Sunday Sermon: The Law Fulfilled (Matthew 5:17-20)

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You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabrielle Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

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New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

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Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. In the

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Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 17 we read the words of our Lord Christ.

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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.

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For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not a dot, not an iota will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

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For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the

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Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Let us pray.

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Heavenly Father, as we look at this passage today, as we consider Your words, I pray that You teach us and that we see

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Your holiness and Your goodness in what has been proclaimed to us. You gave us even

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Your law that we may see Your perfect and righteous standard. And when we are called to holiness as You are holy, we understand what that means because we've seen

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Your character demonstrated in Your law. I pray that we would receive the law of God and look upon it with gratitude, not thinking of it as something that oppresses us or is a great burden, but it is the revelation of who

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You are. You condescended Yourself and showed Yourself in Your law.

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And yet even something greater than this has come, though the law and the prophets bear witness to it, our

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Lord Jesus Christ. By faith in Him, we are forgiven the sins and trespasses we committed against the law.

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And we are given His righteousness that we may serve You in these days with our whole hearts in worthy sacrifice unto our

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God. Teach us what it means that Your law has been fulfilled in Christ, but that we may also keep it to the glory of Your name.

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And it is in the name of Jesus that we pray and all God's people said, amen. Thank you.

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You may be seated. So when we had started our study in Matthew chapter 5,

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I was tempted to call this series the misunderstood words of Jesus.

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These passages are often taken out of context. They're often twisted, and you've probably heard this done.

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Even if you've grown up in church where you've listened to great preachers your entire life, you still have probably heard the

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Sermon on the Mount twisted and misused in some way, shape, or form. We've already seen this to some degree when we went through the

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Beatitudes and we talked about some of those. And then last week, we're looking at salt and light. Here we come to Matthew 5, 17, where Jesus says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets,

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I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. And many teachers have taken this particular passage as though they're reading it as, think that I have come to abolish the law.

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And that's the way they teach it. This understanding of the law of God being fulfilled is so incredibly misunderstood as though it means that we don't have to keep the law of God anymore.

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It's in Romans 6, 14, where we read that you are no longer under the law, but you are under grace.

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And that's about as much of the verse as you will hear. When we were going through Romans and I was in chapter six and I got to that particular verse, there was a woman who was very, very upset in the way that I would teach that.

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And she would come to me and she would say, why is it that we're going through Romans and you keep teaching over and over again that there is this obligation for us to keep the law?

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You keep saying that. You keep teaching the law. When don't we read in Romans 6, 14, that we're no longer under the law, but under grace.

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And I said to her very calmly, very politely, that she's upset with the way that I teach that because she doesn't understand what the verse means.

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I said, did you miss when we were going through Romans chapter three and we read in verse 31, do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

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By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law.

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So if we uphold the law, then how is it that we're getting to Romans 6, 14 and you are thinking that this is saying that we don't have to study the law anymore because we're not under the law, but we are under grace.

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I said, don't miss what that full passage says. It says, for sin will no longer have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.

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What does this verse mean? It doesn't mean we don't pay attention to the law of God anymore. What it means is that you don't walk in your sin anymore.

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If you are a follower of Jesus, then you will no longer go after sinful things.

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You will love the righteousness of God and you will do what God has commanded of us in his law.

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Now we know that the law does not save us. Paul also makes that point in the book of Romans.

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So we're not keeping the law as if to be saved. We are keeping the law because we love

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God. And it's what Jesus told us to do. As Jesus said to his own disciples,

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John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you keep my commandments.

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So it is in keeping the law of God that we show demonstrated in our hearts, in our lives, a love for God and a love for his word.

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Does the law of God still apply to us today? Absolutely. For Paul says in Romans 3 .31

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that we uphold the law. He says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1 .8 that the law is good if one uses it lawfully.

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So we must understand what the proper application is. We must understand how we are to keep it, how we are to walk in it in these days.

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But let us not come to Matthew 5 .17 and think that what we're reading here is that we don't have to keep the law.

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Jesus said he came to fulfill the law. So what does this mean? It very simply means this, that all the law and the prophets were pointing to Christ.

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When Jesus says, 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.

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What he is saying is everything that was in the law, everything that was in the prophets was pointing to him.

