Seeing Jesus: You've Heard It said...

There it is. There it is. Good morning. I needed that to overcome your talkingness.

Well, everybody feels good today. I feel good today. I don't know what happened. That feels good. It's coffee. Because combination of coffee, sleep, the Lord, surprisingly sunny day. So good. All right. So we got a little family business we have to talk about. This is a family. If it's like your first time here this morning, welcome. You're part of the family. It's like awkward. You like come over to someone's house and then they're like, we're just going to have a quick meeting.

Nobody's in trouble. Don't worry. It's not going to be bad like that. Hey, so I want to tell you a story. I want to tell you a story. So I've been past here for three and a half years. Okay. Three and a half years. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah. All right. All right. I'll take it. It's been good. It's been good. It's been woo worthy.

So in the first year, in the first year, I was just out here one day and two people came up to the door and they said, Hey, would you ever like think about like selling this church to, to a group of people? And I said, I don't know. It's the middle of COVID.

What are you, what are you crazy people talking about right and they said well we'll just we'll be in touch like we'll be in touch and and they were sort of in touch every now and then like little emails and stuff like that and by the way i'm not about to tell you any decision has been made no decisions have been made nothing the end of this isn't we've decided that's not what this is just to prepare yourself so don't freak out so like so that

was like on like six months went by i got an email you know every now and then every this like they're in touch and they're like maybe and then And then they went dark. And we didn't hear from these people for like a really long time. And we thought, okay, well, that's never gonna happen. In the interim, you know, like last March, every spring, winter, spring, the elders go away for a retreat. And we were just like praying, like, what do you want for this church?

Like, are we, you know, like whatever. Like, we are sort of in this period of post-COVID, kind of like, it's kind of like a replant season, like trying to figure out, like, I'm a different pastor than the previous pastor. And like, we're a different church now. And the world is a different place. And so we're just asking the Lord, just putting everything before you.

He's like, God, tell us whatever, you know. And since we had in our brains the thing, like maybe somebody would want to make this their home and we could go somewhere else. We were just praying that, praying that prayer, saying, God, would you open up the doors if that's what you want? And we're just like, we're not gonna push on any doors. We're gonna ask you, if you want to open doors, you open doors. And if you would have asked me to come up and give you an update about this

last week, I would have said that, that would be it. We're just open to that possibility. Like maybe God wants to do something, you know, because we don't know. We don't have a master plan, but we've been praying, you know, God, if you're going to do this, you have to bring all the pieces together and make it work to the point where we couldn't say we made it happen, but you made it happen, okay? So that's been our prayer.

And that's, you know, just two and a half years of that. And I've talked about this at Vision Nights a couple of times, you know, just like, whatever, who knows what God's going to do. And so if I had come up here last week and that would be the end of the announcement. But on Monday, I got a phone call from, do you guys know who Steve Pelour is? You do. Quarterback for the Huskies in the 1970s, I guess, right? The 70s, is that right? Okay, correct.

I don't know. So he and he didn't just call me to say, hey, have you heard about my football career? Now, he's now a realtor and he's he's the church realtor in Seattle. He's the guy who if if a church wants wants to figure out a property like they call him and he called me up and he's like, hey, I have somebody who might want to come see your church. And that was on Monday. And then and they came on Friday and that hasn't resolved. Like, but there's there's a church who's like maybe interested.

So pray about that. And then on Wednesday, no, on Friday morning, when this church was going to come, I get an email from the people who had come two months ago, and they say, hey, we're really ready. And I'm like, you know, and that was sort of like, oh, well, that's a very strange timing. Literally today, there's a church coming and is interested in this. So that's the announcement. It's not, again, like we are, we're just open. I don't know.

Maybe two things can happen here. God's going to make it clear that this is where we should go. And he's going to open up doors and he's going to solve, you know, the other side of this equation, which is where do we go? Which is a separate question, but obviously pretty relevant because you have to be somewhere at all times. We always have to be somewhere. So there's that. And there's some things going on there. But the truth is, like, we don't know when this is going to happen.

And so we don't know what the real estate market or like what the options are going to be available at the time. So that's a separate question. But we're just praying about this first question.

God, like, what is it? is it that we go or is it that we commit and we just you know we're gonna make this place really work we're not gonna complain about it all right because i'm so you know it's like it's a little out of the way it's a little tucked away like so many blessings here like such a great space but can be a challenge so is it we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna move and have god bring us somewhere else or are we just gonna like really make this work be the place

where like this is the mission is going to happen here. One of those two things is going to happen. Okay. And that's literally like, I mean, I, I, I don't want to like talk about this stuff a lot because it makes you think that it's impending and I don't know, maybe it is. And that's all that's, that's, that's the extent of my really strong leadership.

