Upside Down Living #9 - Substitution in a Time of Self Effort
Message Description
Director of Young Adult Ministry, Josiah Leuenberger, looks at Matthew 5:17-20 with the idea of personal righteousness and how our salvation isn't earned through religious rule-keeping but that we should strive to live in obedience because of what Jesus did on the cross.
Message Transcript
Hey there, welcome to worship. It is so good to be together. My name is Josiah. I serve here at our Wexford campus with adult ministries. Hello in Butler County and down at the Strip District. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to share God's word this weekend.
You know, I was having lunch with a young adult from our church recently. And he shared with me as we were eating together that he hadn't been feeling well that morning. And so, as he said this, I definitely slid back in my seat made me pretty nervous. But he shared with me, Hey, this isn't to be a concern for you. I actually work at a fast service restaurant, and I've eaten nothing but fast food over the past few days. And he said, man, my stomach, something is turning on me. And you know, that's how I think that each of us can feel when we're not in worship on a regular basis. There's something nourishing about being together in God's presence, singing songs of praise to Him for who he is and what he's done in our lives, and hearing His Word.
Psalm 84, verses one and two, "How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God." He's not talking about the quality of interior design in the temple. He's saying there's something special about being in the presence of God, how lovely is your dwelling place. When we come together and we sing, and we lift up our hearts to God worshipping him for who he is, there's something about that which makes an impact on us in our hearts. When we look around the room and see one another taking in God's word, it can change us in a powerful way. And that's something that's really been on my mind during this particular season.
I'm so grateful we have this opportunity to remain connected online for those of you who are joining us via livestream. What a gift that is to our community, especially in times like this. But I have to say there is something special about our feet, being planted beside one another in worship, because God brings us that nourishment we need in a special way when we come together around Him in community. And so that's what we're gathered here to do this weekend in a variety of different formats.
And so why don't we join together now in prayer as one as we look to God's word. So, Father, we thank you for this opportunity we have to dig into the Gospel of Matthew. Father, these words of truth are ancient, but have power to impact us in our lives in a powerful way, wherever we are in our journey of faith. And so, we ask that you speak to us this weekend, together in Jesus name, amen.
Well, we are in a series called Upside Down Living here at Orchard Hill, looking at Jesus Sermon on the Mount. And over the past several weeks, we have covered a lot of ground. And I want to share with you if you've been tracking along with this series, there is a pattern that we see that continually emerges in Jesus teachings. And I want to call it the trajectory for the life of faith. This trajectory for the life of faith that continually shows up in Jesus teaching. And here it is, we see over and over again that God's grace leads followers of Jesus along a trajectory from inward transformation to outward expression. And let me unpack what that means. When God's grace takes root in a person's life by faith, it's first displayed in changed heart and changed character. That's the inward transformation piece. And that then translates into followers of Jesus being people who value and pursue the things that are important to God in the way that we live. That's outward expression.
And so last week, Kurt unpacked the passage in a way that brought this pattern out very clearly. Jesus, He instructs his followers to be people of salt and light in this world, and to respond to God's grace by putting it into action. First of all being changed inside, but then to respond to that work of transformation by being people who seek what is ultimately good in the way that we live ourselves, both in the words we speak, pointing others to Jesus, and then doing the same in our own actions. Being people who would mirror God's heart for restoration, his heart for redemption, in the way that we live and engage with those who are in need in the world around us. That's what we are called to do as people of salt and light.
I love the way the Apostle Paul unpacks that in Ephesians chapter two verse 10, he says, "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." That is the calling of each and every follower of Jesus Christ. And so, this week, we're going to look at how that trajectory of faith from inward transformation to outward expression, plays out in our lives when it comes to the category of personal righteousness and right living before God.
And so, we're going to be in Matthew chapter five, verses five through seventeen. This would have been a category that Jesus listeners really needed some clarification on as they heard his teaching because they would have noticed quite a contrast between Jesus teaching and some of the emphasis that they would have heard commonly in the teachers of their day.