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Now what do we mean when we say law and prophets? Well, the law is the first five books of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

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That's the law. In fact, when you're reading through the Old Testament and you will see some reference to the law, like they found the law, they proclaim the law to all of Israel, specifically what you're talking about there is the book of Deuteronomy because Deuteronomy is a name that means second law.

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It was the second giving of the law. The laws that were given in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers are repeated again in the book of Deuteronomy.

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So to summarize the law and proclaim it to Israel, that they may fear the Lord God and keep His statutes, what they were hearing proclaimed was what

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Moses said to the children of Israel before they took the promised land in the book of Deuteronomy. Then everything after Deuteronomy, from Joshua through the rest of the

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Old Testament, that's the prophets. So the entire Old Testament is considered to be the law and the prophets, hence why

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Jesus says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. He is not overthrowing the

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Old Testament by bringing in the New Testament, but rather He has come to fulfill them that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Now one of the things that I've tried to do as we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount, and I've continued to do this and will continue to do this as we keep going, is

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I've been trying to keep all of this in context. As we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount, we're taking it piece by piece.

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So we're looking today at the section verses 17 through 20. It would be very easy for us to lose the context.

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So I would encourage you that when you're not here, when we're not sitting under the teaching of the

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Word of God, that you in your own time would open up the Word and you would read through the entire Sermon on the

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Mount, Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, that you may keep all of these things in context and you do not lose it as we are going through this together.

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So even if during the week you're refreshing your mind on what Jesus taught in this sermon, and then you come back on Sunday to hear the

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Sermon on the Mount, you're able to keep these things in better context because you know what came before what we're reading that day and you even know what's coming after it.

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And this particular section, to understand it, it's best to keep in mind what we've just read and especially what's coming next.

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Remember what Matthew has been proclaiming to us all the way up to this point.

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The Apostle Matthew in reporting on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ has been inviting us into the kingdom of heaven.

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And I would hope in the days in which we're living now with the scare of this pandemic and we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, we don't know how long this thing is going to last, when stuff like this happens, when even our jobs are being threatened and the economy is under risk of collapsing, when we're looking at the way things are going on in the culture right now,

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I hope that in these days in particular you would cling all the more to the promise of the kingdom of heaven that we have in Christ Jesus.

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Because we realize now as much as we enjoy the prosperity that has been afforded to us in this nation, how quickly that can be snatched away from us, how quickly even a person in good health can suddenly die as a result of a virus such as this.

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I noticed an article that I read yesterday that the state of Oklahoma has just experienced their first death of COVID -19.

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It was a man who was 51 years old and on Sunday he was just fine.

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And then he went to the doctor and he was diagnosed. On Tuesday the test came back that he had

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COVID -19. On Wednesday he was dead. That's how quickly this can take a person.

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And we're reminded of our mortality and we're reminded about how all the things in this world are wasting away.

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So in the midst of all of this, I would hope that we would be reminded to look to the kingdom of heaven and that would be our hope.

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We cannot rely on the things on this world. All things have been subjected to futility, the curse of God upon creation because of our sin.

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And we see the effects of it around us all the time. So we do not hope in this life.

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We hope in Christ who promises the life to come. So all the more should we be interested in and sitting on the edge of our seats when a proclamation of the kingdom of heaven as Matthew has been teaching it so urgently here even as we get to Matthew chapter 5.

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Remember that in chapter 3, John the Baptist as the forerunner to Christ, as kind of like the crier who goes before the king, make way the coming of the king, make his path straight.

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It was there in Matthew 3 that we saw John the Baptist proclaiming, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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At the start of Matthew chapter 4, Jesus goes into the wilderness after being baptized by John the

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Baptist. He's tempted by Satan when he fasts and prays in the wilderness for 40 days.

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He successfully resists the temptations of the devil.

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He comes out of the wilderness and what are the first words that Jesus proclaims?

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Matthew 4, 17, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Same words that John the

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Baptist was preaching. John the Baptist is as though he were saying, make way the coming of the king and then

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Jesus shows up to say the king is here. Both proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

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When you get to Matthew chapter 5 and you see the sermon on the mount, and if you'll remember back to when we opened our series on the sermon on the mount, in verse 2 it says that Jesus went up on a mountain and he sat down and his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them saying, and this is the first time in 1 ,500 years that God has spoken to his people from his own mouth and he's done so on a mountain.

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The last time God addressed his people in that all of his people heard the voice of God was when he proclaimed to them the law, the giving of the law, the 10 commandments from Mount Sinai in Exodus chapters 19 and 20.