Maybe God's going to do something. Maybe he won't. That's, that's the announcement. See, this is why I didn't want to do this because, because you guys, Here's the thing. I understand the desire for clarity and certainty, and I understand that when potential change happens, people get anxious, and there's so much involved in this. But in the end, we're God's church, and he's going to put us where he wants us. And that's what the elders are committed to. And so I'm just asking all of us

to just start entering into prayer about this. I just want to keep you informed, okay? Because I don't want you to be blindsided if there comes something real, which this stuff may not materialize. I don't know. You know how it is. So that's, that is that. Anything else I should add there, Bob? Okay. Bob gave me the approval. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I feel good about that. Feel free. If you guys, if you want to talk about this more, like, like, we'll just talk about it.

We're not trying to do this behind closed doors. We're trying to do it as much like in the open, but we also don't, I don't want to over promise to say, oh, this is definitely happening. I don't, I don't know if it is. I don't even know if it's a possibility, but I want you guys to pray about it.

Okay. Enough talking about that. Well, good morning. Hey, we're going to be in Matthew. So if you want to open your Bibles up to Matthew 5, we are going to move at a breakneck speed this morning. I hope no one will break their neck because that would be, it would really derail things. But we are, I thought that was funny. Yeah. Thank you, Hans. Oh, it was Hans who laughed. Maybe it wasn't funny. Oh, I love you, Hans. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This message is all about love

and I didn't do a good job there. That was not loving. I'm sorry, Hans. I'm from the East Coast. Will you forgive me? Yeah. Okay. So we're in Matthew and we're going to be picking up. Yeah, we're going to be picking up at the end. We're in the Sermon on the Mount. Okay. So this is Jesus. He's coming and he's come up to the mountain. That's why it's called the Sermon on the Mount. It was a sermon given from the top of a mountain.

And what we see in the text, and I've talked about this before, is that. There's some really deliberate and intentional stuff in the text. The writer of the book of Matthew is speaking to a Jewish audience and the Jewish audience knows their Old Testament really well. And they know that when Moses went to bring the Ten Commandments to the people, like the law that defined Israel's identity and their purpose, he went up to a mountain and he brought that law down.

And that same language begins the Sermon on the Mount. So what we see is that there is an immediate and direct and intentional kind of signaling to the readers that just like Moses went up to the mountain and delivered law, this is Jesus's version of that. This is him in dialogue, as we'll see here in a minute, with Moses. It's his response to Moses.

It's not his refutation of Moses. It's his addition to Moses, his contribution to this idea of what might it look like for us to be people who are in relationship with God, pursuing him, seeking his honor and trying to be filled with his righteousness. Okay. So this is Jesus's teaching on righteousness. And we're right in the heart of it, picking up in verse 21, getting into the really practical side of things.

He says this, you have heard that I, that it was said to our ancestors, do not murder.

Sixth commandment. And whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sisters will be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister will be subject to the court. Whoever says you fool will be subject to hellfire. So if you are offering your gift on the altar and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.

First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister and then come and offer your gift. Reach a settlement quickly with your adversary while you're on the way with him to court or your adversary will hand you over to the judge and the judge to the officer and you will be thrown into prison and truly I tell you, you will never get out of there until you've paid the last penny. So here's Jesus's response, contribution in the spirit of Moses. He's in dialogue with the Mosaic law.

And there's a real comparison between Moses's teaching on righteousness through the law and Jesus's teaching. And it was a big deal in his culture because for Israel, it was just assumed that Moses was the authority on righteousness. The Mosaic law was the standard for righteousness. The scribes and the Pharisees were like, we're aiming to be righteous people, people who are upholding our covenant, our agreement, our contract with God faithfully.

And we know we've done that when we keep the law. That's the standard. And so what Jesus is doing is he's talking about that standard. It was understood if you kept the law, that made you a righteous person. So he starts talking about Moses and he starts in the sixth commandment, skips the first five. Maybe we'll get to that later. I'm thinking it might be a long sermon. That might be something I cut. So we'll save that for next week.

He starts talking about Moses' sixth commandment, thou shall not murder. And his point is not to say, eh, murder, what's the big deal, right? He's not saying he disagrees with the fact that murder is a problem and that we shouldn't do it. Rather, what Jesus does is he establishes this pattern that we see throughout the rest of this chapter. He says, yes, thou shall not murder, but even more so, and then he elaborates.

And in this case, the even more so is, but I tell you, Moses said that, but I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. I think it's important for us. I mean, that's like serious stuff, right? It's like murder wrong. But Jesus says, but actually anger itself is wrong. I think it's important to clarify what Jesus is saying here Is he saying Don't get angry I don't think that's what he's saying.

Because the thing is, like, I'm 40 years old. I've lived long enough to know that I will get angry. The thing is, like, I'm going to get angry. It's going to happen. And is Jesus telling me that, oh, well, I just should stop that. And so I just should try harder to never be angry. I don't think that's what he's saying. I think what he's saying is his warning is to those who get angry. And his prohibition is not against anger. It's to stay angry.

