Sep. 4, 2016 Afternoon Service - Beatitudes Part 9 by Pastor Josh Sheldon

You know, the loudest return of good morning was from our dear brother, now with the Lord, Don Penhill. I mean, when you said good morning, you didn't just get morning from, because he played piano, I hear from you who didn't know that.

Don sat here, played piano. You get a resounding good morning. And now we have a resounding amen starting up back there. And I don't know what we're gonna do if the Gudatos ever go on vacation. I think we're gonna have to disallow it because I'm getting to the point that I'm not gonna be able to do much without Emanuel's amens affirming that we're on the right track.

Here he goes. We continue ourselves in the afternoon portion of our service with the Sermon on the Mount. And this morning, or this afternoon, excuse me, the fourth and fifth of these antithetical statements that Jesus made, and I honestly, I had thought that I'd be able to gather these together more that I'd be able to do two or three, sometimes even four at a time, and I just can't get a manuscript short enough to do that.

And I don't want to extend your patience by extending us way beyond three o 'clock. But in any case, I feel like the pace is good because I feel like the reception of these messages has been good and they've been meaningful.

And of course, they should be because they are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples. But these two, retaliation and oaths. A sermon on these statements by Jesus. You have heard that it was said, but I say to you, I mean, it should be a fairly easy message to put together, wouldn't we think?

I mean, what's the upshot of what Jesus says? Don't take oaths. Just don't take oaths. Instead, mean what you say. Mentioned this morning, God is a simple being. Not simplistic, but he is simple. He simply means what he says.

He simply is what he is. So we, in the same way, simply mean what you say. Be what you are. A Christian. A Christ ambassador. That should be pretty simple. Don't take oaths. Don't swear by anything. Just let your word be your word.

The next one, do not retaliate. But instead, be cheerfully willing to help others. Something like that. And then we could multiply the examples. And we could see how often we fail. I could place before you the examples where you might improve this and get a habit of non-retaliation.

Something like that. And that might do it for us here. I've been here since late 1999 at this church. And I have yet, though, to hear anyone actually take an oath in God's name or by anything else. No one has ever come to me wanting to poke out the eye of someone who did the same to them.

Nor have there been any lawsuits, at least none that I am aware of. This body tends towards generosity and good works. In general, needs no prompting to love enemies or anyone else. So these messages should be pretty simple.

The examples should be fairly simple to find. Low-hanging fruit, as they say. But you see, would that be enough? Would that be enough just to repeat Jesus' words, give you a bit of context, and then give you all the examples of the way that we don't do this and some suggestions on how we can begin to change the course of that ship and begin to come into compliance.

No, I think that would be skipping over these too quickly. I think that would be a short shrift of what Jesus has to say here. It would imply that the disciples who sat before Jesus 2 ,000 years ago were somehow worse sinners, more in need of instruction than we are.

So they, not we, would be the ones in need of these dire corrections. None of that is true, so we don't want to skip over these too quickly. Our ESV Bible, English Standard Version, and most other Bibles with subtitles, it does a pretty good job in breaking these into sections.

Verses 5, 33 to 37 are titled simply Oaths. 38 to 42, in mine, is entitled Retaliation. And then later, 43 to 47, Love Your Enemies. With 48, verse 48 at the very end, putting the whole matter to rest, Lord willing we get there next week, therefore you must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.

Well, if verse 520 is a major key to the whole of 521 to 47, these six antithetical statements of Jesus, these descriptions of what that righteousness is, he says, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

If that is our key, then the moral perfection of God himself, which comes at the end in 548, therefore you shall be perfect as the Lord your God is perfect. That's the crowning glory of this portion of Jesus' sermon and the demands that it makes on us.

So again, it would be an easy thing to scold all of us for our violations here. But rather than that, let's look at this as a whole. Let's ask, what is it that Jesus wants to see, demands to see in his children, in his disciples?

Well, we could say that in a word, his character. He wants to see his people be people of character, people who don't need to take oaths, don't need these dramatic affirmations because their word, because of the character behind their word, their word unvarnished with no supplement is all that is needed.

He wants to see open hearts that lead to open hands, to gentle spirits that forego vengeance, even if the law of God might have allowed some vengeance. He wants us to be as good to our enemies as God is to his.

That's all. He wants character. He wants to see Christian character. The first thing we'll look at is oaths. Ken read that to you, I won't read it again. And what they had heard, you have heard it was said, what they had heard was true enough.