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Chapter 19, all the people are gathered there at the base of the mountain. God descends upon the mountain and his presence there being on the mountain was terrifying.

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It's described as the entire mountain being on fire and smoke going up into heaven and peals of thunder and loud trumpet blasts and this was scary to the people.

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And they hear God's voice deafening proclaiming his 10 commandments.

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You shall love the Lord your God and have no other gods before you was the first of his commandments.

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And the people scared of the voice of God said to Moses, hey, this is way too terrifying for us.

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We didn't know it was going to be like this. Why don't we set this up where you go talk to God and then you come and tell us, you know, that arrangement we had before, let's do that again.

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So you go tell us what God is saying and then you come report to us what it is that God has said. And so that's what

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Moses did. And then you also had the establishment of the Aaronic priesthood, the Levitical priesthood. But what did the people do down at the base of the mountain while they were waiting for Moses to come back and tell them what

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God had said? They erected a golden calf and started worshiping a false

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God. And from that point on, they had rejected the voice of God that they themselves were going to be priests upon the earth.

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And so God would no longer address his people with his own voice. It was always going to be through a mediator.

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And then you had the prophets of God who spoke to the people what

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God said. For 1100 years and then 400 years before Jesus, nothing.

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For four centuries, God was not addressing his people, not even through a prophet.

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And we refer to that period as the intertestamental period when you're looking at it in Scripture because we don't have anything written in that period of time.

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But it's also referred to as the silent age because God was not addressing his people. And so talk about uncertain days with the people going, what is

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God doing? What is happening here? We've had this promise of a Messiah. When is he going to come?

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All throughout those four centuries, the people continued to be oppressed by another nation. One of those nations would be the

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Romans, whom they're under the oppression of at this time when Jesus is proclaiming to the people of Israel. So they're looking for this coming

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Messiah who is going to release them from their exile or their captivity or their oppression to another group of people.

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Israel is going to be made a superpower again when this king shows up. That's what it is that the people of Israel are expecting.

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Jesus comes, who is this Messiah. He sits down on a mountain and for the first time in 1500 years,

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God himself from his own mouth is addressing the people with his word and he's doing so from a mountain.

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And what is the first thing that Jesus says when he begins teaching them there in the

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Sermon on the Mount? Verse 3, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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He's teaching yet again on the kingdom of heaven. Look at the last beatitude. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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And expounding upon that, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

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Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

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And then what did we look at last week? That in Christ we are the salt of the earth.

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Not you become the salt of the earth. Here's what you need to do to be salty. You are the salt of the earth.

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Verse 14, You are the light of the world. Not you are becoming the light of the world, but in Christ you have the light of Christ and you reflect his light to the world, to a world of darkness, to a wicked and crooked and depraved generation.

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You are the light of Christ, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your

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Father who is in heaven. One of the things that I concluded with saying last week when we were looking at Matthew 5 .16

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is that the light and the good works are not the same thing, although we often conflate the two.

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In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works. So we look at that and we think, well, there you go.

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The good works are the light. Let your light shine so they may see your good works. Two different things.

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You might think of this instead as you being the light and the good works are the warmth that are emanated from the light.

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So because you have the light, you're going to demonstrate that light in what way? Good works. Good works are the affirmation that you have the light of Christ.

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And once again, understanding that we are not the source of the light, Christ is. But we reflect that light.

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Jesus said in John 9, 5, while I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

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But now Jesus is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. And who is the light of the world? You are.

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You are the light of the world, reflecting the light of Christ. And people may know that you have the light in the midst of darkness, in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation when you demonstrate the good works of Christ carried out in your life.

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What do those good works look like? They look like you're keeping the commandments of God.

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So when Jesus gets to Matthew 5, 17, remember, we've been proclaiming about the kingdom of heaven.

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A kingdom has laws, right? So when Jesus gets to Matthew 5, 17, he says, do not think that I've come to abolish the law and the prophets.

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He's been proclaiming the kingdom of heaven. And in proclaiming the kingdom of heaven, he's saying here,

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I'm not coming to set up new laws. I am coming to set up the kingdom on the law that has already been given.

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Has God's righteousness changed in 1500 years? No, it's still the same righteousness.

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So the law that God gave to his people in 1500 years is going to be the same law that Christ proclaims and sets his kingdom upon.