Don't stay angry. He says those people, those who are intending to stay angry, who actually make anger their dwelling place, who start to derive some sense of comfort and self-righteousness from their anger, says that is going to kill you. That's going to be what God is going to judge. That's going to be a big problem because you know what? Anger is just a natural response. When my will is thwarted and my dignity feels attacked, anger is going to come out. that's what you're going to feel too.

The question is, what do you do with that when it happens? You're probably familiar with Ephesians 4, 26. It's the verse, this is kind of mean, it's the verse that you quote when you want to justify your anger. It says this, be angry and don't sin. And we quote this when we want to justify our anger because we can say, see, you can be angry. There's a category for anger that isn't sinful.

And then you think, ha, I'm pretty smart. I figured out how to be angry and God can't tell me that I'm not allowed to be angry because says that you can do it without sin. But let's look at the next verse. Have you ever looked at the next verse? Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and don't give the devil an opportunity.

You will get angry. That's not the question. It's how long, how much do you just indulge in that? How much do you just say, I'm angry and I'm right to be angry and I'm going to stay angry because it feels a little bit good to be in the right. What the Bible tells us and what Jesus is telling us is that we don't have the right to stay angry. We need to put it away. Ephesians is, Paul is telling us in Ephesians that anger has a shelf life of 12 hours. So that's what you have the right to.

But by the time the sun's coming down, and my gosh, in the winter, it's maybe 10 hours, right? You don't have much daylight. By the time the sun is going down, you need to have started to press toward this urgent work of putting the anger away. And Jesus explains what that could look like. If we skip ahead to verse 25, he explains a situation. He kind of illustrates this situation.

He says, if you're going to go and worship God, offer a sacrifice on the altar, and you remember that your brother has something against you, you remember that there's some conflict or some problem that has not yet been dealt with, what you need to do is you just need to leave that right then and there. You need to go to that person and you need to reconcile with them. He actually even even uses this language of courtroom and judgment, right?

He says what you need to do is you need to be like somebody who's desperately trying to settle something out of court. If you read the news, you'll see that a lot of things get settled like the day before a court case. Why is that? Why do things get settled out of court? Because people are afraid. They think, yeah, maybe I have a case.

I've got some reasons to bring this to trial, but I don't want to run the risk of standing before the judge and him saying, eh, those aren't the greatest of reasons. Like your justification is really good enough. And so Jesus, what he does is he said, let me ask you something. Have you ever been angry with someone? Hands up. Some of y'all are liars. No, I'm just, yeah, no offense, no offense. Look, I've been angry at people.

And so for those of you who said that, and everyone else, because you all have, how many times have you let some time go by? Maybe a year, if it was something really big, or maybe a week, if it was something sort of small. How many times have you let some time go by and you think, yeah, I was wronged and I was right to be angry. But if I look at this from this person's perspective, maybe I wasn't 100% on the right. Anyone ever experienced that? I have. Yes, I have. Thanks, mom.

That's good. It's good to know your mom is. Thank you. Thank you, mom. Yeah. Yeah. Not you, though. Not you. Don't ever. You're perfect. I love you, Mom. Jesus is saying, look, when we get angry, like pride is really in the way. What he's saying is that you need to do your darndest. Do your darndest to accept the faults you've done and do your best to take your responsibility and to settle what needs to be settled.

If there's anything in your power to make reconciliation happen, than what Jesus is saying is that for the sake of your own heart, for your own soul, for the sake of your, I don't want to say ability, but for the sake of your relationship with God, go and settle that first. If there's anything in your power, put down your pride and go and reconcile with people. Do it. Don't stay angry. I do think there's a further question that I think

just comes up here. I don't think the text really deals with it, but it's important. What do you do when someone is not willing to reconcile? Is Jesus saying, oh, tough. You're just like kind of stuck. Like there's no reconciliation possible. Look, here's just one thought on this. I don't have time to dwell on it too much, but it's this. There is a difference between being hurt and being mistreated and being angry. Those are separate movements.

The fact is that when people treat you badly, you are going to feel hurt. You're going to feel like it's unjust. And what Jesus is not saying here is that, oh, just get over it. He's not saying, just don't feel that way. But what he is saying is that don't let that become anger.

And I think if you were really honest with yourself, you would know you would be able to say yeah there's a category for being hurt in a context of relationship and jesus isn't telling me that i don't need to do that but it's a different thing to let that become anger and to let that anger seethed and be nursed in my soul and to let it grow and what jesus is saying is that we can't do and he does this thing he he points us to.

Kind of how we can know about that. And he points us to our words just before that. He says, whoever insults his brother or sister will be subject to the court. Whoever says you fool will be subject to hellfire. If you like have trouble parsing out the difference between I was hurt, I'm disappointed, like those are things, and I'm angry. What Jesus is telling us is that your words are a window into your soul.