The idea of not swearing falsely, but performing what you have sworn in God's name is everywhere in scripture. Perhaps most prominently in the ninth commandment of the law you shall not bear false witness, you shall not lie.

You shall not say things that are not true and by extension you shall not commit yourself to things that you have no intention of doing or do not at all hazards actually do once you've said them. Leviticus 19 .12 forbids swearing in God's name.

Numbers 30 verse two insists that the one who binds himself by a pledge must not break his word. I'm not going to delve this afternoon into the things they've been taught by the Pharisees, at least not too much.

Suffice to say that they nitpick God's law until they found the exceptions that they wanted. They found the exceptions that they wanted. And we go to God's word, anytime we go to God's word with this preconceived conclusion, I must find in it my rationalization, my justification to do fill in the blank, whatever that is, you know, you will find it.

If you look with eyes of flesh, you will find it. If you look with the eyes of the spirit, you will usually find something quite different. The Pharisees looked for excuses and they found them and they took apart God's law, they parsed it all out and they separated the words as much as they could and found what they were looking for, the exceptions.

And what they ended up with was essentially a ranking system for their word. If you swear this way, then you have to do it, but only if you swear by your head, which is to offer your life as proof of your veracity, well, then it's not so pressingly incumbent upon you, but if you swear by God's name, well, then you're pretty well stuck and you better do it, this sort of a thing.

And the problem with their oath-taking was that the thing they claimed as their guarantor had no ability to assure their performance. How can you swear by your head? What's your head gonna do to bring you to take your word?

You swear by the temple in Jerusalem or by the earth or whatever the case is. How is that thing by which you swore going to assure the person to whom you're giving this oath that you will actually do it?

Well, it's a rhetorical question. Of course, it can't. It has no power to do so. They say, swear by heaven. Jesus says, stop this, really. He says, do not swear by heaven. Stop doing that. It's been a practice.

I mean, I'm not sure how this was done, but heaven is a place, it's not a person. Heaven cannot call you to account any more than could the earth or Jerusalem. Why not, for us today, why not rather swear by your car?

I swear by my pink slip that I will do thus and such. I mean, that's what the bank makes us do, isn't it? If we take out a loan for the car, well, they're not gonna accept our word, and if we back up our word with a handshake, the banker's still just gonna smile at you and make you sign a piece of paper that says, I swear by my pink slip.

I swear by the title to my car. If it's a mortgage, I swear by the title to my house that I will do as I said I would do. And then, of course, once you've signed on that, dotted line, the bank has every means at its disposal to get a great big guy with a great big truck to come and pick up your car if you don't keep your word.

They can enforce it. These other things that Jesus is talking about have no ability to enforce the word that you're giving. So Jesus simplifies the whole thing. For Christians, what he's saying here, really, think about this for a second.

You know, signing on the dotted line is only a formality. It should only be a formality for us because of him who we represent. Okay, you wanna back it up with a handshake? That's still only a custom.

In America, we certify things by shaking hands, don't we? That's a good custom. I have nothing against it. I think Scripture has nothing against it. But once our word is given, once, as ambassadors of Christ, we've given our word as representatives of the Son of God, we have said with our lips we will do this or we affirm this thing.

That should be the end of the discussion. Everything else, just a formality. I think Psalm 51, verse six, gets to the heart of the matter for us. The psalmist says, to God, behold, you delight in truth in the inward being and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

It takes it beyond a mere performance. It drives it home as a matter of the inner man, of the heart. If truth is found where God looks, if integrity is found where God looks, which is the heart, then oaths of any kind are superfluous.

And in a sense, they're saying that that is higher than God because if we're representing God, if what we say is always supposed to be indicative of who God is and what he has done in our life, then that's the end of the matter.

Keeping our word is so important for God's people. The Psalm 15, four, says that the one who will dwell on God's holy hill, meaning in God's presence, who can stand before the Lord. This is one of the descriptions.

Remember, Colin went through this, what was it, about six weeks ago? He who swears to his own hurt and does not change. He whose word is so important as a representative of God now, not for my own pride, not for my own reputation, because of the reputation of him whose child I am, once I've given my word, even if it does me financial damage to keep it, even if it inconveniences my schedule to keep my word, I must do so.

That's a very quick, very simple exposition for you of the oath-taking. And I particularly avoided the very long, and I think they're very good, I'm not derisive of them at all, analyses and the historical views of what was actually happening 2 ,000 years ago.