So listen to these words, picking up in verse 17, of Matthew chapter five, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." And so, what Jesus is saying here to this crowd is that there's nothing wrong with the sources of our faith. You see the Jewish teachers in Jesus, they had the same sources in common, but Jesus wanted these listeners to know that he's coming at that shared teaching from an entirely different angle. And so, that's a shared source of teaching for the teachers of Jesus day, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Jesus himself was known as the law and the prophets. That's a common way of referring to the Old Testament, how they were commonly referred to in Jesus day. And so that was their shared teaching.
Jesus is crystal clear here about His high regard for scripture. And He says not until He comes again to renew all things, when all will be made perfect, when sin and death will be no more, not until then will even the smallest mark on a letter of the law be wiped away. And so, what we need to recognize here is that Jesus is saying, I uphold the Word of God with the highest respect and authority.
But where we see Jesus diverged from the teachers of his day, is that when Jesus taught on obedience to God, it was always with an emphasis on obedience stemming from the heart, the kind of obedience that stems from love, rather than simple mechanical action. And that's something that we can all understand. We can wrap our minds around the difference that motivation makes when it comes to someone's actions, when an action is motivated by love, rather than being simple mechanical obedience.
Here's an example. Imagine it's your birthday and a friend or a family member comes to you with a gift and you open the card and it says, "I'm so grateful for you, and your role in my life. Happy birthday! I hope you have an awesome day. Much love. You open the gift and you unbox that sweater and you say, oh, this sweater, you see me, you know me. It means so much to you with those words that they've shared.
Or imagine this scenario. It's your birthday and a friend or a family member, they come to you with a gift, you open the card and it says, it's September 6. I remember this is the day you're born. Warm regards. And so, you open that box and you say, a sweater, really? Do you even see me? Do you even know me? You see our heart motivation, it's conveyed in those words, and it's radically different in the way that we can understand in action what it means to us.
The same action can come across radically different depending on our motivation. And so, when it comes to obedience to God, God desires our obedience. But he wants you and I to be people who would obey him out of love, not simple mechanical action. And this absolutely matters to God.
You know, one of the earliest teachings of the Jewish faith actually, the words of Moses from God, sharing to the Israelite people, one of the most foundational teachings of the Jewish faith comes out in Deuteronomy, chapter six, verse five, listen to these words. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." It was that heart motivation, that desire to obey God in response to knowing His love. Loving Him is His desire for His people. But the problem is somewhere along the line, the Jewish teachers of the law, lost sight of their story and they made obedience to God about themselves. Instead of emphasizing obedience from the heart out of gratitude and out of love, it became simply focused on mechanical action.
And so, here's what that looked like. At the time of Jesus ministry, Jewish teachers of the law, they were known for establishing a system of ranking, of which Old Testament laws were more important than others. In staying in line with their judgments, it was something that determined a person's place as an insider or an outsider in the Jewish community. But in addition to commanding faithfulness to the law, those Jewish teachers, they also upheld their own opinions on how the law was best applied as being equal in authority with Scripture itself. And so, there's a body of teaching called the Mishnah, which is this Jewish compilation of words of rabbis about how to best apply the law. It is taken by scripture and man this document; it goes into absolute minutiae.
Here's an example one category of that teaching focuses on the different types of work that are prohibited on the Sabbath. And there are 39 different categories of types of work that were prohibited on the Sabbath. And to name just a few there was carrying and burning and extinguishing some of the first categories that are listed. And so, it goes without saying no one could train to be a firefighter on the Sabbath. And there are also categories of finishing and writing, or racing, cooking, and washing. Those are incredibly exhaustive lists that are laid out here. And just to give you a little bit of a reference, the size of the Mishnah in standard English language format comes out to almost 800 pages. And so, for reference, that is three times the length of the New Testament in the Bible that I'm speaking with here this morning.
So, Jesus when he saw the teachers of his day focusing on these exhaustive, comprehensive lists, some of which were even far outside of Scripture based on opinion, and application, when he saw an emphasis on those standards as being what people must obey in order to be right with God, rather than simply the Word of God itself, he had a significant issue with that. I mean, later in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus in Matthew chapter 23, He dedicates nearly an entire chapter laying out how these leaders have missed the mark with their man-centered teaching. He says you're laying burdens on others that you could never carry out yourself. You're missing out on what's most important because this is outside of the intent of God's law.