And so like man i get it like when someone hurts us like that that hurts and i'm not saying don't don't let that hurt this but if you are going around and you're saying some things about this person you are you are you are ascribing to them motives you're saying that man they're they're bad people they're foolish people they're stupid people you're letting your hurt turn into contempt for them, that's when you've gone too far.

You still can have the hurt and you can bring that to the Lord and that's real and legitimate. But what Jesus says is that, but if you look into your soul by the window of your words and you are speaking contemptuously about someone, that needs to be left right there and you need to put that away.

You need to repent of that thing. That needs to be a thing that you get rid of, okay? All right, let's move on. He keeps going, man. He's just hammering away. Jesus is hammering away. He says, you've heard it said, do not commit adultery, seventh commandment. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Jesus, again, he's in a dialogue with the law of Moses.

He quotes the seventh commandment, don't commit adultery. And again, he does this pattern. He says, yes, and even more so, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Jesus is presenting like the same kind of logic he applied earlier to anger. Anger leads to murder. It's this kind of precursor to it. So he says, so don't indulge in anger. Don't stay angry. And likewise, lust is the precursor to adultery.

Don't indulge in it. Don't like willingly partake in lustful thinking. There's a difference between getting angry, which is gonna happen to you, men and women, and staying angry. And likewise, there's a difference between being tempted, having lustful thoughts, men and women. There's a difference between that and saying, I'm gonna dwell on these thoughts. Staying with those thoughts, It's letting those thoughts take root.

Dallas Willard says, sexual desire is not wrong as a natural, uncultivated response momentarily. Sorry, no, I read that wrong. Uncultivated response any more than anger or pain is. The wording refers to looking at a woman with the purpose of desiring her. That is, we desire to desire. We indulge and cultivate desiring because we enjoy fantasizing about sex with the one scene.

There's a difference between a momentary thought that's not good, but we can just walk away from and just say, not going to think about that anymore, and continuing to indulge in lustful thinking. I'm really going to be pressed for time today, so I'm not going to go into this too much, but lookit, we live in a culture that has monetized lust in the form of pornography, and it is in front of us constantly and always.

And so we need to have an awareness. And we need to have an awareness, by the way, of the distinction between these two things. There is very much a difference between having momentary thoughts that we don't indulge in, and participating and dwelling on lustful thinking. I just want to say that. I want to say that because I know for those of you for whom this is a challenge, right?

Because you're in front of computers all day long and literally computers will be forcing pornographic things in front of you all day long. It's crazy that we live in a world where this is happening. And some people will say, I can't control that. So how can I have any victory? Like, how can I have any change here? And yes, you can't control that, but you can control what you do when faced in temptation. You can.

You do have an ability. I'm not saying it's simple. I'm not saying that like, oh, you just try a little bit harder. But I am saying is that you have more control. You, just like when people want to do with anger, you don't want to put any daylight between an initial feeling of anger and dwelling on anger. And likewise, we kind of like to get ourselves off the hook because we say, well, I'm tempted. And so therefore, if I'm tempted, I'm going to fall into lust.

I'm going to fall into pornography. And the fact is that those are two separate things. One is it just happens in life. It's part of being a human being. The other is choices that we make. And you know what? I'm going to say this. I'm speaking to men because I know about men, right? Because I'm a man. I'm not a particularly masculine one, but that's all right. I'm fine with who I am.

So, like, men, like, this is... I don't want to say it's more of a struggle for men than women because I don't think that's really necessarily 100% true. I mean, honestly, the truth is that men deal with this and women are increasingly dealing with pornography.

They're dealing with this issue, okay? So I don't wanna just say it's a man thing, but I will say this, if you come to church here and you want someone to talk about with this and how to move forward, there are people who will do that for you. Like I know, I'm not gonna name names, right? But there are lots of men who have this and who have experienced breakthrough and victory and will work with you and will pray with you and will fellowship with you and will help you grow past this thing.

But don't just put up your hands and say, well, it's just gonna happen. There's nothing I can do about it. It doesn't matter even. Because Jesus is telling me, it really does. It's doing something to your soul.

And then he says these really provocative things. These are some famous verses right here. He says, if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it's better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it's better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Okay, let's think about what Jesus is saying here. Because it sounds like what he's doing is he's just being like, you need tons of self-control. Just more and more and more self-control. That's going to solve the problem. I think what he's doing is actually playing with something. Because here's what I think we can come to realize. And I think it's what probably the Pharisees who were listening to Jesus at this time came to realize.

Let me ask you a question. If you gouged out your eyes, will that stop you lusting? Nah. Because, yeah, temptation starts with the eyes, but lust is going on in here and going on in here. If you cut off your hands, will that stop you, stop the risk of murder? Will that stop, make you not angry person? Will that mean, oh, I'll never do anything bad ever again because I've cut off my hands? No, it doesn't solve the problem.

