Matthew 5:17-20

Truth, Love, and the Call to Grow Up in Christ

Truth and Love Network. We get truth and love from Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15. Paul says, speaking of truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. So we want to pursue that to the best of our ability to to grow up in all aspects into Christ and speak truth and love.

And we want to do that, do that together. I'd love to have your support. If you would give us a like, a heart, a share. If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to interact with you. Ask your questions.

I'll try to answer. Or if you have a certain topic you want to talk about. Love to spend time talking with you about the things of church, the things of the Bible, Jesus, whatever you'd like to talk about.

Love to spend time talking to you. I love to have your support. Would you pray for us and all those who are sharing the message of Jesus Christ? Let's see. Yeah, I think that's about it. I want to spend just a few minutes and I continue our conversation in Matthew, Matthew chapter five.

Tonight we're going to look at verses 17 through 20. And so if you want to follow along, I'd love you to do that. Let's go ahead and get started. If I can pray for you, I'll pray at the end. And all you have to do is type me and let me know that I can pray for you.

If you watch the video later, I can pray for you later. All you have to do is type me in the comments and I'll see it. And I'd love to pray for you. All you have to do is let me know. Let me read Matthew five, 17 through 20.

Jesus Fulfills the Law and the Prophets

Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law until it is accomplished.

Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Thank you guys for watching. We've looked at Matthew chapter 1 through 5.

We last looked at 5, 1 through 12 and 13 through 16. And most people are familiar with the beginning of Matthew. And it's typically called the Beatitudes. And what I find discouraging sometimes is how we chop up Scripture instead of going verse by verse.

And we lose so much information, we lose so much context when we chop it up. Because when you look at 17, when you look at this passage, 18 and 19 and 20, and take it out of its context, we fail to see what led up and what Jesus is referring to, what he's talking about.

And from my experience, I feel like things are left unemphasized or under-emphasized or under-talked about when it comes to this section of Scripture. When we look at the Beatitudes, we're looking at Jesus' kingdom living.

We know that before that, the message of John the Baptist was, Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And Jesus had the same message in verse 4. He was teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

And so I believe here in this message, this is a message of kingdom living. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So there's this behavior, and then there's the consequence of the behavior.

There's a blessing, and then there's also this, would you say, warning of living distinctly from the world. There's this understanding that there's going to be some troubles and problems, difficulties.

You look at verse 10, blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. There's just the kingdom of heaven. There you have the blessing, but what comes with it is the consequence of living righteously, living according to how Christ would have us to live.

And so this is about kingdom living. And then, hey John, hope you're doing well. Then you come to verses 13 through 16. Staying in the context, staying in this chapter, and what's being talked about, we have this kingdom living idea with the consequences, good and bad.

And then Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth. And then in verse 14, you are the light of the world. In the last video where we talked about this, we discussed how if Jesus is talking about the earth and the world, and that we are his salt, we are his light, then he loves the world that he created, and he has a purpose for it.

I thought about this analogy today. If we have a fruit, a fruit or a vegetable, let me get this thing out of the way. Maybe I'll stop doing that. If we have a fruit or a vegetable that has been sitting out for a very long time, it begins to rotten.

It shows bruises, and it starts to wither. It has worms. What do we do with it? We don't recommend to somebody that they preserve it and try to revive it. It just doesn't happen. What do we do with it?

We throw it out. It's meant for destruction because it's no good to us anymore. I do not know what's going on with this camera here. Let me try that. Hopefully that will work. All right. So, yeah, we throw it out.

It's no good to us. We discard it. And so we've got to think about our theology, what we understand, what God tells us about his world, his creation, and make sure our theology and our understanding matches up with what God tells us that his plans are, what he feels about his creation, about his world.

And I think there's a theology out there that would tell us that this world is primed for destruction, that God is going to destroy the world. But that's overall, and I know that there's verses that talk about, you know, fire.

