As we continue in our ongoing study of the Sermon on the Mount, we are now in the middle of an exposition which Jesus is giving concerning the law.  Jesus has said that rather than diminishing the law, or abolishing the law, He has actually come to accomplish it and fulfill it.  And in regards to our responsibility to the law, He has said that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees then we cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

So to that point, in regards to how we must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, He gives six illustrations of the law, in which He contrasts the teaching of the Pharisees with His own teaching, which of course is the intent of the law from God’s perspective. 

Last week, we looked at the second law which Jesus interpreted, which is the law concerning adultery. And  closely related to adultery is the next law which Jesus expounds upon, which is the law concerning divorce.  And we will also look at the one which follows divorce, which is the law concerning  vows, which, of course, is closely related to divorce. 

I want to say by way of introduction, that this teaching concerning divorce is not one that many preachers want to deal with in today’s culture.  If the statistics concerning divorce are correct, then even within the church the divorce rate is about 50%.  So at the very outset, I risk offending half of the people here today.  

But the fact that we preach through the Bible verse by verse, expositionally, means that sooner or later we will get to all the doctrines in the Bible, whether they are popular topics or not.  If I were interested in being popular, I would probably find a way to avoid having to speak on this topic.  But if we are to be true to the teaching of Christ, then we must deal with this subject.  I will say this in my defense however, the teaching that you hear today is the teaching of Jesus Christ.  It is not my teaching. My job is not to correct Jesus or reinterpret what He said.  I am going to tell you to the best of my ability exactly what Jesus taught.  So if you have an issue with the subject matter today, then I urge you to take it up with Him, not me.  I’m just the messenger.

Now as I have said previously, Jesus is not disputing the law of Moses, but rather the interpretation of the Pharisees in regards to these laws.  Let’s read again what Jesus is saying. Vs. 31 “It was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’;  but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for [the] reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”  So first Jesus says what the Pharisees were teaching concerning divorce, and then He contrasts it with His interpretation. 

Now we know that Jesus was accusing the Pharisees of misinterpreting the law, but perhaps it would be helpful for us to review the law of divorce as Moses gave it.  In Deut.  24:1-4 Moses said, “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts [it] in her hand and sends her out from his house,  and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s [wife,]  and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts [it] in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife,  [then] her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.”

The purpose then of this injunction was to regulate divorce.  The situation in Israel had become one in which men were divorcing for all kinds of reasons, even because the wife may have  burned their breakfast.  They could get a divorce because the wife burned their toast. And in that society, women didn’t have a lot of rights, nor did they have a lot of options.  And so the injunction of Moses was so that there would be some order restored to the sanctity of marriage, and also to provide some protection for the women who were being treated unfairly.

So the law limited divorce to only those cases in which there was some sort of unfaithfulness. He spoke of something he calls uncleanness or indecency.  It means  a moral defect.  It also required that she be given a certificate of divorce, upon the testimony of two witnesses.  So the law made divorce a legal matter, and a very serious one.  It was given to reduce the trivial reasons for divorce which had become the norm in society. 

Another thing that is indicated in the law was that a man who had given a writ of divorce is not allowed to marry her again, if she had been remarried and divorced since their original marriage.  Again, the purpose of the law was to limit the type of divorce that was so commonplace in that society, and to make them realize that it wasn’t something to just wander in and out of, but it’s a permanent thing. So that’s the law of Moses.

Now consider what the Pharisees said.  They taught that Moses commanded a man to divorce his wife under certain conditions. But that was not what Moses had said.  Moses had put certain restrictions and limitations on divorce, but he had never commanded it.  Furthermore, they took the word “uncleanness” and applied it to all kinds of things that were never intended in the original law. The main thing the Pharisees were concerned about was giving the writ of divorce.  They were only interested in the fact that if you wanted a divorce, you had to give the wife a certificate of divorce.  They weren’t interested in the reasons for it, just accommodating it.

So what does Jesus say in regards to divorce?  Jesus says, “but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”  He gives them God’s intention concerning divorce.  Jesus says that there is only one legitimate reason for divorce and that is sexual immorality.  All the other hosts of reasons that were popular were against the law of God, and furthermore to divorce on other grounds did not annul the marriage at all in the eyes of God.  In God’s eyes, they were still married, regardless of what the writ of divorce might say.  So then Jesus says an illegitimate divorce gives place to adultery because God doesn’t recognize the divorce.  It is possible for a person to have a divorce that is recognized by the state, but not by God. If that person goes on to marry someone else, God considers that relationship adultery because He sees them as still married.

Listen, what that teaches us is that marriage is a sacred contract between the two people and God. Whether or not the state recognizes it, or even defines it is irrelevant in the eyes of God. Marriage is determined by God and authored by God and is entered into as a vow unto God, which is binding as long as they shall live.  The only exception is that of immorality, and even that is not commanded by God.  God permits it, but does not command it.

Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 19 and let’s look at another time when Jesus answered this question concerning divorce and I think you will see there the heart of God concerning this matter.  Matt. 19:3-9 “Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful [for a man] to divorce his wife for any reason at all?”  And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created [them] from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,  and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND [her] AWAY?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

First of all, notice that Jesus clearly defines marriage as the union of a man and his wife, male and female.  That’s God’s definition of marriage.  Secondly, Jesus said, What God has joined together, let no man separate. So marriage is a sacred union and a covenant between God and man.  And if you break that covenant between male and female, you still have the covenant with God to deal with.

Listen, why does the Lord care so much about marriage?  Why does God hold us to such a high standard in regards to marriage? It’s because marriage is a symbol of God’s relationship to us.  Paul said in 2 Cor. 11:2 that he betrothed us to one husband, who is Jesus Christ. The church, that is the people that are born again, that have entered into the kingdom of heaven, are described in scripture as the bride of Christ. Our reunion with the Lord at His coming is described as the bridgroom coming for His bride.  The consummation of the kingdom at His second coming is called the marriage supper of the Lamb.  So in our salvation  we have become one flesh with the Lord.  He has entered into us. We have committed our life to Him, and He has committed His life to us.  And God will never divorce us.  

In Malachi 2:16 God says, “For I hate divorce.”  The Lord said numerous times in scripture, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  He will never forget His covenant with us.  2Timothy 2:13 says, even “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” 

Now this standard of God in regards to marriage is applied to us, that we might be like God. That is the purpose of our sanctification, to become remade in the image of Christ, to mirror the nature and character of God.  And that is the intent of the law, that we might know the nature of God so that we might be like Him.

The purpose of the law is that we might be holy, even as He is holy. It is to raise our level of love to the standard which God has for us; a sacrificial, unwavering love, a love rooted in forgiveness and long-suffering.  A love that never fails. And so rather than diminish that law as the Pharisees had done, Jesus raises the standard of marriage to the standard of God.

Then building upon that law regarding divorce, which is really a law pertaining to marriage, Jesus then restates God’s law concerning oaths. I think that it especially applies to the vows of marriage, but it also has a much broader application as we will see.  Let’s consider again what Jesus says in vs 33, “Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.’  “But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,  or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING.  “Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. “But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ [or] ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.”

Now if we use the same formula as in the preceding exposition of the law, then we would first ask, what did the law of Moses say?  Well, the 10 commandments does not state this explicitly.  What it does say is that “you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”  That certainly applies to the taking of an oath, if you are using God’s name as a guarantee of your word. There is another reference however, which is found in Leviticus 19:12, which says, “You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the LORD.  So out of these two commands the Pharisees had extracted their teaching which was “YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.”

So what had evolved out of this teaching of the Pharisees was that they supposed that as long as they did not swear by the Lord, they could still swear, but swear by things of less importance. They had reduced the law of God to just the matter of perjury.  As long as you didn’t perjure yourself, then you were fine.  They could swear by heaven, or by the temple, or anything that they thought gave their word weightiness.  But the other aspect of this practice, was that they attributed more weight to one oath above another.  If they swore by the temple, then that was not really binding.  If you swore by the altar in the temple  it was not binding, but if you swore by the sacrifice on the altar then you were absolutely bound.  And so out of this interpretation of the law they had come up with a sliding scale in regards to truthfulness and making oaths.

Now how did the Lord contrast the correct teaching of the law?  Notice He says, “but I say to you.”  He is the authority, He is the law giver. And He says, “But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,  or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING.  “Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. “But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ [or] ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.”

Some people have taken this injunction of the Lord quite legalistically to the point that they do not feel that they can take an oath at all.  For instance, in a court of law they cannot make an oath.  But if we examine the Bible, we find many examples in which oaths were taken and there was no rebuke from the Lord.  For instance, Abraham extracted an oath from his servant when he went to find Isaac a wife. Jacob extracted an oath from Joseph, and Joseph from his brothers. Jonathan asked an oath from David.

One of the best examples is one which we looked at last Wednesday in our Bible study.  The Gibeonites came to the nation of Israel under false pretenses, having disguised themselves as coming from a far country because they knew that God had prohibited the Jews from making alliances with the Canaanites.  So they came under disguise and after hearing them out, the Israelites decided to make an alliance with them. Joshua 9:15 says, “Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live; and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them.”

When after three days they found out that they had been deceived, the Israelites still kept their oath.  In fact, later when the Gibeonites were being attacked by the Canaanites, they sent word to Israel and asked for help.  And Joshua and the leaders of Israel came to their defense because of not only their oath to them, but the spirit of the oath. And God blessed their commitment to that oath.  They could have let them be attacked and perhaps gotten the burden of them off their backs and been free from the oath.  But because they understood the principle behind the oath, they went to their defense.

There are New Testament examples of oaths as well.  It might be argued that Jesus responded to an oath by answering the high priest at His trial. He responded when He was adjured by God to answer whether or not He was the Christ.  He did not rebuke the high priest, but He answered him in the affirmative.  And Paul on a couple of occasions gave an oath, in Romans 9:1 he says, “I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not.” And again in 2 Cor. 1:23, “ I call God to witness for my soul…”  

Another example is given in Hebrews 6:16, this time speaking of God HImself taking an oath. “In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.”

The conclusion that we can draw from this is that oath taking should be restricted, realizing that all oaths are binding, all promises are binding, and that while the need for oaths should be rare, there are times when a solemn oath is not only legitimate, but lends an authority which nothing else can give.  And Jesus clearly teaches that oaths that are given in such a way that  they are not intended to be binding, are really a form of lying.  He teaches that speaking the truth is always a solemn matter and a necessity before men and God.