Endless restraint, law upon law, stringent devotion to like doing the right thing, that alone will not solve these problems. What Jesus is saying here, he's saying like anger, lust, all this stuff, it really matters. Even beyond the level that Moses would allow us to think, it really matters. Moses was right to have laws restraining sin. Sin is a huge problem.

But what Jesus is saying here is that if you're gonna get serious about this stuff, which he fully intends to do, then you really need to understand the problem and to treat it with appropriate seriousness.

Which involves a change in thinking about the problem in our minds because we all know that if we just gouged out our eyes we wouldn't stop lusting if we cut off our hands we wouldn't stop doing bad things and being angry that actually won't solve the problem the road of self-control of more law and more restraint, it's a dead end. I think that's what Jesus is trying to get to. We'll talk about this as we go along here.

In the same way that filtering water doesn't clean the source, you constantly need to filter water when you draw it up again. What Jesus is saying here in this following verse is illustrating that same thing. He's saying law, self-control, restraint alone will not do the work of dealing with your heart. Something else needs to happen, and he's sort of drawing out a major issue and letting it sit there. He goes on, right? And he begins to critique cultural practices within Judaism.

These are kind of subcategories of the Ten Commandments, mosaic laws that Moses allowed that aren't in that top 10 issues, but he starts to get in dialogue with those things. He says this, and this is a controversial one, right? He says, it was also said, whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. This is part of Mosaic law. But I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in the case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery.

And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Look, I always want to be sensitive around questions of divorce because We live in a culture with a really high divorce rate, and I don't think shame has any usefulness. So if you are divorced, remarried, just listen for a second. Don't go to the place of shame. But here's the reality in the Bible. I mean, God makes it clear. Malachi 2.16, I don't have it up there as a good example, but it says,

I hate divorce. That's God speaking. I hate divorce. God hates divorce. And you know who else hates divorce in my experience? Every single person who's ever been divorced. No one gives divorce a five-star Yelp review, right? It's not fun. No one likes it when the bonds of marriage, which are sacred, disintegrate. People get hurt. You get hurt. Even if you had a part to play, like you all have a part to play. Everybody has a part to play. Divorce is rough. But what Jesus is doing here, right?

He's confronting, particularly something in his culture at the time, which I think remains relevant in our time, he's confronting a casual attitude to divorce, which was common in his culture. Moses had an allowance for men to divorce their wives, and just that way, by the way, for men to divorce their wives. That was the only direction. But what was happening is that these men were abusing that.

They were getting married, and then after a little while, just kind of getting bored with their spouses and saying, eh, here's your claim check. Go back to your father's house. We're done here. There was this hardness of heart. And these people thought, well, you know, it's allowed. There's an allowance for this sort of thing. And so it'll be okay. But what Jesus sees is that this is such an injustice and it's such a failure of righteousness.

And even though there's some kind of rationale in the Mosaic law for how this could be allowed, Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no, no. Here's the thing. Stay married. Just like don't stay angry. It's like you might have like these allowances in the law. He says, but true righteousness calls you to something, calls you to aspire to something at the very least.

Continued faithfulness, continued confrontation with your heart so that when your spouse and you are just feel like you're floating apart, you are the one, at least in the relationship, who's always trying to heal that and bring it back together and to demonstrate your love and your care for your spouse. What Jesus is saying is, man, you start to shift apart. Don't.

We have an allowance. We can get divorced. It's okay. What Jesus is saying is, to whatever degree you are able to, be the sort of person who's coming back and reconciling and showing that love. Putting away pride, settling out of court so that issues don't become continually divisive and bitterness doesn't fester in the midst of your relationship. He's calling us back to be the sorts of people who are taking the bonds of marriage super seriously.

And again, I don't think what he's trying to do here is to lay some guilt trip on those who have been divorced. What he's saying is that you desperately need a transformation of your heart because if you don't, like if you don't have a kind of heart that's just full of love and that's full of the goodness and righteousness of God, then like you are going to be just drifting apart over time.

He's calling people to deal with things, not on the basis of law, but on the basis of an urgency around what the real problem is, that you lack love, and that love should be driving me to continual connection with my spouse, and with other people. So don't take that as a guilt trip about divorce. Take it as an invitation to where you're at right now. I'm going to commit to stay married. I'm going to deal with the stuff that's in my heart, that marriage is intended to bring up, by the way.

The institution of marriage is not, oh, you'll get married and then you won't have any problems. Sweet summer child. No, no, no. Marriage is intended to, like, it's hard work to get your will aligned with someone. My goodness. It's going to bring out all the pride. It's going to bring out sparks. Not just the kind that you want, you know, year one of marriage, right? He's going to bring out anger and difficulty and frustration.