What did the Pharisees actually teach them to do? And again, as I said this morning, in our library, we've got the background commentary, so if you want to delve into this, it's a very interesting study.

I've particularly left all that aside. We can't stretch God's word to fit our needs is sort of the upshot of all this. Don't join the Pharisees to see if only this or that sort of pledge really counts.

Jesus says, sanctify them in the truth, John 17, 17. Your word is truth, and so should be ours. Not oaths, not anything else. We're legally bound sometimes to sign on the dotted line, but in God's eyes, it's our word that binds us.

That's all Jesus is saying here. It's our word that binds us. No little school-ground stuff, I don't even know if kids still do it, but they've got something like it if they don't do this. Remember, cross my fingers, gave you word, now you didn't do it.

You forgot to look, my fingers were crossed. I'm talking second-grade stuff, right? I don't know if the kids still do that, but totally inappropriate, unnecessary for us. The second of Jesus's antithetical statements you've heard, but I say to you, this is the idea of retaliation.

Acts of revenge, getting even. The quote that he gives here, you've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is from Exodus chapter 21 and verse 24, and it's repeated in Deuteronomy chapter 19 and verse 21.

Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. In Jesus's time, this law had been essentially set aside in favor of a set of rules to define how far one could go in their act of vengeance without actually breaking the law.

How far can you go before you have gone beyond the eye or beyond the tooth that Scripture would allow you? Again, very detailed, very intricate laws and regulations. Let's see, the law in Exodus and Deuteronomy, excuse me, yeah, Deuteronomy, Exodus and Deuteronomy, it was never intended to condone a vigilante sort of justice.

It barred anyone but a court of law to exact the retribution. When it said an eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth, now that didn't mean that you could go to another family, another tribe as it was then, and say, well, your cousin took out my son's eye, so bring him out and I've got my poker and we're gonna take care of it here and now.

It never allowed for that. It was never meant that way explicitly and in the context in which it was given. It was a decision, not act of revenge, but it was a judicial decision. You went to the elders.

You went to court, as it were. You proved your case, and it was the court that brought the retribution. Really, it was satisfaction more than retribution. They were evening the scales. It'd be like if we got in a fender bender and it was our fault.

Well, most of us have insurance or we should, but if we didn't, what would we do? Well, we'd get the car fixed. It's my fault. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. We would get it put back to rights. We wouldn't have to buy them a brand new car.

That'd be over the top. We'd get it repaired, get it fixed, and then the matter stops. Punishment fits the crime, and that's the end of the whole affair. Now, Jesus illustrates for us just what this vengeance-forgoing person looks like with four examples of application.

Now, remember, as I go through these four very quickly, remember what the passage is about. An eye for, you've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, and then we're gonna go on with these examples.

Remember the context of these. Do not resist one who is evil, says our Lord. Do not resist one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Understand, as we go through this, remember, anything other than what Jesus says is retaliation, a violation of what he says.

He's not barring us from defending ourselves or our families from attack, as some people take this. A slap in the face was an insulting and humiliating thing to have done to you. And really what he says here is, but so what?

The only thing at risk here is our pride. Maybe you could put an end to it by slapping him in return, so you both get slapped and now it's all over. Well, maybe, maybe that would end it. Maybe you could put an end to it by offering the other cheek, as Jesus says to do.

Maybe that will end it. What is assured is God's pleasure. What is assured is he's pleased when we obey, by faith, what he says. As the eye we might have extracted was left alone, or our antagonist's tooth was left intact.

In other words, we have not joined in the fray and added to the violence the purpose of the law in question. The eye for eye, tooth for tooth was meant to stop the violence. It was meant to prevent revenge killings of any kind.

It was meant to put it in the hands of a court that would hear the evidence. Here Jesus says, just stop the violence now. Just put an end to it here and now. Don't be the one who extends it. Let me say one more time, just quickly, this is not, this is not a law that says you cannot defend yourself and most especially your family.

The context is very different from that. Second, the second example of lack of retaliation. If anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. The picture here is of two men on their way to court.

Jesus addresses us as the one about to be sued by the other. If anyone would sue you. He tells us to put a stop to the conflict. Why go to court if you can resolve it now while you're on the way? Now the cloak, we all know, was especially important in the day.

Exodus 22, 26, 27, this is worth reading. If ever you take your neighbor's cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering and it is his cloak for his body.

In what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, hear this, if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate. So Jesus' example seems to imply that the case is very serious. It's serious enough that one of your most valuable and important possessions is at risk.