One of the greatest tragedies in modern society is the breaking of oaths in regards to marriage.  As I said at the beginning of the message, the law of divorce is closely related to the law of oaths, and I believe the Lord deliberately placed them next to one another in His message.  Marriage is a sacred covenant between God and a man and woman.  And the fact that people today so casually break these oaths is a matter of grave concern to God, and it has grave repercussions to His people.  I gave the Gibeonites as an example while ago of a people who came under false pretenses and made a covenant with Israel.  Israel could have tried to use the excuse that they had made a mistake in making a covenant with them.  They could have used the excuse that it was made under false pretenses.  But two wrongs do not make a right.  Even thought that was true, they still considered their oath as binding, even to the point of going to war to keep not just the letter of the oath, but the spirit of the oath.  

And God gave the Israelites a great victory because they kept their word.  God puts a high value on keeping oaths, and He will hold us accountable when we break them.  Many years after this event, King Saul acted unfaithfully towards the Gibeonites.  He had put some of them to death in his zeal for Israel.  Though his zeal for Israel was a good thing, yet God punished Israel for Saul breaking their oath to them to protect them.  It happened many years later after Saul’s death, during the reign of King David. God sent a famine in the land, and it lasted for three years.  David finally came to God and asked why He was sending a famine upon them.  And God answered in 2Samuel 21:1″It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”  

The point I want to make is this.  The fact that you may have broken your vows, whatever they may be, might have resulted in you having a famine in your life.  David had to go to the Gibeonites and make things right with them.  It wasn’t an easy thing to do.  It required a great sacrifice to set things right.  And that might be what God requires of you concerning your vows.  Some things you cannot undo.  But you can still repent and try to make things right.  

Listen, if you are a Christian today then you are the children of God, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.  If we have been born again then we have become partakers of His divine nature.  We are to conduct ourselves with fear on the earth, lest we sully the name of Christ. Peter said in 1Peter 1:17-19 “If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay [on earth;]  knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,  but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, [the blood] of Christ.”

God sees our hearts, He hears every word we speak, every promise we make. He witnesses every action that we do. Let us be obedient even as Christ was obedient, let us love even as God loves, and let our conversation be true even as God is true.  Praise God that He keeps His promises.  Thank God that He will never divorce us.  Thank God that we can trust in His word and His enduring love for us.  

Listen, the law was given to be a tutor to show us our sinfulness and our need of a Savior.  I urge you today, if you have not been born again, to confess your sin to the Lord, and repent, and believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, that you might become one with Christ and receive His Spirit within you.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  The Lord has paid the price for your sin, and He extends His invitation to enter into His kingdom.  I pray that you will accept Him and trust Him as your Savior today.

As most of you are aware, we have been studying the Sermon on the Mount for a few months now.  And we have come to this particular passage today by the providence of God.  However, we must be careful to remember the context of the message, and not take this passage in isolation.  

The context of the Lord’s sermon is that He is presenting the Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus Christ is the Sovereign Lord of the Kingdom of God, in which He reigns on earth in the hearts and minds of His people.  And so far in His message Jesus has described the character and nature of His citizens, the effect of His kingdom upon the world, and the righteousness of His kingdom as defined by the law of God.

In particular, Jesus said that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees then you could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  That is a very significant statement, because the scribes and the Pharisees were considered the most righteous people in Judaism. They prided themselves on strict adherence to the law and being very religious.  And so not only was Jesus saying that they were not righteous enough to enter into His kingdom, but He says in effect that it is virtually impossible for anyone to enter it, if their zealousness was not enough.

So in His sermon, Jesus defines the standard of righteousness that is required, and in so doing  He gives several illustrations in regards to the law to show that the standard of the scribes and Pharisees, and thus the common man as well, is too low.  And He contrasts their interpretation of the law with His own.  We looked last time at the first illustration Jesus gave; the law concerning murder.  In essence Jesus said that simply to avoid the act of murder is not enough, but even if you harbor hatred in your heart then you are guilty enough of the sin of murder  to be thrown into hell.

Today, we have read the next illustration Jesus gives, and that is the sin of adultery. Jesus said in vs 27,”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 lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” 

If we were to make a simple outline of this passage we’re looking at today, we might do so in two points.  The first is the prognosis of sin. And the second point is the prescription for sin.  If you go to the doctor to complain of a pain in your body, something that causes you concern, the doctor will probably run some tests on you and then give you a prognosis.  A prognosis is simply the doctors’s diagnosis of what is ailing you.  And then, if they are a good doctor, hopefully they will give you a prescription that will cure your illness.  Jesus is saying something similar here, as our Great Physician, He has diagnosed our condition, He makes His prognosis, and then He offers a prescription that we might be healed. 

Let’s look then at His prognosis of sin.  Jesus says that the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees concerning the law of adultery was limited to the physical act itself.  They said that if you did not actually physically do the sin then you were not guilty of breaking the law, and therefore you were righteous. But Jesus’s interpretation of the law considers the spirit of the law, not just the letter, and as such He emphasizes the sinfulness of the heart. He says if you look upon a woman and lust after her then you are guilty of adultery in your heart.

They supposed that the purpose of the law was to merely avoid the act.  But as the  apostle Paul explained in Romans 7:13,  the purpose of the law is to show us the utter sinfulness of sin.  So the Pharisees had diminished the scope of the law to just the  physicality.  But Jesus expands the law, showing the full scope of sin in human nature.  

There was a lady once who came to our church for a time.  And one day she very pointedly told me that she had stopped going to her old church because the pastor preached too much about sin.  I understood what she was getting at.  She was hinting that if I kept preaching about sin then she would leave here also.  Well, I haven’t seen her around for about 5 years or so now.  The doctrine of sin is not a popular message in modern churches today.  It’s decidedly not politically correct to talk about sin anymore. 

But without a correct doctrine of sin, then the gospel as it’s presented in the scriptures makes no sense.  You cannot understand the cross without a correct doctrine of sin.  There is no way to understand God sending Jesus to be tortured and crucified, to suffer and die and even to go into Hades.  The cross doesn’t make sense if you don’t have the correct doctrine of sin.  We have to understand that sin is an affront to a holy and righteous God, and He cannot abide with sin and that He will judge sin. 

The only way to understand salvation is from a right understanding of the problem of sin.  The whole idea of being born again, becoming a new creation, is meaningless unless you understand the doctrine of sin.  Then and only then, do you understand that unless you are forgiven, unless the penalty for sin is paid, unless you are given a new nature and a new heart, you cannot possibly be accepted by God.  So if you dislike hearing about the doctrine of sin, then it’s a good chance that you are not a Christian at all. You cannot be saved until you first realize that you are lost.  

And that is the point that Jesus is making, He is showing the exceeding sinfulness of sin.  Not just how bad are those people who commit adultery.  But how corrupted is our sinful human nature.  Your sinfulness is not occasional, it is not just a temporary mistake, but it is inherent to your nature and character.  Proverbs 23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” The gospel teaches us that we are totally, irreparably corrupted and there is no solution but to die and be born again as a different type of person.

The problem with modern religion is,  you invent the kind of god you want, with the kind of standard you can keep, and then you justify yourself.  But that’s not the truth of the gospel. The standard of God is too high.  You fall short. Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  And that is exactly what Jesus is saying here.

The evangelism that says, “Come as you are, God loves you just the way you are,” and does not preach the convicting doctrine of sin that is abhorrent to God and worthy of the judgment of God, is not the gospel.  The person who says, “this is the way I was born” and thus thinks that God is responsible for their condition and therefore they are not guilty of sin, is a person who is outside of the kingdom of God because they have rejected the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed as  payment for their sin.  Listen, we are all born sinners.  We are all natural born sinners. Sin may be natural for us, but that’s our problem, not our excuse. And Christ came to earth and died to deal with our problem.

The Lord makes several points then in HIs message in regards to His prognosis concerning sin.  The first thing He emphasizes is the intrinsic nature of sin.  He says, it’s not just the act of adultery, but the lusting in your heart that is sinful.  Christ’s prognosis is that adultery is the symptom of the disease of the heart which is called sin.  He says it’s not just the symptom that’s the problem, but it’s the disease that kills.

Jesus said in Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” So the intrinsic nature of sin is that it has corrupted the heart which is the source of all our actions. 

In that regard, it’s important to recognize the deceitfulness of sin.  Sin is something that starts in the mind.  It starts in the imagination. You give yourself a pass because you say you would never actually do that sort of thing, of course.  But you think about it. And out of the heart arises lust, and Jesus says the lust of the heart is the equivalent in God’s eyes of acting upon it.

God sees the sins of the heart as damning, because He understands the corrupting nature of sin.  Paul used the illustration of yeast or leaven in dough as a metaphor for the corrupting nature of sin. He said a little leaven soon corrupts the entire loaf. A tiny piece of yeast in a loaf of bread dough soon corrupts the entire loaf. Therefore, Jesus says in this passage, if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off. If there is one part of you that is inclined to sin, then it’s necessary to cut it off to keep it from infecting the rest of your body. Sin causes that which God has given me for good, such as a hand, to be my enemy.  Paul said in Romans 7, that sin has even caused the law of God, which is good, to become something that causes me to sin. The fact that the law tells me not to do it, causes me to want to do it.  It’s not that the law is bad, but the corrupting nature of sin.

The final principle Jesus gives us in HIs prognosis is that sin is destructive and will lead to death.  He says, “if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you, for it is better that one of the parts of your body perish than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”  Sin destroys man. It destroys the soul, and it destroys the body.  It leads to death.  Romans 6:23 says, “for the wages of sin is death.”  Sin leads to the judgment of God, and the penalty for sin is hell.  Sin is incompatible with God, and in eternity, the soul of the sinner will be cast away from God’s presence forever, consigned to hell, which is the eternal abode of the sinner.

Then Christ’s prognosis leads Him to offer a prescription.  Thank God He does not leave us in the condition of sin, consigned to eternal separation from God.  But next Jesus told us how we are to deal with it.

First of all, it’s important to have the right interpretation of Jesus prescription.  Does He mean we should literally tear out our eye, or cut off our hand in order to keep from sin? If that was the right interpretation, then what about the left hand or the other eye?  We still have the same means of sinning.  And according to Jesus’s own interpretation, sin is a matter of the heart.  So how does cutting off the hand or plucking out one’s eyes stop the heart from sinning?