Yes and amen. And if you persist in love and let it be like a curriculum for love, then you'll succeed. If you're not, like if you just kind of give up and you turn away from it, like, I mean, yeah, you're going to suffer as a result. Your soul will suffer. Your spouse will. All right, now we're really going to move. Okay, I'm going to read this whole little section here.

It says, again, you've heard that it was said to our ancestors, you must not break your oath, but you must keep your oaths to the Lord. But I tell you, don't take an oath at all, either by heaven, because it is God's throne, or by the earth, because it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, because it's the city of the great king. Do not swear by your head, because you cannot make a single hair black or white. But let your yes be yes and your no mean no.

Anything beyond that is from the evil one. You've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, don't resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also. As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, well, let him have it. And your coat as well. And anyone who forces you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to the one who asks you, and don't turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You've heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have?

Don't even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don't even the Gentiles do the same?

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. I don't have time to get into all the particulars here, but you'll see that these things match kind of the form that we've been into. There's an engagement with Mosaic law and understanding of what Moses was teaching. And Jesus is doing the thing. He's saying, yes, I don't contradict that, but even beyond that. And he's addressing some particular cultural practices that aren't necessarily

as common. I don't remember the last time I heard someone swear an oath. But I think the point being, let your yes be yes and your no be no, That's very clear. He's saying, don't put up these fronts. Don't try to engage with people or convince people or manipulate people. Just be an honest person who has integrity. Look at your heart. Intend to be that. Don't be the sort of person who is vengeful. Don't be the sort of person who organizes your life just in the protection of your wealth.

If people rob you, if they insult you, if they spit upon you, if they treat you badly, just be the sort of person who It just has so much security and joy in Jesus that you can say, you know, I'll probably get another shirt. I'll probably get another coat. It's probably going to be okay. It's interesting, like, kind of the way that Jesus goes down here, right? He's dealing with issues. He's in dialogue with Moses. And he begins with,

like, just giant heart issues, right? I mean, he starts with murder, which is a major social issue. That's about the one commandment everyone still agrees on somewhat, sometimes. He's saying, man, these are big things. And he goes on to anger. And man, anger is such a common thing. He talks about adultery and lust. I mean, major issues. He talks about divorce and faithfulness.

But as he keeps going, he's like sifting, sifting out. He takes out the big things and he's saying, but there needs to be finer sifting, finer and finer sifting. He starts talking about the way you are casually when nobody's really looking. Like what sort of person you are. If you're a person who's aiming to be honest and plain spoken and full of integrity, it's like that's probably just between you and the Lord. It's like people are going to know if you murder somebody.

People are going to know if you're angry with somebody. People aren't going to know what's going on in your finances probably unless you tell them. People aren't going to really know about what's going on with your oath swearing situation, you know? A lot of times we'll lie about something we don't believe anyone will ever know about. He's getting down to the stuff. He's like, the stuff that's happening in the secret. It's happening in your life, but nobody's really going to know about.

He's sifting further and further down. He's saying, go past the surface level stuff and start to look at your actions and your behaviors. And then ask yourself, what does it tell you about your heart? What does it tell you about what you think about who God is and what the world is like? Remember, this all began, Matthew 5, I'll begin with the Beatitudes.

And Jesus just looks at the world and he just says, you guys see all this frustration and difficulty and strife, and I see the faithfulness of God. I see God who's faithful to suffering people and hurting people and mourning people, the broken in spirit, the gentle people who in this culture in particular, we're not like raised up as heroes, but kind of as weaklings and people to be abused and taken advantage of. And he says, I look at those people and I see that they have the presence of

God. that God shows up in their lives. And so Jesus is making us think, he's making the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all these people who really care about righteousness think, what do your actions really tell you about what's going on inside of you? Do you actually trust God? Or do you just kind of want to manage God by keeping laws and then you take care of everything else in your life? Do you really trust him with your finances?

Do you really trust him to just kind of like take care of all the details of life? Or are you trusting in your competence, in your ability to get things done in life? Now, and if you were like the Pharisees and you really cared about righteousness and you heard Jesus talking here, you're probably on the verge of tears. Like we see the anger that the Pharisees demonstrated Jesus, but we have to understand where that's coming from.

These are people who their whole life has been this, they've accepted this paradigm. If we obey the law, we're righteous. And Jesus is sifting and sifting. And you're probably thinking to yourself, I've already tried to keep like 600 laws. And I mean, if I were to do these yes ands of Jesus, these further on even more so, I mean, we're gonna be counting in the thousands. And I'm already exhausted from trying to keep all of these laws. How is it possible? Like, what is Jesus trying to tell us?