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Nothing is changing. Hence why he says, do not think

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I've come to abolish the law and the prophets. It's on that same law and the declaration of those same prophets that I am setting up this kingdom.

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I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Jesus, the

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King is sitting on a mountain. And I mean, even that is a picture of a coming kingdom. When we read in Matthew 5, 1, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, this was how a

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King proclaimed his decrees. He sat on the throne and he had his scribes around him who would write down whatever the

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King proclaimed. And so Matthew is painting this picture here of a

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King sitting and his disciples coming to him and the King proclaiming the laws of his kingdom.

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And the laws that he's proclaiming are not new laws. They're the same laws that have already been given and already been established.

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The revelation of God and his righteousness from his kingdom in heaven, the law that was given to the people of Israel, Jesus is still fulfilling that same law.

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Now remember, in keeping all of this in context, we remember what we've read getting to this point and we're also considering what we're reading coming after this.

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What comes after Matthew 5, 17 through 20? Law. The rest of Matthew 5 is law.

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Verses 21 through 26, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

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But I say that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Verses 27 through 30, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

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Verses 31 and 32, it was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce, but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

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Verses 33 through 37, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Don't swear by anything, but simply do what you say you're going to do.

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Laws of retaliation, verses 38 through 42, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.

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If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Verses 43 through 48, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

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What are we reading? Law. We're reading law and it's not a new law.

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Jesus is not changing the law that had already been given. What he's telling this people is you don't even follow the law.

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You don't understand the point of the law and you've not been keeping the law and Jesus who is

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God shows up to say, here's what the law is and here's how you've not been following it and the kingdom of God is established upon the laws of God.

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They have not been abolished. They are being fulfilled in Christ and we as his kingdom people demonstrate that we are part of his kingdom when we keep the laws of his kingdom, but we must understand that we were incapable of keeping that law in a righteous way.

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So going back again to Romans chapter three, verses 19 through 20, where we're told this, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God for by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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You could keep the law till you're blue in the face. It would not save you and it does not make you righteous before God.

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You could keep every single law that was given in the old Testament, but it will not save you.

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How is it that we are saved? Well, we go on in Romans chapter three, verse 21, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

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This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.

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It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law?

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By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

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For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is

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God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

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And now we get to verse 31, which I've quoted to you already. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

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No, my genoita in the Greek, by no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law.

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Do you still have to keep the law of God? Yes, but where previously you could not do so in a righteous way,

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Romans 3, 11 and 12, no one seeks God. All have turned aside. Together they've become worthless.

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No one does good, not even one. So previously you could not keep the law in a way that was pleasing unto

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God. But now with the righteousness of Christ, you are able to keep the law in a way that is worshipful unto the

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Lord. Jesus himself said, you will show me that you love me when you keep my commandments.

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Yes, my brothers and sisters, there are commandments that you must follow. There are commandments that you must obey.

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And Jesus said, the greatest of these is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor.

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A second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hinge all the law and the prophets.

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What does that mean? What Jesus was proclaiming there was the 10 commandments. Love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's the basis of what we call the first table of the law, the first four commandments.

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You will not have any other gods before me. Don't worship anything that looks like me. Don't blaspheme my name.

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You'll honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. Those are vertical commandments. They have to do with our relationship with God.

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And when you love God, you demonstrate your love for God by keeping those commandments. The next six commandments are horizontal commandments.

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They have to do with our relationship with each other. And those commandments begin with honor your father and your mother.

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Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not lie or bear false witness.

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And do not covet. And this is how you demonstrate love for your neighbor.

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Beware those out there who will tell you that we have no obligation to keep the law.

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In fact, we don't even have to keep the Ten Commandments. And do not think this is an unusual teaching.

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It is very, very common. Just two years ago, Andy Stanley, who's one of the most popular preachers in the country, did a sermon in which the most famous line that came from this particular series that he was doing, a series that was entitled

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Aftermath, one of the most famous statements that came from that sermon series was the instruction to the church that we need to unhitch ourselves from the

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Old Testament. So that word unhitch became hitched to Andy Stanley.

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And he enjoyed quite a bit of controversy over the course of 2018 that helped him to sell his book

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Irresistible. One of the other statements that Andy Stanley made in that particular series was this.