The right interpretation then must be that Jesus is speaking metaphorically in order to make a point. What He is saying in effect is, even if something is the most precious thing you have, even if it is something that it is essential, yet if it causes you to sin, get rid of it.   He is emphasizing the importance of pursuing righteousness at all costs and the terrible danger that comes as a result of sin.

In the Lord’s prescription then He is teaching us how to deal with this problem of sin. The prescription is that we are to die to sin in all areas of our life.  Paul said we do not walk in the flesh, but in the spirit.  We mortify the flesh on a daily, even hourly basis that we may not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.  We cut it off in the sense that we do not feed the lusts of the flesh, we do not nourish them. As Rom. 13:14 says,  “make no provision for the flesh in regard to [its] lusts.”

 We do not make room for the lusts of the flesh.  And what is not being feed and nourished will soon be dead. 

Now we do that by first realizing the nature of sin, and it’s consequences.  We have already talked about that inherent nature of sin, and the consequence which is destruction and death.  We must understand that even if we do not physically do something wrong, our nature is sinful. It is something which comes out of our hearts.

And we must understand the consequences of our sin. Sin caused Jesus to sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane.  Sin caused Jesus to be whipped until His back was shredded, to be nailed to a cross, and finally to die upon that cross as the consequence for my sin.  As the song we sing says, “it was my sin which held Him there.”  It was my sin which caused Him to be beaten with a whip until He could hardly stand up. It was my sin which caused His death.

Another thing about sin which we must understand is that it affects the eternal destiny of our soul.  The soul will live forever.   At creation, God breathed into man, Genesis 2:7  says, and he became a living soul.  That eternal aspect of the soul is what Jesus was referring to when He said, “it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”  The soul is going to live in eternity, and Jesus says it’s better to lose a part here than to suffer eternally there.

There are many things in life which are good in and of themselves.  I think that is illustrated by Jesus referring to the hand or the eye.  They are good physical things that we can use and enjoy the benefits of.  But Jesus is saying that compared to the value of the soul, they are better to be lost here, than to cause you to lose your soul.  

Jesus said in Matt. 16:26  “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  Will you give up whatever it may be, no matter how valuable it may seem, if it means that you gain eternal life with God for your soul?

There is a principle that helps us to understand the relationship of our body and soul and spirit.  Man was made in the image of God, and God made him in three parts; spirit, soul and body.  And in that order.  The spirit was to rule over the soul, and the soul was to rule over the body.  But when man sinned, the spirit died and the order of man was inverted.  The soul, which is the mind and heart and emotions and will of a man, became subservient to the body.  And then the lusts of the body rule the nature of the fallen man or woman. 

But when we are regenerated by the power of God through salvation, the spirit of man is reborn.  We are born again spiritually.  And now the divine order is reestablished.  Our body of flesh, or the lusts of the flesh are considered as dead, subservient to the mind or soul, and our spirit which is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, is to rule over the mind and heart.  That is the order of salvation which is the way we were intended to operate in the kingdom of God.  So this cutting off of the body that Jesus is referring to is a way of speaking of the  death to the flesh that must occur in salvation.  As Paul said in Col. 3:5 “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.”

There is another principle which I believe Jesus is prescribing.  And that is the most important thing in life is to prepare for eternity.  I hardly ever hear anyone talking about preparing for heaven.  Most people think of their Christianity in terms of the benefits in  the immediate world we live in.  We are only interested in being blessed physically, materially, and financially because we are Christians. But in reality, Jesus is saying that it’s far better to do without even what’s considered the essentials here, in order to have the blessing of eternal life with God.

Think about it for a moment.  We dress ourselves in fine clothes, with outfits for every possible change in weather or occasion.  We put on gold jewelry, spend tons of money on our hair, or on skin products, or health clubs.  No expense or sacrifice is spared for our physical bodies and yet I cannot help but wonder if spiritually our souls look like they are dressed in rags.  Jesus said later on in this sermon, in chapter 6 vs 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;  for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  As Christians who are becoming remade in the likeness of Christ, we should be dressed in righteousness.

Another principle in Jesus’s prescription is that we must hate sin and destroy it within ourselves. It is what the Puritans called the mortification of sin.  Jesus said, “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you.”  Now as I said earlier, mortification of sin doesn’t mean that we cut off our limbs or mutilate ourselves.  But it’s talking about dying to the flesh, considering your body as dead to sin. 

Romans 8:13 says “for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”  Paul breaks that down further in 1 Corinthians 9:27 saying, “I buffet or discipline my body and make it my slave.” He’s talking about beating down the lusts of the flesh.  And in one more example, Paul said in Romans 13:14 which we mentioned earlier; “make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.”  

What that means is that we don’t feed the lusts of the flesh.  We recognize that there is a fire within us; the fire of sin in our nature.  And so knowing that, we stay away from things that will encourage or feed that fire. We need to be careful what we look at. We need  to be careful what we touch.  That’s what cutting of the hand or plucking out the eye refers to.  We may need to avoid certain movies, avoid certain television shows.  Don’t listen to certain radio stations. Don’t go to certain places where we might feed the lusts of the flesh.

 I was doing some driving the other day, and I couldn’t get my regular talk radio shows where I was at.  So I turned to some rock station.  And I couldn’t believe my ears.  They were having a poll of peoples sexual eccentricities. People were calling in and saying all kinds of perverse things,  things that  would have shut down the radio station years ago.  Now I guess it’s considered funny or something.  Folks, for the sake of our souls, we may need cut ourselves off from the sin that is so rampant in our culture.  Cut it off and throw it away.

I must close our message for today, but I would hope that the prescription offered here by the Lord would make you realize that you need the supernatural regeneration of the Holy Spirit, if we are going to have the righteousness that God requires.  We must have received a new nature, a pure heart, as the gift of God though Jesus Christ.  We must be born again and have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit if we are going to have power over sin.  And that is why the Holy Spirit was given to us who by repentance of our sins and faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross have been born again.  Through this salvation we are given the Spirit of Christ that He might be our Helper, our strength, our power to live the life which He gives us.  

As Paul said in Phil. 2:12-13 “work out your salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for [His] good pleasure.” Both sides are absolutely essential; not just in our own strength to mortify the flesh, but in the strength which God supplies, who is at work in us according to the grace of God. Only in HIs power can we walk in the Spirit and put to death the sins of the flesh.  As Paul said in Gal. 5:16 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”

That new life in Christ is given to all who will call upon Him as their Savior and follow Him as their Lord.  The invitation to the Kingdom is given to all who will by faith surrender their life to Him.  You have have eternal life for your soul, by the righteousness of Jesus Christ by trusting in Him.  Call upon the Lord today and be saved.  

We are studying the Sermon on the Mount; what might be called the Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.  It was given by Jesus Christ the Son of God, very likely as His first public sermon on earth, or at least, the first recorded sermon that we have an account of.  Up to this point, Jesus has given us a series of Beatitudes, which are the characteristics of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. In so doing, Jesus reminded of what we are, and then Jesus said what effect a Christian shall have in the world.

As we concluded our study last week, we saw that Jesus said that His citizens were to be  salt and light in the world.  As Christians, our righteousness acts as a preservative against the corruption of the world and to convict the world of sin, and the truth we share serves as a light to those in darkness and exposes the darkness.  And just as importantly, our righteousness manifests Jesus Christ to the world and cause others to come to Christ so that they may glorify God.

So this is what Jesus has been saying, that we are the children of God and citizens of heaven and we are to manifest the character of God so that the world may come to know Him and glorify Him.  Now, as Jesus continues His message, He tells us how this is done.  How we are to live a life of righteousness.  He tells us not only how we are to live righteously, but how we are to define righteousness.  And He does so by turning our attention to the law.

A lot of people today make the mistake of thinking that the law is at odds with the teaching of Jesus Christ.  And  even as Jesus was beginning His earthly ministry there were questions about whether or not Jesus kept the law, or advocated keeping the law, or whether He was bringing in a new doctrine. And so the first principle that Jesus is establishing is that His doctrine is in complete harmony with the teaching of the Old Testament.  Nothing He will say contradicts the law or the prophecies which were taught in the Old Testament.  He is not teaching something new, but rather He affirms the authority of the scriptures and His obedience and adherence to it, and therefore by extension, He asserts it’s authority over the kingdom of heaven and it’s citizens.

I feel it’s necessary to make a couple of observations at this point.  You should be aware of the fact, and I emphasize that it is an indisputable fact, that the Old Testament canon of scripture was already established as the word of God, and accepted by all Jewish scholars by 300 BC.  So the very same Old Testament that we have in our Bibles today is the very same scriptures that Jesus and the disciples had access to.  When Jesus quotes from and affirms and claims the authority of the scriptures, He is speaking of the Old Testament scriptures that we have in front of us today.  And these scriptures we have today have been shown to be reliable and accurate, especially in light of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered from caves in the 1940’s. And it is widely accepted by all scholars that most of the scrolls were written before the birth of Christ.  Those scrolls contain the same exact scriptures which we have before us today.  

I say that because some uninformed critics of the Bible tend to try to discredit the scriptures by saying they are all of relatively recent authorship.  And yet there is undeniable evidence that these writings were extant in the days of Jesus Christ and had long been accepted as the word of God.  So when the Old Testament prophesied of something that didn’t happen until the days of Christ or afterwards, we should recognize that is something remarkable; that the prophecy made hundreds of years earlier came true and was verifiable.

Now that’s important to understand and believe, because Jesus says here that “not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” He is saying that everything that is prophesied in the Old Testament, not only the future things spoken of by the prophets, but also the types of things symbolized in the Old Testament, will be fulfilled.  And a vast number of prophesies and types were given concerning Jesus.

Also it’s important to understand what Jesus means when He speaks of the law and the prophets.  That phrase refers to the entire Old Testament.  But let’s look at the word law first of all.  The law consists of three parts; the moral, judicial and ceremonial law that was given to the children of Israel.  The moral law is comprised of the 10 commandments and the moral injunctions that we laid down once for all.  The judicial law was the civic and legislative laws which were given to the nation of Israel living under theocratic rule. Then the ceremonial law referred to the laws given concerning offerings and sacrifices and their worship of God. Many of those ceremonies and rituals are what we call types, which are in effect prophecy, and which typified the ministry of Christ. So all three of those constitute what is called the law.

The word prophets, as in the law and the prophets means all that we have in the prophetic books of the Old Testament. The prophets also taught the law, as well as making prophetic statements about events to come in the course of history.  They foretell the coming of the Messiah and the future of Israel and the church.