What would it look like for us to be people who are actually stepping out and doing these things, like not keeping oaths and never being vengeful and just giving people who, he's like, you're creating a standard of righteousness that is just like, it's going to make the Pharisees weep and despair. And here's the thing. That's the point. I think that's what Jesus is saying. This is the whole point of doing this thing.

He's talking to people who care about righteousness and he's saying, yeah, if you were to try to do it that way, that would be terrible. You'd have to cut off your hands. You'd have to gouge out your eyes.

And even that wouldn't solve the problem. You'd have to care about all these words that you say in the privacy of your own heart. You'd have to look out for and control your own thoughts. And who could possibly do that? Like, is that the standard that you need to keep? Jesus is in dialogue with Moses. Not to say, ah, Moses was wrong. Don't worry about any of this stuff.

But to say that, no, true righteousness, this being perfect as God is perfect, like the standard of the law is not gonna get you there. It's not actually able to deal with your real problem. If you were to imagine what all the laws that you could keep, you're never gonna get there. Galatians makes that really clear. Paul in Galatians, he says this. He says, if the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it.

A big if. The Pharisees thought, yes, that is possible. We keep the law, we will be made righteous before God. What Paul and Jesus understands that, man, if such a thing were possible, but it's not. It's not possible. Paul goes on, he says, but the scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin. And so we receive God's promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ.

The argument is you're locked in a cage, you're a prisoner, and the gospel is not push against those bars harder and eventually you'll break out. The gospel is Jesus has come down, he's opened the door, and he's setting you free by faith and it changes everything.

It doesn't mean that righteousness is irrelevant, right? In fact, that is the door into true righteousness because of sin, law is now a dead end, one that we can walk away from, but that doesn't mean we give up on righteousness. What Jesus is saying is that righteousness still matters, but you have to deal with it in a way that will actually bring that about. And what the scriptures make clear is that is the way of faith in Jesus Christ.

Dallas Willard kind of gets us here. Of course he does, because I love Dallas Willard. Sorry. He says this, Jesus is working. Commenting on this section, Jesus is working, as already indicated, at a much deeper level of the source of actions, good and bad. He's taking us deeper into the kind of being we are, the kind of love God has for us, and the kind of love that as we share it brings us into harmony with his life. No one can be right in the kingdom sense who is not transformed at this level.

And then of course the issue is not being wrongly angry, not expressing contempt, not calling people, and this is a quote, stupid bastards, and so on, is automatically taken care of. When I treasure those around me, and I see them as God's creatures designed for his eternal purposes, I do not make an additional point of not hating them or calling them twerps or fools. Not doing those things is simply a part of the package. He that loves has fulfilled the law, Paul said in Romans 13.8.

What Jesus sets up, and as he begins to explore in the rest of the sermon, and as he kind of demonstrates and points us to through his life, through his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension on the cross, is that the way towards righteousness, true transformation of the soul, is to walk into faith and let Jesus remake us and to put love within us. Romans 3, 8, Willard kind of quotes it.

He says this, don't owe anyone except to love one another for the one who loves has fulfilled the law. The point is this, if we love each other, then we are going to have taken care of all of this stuff. True love, love given by God, love that comes by faith, a gift from him. When you become like in communion with God, like his love is gonna flow over into you. And then you're not just worrying about how much you hate people and how you're angry at people.

They'll still hurt you. And that might still hurt and you'll still deal with that, but you won't be coming back to them because you're so full of love and you see them the way God sees them. You're not going to be lashing out any longer. God has a plan to transform your heart and make it the sort of thing that just brings forth clean water. He's going to clean the stream by the power of the spirit, by the work of Jesus Christ in you.

I have been trying, trying to love people my whole life. Well, not my whole, no. I've been telling myself I've been trying to love people my whole life. That's what I meant to say, right? You know, because everybody says, oh, loving people is so good. That's all. We just got to love each other, man. We just got to love each other. Have you found that difficult? I have. I was at Starbucks. That's usually where I'm at.

Not because it's great coffee or anything. I know it's not. but they have tables available. That's mostly my reason for going to Starbucks. Is it Starbucks on Saturday? I'm going to share with you an experience. And I don't do this this much because I don't want to prescribe you my experience because come on, like that doesn't work. Like you're not me, I'm not you. Like this was a thing that happened and God showed me something, it was great.

And I was encouraged by it. And that's all, that's the only application. Just be encouraged, okay? Don't try to go and feel this way because that's not how it works. I was sitting around and reading this stuff and just being so struck by how Jesus really makes it so clear and yet still so difficult that really love is the thing, like a transformed heart is the thing. It's the only thing on which there might be any forward movement or any real hope.

It's going to be through love, through love working itself out in my heart so that I might come to this standard of righteousness, not on my own works, but just through love flowing through me, right? And then you get to a point in your Christian life, if you've been at it for a while, and I've been at it for 20-something years, pretty middling most of the time. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, what is it the way that I always do, right?

