, the audience watching, there are women who have initiated a divorce. There are women who have been on the receiving end of a divorce. There are women who have divorced before Christ. There are women who have divorced while they've been walking with Christ. It doesn't really matter in terms of pain what the circumstances are. It's all painful. It is all painful. The point of this passage, though, is that Jesus was saying to these men, the way of righteousness does not rest on loopholes like a certificate of divorce, okay? That's playing games with God. The way of righteousness is the heart of God and the intention of God. And that doesn't make the pain go away. That doesn't make everything clear. That doesn't uncomplicate everything in our lives. But it restates the way of Jesus. So I just wanna summarize our topics today with maybe a simple illustration from everyday life that we have. Everyone from probably a three-year-old on up knows red light, green light. They know that red light means to stop and green light means to go. They know that when you have a green light and you're driving a car, you have permission. The law has given you permission to move forward. You are in the right. But, there may come a time when you are in the right and a toddler comes out, or someone looking down at their phone with their Bose headphones on comes walking out, are you still in the right? Can you say, the law has me in the right, I have a green light, boom, I'm going forward. See that's the cold hard law, that's the external law. The beating heart says, you need to have your head a little bit more on a swivel than that. You need to apply the heart of the law and say, no, no, no, no, no, I need to yield in this moment to the other person, I need to give special consideration for what's going on. And I kind of like that phrase, special consideration, we call them accommodations today, right? I need to give accommodation for what's going on in the moment in front of me. That I think summarizes the way of Jesus as it relates to these topics. Father, thank you for your word, thank you, Lord God, that we have this in such an organized and tidy fashion for us to understand that the way of Jesus is, it is the law, but it has so much more heart to it. So we need, Lord God, to be followers of you so that we walk in your way, so that we are pleasing to you. So I pray that you would enable us to do that, Lord. Help us to discuss now and put extra layers on top of what we have learned in Jesus' name. Amen. ---