There is one other word in Jesus’s statement which we should explain, and that’s the word translated in the NASB “accomplished.”  In the KJV it is rendered “fulfilled.”  What it means is to carry out, to fulfill in the sense of giving full obedience to it, carrying out everything that has been said in the law and the prophets.   Now let’s look at what Jesus said.

Vs. 17 “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 one jot or one tittle shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”  The primary principle that Jesus is giving here is that God’s law is absolute.  It is absolute and eternal. It doesn’t change from culture to culture, from one generation to another.  Psalm 119:89 says, “Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.”  That permanence is expressed by the Lord in the phrase, “until heaven and earth pass away…”  The word of the Lord, the law and the prophets, shall never pass away until all is accomplished.

When the Lord said “jot or title” that indicates the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and the smallest stroke in the smallest letter. In other words, even the smallest detail of the law will be fulfilled, all will be accomplished before heaven and earth pass away.  Every prophecy, every type, every law will be fulfilled, will be completely carried out. Furthermore, rather than modifying the law, or changing the law, or abolishing the law, Jesus is saying that He has come to accomplish the law.  All the law and the prophets point to Him and will be fulfilled in Him to the smallest detail.

We need to recognize that Jesus confirms the whole of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi. He recognizes it’s authority. He affirms it’s accuracy.  As you look at the ministry of Jesus, you will notice that He quotes from almost all of it.  He especially quotes from Genesis, especially the creation story and even from the story of Jonah and the whale.  The parts of the OT that the critics love to dismiss, Jesus quotes as evidence which points to Himself.  To deny the truth of those passages is to deny the truthfulness of Jesus Christ, which is to deny that He was holy and righteous. I will go further and say that if you deny the legitimacy of the Old Testament, then in effect you deny the legitimacy of Jesus Christ and HIs power to save.  If you claim to believe in Jesus Christ, then you must believe in the word of God, because Jesus affirmed that it was authoritative and cannot be annulled.  In John 10:35 Jesus said, “the Scripture cannot be broken.” It’s God’s word that is going to be accomplished to the minutest detail.

Now how this fulfillment of the law and the prophets is accomplished is something that Jesus compels us to consider. Think of the prophecies concerning His birth.  His birthplace in  the tiny town of Bethlehem was prophesied hundreds of years before He was born.  Everyone knew that the scriptures said He was to be born in Bethlehem.  And yet they somehow missed it. 

Consider the description of His ministry that was prophesied in Isaiah 53.  Jesus fulfilled it perfectly, and yet they missed it because they wanted a king to overthrow their enemies, not a Savior who would redeem His people. I wish I could read all of Isaiah 53 this morning, but I don’t have the time.  Let me just quote a few lines; “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being [fell] upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” Jesus fulfilled these prophesies of the Messiah being our Savior down to the smallest detail.

In Psalm 22 David wrote centuries before Christ how He would die in minute detail. Listen to this;  “I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.  I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me;  They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.”  Written hundreds of years before His death on the cross, and yet it all was accomplished exactly as David prophesied.  

If time permitted, I could give you many more examples of ways in which Jesus fulfilled the prophesies of the Old Testament.  We must never separate the Old and the New Testament as if they are divergent from one another.  But we understand the Old from the New and the New from the Old.  And the gospel of Christ is found intertwined in it’s passages from Genesis to Revelation.

Let’s consider further how Chris fulfills the law. In Galatians 4:4 Paul said, “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,  so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”  Notice, that Christ was born as a man under the law. He was made under the law, as one who had to carry it out.  God showed the absoluteness of HIs law by making His Son to be under it.   And Jesus kept the law down to it’s minute detail. No  one could find any evidence to accuse Him of breaking the law in any respect. He obeyed it perfectly, not only in letter, but in it’s intent. 

Jesus fulfilled the law by keeping it, but also in bearing the penalty of it for our sakes.  The cross of Calvary is not understandable except in the context of the law.  The crucifixion is often displayed in a sentimental manner.  We focus on the physical suffering of the cross from a standpoint of injustice of an innocent man.  But the doctrine of the cross is so much more than that.  What happened on the cross was that the Holy  Son of God was enduring in His body the penalty prescribed by the law for our sins.  For your sins and mine, He bore our penalty as required by the law.  The law required death.  Romans 6:23, “for the wages of sin is death.”  Jesus came to fulfill the law, and the law required punishment for sin which is death.  And so Jesus suffered and died on the cross to pay that penalty for us.

Please understand that God forgives sin not because He chose to ignore it, or wink at it, but because He exacted the punishment that was due to us on His only Son. God did not disregard the law in order to save us, but He punished Jesus for our transgressions.

Furthermore, we see that Jesus fulfilled the law by fulfilling all the Old Testament types that served as prophesies concerning Him.  When we read in the OT about all the sacrifices, and the altar, and the ceremonies of the temple, and so forth, we see that they all are pictures, shadows or types of the ministry of Jesus Christ.  He has fulfilled and carried out all the symbols and types pictured in the ceremonies and rituals of the OT.  He is the high priest, He is the offering, He is the sacrifice, and He has presented His blood in heaven so that the entire ceremonial law is fulfilled in Him.

To take this idea of fulfillment one step further, consider that Jesus has fulfilled the law in us and through us by His Holy Spirit.  That’s what Paul says in Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.  For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God [did:] sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and [as an offering] for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,  so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”   Notice that Paul connects the way that Christ fulfills the law Himself and fulfills the law in us.  

In other words, Jesus fulfilled the righteousness of the law, and we are to do the same.  As Peter said in 1Peter 2:21 “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.”   Jesus accomplishes this in us by giving us the Holy Spirit to enable us to love the law and keep it.  We are given the righteousness of Christ which makes us holy, that we might receive the Holy Spirit, by whom we are able to be righteous and live righteously because we have a new heart and a new nature.  This new heart we have been given enables us to love the law.  We are no longer at enmity with God, but we love the things of God.

As God promised through the prophet Jeremiah, (Jer. 31:33) “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”  The law is written in our hearts and minds so that we want to fulfill it and we are empowered to do so.

Then Jesus says that “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others [to do] the same, 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.”  So then it remains for us to keep them.  The question is how are we to do this?

Well in regards to the ceremonial law, we have shown that it has already been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  All the rituals and ceremonies and types in the temple were accomplished by Jesus Christ. As proof of that, the temple was destroyed, the sacrifices abolished, and the veil of the temple was torn into opening up the holy of holies.  I fulfill the ceremonial law then by believing in Him and submitting myself to Him.  In regards to the ceremonial law then, we have rest in Christ because they were fulfilled in Him.  As Heb. 4:9 says, “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”

Now in regards to the judicial law, we understand that this was primarily for the nation of Israel under the theocracy of God’s rule of the nation.  Jesus said in Matthew 21:43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it.”  This new people of God is now the church.  1Peter 2:9-10 says, “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR [God’s] OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;  for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.”

There is no longer a theocratic nation, so the judicial law has been fulfilled as well.

There remains then the moral law. The moral law is the standard for righteousness.  It is delineated not only by what we must not do, but what we must do.  Jesus said the greatest and foremost commandment was you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and all your mind.”  That is a continual, permanent law for all mankind.  

And He says the second is like it; “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”  So all the moral law is comprised in these two commandments, which are not just for the theocratic nation, but for the entire world.  It is the basis for our relationship to God.  Peter quoted the Lord as saying, “You shall be holy even as I am holy.”  We cannot comprehend holiness outside of the moral law.  We cannot know righteousness outside of the moral law.  And we are commanded to be holy and righteous in the New Testament just as He is holy and righteous.   So the moral law still applies to us.

Finally then, we must ask, what is the relationship of the Christian to the law? The Christian is not under the law as a covenant of works. Our salvation does not depend upon keeping it. Salvation is by faith in the New Testament just as it was in the Old Testament. Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law.  The curse is death.  Jesus paid that penalty for those that believe in Him.  So we are not under the curse of the law.  But we still live under it as a standard of righteousness. 

The problem today is that many confuse the relationship between law and grace.  The law was never meant to save man.  Abraham was declared righteous by God because of His faith.  The law didn’t come until 430 years later.  The law came, according to Paul, to show us our sin and the need for a Savior.  Paul said the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.

In a similar fashion, people have a false view of grace. They think grace has nothing to do with the law.  That’s what is called antinomianism, claiming grace so that they might live in sin and think that it has nothing to do with our sanctification.  Paul wrote in Romans 6, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?  May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”

The whole premise of grace is to provide a way to enable us to keep the law.  We are justified by grace, because Jesus paid our penalty, and then having been declared righteous we are able to receive the Holy Spirit so that we are empowered to live righteously.  The Holy Spirit isn’t given to give us an “experience” so that we can experience God.  We show that we are children of God because we keep His commandments, according to 1 John 2:3. “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:  the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

The problem with many of us is that we have the wrong view of holiness.  It is a dangerous thing to misconstrue holiness and sanctification as some sort of experience to be received. Holiness means righteousness, and being righteous means keeping the law. Therefore if your so called grace does not make you keep the law, you haven’t received grace, but merely a psychological experience.   Grace is the gift of God that delivers us from the curse of the law, enables us to keep the law as Christ kept the law and to be righteous as Christ was righteous. Grace is that which causes me to love God, and love His law.  And because I love Him, I keep His commandments.  John 14:15  “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

In summary, Jesus makes the case that the law of God has never been annulled. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. HIs word endures forever.  He gave Himself for us that we might become righteous and holy, a peculiar people, a holy nation, that we might do the works of God, that we might act like sons and daughters of God.  

Jesus goes on to say that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.  We will consider that more next week, but suffice it to say that God intends for us to exceed even the meticulous law keeping of the Pharisees.  He wants us to keep the spirit of the law as well as the letter.  The Pharisees were artful dodgers in the sense that they interpreted the law so that they might appear to keep the letter of the law, but miss the intent of the heart.  Remember, God said in Jeremiah that He would write His law upon our hearts.  That is what is necessary to keep the law.  It requires a new heart, a heart that desires the things of God, that loves what He loves and despises what He despises.  

I wonder if someone here today recognizes that they fail to meet the righteous standard of God because they have not received a new heart and a new spiritual nature as the gift of God.   I want to encourage you today, if that is your situation, that you call upon the Lord to forgive your sins, believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior who paid the penalty on the cross for your sins, and if you do that you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  He will give you new life, a new heart, and a new nature, so that you might be born again into the kingdom of heaven, and enable you to be the son or daughter of God so that you may do the works of God.  Don’t put it off.  Call on the Lord today and be saved.