And I want to say to you, some of you may have some personal experience with that kind of religious background. This can play out in a variety of ways. But maybe you found yourself somewhere along the line, sitting in a restaurant on a Friday evening and you catch yourself and you think, no, I ordered the burger instead of the fish sandwich. I hope that this isn't something that could be held against me. Is this something that I'm going to have to repent of? Is this something I need to bring before God? Because there's a certain religious tradition in which eating meat on Friday other than fish would be something that could be considered a religious no-no.
Or, maybe you came up in a tradition were watching a movie that was rated anything higher than PG was not to be done by someone who was religious. Or, maybe you felt a desire as a teenager to go to a dance in a tradition where they said, man, you can't be dancing. That's not something a follower of Jesus would do. Maybe you have experienced with the religious background where it was all about playing by the rules. And don't get me wrong, rules can be a good thing when held in the right perspective. Even that fish sandwich example, if you were to say, you know what, during this season leading into Lent, I want to set up little reminders in my life so that in my heart, I can remember what this is really about. And so maybe I'll give up something that I enjoy so that I can remember that there is something greater for me. And maybe you want to give up a burger on your Friday evenings and have that fish sandwich instead. That's a fine application. Or maybe for you, you're saying I want to be really careful about what I take in. And so, I'm going to be discerning about the kind of media I would consume so that they're healthy things that are feeding my mind and heart, rather than taking in entertainment in a mindless fashion. That's a really noble thing. I would encourage that.
But when we're looking to these standards, these applications of a principal and a mechanical way as a way for us to find a standing before God, that's a really dangerous road to go down. And so here, Jesus says that when it comes to religion that's simply focused on rule keeping, we miss the mark. Because what God desires is obedience out of gratitude for His love for us. And so, what this passage says to us in verse 17, is that Jesus, He has come to fulfill the law. What he's doing is tying the law, this teaching about what is required of man to be right with God back to God's original intent. Because that word, fulfill, it means to complete an intended purpose, to display the ultimate intent of something that came previous. And so what Jesus is saying is the law, this established teaching of God's commands and how to live in this world, it's powerful to reveal God's standard. It's powerful to hold us accountable. But as a result of our human sin that's inside of each and every one of us, not one of us can live the law out with the perfection that God requires. Not Moses, not Paul, not Mother Teresa, not one of us all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's the teaching of Scripture. Not one of us can get our way to right standing with Him through rule keeping.
But thank God the good news of the Christian faith is that Jesus has come to fulfill the law on our behalf. And I love the way the Apostle Paul lays this out for us in Romans chapter three. Listen to these words. He writes, "21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith."
What he's saying here is that Jesus has come to accomplish the intent of the law on our behalf. While not one of us could merit our way to right standing with Him on the basis of our own obedience, Jesus came to do what you and I could never do. Living in perfect obedience to the law, and then giving His life, willfully laying it down on the cross. Then any one of us who had turned to Him with our spiritual need, that we would confess our spiritual need for a savior from our sins, would be able to receive His righteousness. That free gift instead of the penalty that we rightly deserve. We just we receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ, credited to our account and all the blessings that belong to him. What a gift that is for each and every one of us who will simply look to Jesus and faith, confessing our own need for a savior and Jesus.
He says in verse 20, I mean, if you want to try and merit your own way to God, go for it. Good luck with that. The way that he says that there in verse 20. Listen to this, "I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Good luck getting there on your own steam Jesus says. But thank God while we were alienated from God in our sin, Jesus has made a way for us. It's not through striving to keep the law by our own effort, but in recognizing that Jesus has accomplished its intent on our behalf when we simply look to him and believe.
So, I want to ask you, how does that message line up with how you have always understood what God would desire from you? Maybe you're someone where you hear this word this morning, you can identify I have always wanted to merit my way to right standing with God based on my own self-will, my own efforts, to merit his favor through religious rule keeping or being a good and moral person. The good news of this passage is that you and I, well, we could never get there on our own. Jesus has lifted us up. He draws us up out of the depths of our own sin, because he stepped down to meet us right in the midst of our mess, that each and every one of us could receive His perfect righteousness, his perfect obedience, and that we could be right with God when we simply look to Him in faith. And so, I hope that you can find peace in that this morning if you've been someone who's sought to merit God's favor through religious rule keeping. There is a way that has been made for you through Jesus, and you can have peace with God now and forever. Or, maybe for the first time you've been exploring faith this weekend.