And this seems to assume that we're the one in the wrong. That's why he says to give up your cloak now, before the case is argued before the judge. In other words, put an end to the conflict. Just like turning the other cheek, put an end to the conflict now.

And be so diligent, be so immediate that you're willing to give up something valuable and even crucial to you in order to make peace. How can we do this? How can we do something like this? Well, it's faith.

It's faith in God's word. It's faith that God is compassionate. Remember from Exodus, I read it a moment ago. It says God will hear from heaven. Why? He tells us why. He says because I am compassionate.

So give up the cloak. Trust God to enforce his law. Trust God to return it to you. How could that be? Would it be such a strong testimony of the grace of God working in you that the person's conscience would be pricked and he'd hand back your cloak or whatever you had to give up?

Maybe. Maybe that's the case. How could this happen? Maybe God would in his providence by his spirit force the person out of their home at night to return the cloak to you. I don't know. I do know God is pleased when we obey.

I do know that Jesus says stop the conflict now while you're on way to court, before you see the judge. Admit you're wrong. Give up your cloak. Be ready to give it up and trust God with all the rest. Paul in Romans 12 21 speaks a bit to this.

Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. The command is to not let evil overcome us which is just what happens when we retaliate. We've met evil with evil. The promise side is what I said earlier.

Faith that God will overcome their evil with our good. Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke a bit about this. Let me give you this quote. It's a little bit lengthy but bear with me. I think it bears on what we're talking about here.

The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a standstill because it does not find the resistance it is looking for. Resistance merely creates further evil and adds fuel to the flames. When the last ounce of resistance is abandoned and the renunciation of revenge is complete then evil cannot find its mark.

It can breed no further evil and is left barren. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a very, very smart man, a good theologian, not scripture. He was not inspired in this but you take his point. Evil, if it has no mark to hit, will run its course.

It needs to have a target. Let it not be us. You know a great picture of this is in the 1959 version of Ben-Hur. As the Roman guards are leading Ben-Hur to serve his sentence in the galleys they stop for water.

It's a hot climate there in Palestine, we all know that. And because he's a particularly despised prisoner by the guards he's not allowed to have any water. But he's dying of thirst. And Jesus, they only show him from the back which is nice but you know it's Jesus.

Jesus comes into the scene and gives him a glass of water. The guard is about to whip him for it, whip Jesus for it. He pulls it back and Jesus just stands up and looks at him. And again, you only see him from the back.

You don't see the front of Jesus which kind of a nice touch in my estimation. But Jesus just looks at him. This guard is gonna whip him for trying to give a man dying of thirst a glass of water. And the guard's face as he stares at Jesus sort of crumbles and he stops making protest and Jesus is able to give Ben-Hur the water.

You see evil overcome by good. Now this is a very good picture of what we're talking about here. Overcome evil with good. End the retaliation. Don't let it continue. Be the one who puts an end to it no matter what the price.

If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two. This is our third example of lack of retaliation remember. Go with him two miles. Romans in that day of course, many of us have heard this. They were allowed to conscript anyone they want to carry their luggage or something else for one mile.

And no further. This is how Simon of Cyrene got drafted to carry Jesus' cross. The guards had the right or any Roman had the right to say, you will carry this up to a mile. Jesus says if anyone forces you to do this and this is what he had in mind.

The only other time this word for force is used is what I mentioned, Simon of Cyrene. The one forced to carry the cross. Now it wasn't Jewish law of course. It was the law of their conquerors, of the Romans.

And so it was the law of the land. In a manner reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 6 where Paul castigates the church for going to court against each other in order to settle disputes and defend their rights, Jesus says to willingly accept this humiliating imposition.

Overcome evil, which is to force you to do something like that. Overcome evil by cheerfully doubling what might be rightly demanded of you. And speaking of brother versus brother, Paul writes, why not rather suffer wrong?

Why not rather be defrauded? Sinclair Ferguson points out that it is the second mile, it's the second mile where there is seen any difference between the Christian and anyone else. The fourth and last of these is give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

So we could ask, is he gonna use my hard-earned money for evils like booze and cigarettes, drugs? You know, we just don't know. We don't know. There were beggars then and there are beggars now and the ancient ones were no more nor any less sinners than we are today.

But the issue here isn't the wisdom of giving to everyone who asks or how much discernment we can exercise into the reason for their state, for the state of their affairs. The question is, is Jesus saying here that we must lend to everyone?