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It was a sermon that he delivered in the spring. And he said, thou shalt not keep the

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Ten Commandments because they aren't your commandments is what he said. Now, he tried to cover this by saying,

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God has given you more commandments that are less demanding, or they're less complicated, but they are far more demanding.

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But you still have this statement that was made by Andy Stanley, that you don't have to keep the Ten Commandments.

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And then what was funny about that is when he would go on from there to talk about how you need to love your neighbor, well, when he would do that, he's referencing the

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Ten Commandments because that's exactly what Jesus was referencing when he said, a second commandment is like it, that you love your neighbor as yourself.

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On these commandments hinge all the law and the prophets. He's going back to the

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Old Testament there, but Andy's just radically inconsistent in what it is that he's teaching. Two weeks ago, Andy taught another sermon, and he's back at it again with the

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Ten Commandments. This time in the sermon that he preached two weeks ago, he said the following,

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God loves you more than he loves his commandments.

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Is that true? Psalm 138 verse 2,

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I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.

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Here's what it is that we need to understand by this, my brothers and sisters, not that God loves us more than he loves his own commandments, but rather God loves us so he gave us his commandments.

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Even when you go back to the Garden of Eden, you go back to when things were perfect, when there was no sin in the world, there was still a commandment that Adam and Eve had to follow.

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You can eat of any tree of the garden, but you may not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

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Why in the midst of perfection did God still give Adam and Eve a law so that Adam and Eve would experience the full joy of worshiping

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God even in keeping his commandments? And my friends, that's when everything was perfect.

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That's before sin even came into the picture. There was still a law to follow so that Adam and Eve, even dwelling in perfect sinlessness, could worship

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God by keeping his law. But we know that they transgressed the law because they were not satisfied in what

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God had given to them. They had to have something else, so they broke the law of God. And sin and death came into the picture, and now we are where we are today.

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Consider further this act of love that God has shown to us by giving us his law when you look at the words of Moses to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy 4, verses 5 through 8.

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See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

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Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

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For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him?

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And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

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The law of God that was given to his people was an act of love for his people, that they would see the righteousness of God, and they would know what it means to worship

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God in a right and pleasing way unto the Lord by keeping his commandments.

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When we get to the end of the book of Matthew, the very last statement in Matthew's gospel is this,

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Jesus proclaiming his divinity and saying, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Now therefore, go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and get this, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo,

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I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. What are they teaching that God has commanded?

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All of it. Jesus taught the law and the prophets to show how he fulfilled the law and the prophets, how all of the law and the prophets were pointing to him.

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And he does not abolish what they say, but fulfills it and goes on to say in Matthew 518, for truly

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I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, which was the smallest form of punctuation in the

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Greek, not a dot, which is a reference to the smallest form of punctuation in the Hebrew.

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So whether you're reading the Old Testament, the Septuagint in the Greek, or you're reading the Old Testament in the

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Hebrew, not even the smallest amounts of punctuation that you will see in those documents will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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That is why my heart trembles whenever I hear a preacher stand at his pulpit and will say something like, you are not obligated to keep the 10 commandments.

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I quake in my spirit for that guy. For God had said, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments, and they're not even doing it with the least of the commandments.

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They're taking the entire moral law of God and the 10 commandments and saying, you don't have to follow this.

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That person will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Does this person have no fear of God?

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Do they not see His holiness proclaimed in His law? The apostle

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Paul said in Romans 7, I didn't know that I was a covetor until I heard in the law, do not covet.

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And then I realized I've been coveting. The law makes us knowledgeable.

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It makes us aware of our sin. But that is by the grace of God, my friends. For it's when we are convicted over our sin, realizing that we have broken the law of God, that we are awakened to our need for a

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Savior. And if it was not for the law of God, we would not know that. And we would not turn to Christ and worship

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Him and so be saved. So we need the law to make us aware of those things.

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But then in Christ Jesus, who fulfills all the law, who kept it all perfectly and gives us

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His righteousness by faith, we are forgiven the sins that we've committed against God because we broke

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His law. And now we are able to keep His law in a way that is worshipful and righteous and holy because it is being done in the righteousness of Christ.

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As I've said to you when we were going through Galatians, we go through Ephesians, and now I say to you again, even when we're in Matthew, what

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God demands of us, He gives to us. He demands righteousness and He gives us

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His righteousness. When we get to the end of Matthew 5, where Jesus is going through law, we read in verse 48, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly

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Father is perfect. How high is this standard of the kingdom of God? Unattainable.