I want you to know that there's a sure path before you. It's not guesswork for us to know what God would demand from us or what he would require of us. What God wants is our heart. He doesn't want simple mechanical action and obedience in a way that would be disingenuous. God wants from the heart us to recognize that he has done something to bring his favor to our lives and that we would turn to him with an expression of our need in humility and look to Jesus, his work on our behalf. That's the path for each and every one of us, that we can find joy and we can find hope in knowing that God has made a way for you and me, now and forever. Each and every one of us can find that here this weekend.
And so, as we continue on in this passage, I think it's interesting to note that pattern that we see here in the Sermon on the Mount, that God's grace leads followers to Jesus along a trajectory from inward transformation, to outward expression is interesting to note. We just hashed out that internal transformation piece. And now this outward expression piece we continue on in the passage, we see that show up here in verse 19. "Therefore, anyone who sets us I'd one of the least of these commands, and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
And so remember, it's important we stay clear here that Jesus emphasis throughout the Gospels is that it's faith alone that gives us a basis for standing before God. But to summarize his words here, in the words of one commentator, you can't get into the kingdom by your own sweat. But once you are in by grace, the law gains a new urgency. And so here Jesus is telling us that following God's Word from a place of right heart motivation is vitally important. We can draw out of verse 19, that task of following Jesus, that's something that his people will meet with varying degrees of success, living obedient to God's word. And those who do well, will be called least. Those who do better will be called great. It's important for us to note both are in the kingdom according to Jesus teaching here because that depends on grace. But he does want us to see that there is something at stake in our efforts at obedience. Living faithful to God's word really does matter. And so, this passage, it really does bring us full circle with this understanding of the role of God's law, this teaching on what he would require of those who follow him. This passage brings us full circle, because Jesus, he upholds God's word is vitally important to the life of faith.
But his primary concern isn't just that we would do the right things, but that we would do them with the right motivations. That we would be people who are faithful to God's word, not as an effort to merit his favor, but from the heart, in gratitude for grace. And so, I want to say to you that a primary value for us here at Orchard Hill, it comes out in this passage in a profound way. You may have seen in some of our communication or language that we're a church, we call our approach to faith gospel centered. That's a label that we would put on our approach to following Jesus Christ. We are gospel centered. And what that means is that we don't simply believe that we are saved by God's grace through believing in Jesus, and then we move on to focusing on our own efforts in the way that we live that faith out.
We really believe that God's grace is relevant to the entire life of faith. It impacts our whole spiritual journey from beginning to end. And what that means is we recognize that it's only by God's grace that He would choose to draw our hearts toward Himself through His Holy Spirit, when looking to Him for grace wasn't even on our radar. That's an act of grace. And it's an act of grace that God would offer us salvation through the work of His Son Jesus Christ when we look to Him in faith. But that's not the end. It's by God's grace that we can mature in our faith as His Holy Spirit inside of us, would empower us to become people who are more like Christ and gospel centered. It's by grace that we are sustained because of His Holy Spirit inside of us. It's His job, that we wouldn't fall away from our faith, and that we wouldn't lose our salvation. It's God's work inside of us, his indwelling power through the Holy Spirit, that will sustain us until the day we see Jesus face to face. That's what it means to be gospel centered.
And so, I want to conclude by offering you two concise applications to today's teaching. And the first is this. It's a word of encouragement and caution for those of us who are followers of Jesus. Strive to maintain a gospel centered focus when communicating your faith to others. And the simple fact of the matter is the faith that we communicate to others, reflects the faith that we ourselves possess. And so maybe you realize, when I communicate my faith to others, it's often more about rule keeping. I want to ask you. Is that the way that you've communicated your faith to your kids, friends, family members, or coworkers? If so, I hope that this moment can be a time for you to recognize maybe I need to assess what I'm believing. Because we've got to get the gospel straight ourselves if we're going to deliver it clearly to others. And we need to remember the order in which Jesus shows that pattern for how the life of faith plays out. That it's changed hearts that leads to changed actions or changed behavior. In a word, transformation leads to outward expression. So, we can't get the cart before the horse when we're communicating our faith to others.