For the last several weeks we have been studying what is known as the Sermon on the Mount.  This is the first recorded sermon in the ministry of Jesus Christ.  That’s significant in and of itself.  That God incarnate, the Word made flesh, delivers the message of God to the world.  And we have this message before us today.  How essential it is that we should learn from it what God has to say to us.  

What we have learned so far is that God has provided a way for men and women of the world to become citizens of the kingdom of heaven.  And we have learned that this is a supernatural process of being born again as children of God.  We are not naturally so.  Jesus actually said in another place that we are by nature children of our father the devil.  But through Christ it is possible to be born again spiritually, so that we are spiritually children of God and thereby citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

And in the first 12 verses of this chapter, Jesus gives us eight characteristics of Christians, who are the children of God, citizens of the kingdom of heaven.  We call these the Beatitudes.  Each of them starts with the word “blessed.”  That speaks of the blessing of God on those who manifest these characteristics  of their new life in Christ. These Beatitudes describe the life of a Christian, what type of person he or she is.

Then, Jesus moves from what we are to what we shall be.  He gives us a couple of characteristics of what effect the Christian has on the world.  We learned last week that the Christian is like salt in the world.  He has the effect of impeding the corruption that is in the world.  We learned that salt may be correlated to righteousness.  And Jesus said that our righteousness serves to impede the corruption which is at work in the world though sin.  And Jesus issued a warning that if the salt loses it’s saltiness, then it is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.  In other words, if the Christian ceases to practice righteousness, ceases to preach righteousness, then he no longer serves the purpose for which God has us here.  And in the case of churches that have abandoned the truth and no longer preach against sin, they have succumbed to being trampled underfoot by ungodly men.  

Now in today’s passage we are looking at, Jesus continues to speak of the effect of the  Christian on the world he lives in. In addition to being salt in the world, Jesus now says to the disciples, “you are the light of the world.”  This is a tremendous statement and it deserves careful analysis.

The first thing we should note, by way of implication, is that the world is in darkness. The Bible speaks repeatedly about the fact that the world lives in darkness.  Darkness is related in a manner of speaking to ignorance, or a lack of comprehension.  It is related to spiritual blindness.  Colossians 1 speaks of the fact that the world is under the dominion of darkness. That is speaking of the kingdom of Satan.  Jesus said in the book of John that the devil is the ruler of this world.  His is the dominion, or kingdom of darkness.  He wants to keep the world in ignorance, to keep the world blind and unseeing so that they do not come to the truth.

Jesus in speaking to the apostle Paul about what his ministry was to be said in Acts 26:18 that he was sending him  “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.”  Notice there that Jesus equates the darkness as the dominion of Satan.  Paul at that point had been blinded by the intense light on the Damascus road in order that God might emphasize the spiritual blindness and darkness that Paul was a part of  before his conversion.

And by the way, hell is characterized in the Bible as darkness.  In one place it’s called the outer darkness, in another black darkness, in another place, pits of darkness.  Darkness is the primary description of the domain of Satan, and the condition of the world, and it is  the characteristic of hell which is reserved for those condemned to spend eternity without God.

However, in a startling contrast, those who have been born again by faith in Jesus Christ are described here by Christ as being the light of the world which is in darkness.  This is amazing, that God has made us to be light in the world.  The entire world dwells in darkness, and yet God has chosen us, to be lights in the world.

Now the logical question that follows this must be what is meant by light? Well, I think that intuitively we should know the answer.  Light has for many centuries been equated with knowledge.  We  had in the eighteenth century for instance, the age of enlightenment.  Great discoveries in science and mathematics and geography, as well as advancements in philosophy and the arts were characteristic of this age of a great increase in knowledge.  So we have throughout history a correlation of knowledge with light.

And that has continued down through the ages.  Even in our day, we have a saying of “a light bulb went off” to describe an “a ha” moment, or a moment of discovery, or some new knowledge.  And certainly we live today in an age of what is considered enlightened.  We hear that phrase bandied about.  And certainly modern man has made tremendous advancements in knowledge, but they are mostly scientific, or mechanical, or technical in nature.  And yet with all the knowledge that society boasts of today, there are still fundamental evils in the world that never seem to be affected. In fact, it would seem that we are experiencing a breakdown in society.  Crime, poverty, homelessness, addiction, broken homes, wars, murders, anarchy, and political unrest are endemic to the age we live in.  It would seem clear that in spite of our advancements in knowledge, the world is still in a state of utter darkness.

The true knowledge that enlightens the world is the knowledge of the truth of God. It is what Solomon calls wisdom. Jesus spoke the truth of God, and in Him, and through Him, we are enlightened not just in our minds, but in our hearts.  It is the knowledge that leads to salvation. Two thousand years ago, God appeared in the form of a  man, and His words were the truth of life that brought light to a world in darkness. Matthew 4:16 says,  “THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED.”

John said of Jesus in John chapter one, “He was the true light which coming into the world, enlightens every man.”  And yet, though the Jews saw the light, for the most part they did not accept it.  John says in vs 5, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” John goes on to say that Jesus came unto His own people, but they did not receive Him. 

Jesus Himself emphasized again and again in HIs ministry that He was the true light which has come into the world.  He is the manifestation of the truth, the way to God, and the source of the life of God. Thus Jesus said in John 8:12, ““I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

Even more specifically, Jesus is, according to John 1, the Word, the Word made flesh, the Word which was in the beginning with God, and the Word of God was light. John said “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”  Psalm 139 says, “your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  So the knowledge that is the light of life is revealed in the word of God, who was made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, and whose word still shines for us today in the scriptures.

Now in this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is speaking primarily to His disciples.  His followers.  And I just want to emphasize this morning that to be a follower, a disciple of Jesus Christ is to have received the life of God.  To be a follower is to be born again.  To be a follower is to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  The Christian life is not a static experience.  Nor is it a once and done experience.  It is a life continually following Jesus Christ and walking in HIs footsteps.  It is a life in which Christ lives in us. It is walking in the light.  I think far to many Christians claim an experience grounded in some sort of emotional episode in the past, and then ever since they are just resting on their laurels. They fail to walk in the light.

Look again John 8:12, ““I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” Notice that Jesus correlates His light with those who follow Him.  First of all, He says that those who follow Him will no longer walk in darkness, and then secondly, that they will have the Light of life in themselves.  Now that statement should help us to understand what Jesus is saying here in the text we are looking at today.  Jesus says in it that you are the light of the world.  And so we see how it is possible for us to be light.  We are made light as we walk in HIs light.  As we by faith in Jesus follow Him, we are so illuminated by HIs light so that the light of truth shines out of us to the world.

So not only has the Christian received light, we have been made light, and we have become transmitters, or reflectors of light.  I think it can be compared with the sun and the moon.  The moon has no light in itself.  It is the reflection of light from the sun.  And yet, even so, it still reflects a lot of light in the darkness of the night.  And as we become children of God, being born again through the truth of the gospel, we reflect the light of Christ to the world. It’s what Peter refers to in his second epistle as having been made “partakers of HIs divine nature.”  The light that is in Christ, is the light that is in the Christian.  That is the way that we become the light of the world.  Paul said in Eph. 5:8 “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.”

It’s interesting to notice that in the order of Christ’s sermon, we are first made salt and then we are described as light.  It’s important that we are first made righteous, and then act righteously, before we start speaking the truth. If we are speaking enlightenment, but we are living in darkness, or at least are not living in accord with the claims of our faith, then our words will not accomplish much. We must be something before we begin to act like something.  And so we must be salt, and then light.

Now how then is the Christian to show forth the light to the world? What is the effect of this light which we have in ourselves? First of all, the light exposes darkness.  It reveals the things which are hidden.  One of my favorite things is to go surfing very early in the morning before the sunrises.  And usually it’s still very dark when I suit up and walk down to the beach.  I can’t see the waves, or the rock jetty or practically anything around me.  But when the sun starts to come up, and light begins to dawn,  the details of the darkened beach became apparent.  Things that you hadn’t been able to see around you, then are clearly seen.

Ephesians 5:13 says, “But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.”  There is a sense that we are not truly aware of life until the light appears. We are spiritually blind until by the grace of God He illuminates our hearts so that we might see the truth. As Matthew said, “the people that sat in darkness saw a great light.”  The effect of Christ’s coming was to expose the darkness of the world. And if you are a child of God,  a partaker of His divine nature, then you will reveal the darkness around you as well.  The world is divided by the children of darkness and the children of light. And so the Christian exposes the darkness that is in the world.

That’s the way the Christian is the light of the world.  He life is such that his faith and his character and his actions are in stark contrast to those of the world around hIm.  He lives in such a way as to cause people to start to wonder and question what it is about him that is so different.  If he is truly light, then he lives in such a way as to make people aware of their own darkness.  The influence that a Christian has is to show that certain things belong to the darkness.  They love the darkness and they cannot stand the light.  John 3:19 says, ”This is the condemnation, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

So not only does the light reveal the darkness, but it explains the cause of the darkness.  The trouble with the world is not a lack of education, but being separated from God who is light. The sin of the world has caused it to be estranged from God.  But the Christian has the light of God within him, and they can shine that light on the world.  The Christian can explain that man was made by God and made for God, and without God he cannot truly live.  In fact, without God he is condemned to die and be eternally estranged from God, consigned to the utter darkness of hell.  That is the condemnation that John speaks of.  And the light which reveals that and explains that is the Christian.  As a lighthouse on the coast warns ships of the dangers of the shoals, so the Christian must warn the world according to the truth which God has revealed. He must explain God and how we can come to know Him and be united with Him.  That is the purpose for which Christ has given us light and life here on this earth.

So light not only exposes the darkness, it shows and provides the way out of darkness.  Through sharing the word of God we can be a lamp to their feet and a light to their path, that they might follow Christ unto salvation.  The Christian’s purpose is to show the way to God by being a light in the world.

Paul wrote to the Philippians in chapter 2, and by extension speaks to all Christians, that “you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,  holding fast the word of life…”  That is our purpose, to be light, in whom is no darkness.  

