A Righteousness That Exceeds the Pharisees’

The Gospel Reading and the Warning of Matthew 5:13-20

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to.

St. Matthew, the fifth chapter. Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. All right, hear these words.

Why Self-Righteousness Cannot Save

You better brace yourself. This is not going to be easy. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Thus saith the Lord. How are you guys doing?

Anyone close? Note here, I'm going to point this out, that the scribes and the Pharisees are not the standard. Now, if you think back to your Old Testament and you think back, well, actually, the Old Testament, if you think to the gospels, the Pharisees, these are righteous dudes.

Righteous. I mean, I think about the one guy praying in the temple, I thank you, Lord, that I am not like sinners, like tax collectors and other people. In fact, I tithe all the way down to the herbs in my garden.

Any of you guys who grow gardens and vegetables, do you guys tithe? I haven't seen any vegetable offerings up here. I haven't seen any cilantro or anything like that. What's wrong with you people? Don't you understand unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

And we hear things like this. We hear Jesus' voice here saying this, and we think we've got to get busy. We better start being intentional, you know, obeying. I mean, when I was well, a Nazarene, I read these words of Christ from our gospel text, do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets.

I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. I heard that as basically Jesus saying, listen, you knuckleheads haven't figured out how to obey me yet, so I'm going to come down here. I'm going to keep this perfectly, and I'm going to give you an example that you can follow so that you can finally get your act together and do this too.

And then just grab a what would Jesus do bracelet, and you're well on your way to exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. I mean, everybody knows, you know what this means, right?

Time to get rid of the booze. Yeah, better pour that stuff down the drain. If you're smoking, well, forget it. Put those cigarettes in the trash. Don't even talk about cigars. Oh, and listen, stop listening to Metallica, to Van Halen, and start listening to Amy Grant and Petra, or maybe Hillsong and Bethel, right?

Everybody knows this is what this means. Oh, and you better cut up your credit cards. You can't have those either. And you had better just start towing the line. Or how do they say it today? You need to lean into it.

You need to be intentional. You better start obeying because, well, the Pharisees and the scribes, they're not the standard. You have to exceed their righteousness. What will this do? It'll create atheists.

Because at the end of that line, at the end of that line, you're going to be screaming out to God, God, what do I need to do to make you happy? How do I know if my righteousness has exceeded that of the scribes and the Pharisees?

And by the way, if you're honest with yourself, and that's a big if, you're going to keep looking at God's law and go, yeah, there's a problem here. Let's just do a little bit of a review. You shall have no other gods, the first commandment says.

And what is a god? It's the thing you turn to in times of trouble, the thing you trust in. A god doesn't have to be something that you bow down to. A god can be something that, well, that you use to comfort yourself and to assuage your anxieties.

It could be Netflix. It could be Minecraft. It could be, name the thing. It could be that. And then we don't even want to talk about not taking the Lord's name in vain and then remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

And then how about honoring your father and mother, which by the way does mean your boss as well. So every time you gossip about your boss and talk about what a lousy, dirty, rotten bag of poop he is, you're not honoring.

You're not keeping the fourth commandment. Then we can talk about murder and adultery, stealing, slander and gossip. Oh, and then coveting. Yeah, we Americans are good at that one. And so when we just look at the standard, how are you guys measuring up?

How's your righteousness looking? I always like it when somebody sits there and goes, I've figured it out. I've figured it out. I know how to do it. I've written a book. Just follow my five easy steps and you too can have righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees.

It's a New York Times bestseller. They're selling you something, right? So now we're kind of stuck. Alright? I'm going to make this very clear. This is an absolute standard. Absolute. If your righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not be saved.

You have no hope. So how are you going to accomplish this? How are you going to make it so that your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees? Well, consider what Romans chapter 9 verse 30 all the way through Romans chapter 10 verse 4.

And yes, if you have a Bible, it would be a good idea to follow along. Consider that the context of this portion of the book of Romans, one that we Lutherans don't really frequent very often, is actually quite helpful here.

Have you ever thought for a second, how is it that people who today are Jewish, they do their best to keep the commands of the Old Testament. How is it that they're not saved? I mean, these are people who also know that you cannot have another God.

They believe that lying is a sin. They believe that adultery is a sin. These are people who apply themselves to the Old Testament commandments and yet the Apostle Paul in Romans makes it clear that they're not saved.

And listen as he's kind of talking about this, musing about it, and well, lamenting it in some ways. He says, so what shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, they have attained it.

Wait, what? You know, the bacon eaters. The people who wouldn't know how to keep kosher or a Sabbath or have never kept a Passover. Those people who didn't even try, didn't even pursue it, they have attained righteousness.

How is it possible? That is, a righteousness that is by what? Faith. So note, kind of two routes if you want to take them. So you come to the fork in the road and the fork in the road, you know, both say that they're going to lead to righteousness.

You can go the route of the law and good works and law keeping or you can go a different route and it's not a very well-trod path. It's a narrow one. And it says the righteousness that is by faith. What does that mean?

Note then, he says, Israel, the Jews, they pursued a law that would lead to righteousness and they did not succeed in reaching that. They didn't succeed. Why, Paul asks. Because they did not pursue it by faith but as if it were based on works.

That's the reason. Because they tried to attain and succeed at righteousness by their own striving, by their own obedience, by their own good works and they didn't succeed. They have then therefore stumbled over the stumbling stone as it is written behold I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of fence and whoever believes in him, Jesus, will not be put to shame.

And then he says this, brothers, my heart's desire, my prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

And see, that's the issue. If you're going to try to achieve righteousness by works, by obedience, you ain't going to make it because you're trying to establish your own. And then listen to verse 4, one of the most important sentences in all of Scripture.