And I want to share this is only a word of caution that I'm able to offer to you because I have screwed it up myself. I remember when I was coaching College Track and Field, I had an athlete on the team who I recognize was a person of influence. And he was living in a way that was taking others off track rather than being an encouragement to them. And so one day on the way back from a competition, I sat next to him in the back of the bus and I said, hey, I see that you are a person, the younger guys on this team are really looking to as an influence. And I want you to know, you can have a profound impact on them. You need to stop being such a negative example in the way you're living and in the words you're speaking. You need to get your act together. And I want you to start following Jesus because He can make a world of difference in your life. That's how I communicated my faith to him. And I wanted I want you to know that at that point, in my own life, I was very much rule keeping in my orientation towards God because I was seeking to make my own merit, my own self efforts, a basis for standing before Him. And when I came to understand that it's really the gospel that I have a basis to stand before God, I went back to that young man and I said, hey, I want to apologize to you because I had a mistake in the way that I communicated faith to you because I wanted to see you change. But what I desire most is not that you would have changed behavior, but that you would have a changed heart by knowing that God loves you. And God wants something better for you than living with yourself as the authority over your own life. He wants to bring grace and restoration into you. And that's what's going to change the way you're going to live.
And so maybe you as you hear that story, you can recognize the way I've been communicating my faith would show an orientation more towards rule keeping and self-righteousness more so than this message of God's grace, changing hearts and that leading to life change. Let's never confuse behavior modification for the gospel when we're communicating our faith to others.
And then a final application, this one related to pursuing obedience to God's commands. So, I want to say if you're a follower of Jesus, point to pursuing personal obedience to God's word, focus on the gospel, and serving others rather than focusing inward in seeking obedience. Let's be people who keep our perspective on what God has done for us in Jesus, and what he's graciously revealed to us in His word about how we can best live. When we know God's grace in Jesus, His words, no longer a burden to us. It's a gift to us that he would show us how we can live in a way that's going to be best for us in this world. And then let's be people who focus on how we can serve in light of how God has served us. That's a much better emphasis for us in our life of faith than simply focusing on how we can meet some internal standard that we've often established in our own minds. That often leads us down a path of self-righteousness rather than resting content in God's finished work on our behalf.
And really this is an application drawn out of Matthew 22. You know, Jesus, he was addressing this crowd, and someone asked him, hey, there are a lot of commands in God's word. Can you boil this down for me? What is most important? Where should I give my focus? In Jesus response, He says, "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself." You see Jesus, he builds on that earlier teaching that I shared from the words of Moses.
Even our efforts to seek obedience to God's word, we do best to keep the focus off of ourselves. So, I want to ask you, do you want to be the person of faith that God desires for you to be? What do we see here in today's passage about what that looks like? Don't make your focus rule keeping, focus on Jesus, let his goodness seep into your heart and transform you from the inside out. And then we can be people who follow after God's word, we take it seriously, but we do so with a deep trust in the Holy Spirit, that he would do a work inside of us in leading us to mature. Because the Christian life, it's all about grace, from beginning to end. And then once we've received the grace of God ourselves, we can be people who bring it into the lives of others by extending that ultimate blessing that we have found by being people who would seek redemption and restoration and others in their own spiritual journey. So, let's pray together.
Father, we thank You for Your Word and the way that it speaks to us in a way that's not only relevant to our own lives but a way that is powerful to change us from the inside out. We thank you for the gift that your word is to us. The way that it sets a standard God of what you would desire for us and how we live the way that it holds us accountable. But Father, we thank you so much that you don't leave it there. You have met us in the midst of our spiritual lostness and give us what we need God to be right with you. We thank you that through your Son, Jesus Christ, your word has been fulfilled, and the intent of the law has been accomplished through Jesus Christ, the one who laid down his life to make us right with you. God that is a work that is finished. I pray that you would transform our hearts, and that we would never be people who focus on rule keeping that only leaves us off track in self-righteousness. God, I pray that we would meditate on your great love for us, see the goodness of your word, and the better way you have called us to in how we live. And God, that we would not focus inward just prioritizing ourselves, but that we would be people who are so captivated by your grace that we would seek after what is best for others in the words we speak and in the things we do, that people would see us and know something about your love for them. We thank you for your great love for us. We ask this together in Jesus name, amen.