You had the flood. You had the fire to come. We have that. But the overall context of Scripture, we have this idea that God loves his creation, he loves his world, and he loves the people in this world.

And so we as believers, those who come to Christ in repentance of faith, those who Jesus is speaking to, that he is exhorting them to live this way, he says, you are the salt of the earth, the preserver of this earth.

You are the one to give this world its good taste. You are the light of the world, that you're to be shining into the world, into this world of darkness. And so he is preserving this world. He has a purpose, a meaning for this world and the people of it, because he created it and he loves it.

And that's the message that he's sharing with us. Now, with that context in mind, it leads us into, without a breath, it leads us into Jesus' next statements. And even if you go verse by verse in teaching or preaching, you can't do a whole book verse by verse in one sitting.

You do have to break it up. That's why we need to be reminded of the context. But it's definitely dangerous to do a lesson or a sermon out of a particular passage and then skip to a completely different topic and book.

And then maybe two years later, kind of come back to that area. We miss the greater context and understanding. So with that in mind, of us being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, listen to verse 16.

Let your light shine before me in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. So what is our light? We get a hint there. It's our good works. Our good works is our light that is to shine before me so that they may glorify God in heaven.

And then we get to our next verse, our passage for tonight. Do not think that I came to abolish what? The law. I did not come to abolish the law. How do we know what good works are? How do we know what righteousness is?

We know what unrighteousness is. We know that sin is transgression of the law, so we know what sin is. And if it's transgression of the law, what is righteousness? Righteousness is fulfilling the law.

It's living according to the law. It's obedience to the law. And Jesus says, I did not come to abolish the law. So our light, our salt, our good works that people are to see, and then therefore glorify God in heaven.

In the context, Jesus says, is obedience to the commands of God. I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. And what I was hitting at earlier is the under emphasized parts of this verse.

I think the. In this particular, we often highlight the I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. So we talk about Jesus fulfilling the law, and somehow we get this impression that there's a there's a line drawn there.

That Jesus has fulfilled the law. Therefore, it's null and void. It's over. It has no purpose. It's we don't need to emphasize the law anymore. We're saved by grace, not by works, of course. But what is it that works accomplish?

Jesus has a purpose for our good works, our obedience to the commands of God. It's for us to be the light that people may see our good works, glorify our father who is in heaven. And, of course, we could fulfill the law.

So Jesus had to do that for us so that we may be right before God in order to give us a new heart, new spirit or a right spirit within us. A new heart, a heart of flesh, a heart that God has now written his law into.

We know that from Scripture. So he doesn't he doesn't get rid of the law. He he now writes it on our hearts, those who have the spirit of God within them. So that we can now do that, which is pleasing to God, where we couldn't before.

We look at kind of on that note. If you look at Psalm 119, Psalm 119, verse 126, we see a hint at and this scripture may have been in mind when Jesus was was giving this message. We see in Psalm 119, verse 126.

It is time for the Lord to act for they have broken the law. Other versions say that they have made they have made your law void. So the route that the people that are referred to here, the Pharisees, the Israel, the nation of Israel, the Pharisees, they have made the law of God void.

And so now it is time for the Lord to act. It's nothing that that we can do to to reclaim or accomplish. And they and they had made God's law void. And Jesus came to to fulfill it. And that's what we see here in verse 17, because they had made it void.

You know, John the Baptist came fulfilling prophecy, making the past straight, lowering the mountains, raising the valleys, making the plains and the rough places smooth. And that's what Jesus came to do as well.

Make the make the past straight again. They had made them void. But Jesus came to make the past straight to to fulfill the law and make a way for us to be able to. Good evening, Tim. OK, sorry about that.

How is it now? How was the echo now? May have been adjustment that I made to the microphone. That'd be sad if I went this long with with a bad echo. So I thank you for telling me, letting me know. So, yeah, praise the Lord for Christ who came to to fulfill the law, which had been made void.