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You can't get to it. If it was left up to you to keep the law of God, you would never get there.

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You cannot be perfect as the Father is perfect. But as God demands this of us,

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He gives it to us. And how does He give it to us? In Christ, who is perfect.

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The righteousness of Christ that we are clothed in. 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for our sake,

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He became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

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And in Christ's righteousness, we are keepers of the law and doing so in a righteous way.

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And even in us, in doing so, the law is fulfilled. Romans 13, 10, love is the fulfilling of the law.

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So all of the law and the prophets fulfilled in Christ, and then we walk in that when we obey

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Christ, His commandments that He has given to us. Whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

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And again, the commission that has been given to us at the end of Jesus' earthly ministry is to make disciples and teach them to observe all that Christ has commanded.

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Jesus says, verse 20, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

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And I have good news for you, my friends. If you are in Christ, your righteousness does exceed the scribes and the

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Pharisees. Because you have a righteousness that does not belong to you. You have a righteousness that is

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Christ's, a robe that He has clothed you in, that you stand before God as justified.

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Psalm 119 is a love song to God for His law.

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And here is what we read in the longest chapter of the Bible, the longest

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Psalm in the Psalms. I'm not going to read the whole thing for you because that would be the entire length of a whole other sermon.

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But here are some of those verses that we read. Psalm 119, verse 1. Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the

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Lord. How did we start the Sermon on the Mount? Blessed are blank.

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How do we start Psalm 119? Blessed are those who keep the law of the

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Lord. Verse 20, my soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.

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Verse 34, give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart.

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Verse 47, for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.

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Verse 61, though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, I do not forget your law.

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Verse 75, I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous and that in faithfulness, you have afflicted me.

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Verse 92, if your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.

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My friends, you might be looking at the things that are going on in our culture and our society today, and we might fall into a little bit of despair and uncertainty for the things that are going on, and you might be wondering, why in the midst of all of this that is happening all around us, are we still talking about the law of God?

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Well, because for this reason, if your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.

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It is even our love for the law of God that sustains us in these troubled times.

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Verse 105, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

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How do I navigate these troubled times? By the word of God. Verse 109,

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I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law. Verse 113,

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I hate the double -minded, but I love your law. Verse 131,

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I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments.

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Is that your desire, to long for the law of God?

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Verse 137, righteous are you, O Lord, and right are your rules. How do we know the righteousness of God?

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Through His law. Verse 153, look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law.

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Verse 163, I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law. Verse 176, last verse of Psalm 119,

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I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.

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My friends, this was me at one point. Even that verse in verse 109 captured me at just the right moment.

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I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law. I've spoken to you before about after I left home and I went off to college,

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I started seeking my own way, sowing my own roots or oats, sowing my wild oats, how that saying goes.

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And really, it just means that I was chasing after my own sin and depravity. But even though I was doing what my flesh wanted,

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I was convicted in heart over my sin because my parents had taught me the law of God.

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And it was written upon my heart so that when I would fall into sin, I would be convicted over that sin and I would repent before the

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Lord. And finally, all these things came to a head. And in mourning weepiness,

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I came before God and asked for His forgiveness, that He would take away this rotten heart of mine and He would give me a new heart, a heart that desires the law of God, that desires

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Christ and wants to worship Him and obey Him. And God forgave me of my sin and He gave me a righteousness that is not mine.

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By the grace of God, I've been given the righteousness of Christ and now have a desire for Christ and for His word that I may worship

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Him and obey Him. I was going astray like a lost sheep, but Christ sought me and I did not forget

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His commandments. And so now

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I am one instead who opens my mouth and pants because I long for the commandments of Christ.

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His law is my delight. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but we are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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And it is given to us by faith. So, my friends, repent of your sin and no longer walk in your sin, but walk in the righteousness of Christ that has been given to us, that we may live our entire lives in worship to our

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King, looking for the kingdom that awaits us, where there is no more sickness, no more dying, no more disease, no more sin, no more evil.

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All the former things will have passed away. Jesus says, behold, I am making all things new.

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And so let us cry out with John the apostle, come quickly, Lord Jesus, and let our desire be first and foremost for Christ and His kingdom.

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We will demonstrate that that is our longing when we keep

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His commandments, the laws of His kingdom. On behalf of our church family, my name is

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Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.