This is my well-worn path, and I'm telling you, just like the Pharisees, it's probably not worthwhile, of intellect. And so, God, what do I need to know so that I'll finally have my heart changed? Know, usually I think, well, what particular insight do I need? What particular thing to have click do I need? And as I was sitting there and I'm thinking about love, I just, I looked around and it was Saturday morning. It's like very busy in Starbucks and Saturday morning.

And I was reminded of some words that a pastor I was talking to shared on Friday morning. And he said this, he said, God is crazy about you. And he's crazy about your neighbors. Like he just looked at the whole world. And he just has so much love for people. And then I don't want to cry. I was sitting there and like doing this thing, Michael, how do I love these people? God, like, I don't, I don't love these people.

And then just that, that thing that I remembered, it's, it's, he says, no, you don't, but I do. Right. And that's where the love comes from. And suddenly in that moment, like, and it's like, like episodic, right. But I just like look around and I see all these people and like people from all over the world. And, you know, how cool is that? And, you know, I'm like, not all these people even speak English.

I can't even have a conversation with them, right? And there's all these people, like different people, like people who are so far from Jesus. And you just like see, and then you're just like, all these people are so loved by God. And even though like, they're probably a lot of them, I'm just assuming like, just like in very active rebellion against him. They like would, if they heard the name of Jesus, spit at it. Like it would be the sorts of people who have so much contempt for Jesus.

And that doesn't change God's feelings about them in any way whatsoever. And so I'm sitting there and looking at people, and I'm just saying, God, how do I do this? I feel like I have love. I have an insight into your love for these people. How do I have that love? And the answer is, you don't. I do. And let it flow from me into you. And that's frustrating because I want to solve the problem in myself. And I want to find the resources within myself to solve the problem.

Always. I want to be self-sufficient. And the gospel is this. Jesus demonstrates his love for us in this. While we were sinners, Christ died for us. Died for the whole world.

So that people would know his self-sacrificing, self-reducing, giving of himself. For the sake that people would know that they're loved. and that this world is not as cold and heartless. The world is not going to the selfish and the violent, but it's going to people who are walking into the kingdom and people who have experienced the power and love of God.

Those are the people who inherit the kingdom. Not this thing necessarily, but like those are the people who have overflowing love in their lives. And I can't tell you how many times I've just been trying to love people and I just don't have the resources. And I'm just telling you, the resources, they are at the cross. They come from Jesus Christ and they're letting his mind occupy my mind and your mind by the power of the spirit.

And so I went away from that. Okay. And I'm, and I'm asking myself, Jesus, like, what do I do? Like, how do I, how do I stay here? You know, because of course, an hour later, I'm just thinking about all the things I got to do and all my kids and, you know, Oh, who's going to love them. I love my kids. Right. Right. But when I do it in my own flesh, I don't love them that way, right? I don't. So how do I stay in this place? And I felt like the thing that God made clear

to me, I didn't say it to me. I didn't hear a voice or anything like that. The thing that God made clear to me is like, you just keep sitting and you get in the word and you see that it's about love. And then you ask me to know that and just keep coming at it and keep coming at it. Just keep looking at people and saying, Lord, would you put this love within me? That was the first thing. And the second takeaway is this, and this is where I'm going to leave it so worship team can come up here.

I heard a pastor talk on Friday. It was really good, a guy I really like. And he said this. Said, witness is the engine of sanctification. Witness is the engine of sanctification. Because I'm asking myself all these questions. How do I become like you, Jesus? Which is, how do I become sanctified? How do I love the things that you love? How do I be set apart for your purposes, for your love, for your holiness, for your mission in the world?

All these things. What do I need to do, Jesus? What are the things that I need to solve, right? And when that guy said that, witness is the engine of sanctification, that really meant something to me. Because it's one thing to sit in a coffee shop and to just feel like God's love for people and how cool that is to just be like, like, I love that feeling. But then the question is, what am I going to do with that? Right. And I, and I think for us and for me, it's tied up into this question.

Like you want more of that? Well then like the reason that God gives us his love is so that we would demonstrate and witness to his love. And if we're just going to just sit and enjoy the feeling of being loved by God and not look at the people that he loves and be at least willing to go and tell them about that love, then I wonder if there's anything else to have filled up. It's that old imagery of the dead sea. It's dead because it has no outlet.

And likewise with us, you know what? You want to have the love of God flowing into your heart, be a person who has figured out where that's meant to go. Because that love of God flowing through us, it's meant to be shared.

We're made for witness. If I want to have that persistent love, love that's not coming from me trying harder, but from me just seeing the love of God and really being deeply convinced of it, then it's like, I think that's going to flow when there's stuff to fill up because I'm letting it come out, making room. Witness is the driver of sanctification. Okay, we're going to worship. And then Molly might share some stuff with us as we head out. Yeah, let's worship the Lord together.