And and it's not. And that's interesting. It's interesting to think about how we don't we're not concerned with the law anymore. We put it on the back burner. We don't emphasize it. We don't we don't understand the law in our New Testament context.

And so we just we avoid that conversation. We avoid that study because it may be a difficult one to tackle. And we think because we're under grace now, we don't the law is not relevant to us anymore because we're under grace.

We're not saved by works. However, here here's the interesting thought. It was they, according to someone, what I think that made the law void. But Jesus came to reclaim it and fulfill it and then give us a new heart that we may be obedient to God's commands where we were unable to before.

So we need to reclaim the importance of God's law, God's commands in our own hearts and our lives. And in our churches, so that we can we can be obedient to Jesus here and understand that we are the salt and we are the light because we are obedient to his commands.

Yes, we understand that the gospel is is the light evangelism is sharing the light. But I think that's that is probably the the extent of where our understanding reaches that we are being the light of the world if we are being evangelist.

And a lot of times we we fell miserably at that as well, being evangelist, sharing the gospel. But we think that that is accomplishing this this verse, verses 13 through 16, being the salt of the earth, the light of the world.

So therefore, we must share the gospel. And that, again, is what's so dangerous about chopping up God's word and reading a little bit here, reading a little bit there, doing a lesson here, doing a sermon here and not going verse by verse because we take it out of context.

So if we if we took verses 13 through 15 on their own, and then 17 through 20 on their own, we would miss the context. And we would continue to think that being the salt, being the light is being evangelistic.

But here in the context, being the salt and being the light is being obedient to the commands of God. And we need to reclaim that in our hearts, our lives and our churches. Let's move forward verse 18.

Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law until it is accomplished. Until what's accomplished? The law and the prophets. So what do we mean by that?

It's not void. Jesus says it is not void. The law or the prophets are not void. They are relevant and they are going to continue to be relevant until all is accomplished. Not just one part, not just the law, not just the prophets, but until all is accomplished.

And so what does that look like from a prophecy standpoint? I would like for you to listen to Isaiah chapter 2. We're going to start in verse 2 and just listen to a few verses in here to listen to what that sounds like from a prophetic standpoint.

And that it's not void, but relevant. And what that looks like in God's economy, in fulfilling prophecy and what God's doing here on this earth. Starting in verse 2. Now it will come about that in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains and will be raised above the hills and all the nations will stream to it.

So that's what's going to be going on. Please don't miss this description of what God is doing when he raises the mountain of the house of the Lord and establishes his chief as the chief of the mountains, which we know is Jesus, right?

All the nations will stream to it. This is what we are to be looking for as time moves on. Verse 3. And many peoples will come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us concerning what?

His ways and that we may walk in his paths. For the law will go forth from Zion. What goes forth from Zion? The law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he will judge between the nations and render decisions for many peoples and they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not lift up sword against nation and never again will they learn war. Why is that what we were to be looking for? How else does that fit the text that we're looking at? We are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.

God loves his creation and he is using his people to preserve the earth and to bring light into darkness. So we know that he loves his creation. He loves his people and he is doing something. There's a meaning and there's a purpose.

What's that meaning and purpose? We go back to Isaiah, Isaiah chapter two, that when he raises up the mountain, the house of the Lord becomes the chief mountain. Everyone will begin to start streaming to this nation.

Do we see all this happening at once in an instant? No, that's not how God describes in his word how the kingdom will advance. It will be like a mustard seed. It will be like leaven. It will be a slow process.

But this is what we are to be looking for. And it gives relevance to the idea that we are preserving the earth with the light of the world. There's a meaning, a purpose to it in our lives. Your life has purpose and meaning.

And it's a part of this kingdom building. And we're working toward this point as Isaiah describes in his prophecy. Verse 19, whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and so teaches others shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Here's the kingdom and there's a kingdom economy. And why would Jesus say that if you annul one of the least of the commandments and teach others to do the same, if the laws aren't important, if the commands of God are not important, why would he teach that?