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. The end. He's the end of the law for righteousness. So if you're trying to attain a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, Christ is the end of the law for that.

You won't make it. You will not succeed. Your righteousness will fall woefully short and you will not see the kingdom of heaven. Now consider this helpful thing, that the Apostle Paul happened to be a Pharisee.

He was before he became a Christian, before Christ knocked him down and blinded him and then sent somebody to baptize him and to wash away his sins. He was the most strident and ardent Pharisee out there.

If anybody could be saved by being a Pharisee, it would have been the Apostle Paul. And he talks about his own righteousness via the law for us in the book of Philippians chapter 3. One of my favorite passages.

We'll start in verse 2. And I love starting in verse 2. We'll talk about this. So Paul in Philippians, which people say is the epistle of joy. I always find that fascinating how they boil it down. You want to know what Philippians is about?

It's about joy. Okay, sure. That's what you want to believe. Watch verse 2 of chapter 3. Look out for the dogs. Look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh. Yeah, that's what Paul said about the Judaizers.

Those who had come into the church and said, listen, you Gentile believers, we know that Paul planted this church. But listen, he's not really an Apostle. Come on. He wasn't there when Jesus walked on the water.

He wasn't there when Jesus gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and cast out the demons and preached that wonderful sermon on the mouth. He wasn't there at all. How could he really be an Apostle?

And so because he missed so many of the meetings, he forgot to tell you about the fact that you men, in order to be saved, there's this slight cosmetic procedure that we're going to have to have performed on you.

So let us introduce you to the flint knife. Don't worry. You'll be sore only for about 5 or 6 days. Be sure to wash your hands, otherwise you'll get an infection. But this is required in order for you to be saved.

So note Paul here, talking about those guys, says they are dogs and they are evildoers and they are mutilators of the flesh. Sounds the way Trump talks about Pelosi and the Democrats. Is that appropriate for an Apostle?

Well, it's there in Scripture. Okay. And then he says this, we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and we glory in Christ Jesus and we put no confidence in the flesh. And then he says this, though I myself, I have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, well listen, I have more reasons. And then he gives his Pharisaical pedigree. And it's a wonderful pedigree if you think about it. He was circumcised on the 8th day of the people of Israel, check, of the tribe of Benjamin, check, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness.

Under the Torah, blameless.

But remember, Jesus said, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees, exceeds that of the Pharisees. Is this enough righteousness for Paul to be saved? No, not according to Christ. So then watch what comes next.

Whatever gain I had, I counted as a loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I suffer the loss of all things, and I count them as.

Again, we've stumbled on this word from time to time. Rubbish is a little light. It's the word skubalon in the Greek. It's when your neighbor's dog leaves you a present on, you get the idea. It's a freshie on your lawn.

That's what this is. So I consider all of them, all of his righteousness under the Torah as a Pharisee, he considers it to be a freshie, so that I might gain Christ and then listen to the next verse, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law.

That sounds to me like the righteousness that is necessary to be saved. This sounds to me like the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees. And notice that Paul says this isn't a righteousness of his own.

So where did he get it? The righteousness that is through faith, the righteousness that is from God, that depends on faith. In other words, what Christ is demanding from us, Christ demands that each and every one of us have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees and what Christ is demanding from us, he is gratuitously and freely giving to us as a gift.

And this makes sense, because if you think about it, what was Jesus doing on the cross? He was bleeding and dying for your sins. How is that possible? Because God laid on him the iniquity of us all. God laid on Christ, laid on the Son of God our iniquity, our unrighteousness, and made Jesus to be the sinner.

What sin did Jesus commit? Can you think of one? I can't think of a single sin that Jesus committed. And yet he died an ignominious death. Why? Because he bled for your sins, because he bled for mine.

And so our unrighteousness was given to Jesus. He was given an unrighteousness that was not his own, so that we who are in Christ may be given a righteousness that is not our own. It is the diakosune theou.

It is the righteousness of God given as a gift. In fact, that's what Paul says earlier in Romans, in Romans 3 verse 21, he says this, but now the righteousness of God, and it is God's righteousness, it has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets they bear witness to it.

This is the righteousness of God that is through faith in Jesus Christ, and most important word in that sentence,.

For, for all.

Who believe. You believe in Christ, you trust in him for the forgiveness of your salvation. God has given you this righteousness. It is for you. You see, there's no distinction. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and they are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

God put Jesus forward as an atoning sacrifice, so that by his blood, this righteousness is received by faith. And this was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the former sins, and 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.

The Gift of Christ’s Righteousness

So if you are saved because God has given you a righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees as a gift, do you have anything to boast about? One of the terrible things I've noticed about those who try to establish a righteousness of their own within the visible church is they have this really awful tendency to look down on everybody else that isn't as holy as they are.

Well, I've got my act together. How come you haven't? You can't possibly be saved because you're just not trying hard enough like I am, right? They're trying to establish a righteousness of their own.

But you'll note that the righteousness that we receive is given to us as a gift, so boasting that's completely ruled out. I got the same gift you got. You got the same gift y 'all got. You didn't do anything to earn it.

God just gave it to you out of his pure love and mercy and grace. So there's no boasting. And so Paul says boasting's excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No! By the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified, declared righteous by God, by faith, apart from works of the law.

Full stop. So here again the words of our Lord. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And so brothers and sisters, I have great news for you today.

Christ has bled and died for all of your sins and he gives you and has given you his righteousness as a gift. You now presently have and possess a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees because you have been given by God the righteousness of Christ.

Therefore, you will enter the kingdom of heaven and you will stand before the King of kings and Lord of lords and he will say to you, well done, good and faithful servant, because you do not have a righteousness of your own.

You are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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