Are we to lend only to brothers and sisters in the Lord? I don't think that's what he means. We're not, excuse me, we are told in James and 1 John that if we have the world's goods and we see our brother in need, we're to still give to them, we're to just give it to them.

And this would be the pattern of the Acts Church in chapter two of that book. And he says, give, not lend. I think D .A. Carson puts it well here. Christ will not tolerate a penny-pinching attitude that is the financial counterpart to a legalistic understanding of an eye for an eye.

Do you understand when Jesus gives us this example that refusing to be open-handed with someone in need is the same as retaliation, demanding the eye for the eye or the tooth for the tooth, as if we've been personally harmed?

Remember the context in which Jesus Christ gives us this example. Do not retaliate. And so when someone asks from you, give to them. Because to not is, in this context, retaliation. A harsh attitude is one that says, hey, I worked hard.

I saved my money. I was smart with my money. I was frugal. I figured out how to get by. Why didn't you? And if we ever think like that, I have some answers for you. For me, maybe you're just smarter. Maybe you had more opportunities and you took advantage of your opportunities better, got yourself better educated or better trained.

Maybe, and I think this gets to the heart of the matter a little bit more, maybe God entrusted you with 10 talents and that one with a 10th of a single talent. Maybe. These are four illustrations of retaliation that is to be avoided.

Retaliation is not just gouging out someone's eye to avenge what they did to our eye. Retaliation is slapping the one who slaps you. Retaliation is going to court to press your rights or even to see if we can win against someone pressing their rights against us.

Retaliation is going the required mile and not a step further. I'll show him. I'll measure this down to a fraction of a centimeter. That's retaliation. Retaliation is making that beggar crawl up to the next guy on the block because what we call common sense is nothing more than self-righteous vengeance.

We need to be careful with these things because the character Jesus is calling for, the character he's described in the Beatitudes which we went through a few weeks ago is very antithetical to that. We are coming to the Lord's table in a few moments.

It's a monument to just how differently he, Jesus, treated and treats us than we are inclined to treat each other and our fellow man. The Lord in Hebrews 7, 21 and 28, he confirms with an oath that Jesus is our eternal high priest.

His word, his oath will never fail. No one has ever been offended as has our God by our sin. No one has a right to a retaliation that approaches his rights. Yet he made no demand that our eye pay for the eye that we gouged, that our tooth be knocked out for the tooth that was knocked out because of us.

See, he left our eye in place. He left our teeth in our mouth. But note what I said. He left our eye, our tooth. An eye was demanded though. When God had cause for retaliation, an eye was demanded, a tooth was required.

God did not let it all just pass away into the stream of history. It was all remembered. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. None more insulted in these ways than God himself met by us, by our sin.

And every one of them was remembered. Every one of them was in fact avenged in Jesus, in Jesus Christ. It was his eye that was taken to pay for what we had done. It was his tooth that paid our price. It was by his stripes we've been healed.

God did retaliate for our sin. Though I say retaliate and I don't mean vengeance and revenge in any kind of ungodly way, of course. I'm speaking of the right retribution of a holy God against the insults of sin in accordance with his word.

His anger was poured out in all its fullness. Every slight he bore was recompensed and that is against Jesus. Not against the actual offender, not against you and me. Had that been the case, we'd still be paying the penalty.

Had God continued to court to press his case, we'd have lost miserably and immediately. Instead, he gave up his cloak. He gave his only begotten son and charged him with our crimes. Because Jesus never sinned, none of the penalty was for him.

It was all marked to the account of others, to you and I who this afternoon remember his sacrifice when we take the elements in a few moments. I pray as we partake, may it be our ambition to be with each other as God was towards us.

That's the ultimate motivation we have to simply obey what Jesus says here. Is to look and see how then did God, with more cause for vengeance, if you will, than any could ever imagine. And he forewent it in us.

Didn't forget it, but put it all on Jesus Christ. His body broken for us, we will read from 1 Corinthians 11. His life, his blood poured out for us. Imagine had God come after your eye or my teeth after all the insults against him that I've given him, that you gave him before God grabbed hold of you.

This is the basis we have to treat each other ethically and in this world the way the scripture demands of us. Not because we have discipline, not because it's going to save us. Only Jesus Christ and the sacrifice he made which we here remember, only that can save.

And yet what would motivate us to follow Jesus' ethical demands in this life of not taking oath, of having our word be what we say it to be, of not revenging ourselves. It's only how God was towards us in Jesus Christ.

Who went to the cross in place of sinners like us. Amen?