He teaches it because they are important. They are important to his people in order to fulfill the salt and light, bringing light into darkness. Let's turn to one more place in Isaiah chapter 42. What is Jesus doing, showing us the importance of fulfilling the law, reclaiming the law, and then us being obedient to God, being the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

What is he doing through us in fulfilling this prophecy and growing his kingdom as a mustard seed, as leaven, of course. But what is he doing? And we see what the Messiah is doing in this prophecy in Isaiah chapter 42.

Behold, my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise his voice, nor make his voice heard in the street.

A bruised reed he will not break, a dimly burning wick he will not extinguish. And I'll stop right there just for a second. When we emphasize the law, when we as Christians turn our head back towards the law and try to reclaim obedience to God through his commands, there becomes this hardness as a response from even in our hearts or those to whom we may be speaking about God's law.

And it has to do with the difficulties of the commands themselves and in applying them to us as New Testament believers. But here we're told about what Jesus is doing and how he relates to us as believers and as people here in this world.

He is bringing justice. That means he's going to be making things right. He's going to be doing what's right. And as he is establishing his kingdom, we think about the harshness of the law, the difficulty in applying the law.

But listen to the justice that the Messiah will bring in his kingdom. A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not extinguish. Jesus has loving kindness. Jesus has patience. So there's not this idea of enemies of the gospel, enemies of the Old Testament, enemies of the New Testament, but the enemies of God and Christianity in general.

They want to talk about how God is a tyrant. God is hateful and unloving. And the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament. And so he's this strict God. But no, he's the same God. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And this is how he deals with his people. He will not break a bruised reed. Those who are coming to God, those who are weak and heavy laden, those who may be young in the faith, those who may be stumbling in the faith or having difficulty, he will not extinguish their light.

He will be patient with them and show them his loving kindness, his mercy, and his grace. This is Jesus bringing justice to the earth and how he does that. He does that with his loving kindness and with his patience.

Now, moving on to verse 4. He will not be disheartened or crushed. This movement of the Messiah is moving forward. And we look at all the seemingly setbacks. We look at all the difficulties, the wars, the enemies of God.

But our Messiah, our King, it says he will not be disheartened or crushed until he has established what? Justice. Where? In the earth. Here we have this prophecy of the Messiah establishing justice, God's commands, what's right, and making things right in the earth.

So much so, the end of verse 4 says, and the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law. They are waiting expectantly for his law. What is that a picture of? The kingdom moving out and going out and growing and moving forward.

And the coastlands are waiting for this feeling. It's starting here and it's moving out. And the coastlands are just waiting patiently for Jesus to be establishing justice in the whole earth. That's why we are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.

We are part of this kingdom building, this kingdom growth that Jesus is working on this planet. And it's exciting to be a part of it. So we see our God, our Messiah, establishing justice on the earth.

Not to be destroyed. But we have a purpose and our world has a purpose and a meaning. And we get to see that fulfilled and we get to see God use us to fulfill that kingdom. One more comment I wanted to make as we transition into our last verse, verse 20.

As we talked about how many see the harshness of the commands of the law, the punishments for breaking some of the commands of the law. They come across to us very harshly. And enemies of the cross, enemies of the gospel say, well, are you going to kill as a punishment those who break this commandment?

Are you going to kill this person? Are you going to kill that person for breaking that particular commandment? We'll get those type of attacks. But we've talked about how Jesus is loving, His patient, His grace, and He has mercy.

And we see that He came and He fulfilled the law, the demands of the law that we couldn't fulfill. So therefore, if Jesus has fulfilled the demands of the law, fulfilled justice and made things right with God, those that are in Him are forgiven.

Their punishment for breaking those commands were paid on the cross when God killed Jesus for us breaking His commands. But those who continue to break His law, is it for us to fulfill those obligations of justice?

No. God will do that in His timing in eternity in justice. So when all is said and done, either our sins will be paid for on the cross in our forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ, or we will spend eternity paying for those broken commandments.