And so Jesus speaks to that purpose we are to have, by saying, “a city sat on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it gives light to all the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

What Jesus is indicating here is that first of all, we are designed to be lights in the world.  Just as salt is meant to be salty, so lights are meant to illuminate.  Though that should be obvious to all, yet I wonder if we are not rebuked by this thought.  How prone are we to be consumed with  the business of living and disregard our greater commission to be light in the world? Jesus said a lamp is lit to give light to all in the house. That is it’s purpose.

So if we are not acting like light, then are we not living according to our design?  It is ridiculous for a person to live in a way that we are not designed to live, to go against nature.  And in the same way, it’s ridiculous to live in opposition to our spiritual nature.  We are made lights in the world.  Jesus illustrates that ridiculousness by saying imagine a person lighting a lamp and then putting it under a bushel, or a basket.  What could be the purpose of that?  It makes no sense.  And neither does it make sense for a Christian to deny his purpose.  When we do so, then we really become as useless as the salt that has lost it’s savor.  It’s worth nothing anymore except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.  And so also the Christian who has extinguished his light or let his light go out.

Jesus spoke of churches which no longer shined the light.  In Revelation 2, Jesus said to the church at Ephesus, “But I have [this] against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place–unless you repent.”

It is possible, I suppose, for a Christian to be merely a Christian in name, and not in deed. They appear to be Christians, but they are not functioning as Christians.  They are salt without saltiness, or a lamp without light. Such a person is to be pitied.  Because he cannot be happy in the world, though he may be seeking it, and he cannot be happy in his Christianity, because he cannot know the fullness that brings joy and peace and contentment.

That fullness I speak of is the continual filling of the Holy Spirit, which might be thought of as the oil in the lamp.  First of all, we need to be filled with oil of the Spirit, which is the life of the Spirit.  That is what it means to be born again.  It’s to be given a new nature.  A lamp cannot be a light without oil which has to be supplied from outside itself.  You cannot be a light unless you have first been filled.

But then there is a need for a continual filling that goes on in the life of a Christian.  It is something we have to have continuously renewed.  We have to live in continuous dependence upon Christ, in continual repentance of sin that breaks  fellowship with Him, and it’s only in that relationship can we be light in the world.  We must continue to hunger and thirst for righteousness as Jesus said of us in the Beatitudes, that we might be continually filled as we continue to follow Him.

You might stretch the analogy of the lamp even further and say that you need to keep your wick trimmed.  For a lamp to burn brightly, it must have a wick, and the wick must be trimmed.  That speaks of a continual reminder of who I am by the grace of God, and what God intends me to be in the world.  It s’s a daily walk with Christ in HIs word, by prayer and supplication, to be in a right communication with the Lord every day.  It’s a daily occurrence, this time with the Lord, that trims my wick and makes me more effective in giving light to the world.

The last admonition that Christ gives us is to be light in the world, but to do so in the right way.  “Let your light so shine before men so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”   The point here is very simple.   A vital element of our light is that we do good works.  And these good works are going to be seen of men.  However, the principle Jesus teaches here is that we do these good works not for our own glory or credit, but so that men might glorify God.

We do good works, whatever they are, to bring others to God.  Our good works are to reveal the truth of God that leads to salvation.  The primary good work then that we are to do is to shine the light of truth into men’s hearts.  To tell the good news, the gospel, that they might come to a saving knowledge of the truth.

What Jesus is warning against is doing your good works for selfish purposes. We see that all the time in the realm of the world.  Some rich person wants to improve his legacy, and so he donates a lot of money to some charity.  But then he wants to make sure that everyone knows about it.  His concern is not so much for the charity as it is for his legacy.  And so he sends out press releases and holds a press conference to announce what he has done.

We see that in the world, but unfortunately, the same temptation exists in the church.  We can often do our good works to be seen of men.  Jesus later on in this sermon will explain how to tithe, how to fast, and how to pray.  And the principle that He teaches is that you do your work in secret, and  your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  The effect of the work that you do is still seen by the world, but it’s done in such a way that your Father gets the credit.  And then the Father who sees the secrets of men’s hearts, will reward you.

Finally then, we should consider the whole of this teaching of Christ, that if we are born of Him, then we should be like Him. As He was light in the world, so we are to be light in the world.  The watching world will see our good works, will hear our gospel message, will see the light of truth illuminate from us, and will be drawn to Christ and give God the glory.  That is the purpose we have as children of God, as citizens of the kingdom of heaven.  May God give us the grace to be all that He has designed us to be, the light of the world.  

Last week we finished looking at the Beatitudes in our study of the Sermon on the Mount. The 8 Beatitudes are characteristics of a Christian – of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus delineated the characteristics of someone who has been born again as a child of God.  The Beatitudes describe what we are by nature; the new nature that comes from a new heart as a gift from God in response to our faith and repentance.  

But even in the last of the Beatitudes we start to see a transition, from what we are to what we will be in the world.  You will notice for instance in vs. 11, that this new Christian character causes the world to respond with hatred, with persecution against them.  So there is a reaction by the world to the Christian, to the citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and it is a spiteful reaction resulting in persecution, slandering the Christian man or woman.  Being a Christian has an effect on the world.

In one way or another, you might say that our Christianity wounds the world.  The world is offended by your righteousness.  They find offense in the truth of God’s word. They are insulted by your good works.  In the same way they were offended by Christ, and they reacted by killing Him; so Jesus said they will hate us, because their hearts are evil and they love darkness rather than light.

Jesus goes on to say that living as a citizen of heaven in a hostile world will result in a similar effect as rubbing salt into their wound.  I don’t know if you have ever had a cut on your hand or foot and then maybe got in the ocean, which of course is made up of salt water.  It stings.  Sometimes it can seem almost unbearable to have the sting of salt in your wound.  And yet, it has a curative effect, doesn’t it?  Because the salt cleanses the wound.

Many years ago I worked in the pool industry for a little bit.  And I discovered in that process that chlorine is made from  sodium chloride.  Chlorine is made from salt.  In fact, the new thing in pools nowadays is a salt water pool.  But all that really means is that salt tablets are used to produce chlorine gas which is then infused in the water.  When I worked in pools I found that if you put the right amount of chlorine in a pool it would instantly disinfect practically every hazardous bacteria that was in the water, even including AIDs. And in a similar way, salt is a powerful disinfectant.

I think this idea is one aspect of the next statement which Jesus makes which we are looking at today.  In these next few verses, Jesus is no longer just describing what we are, but what effect the Christian has on the world around him. And the first one likens the effect of the Christian to that of salt. Let’s read vs 13 again. ““You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”

Notice first of all, that Jesus doesn’t command us to be salt. He says rather that you are salt.  And then He warns us not to lose our saltiness.  We learn then that we are like salt by nature, that is, by virtue of the new nature which we have received in salvation.

The first thing we should point out which is inferred in Jesus’s statement,  is that the Christian is different than the world.  Jesus said you are the salt of the earth. That is, we are in the world, but we are not of the world.  We are in the world as a causative effect on the world.  Thus we can learn that God doesn’t intend for us as Christians to live in a monastery somewhere, secluded from the world, but to be in the world, acting as a minister of heaven’s kingdom, representing Christ to the world around us.  We are not to be conformed to the world, but the world is to be informed by us.  This principle is teaching us as Christians living in the world, how we are to live in the world.

And as I indicated, this statement infers some things about the nature of the world that bear further consideration.  The first thing that must be understood in light of the teaching of the Bible is that the world we live in is a fallen world. Now this goes against scientific teaching, philosophical teaching, and the general opinion of modern society.  I suppose that the root of their rejection of this idea comes from the theory of evolution.  In the theory of evolution things are getting better and better.  In fact, this perspective is not limited to the scientific world but it has crept into to liberal churches as well, especially since many of them have accepted the theory of evolution and consider the Genesis account of creation as a fable.  Such purveyors of the positive thinking gospel like Robert Schuller and Norman Vincent Peale were fond of quoting the French psychologist Émile Coué who patented the motto, “every day and in every way, I’m getting better and better.”  

That’s really the mantra of the world.  That we are evolving, becoming better and better, not only as individuals but as society.  We are making such improvements in medicine and science and psychology that it shows mankind has the potential to create nirvana here on earth.  And yet from a Biblical perspective, nothing could be further from the truth.  The Bible teaches that the world is getting worse and worse.  Every advancement in technology or science brings with it even more problems.  One day, according to the scriptures, this world will end, it will destroyed, and God will remake it as new heavens and a new earth.  But in the meantime it is a fallen world, and ever since the Garden of Eden it has been deteriorating, getting worse and worse.  And all the evidence that you need that the world is corrupt and getting worse all the time should be evident if you simply read the news.  

Mankind cannot fix it’s problems through the advancements in medicine, nor technology, nor through science or government.  Because it’s problems are rooted in a corrupt nature.  Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  The Bible teaches that the world is corrupt because their hearts are evil. Genesis 6:5 says, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  According to the Bible, the natural man is corrupt.  He’s like meat which when left alone will grow foul and putrid. It can only be kept from purification through a preservative or a disinfectant.

We see this continually illustrated in the Bible.  Though the Garden of Eden was good and perfect, yet sin entered the world because of man’s rebellious nature.  The sin of Adam and Eve spread to their first offspring who murdered his brother.  And things spiraled downward from there.  Within a few generations, the world had deteriorated to the point that God said all of it had become corrupt, and He sent the flood to destroy all living things.  Within a few generations of the flood, we see the destruction that God brought upon the rampant debauchery and perversion of Sodom and Gomorra. And in the Bible and from  history we see story after story which illustrates the evil and corruptness of the world all the way down through the ages.  So contrary to the philosophy of the world, it’s not getting better and better, but worse and worse and will culminate in it’s destruction.

The next aspect of Jesus statement which we should consider is what does He say regarding the Christian who must live in this fallen world? Jesus said that we are salt in the world.  As I said earlier, the Christian is not to be like the world.  Salt is different from the world, and yet as we know in our cuisine, that a little salt goes a long way. It only takes a small amount of salt by comparison to make a great effect on whatever it’s being used on. Jesus speaks of the salt losing it’s savor, according to the KJV.  Savor indicates  taste.  Salt makes food taste better. 