And that's where the justice will come into play and meet its final fruition. Now let's look at verse 20. He says, For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

These guys, they were well respected for their righteousness, for their law keeping. We look at them as the bad guys, but they were well respected at their time for being righteous. And his audience here, when Jesus says you must surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees to be able to enter in the kingdom of heaven like us, because we know the righteousness of the Pharisees, and they did as well, more so than we do, it blows our mind that our righteousness, we have to be perfect to enter in the kingdom of heaven, which we know that we can't do.

We can't be good enough, and we can't make up enough our disobedience to God's commands. So therefore, we have Jesus coming to fulfill the demands of God, the demands of his law. So how then does that translate into verse 20?

How can our righteousness surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees in relationship to Jesus fulfilling those demands, fulfilling the law? We have one more verse to look at, a very exciting verse, Philippians chapter 3 verse 9.

We should all write this down. We should all underline this one because it's so important to our faith. It's so encouraging to our soul. How do we surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees and the Sadducees so that we may enter into the kingdom of heaven?

Philippians 3 verse 9, and may be found in him not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

Those who are in Christ do have a righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees and Sadducees because it comes from God on the basis of faith through the work of Jesus Christ and his righteousness.

His righteousness is applied to our account. So now we have a righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees and Sadducees on the basis of our faith in Jesus Christ. And if you do not have faith in Jesus Christ, if you have not repented of your sins, but your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, please do that as soon as possible.

Tonight, before you go to sleep, tomorrow, before the next breath, before the next day, repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and God will give you his righteousness so that you may have a righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees and Sadducees, that you may enter the kingdom of God.

And if you are a believer, if you do have his righteousness, be excited about the commands of God. Be excited about being obedient to God and applying his law rightly because we are the salt of the earth.

We're the light of the world. He is growing his kingdom. He is drawing nations to himself. The law is going out from Zion, and he is working on this planet that the justice is going to reach the coastlands and nations are going to turn their swords into plowshares, and there's going to be peace.

There's going to be hope in Christ, and Christ is going to fill this world because Adam didn't do it. Noah didn't do it. Moses didn't do it. Abraham didn't do it. All of our forefathers were given the command to fill the earth, but they couldn't do it, and they didn't do it.

They all failed. The only one that succeeded was Jesus and is going to be Jesus. So we can rely on him and trust in him and have joy in what he is doing despite what is going on in our world. Do you remember what Isaiah said?

He will not be disheartened or crushed, and we can have the attitude of our Savior as well because we trust in his victory. So we don't have to be disheartened or crushed. He will wipe away every tear, and he is doing that now.

He is doing that now because he is working in us a peace that passes all understanding, a hope that doesn't have to be discouraged or crushed because Jesus has the victory. I hope that was encouraging to you.

If it was, please pray for the ministry. If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them. Send me a comment. If I can pray for you, let me know. I'd love to be able to do that. Let me pray for us as we close.

Father, we thank you for this time together. Thank you for your word, and thank you for using us all for your kingdom and your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Tim. I really appreciate that. Another Tim, Tim Langley, he says, I have to go.

When is the next one? Tim, I attempt, this is not my primary means of income. This is just a ministry that I attempt to do. I attempt to be on Tuesday nights, and I attempt to be right now on Sunday nights with a brother named Dan.

That's our goal is to be on Tuesday nights and Sunday nights. So catch us then. Go back and look at some of our other videos. I hope you'll be encouraged with them. And we try to be on as consistently as possible, and we'll continue to try to do that.

If I miss, it's because of sickness or busyness or work, just like you all experienced. But thank you for the encouragement. Thank you for spending time with me. And please share and like and heart so that we can work together in getting the gospel, the word of God, out into our community.

Hope you guys have a good night. Remember that Jesus is King. Go live in that victory. Speak with the victory of Christ. Live in the victory of Christ and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with your community and loved ones.

Hope to see you soon.