I will never forget an experience I had as a young boy.  We all had BB guns and loved to go around the neighborhood shooting things. Eventually that progressed to shooting birds.  And one day an old lady saw us doing it  and she came out of her house to scold us.  She said you never should shoot anything you aren’t going to eat.  So the next day, we decided to eat what we shot.  And my brother and I and a friend each shot a bird and we started a fire so that we could eat them.  I happened to shoot a woodpecker.  I’ll never forget the taste of that woodpecker.  Anyway, we managed to pluck them and make  little skewers and roasted them over the flame.  We didn’t have any salt, but we were going to man up and eat them anyhow.  Well, I never tasted anything so bad in my life.  All of us couldn’t get the taste of those birds out of our mouths for days.  Everything I ate for 3 days later tasted like woodpecker.  I’m sure salt would have helped, but I still imagine woodpecker is not going to be very high on the menu.

So a function of salt is provide taste, to provide savor, to prevent food from being bland or otherwise unpalatable.  In effect, Jesus is saying that life without Christianity is bland, unappetizing.  And I think that is illustrated in our society today, with people running around looking for a drug, looking for a high, something that will make life more enjoyable. The desire for entertainment is a part of that. Seeking pleasure.  Trying to find satisfaction in pleasure to make life more enjoyable. Sadly, many times that leads to more and more perversion, because they find that such things never really satisfy so they need to constantly find more stimulation.

In fact, it seems that the more access you have to such things, the more extreme become your need to find pleasure. I read the story the other day about Jon Bonham, the drummer for Led Zeppelin, who was considered the greatest rock and roll drummer of all time.  At the height of his career, a career that the world considered was the pinnacle of success and fame and money and all that comes with that, he drank four quadruple screw drivers for breakfast, went to band rehearsals and continued drinking heavily all day, and later that night when he finally passed out he died of aphyziation from vomiting in his sleep. He was 32 years old. And perhaps his tragic life illustrates that the life of the world leads to seek more and more, but it never satisfies.

So a Christian is to be different from the world in the way that salt is different than the food which it is put on, and yet a little salt has a great effect.  Much the same way as the comparatively few Christians have a great effect on the world.  I’m not speaking of being the silent majority.  I’m not speaking of political or social action on the part of the church as a whole.  But I believe that the individual Christian man or woman can be a sanitizing influence in their world by the nature of their actions, by their behavior. I’ve seen many instances that when a Christian enters the conversation of the unsaved, the conversation is altered because the people there know that he is a Christian. I’ve seen family get togethers that are different when the Christian members of the family are there, as opposed to times when they are not.  And it shouldn’t be because we act like prudes, or because we have our nose in the air, but because our actions exemplify our Christianity.  And as such our life serves as a constraint to the world around us.

But what is the primary function of salt, and metaphorically, the primary function of a Christian? The principle function of salt in the context of Jesus’s day was to use it as a preservative. It was used to prevent decay, corruption, especially in fish or meats. The fish that the little boy brought to Jesus in the feeding of the 5000 was salted fish, which was the staple of the time.  Refrigeration was not possible. And so salt was used to preserve and keep the meat from going bad.  The purpose of salt was to kill the germs on the meat in order to prevent decay.

And in that respect I believe Jesus is speaking of the effect of a Christian in the world.  He prevents decay, he wards of corruption.  By his very presence, if he is living a godly life, he acts to retard corruption in the world around him.  Christians in the midst of an evil and decaying society have a  preserving and purifying effect. God told Abraham that He would have kept Sodom and Gomorra from judgment if there had been just ten righteous people to be found in the city.

And I think that illustrates that what is indicated by salt is righteousness .  It’s not social justice, it’s not political action, it’s righteousness.  In justification we are declared righteous.  In sanctification, we live righteous lives.  And in living righteously in a fallen world, we convict the world of sin.  Not necessarily by mouth, but by our actions.  Peter called Noah a preacher of righteousness. Not necessarily because he preached from a pulpit, but because he lived in such a way that his life preached righteousness. The way we live convicts the world of sin and of righteousness.  And our sanctification effects the world around us, bringing them to righteousness by showing them what it means to be a Christian. 

The world is either repelled or attracted to righteousness.  Some to salvation, some to condemnation because they reject the light.  But our righteousness has an effect on the world and on society.  And that is evidenced by the fact that spiritual revival has always benefitted society.  Not by the church rising up against government and enacting legislation, but through individuals coming to repentance and faith in Christ, and having their hearts and minds changed. That was true in the Protestant Reformation.  It was true in the Great Awakening.  It was true in great revivals at the turn of the century.  When men’s hearts get right, then the nation gets right.  Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation.”

So salt is a preservative. The Christian acts as a sanitizing influence on society. Salt is an antiseptic.  It’s used to purify or cleanse wounds.  Though it may sting, it’s good medicine. The presence of believers in the world stings the consciences of the ungodly because it is a painful reminder that God requires holiness and how He views sin.  

And salt also gives flavor to food as well as it causes thirst — and I believe that ties into what Jesus had just said about those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness” in vs 6.  That  suggests that the presence of  godly people in society will have the natural effect of arousing a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.

So those are some of the functions of salt that Jesus correlates to the life of a Christian.  But there is another aspect of salt as well that should be mentioned.  And that is that salt was of great value in the days of Jesus’s ministry.  Salt was used very often as a form of money.  In one ancient society I read it was traded pound for pound with gold.  Roman soldiers were routinely paid with salt.  That’s supposedly where the saying comes from “worth your salt.”  

The idea there is that Christians are considered of great value in the kingdom of heaven.  God values us.  The world may despise us.  The world may consider the meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit as being unworthy of consideration. Those aren’t the characteristics that the world admires.  But in God’s eyes the Christian is of great value.  I love the statement Jesus said in Matt. 10:29-31 “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And [yet] not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”  So Christians, as the salt of the earth, are very valuable to God, who considered us so valuable that He was willing to pay the ultimate price for our redemption,  sending His only Son Jesus to die that He might have us for His own.  That’s amazing, that God should value us in that way.

Then finally, notice Jesus says, that if the salt loses it flavor, then it is good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.  Well, we have already concluded that salt is righteousness.  So what is meant by the phrase, “has lost it’s flavor, or has become tasteless?” I don’t believe Jesus is speaking of a Christian losing their salvation.  The Bible teaches that our righteousness is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.  So if we didn’t earn righteousness by our works, then we cannot lose righteousness by lack of works. Romans 11:29 says that the gifts and the calling  of God are irrevocable. So God will not take away what He has given us through His grace.

Then what does it mean for salt to lose it’s flavor?  I believe Jesus is speaking of the church losing it’s saltiness.  If the church is not practicing righteousness, if it’s not preaching righteousness, then it has lost it’s flavor.  It is not effective as a preservative, it is not effective for flavor, it’s not effective as a disinfectant.

It’s possible that though a Christian can not lose his salvation, he loses his effectiveness in the world by not practicing righteousness, or by not living righteously.  I think there is a real temptation to Christians  to not want to be unpopular, to not want to be isolated from the culture by our Christianity.  And so we try to blend in.  We try not to be offensive.  We try to keep our Christianity under our hat so to speak.  Jesus said such Christianity has lost it’s purpose.  Like the parable of the steward that hid his money in the ground, it is a waste of what God has entrusted to us.  And God is not pleased with such people.  

But I also think this principle applies to the church at large.  I believe there are many churches today in which they have lost their flavor.  The pastor no longer preaches about sin. They don’t want to be offensive, they are more interested in attracting the world, trying to get the world to like them.  So they don’t talk about sin or righteousness. Listen, you can’t know righteousness without knowing about sin.  You have to understand God’s standard for righteousness and that anything less than that is a sin.  And when the church fails to articulate that, then they fail in their purpose.  They have lost their effectiveness. 

And Jesus said in that case they are worthless, useful for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.   And that is a picture of an unsalty church.  It useless for the kingdom of heaven.  And as such Jesus spoke in Revelation about such churches.  He said to the church of Laodecia for example, in Revelation 3, ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”

And to the church of Ephesus, Jesus said, ‘But I have [this] against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place–unless you repent.”

I believe that is similar to what Jesus is saying here in our text.  He will remove the light of His presence from the church which has lost it’s righteousness.  Next week we are looking at the next statement which is ““You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.”

The purpose of the church is to be salt and light in the world.  And Jesus said in Revelation that if they did not do that, then He would remove their lamp stand.  I believe that there are a lot of churches today that the light has gone out of.  They have lost their saltiness, and now they are being trampled underfoot by unspiritual, unsaved people who make a pretense of religion to try to placate their conscience but are ineffective at changing people’s hearts. The Spirit of the Lord left a long time ago.

I hope that this message today helps you to realize that if you are a child of God, if you are a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, then you have a purpose in this world to have an effect for the kingdom of heaven.  You are to live a life characterized by righteousness which convicts the world, purifies the world, disinfects the world, gives flavor to life, and stops corruption in the world. May God give us the grace to live righteously, to make us like Christ in the world and influence all who come into contact with us.

In our ongoing study of the Sermon on the Mount, we have come today to the eighth, and the last Beatitude. Most commentators agree that verse 10 is the last Beatitude, and vs 11, is an expansion on the same.  The Beatitudes, we have learned, are a description of someone who is a Christian. It is a list of characteristics of a Christian man or woman as given to us by the Lord Jesus.

This last one differs a little from the others in that it is not just a characteristic of what behavior a Christian will have, but what behavior the Christian can expect from others.  In other words, it’s  talking about how others will treat you if you are a Christian.  What reaction the life of a Christian will elicit from the world. 

There are several components of this Beatitude which we will look at individually. The first, I suppose, that should be noted is that in this Beatitude, Jesus bookends all the Beatitudes with the phrase, “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  I believe that indicates that all the Beatitudes are characteristics of a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.  And Jesus starts with the phrase “theirs is the kingdom of heaven” in the first one in vs 3, and ends with it again in vs 10, which is the last Beatitude.  So all these characteristics comprise the characteristics of a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.

And for the benefit of those who have not been here for the entire series, let me say again that the kingdom of heaven is a spiritual kingdom.  A spiritual kingdom that was inaugurated at Christ’s incarnation, and it will be consummated at Christ’s second appearing.  It is the kingdom of Christ which reigns in the hearts and minds of His people.  It is a kingdom characterized by life with Christ, the abundant life that He gives which will live eternally.  It is a life of holiness, a community of the saints, the chosen people of God, who are conformed to the image of Christ. It is the kingdom of heaven which is instituted on earth, of which Christians are it’s ministers, and who are promised the divine blessings of such citizenship.

We sometimes speak of the blessings of citizenship in this country we live in, America.  But we that are Christians have a  dual citizenship, and our citizenship in heaven is the one to which we have the greater allegiance.  The Christian is the spiritual descendant of Abraham, of whom it was said in Hebrews 11:9, that “By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;  for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

Now God’s call to Abraham was accompanied by the promise  that He would bless him. And Abraham was blessed, even though he lived as an alien in the land of promise.  And in much the same way, Jesus says that we will be blessed, even though we experience persecution here on earth. This Beatitude illustrates, I believe, that the common interpretation for the word “blessed” is incorrect.  We need to correctly understand the meaning of blessed.  Jesus says it here 9 times.  He will continue to announce blessing or blessedness on those who trust in Him as He continues His ministry.  We need to understand what it means.  

I have spent a lot of time previously speaking of the correct meaning of “blessed” but I think it bears repeating.  Because there are many that want to translate the word “blessed” as happy. I think that trivializes the meaning.  In our culture especially, I think happy has hedonistic connotations that are not in keeping with the context of Jesus’s teaching.  As the band Switchfoot said in one of their songs, “Happy is a Yuppie word.” I don’t believe that Jesus is telling us how to be happy. Especially in light of this Beatitude.  Jesus is not saying I want you to be happy and laugh and have a good old time when people are persecuting you, perhaps even torturing you or putting you to death.  No, that is not what Jesus is trying to say here.  Jesus is not saying that to be a Christian means that you will never suffer.

I believe that the correct meaning of “blessed” is to be granted special favor with God. To be blessed is to be granted special favor with God.  Now that special favor with God encompasses a lot of things, such as forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and a reward in heaven.  So it is possible in that context to be blessed, and yet not feel happy.  How we feel at any given moment is not what we are to be basing our Christianity upon.  But to have the favor of God, the grace of God, the benevolence of God towards you as a Father has for His children, is something that endures and transcends the suffering you may temporarily suffer here on earth.

The next thing we want to notice in this Beatitude is the phrase “for righteousness sake.”  It’s important to recognize that Jesus is not saying, “blessed are they which are persecuted,” but “blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake.”  And that’s an important distinction.  You can be persecuted because you have red hair.  You can be persecuted because of your political views. You can be persecuted because you are a fanatic, or because you are obnoxious. You can be persecuted for a lot of things, but only one thing here is being spoken of as meriting the blessing of God.  And that is righteousness.  

In an indirect way,  I think that Jesus is indicating here  that a Christian will be characterized by their righteousness.  That is an important principle.  A Christian is characterized by their righteousness.  I think that far too often Christians try to offer excuses for our lack of righteousness.  We say we aren’t under the law but under grace.  We say that Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven, and other such things to excuse why our lives are not characterized by righteousness.  

Listen, we aren’t saved by acts of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy.  But having been born again, we are born again in righteousness to be righteous. We cannot enter the kingdom of heaven until we have been born again.  Jesus said in John 3:3  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 

In being born again, we are given the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  2Cor. 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  So we receive His righteousness by grace, that we might do the works of righteousness.  

Jesus in John 14 tells the disciples; vs12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”  Now a lot of Christians get all excited about that verse and start thinking about walking on water, or healing the sick and so forth.  But is that really what He is talking about?  Is He not talking about us doing the works of righteousness which He did? I think so, as illustrated in the verses following vs 12, He says in vs 13, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do [it.  If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”  Is Jesus saying if I ask for a new car He is obligated to give it to me?   No, but His intent is indicated in the statement, “If you love  Me you will keep My commandments.”  He wants us to keep His commandments which is righteousness. And He’s saying that He will help us do that.

So if you read further in that chapter, the next thing Jesus says is that He will send the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to give you the power to do what He asks you to do.  The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, so that we might do the works of Christ, the works of righteousness. So therefore, the characteristic of a Christ that is to be the our characteristic as well is righteousness.  1John 2:29 says, “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”  So being born again results in being righteous and practicing righteousness.  

John reiterates that principle in 1John 3:7 “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” There are a lot of deceivers out there who are practically advocating that Christians can live in sin, saying that since we can’t be righteous to be saved, then we need not practice righteousness while saved.  But John says that the opposite is true.  He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous.  Righteousness is the characteristic of someone who  is born of God, a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  A Christian is someone who has been born again with a capacity for righteousness, a desire for righteousness.  That’s what Jesus said in the 4th Beatitude, “blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

So what this Beatitude tells us, and which is confirmed by John, is that being righteous, practicing righteousness, is really being like Christ. Jesus says as much in vs 11, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”  What does He mean because of Me? Well, He is speaking of a disciple who is like His master.  The Christian’s life is one that is controlled and directed by Christ, by his loyalty to Christ, and to live for Christ’s sake. They no longer live for themselves, but for Christ.

Therefore, because we are like Him,  we will be persecuted for being like Him.  Jesus said as much in John 1:18; “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before [it hated] you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”

Paul said it another way in 2 Timothy 3:12, emphasizing that righteousness is the reason for persecution.  He said, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Notice, persecution is tied to living godly, in other words, living righteously.

Now it doesn’t seem logical from a theoretical point of view.  You would think that the world would love someone who is righteous. Who practices righteousness.  But in fact, they hate them.  Cain hated Abel, and killed him.  Saul hated David and hunted him.  Daniel was hated and thrown into the lion’s den. And Jesus tells us in vs 12 that this was common for all the prophets: “for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” In the New Testament Peter and Paul and the other apostles were hunted and harassed and thrown into jail and eventually killed for their righteousness.  Jesus, of course, is our greatest illustration.  He was righteous, truthful and merciful,  of whom it was said, “a bruised reed he will not break and a smoking flax he will quench,”  and yet they crucified Him. And down through the ages godly men and women have been persecuted even to death for the sake of righteousness.

It also bears mentioning that persecution does not always come from the world, but oftentimes from religious people. Paul was persecuted by the Pharisees.  Jesus was persecuted by the religious leaders of His day. So it continued through the Middle Ages and through the time of the Reformation as the Church of Rome conducted inquisitions and burned men and women at the stake for what they considered heresy. 

Another question that arises from this principle is why are the righteous persecuted? And I believe that the answer to that is that righteousness condemns both the sinner and the self righteous.  When Jesus practiced righteousness the religious elites of Israel had their self righteousness, greed and unmercifulness  revealed by comparison.  And they hated Him for it. The same is true today.  If you practice righteousness as manifested by the Lord Jesus, then those who are practicing self righteousness and hypocrisy will hate you because it reveals their hypocrisy, and they will be antagonized against you because of it.

Now there are a few conclusions we can take from the study of this Beatitude.  The first one is the conception by many people of the world that Jesus was a man that everyone will admire and applaud reveals that they really don’t know what Jesus actually taught.  The gospel that He taught condemned the sinner and the religious man alike because it showed them God’s standard for righteousness.  The Jew’s standard for righteousness was externally appearing to keep the law as they had defined it, and yet their hearts were unchanged.  Jesus’s teaching revealed that the heart was deceitful and desperately wicked, and that they could not rest on their good works, but only upon the substitutionary sacrifice which Jesus would offer for the sins of the world.  His teaching was offensive to the religious and non religious as well who were secure in their own self  righteousness.  And so they ended up flogging Him and putting Him to death on the cross.  And in a similar fashion we err if we think we must try to make the gospel more appealing on the basis that they will like us and admire us for practicing it.

The second conclusion of this Beatitude is that we have to examine ourselves to see if we are really like the Lord Jesus.  Are we spoken well of by the world?  Or are we identified with Jesus, and with His persecution?  Jesus said in Luke 6:26, “Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers’ to the false prophets.”  In other words, the Christian is not a man of whom the world speaks glowingly about, who is praised by the world. Jesus said the Jews praised the false prophets and persecuted the Lord’s prophets.  The real Christian is going to be one whom the world will despise for his goodness, and who will be persecuted even as Christ was persecuted.

And that is because the world is characterized by the natural man, the man who loves his sin and hates the light because it exposes his sin.  The apostle Paul said that the natural man is at enmity with God.  He is in a war with God. He cannot please God, and so he hates God, and all who remind him of God.

That reiterates what we said earlier about the requirement to enter the kingdom of heaven.  For the natural man to be able to enter, he must be born all over again.  He must be born again spiritually, so that he receives a new heart, a new nature, and new desires. He must be given Christ’s righteousness and a capacity for righteousness and a desire for righteousness which comes from receiving a new heart. We cannot be like Christ otherwise.  We must be born of the Spirit.  The old nature has to die, and the new man has to rise up to live by the power of Christ in us.

Finally, let’s ask ourselves in closing one last question.  Do we know what it means to be persecuted for righteousness sake? In a certain sense, we might say that persecution is verification of our salvation.  If we have become united with Christ, born again by the Spirit of God, practicing righteous as He was righteous, then persecution will be inevitable. Light always exposes darkness.  Jesus said in John 3:19-20  “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”

Notice that in vs 11, Jesus equates persecution with being maligned, being slandered, being falsely accused. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.” Persecution often comes in the form of criticism, of being lied about, mischaracterized, slandered.  Persecution is not limited to physical pain and suffering, but includes attacks on your character.

But if and when persecution comes because you are practicing righteousness, because you are becoming like Christ, then you can rejoice in it. You can rejoice because God has chosen you as an object of His special favor.  You can rejoice because Jesus has counted you worthy to suffer for His sake. You can rejoice because of the reward that is promised to us in heaven.  

Jesus said in vs 12, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  Here is the difference between the natural man and the spiritual man.  The natural man is concerned about the world and about making his way in the world, achieving success in the world.  But the spiritual man, the man who has been born again by the Spirit of God, is concerned about the kingdom of heaven.  He is concerned about the things of God and how God judges him.

The non Christian does everything he can to avoid thinking of the world to come, of death and judgment and hell.  He doesn’t want to think of such things and the devil makes sure that he is amply entertained and busy enough running the rat race that he has no time to think of heavenly things.  But the Christian man looks for a city whose architect and builder is God.  He doesn’t put down roots here but considers himself an alien in this world, and a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  He is concerned with the things of God, and as such, Jesus said, he will receive the reward of heaven.

Romans 8:16 says,  “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with [Him] so that we may also be glorified with [Him.] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Do you know that you are a child of God? Have you been born again by the Spirit of God? If you can’t say that for sure, then I want to invite you today on behalf of the Lord Jesus, believe in His name, believe in the work that He did on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins, confess your sins to God and repent of them, and you will receive forgiveness, cleansing, a new heart and a new life, indwelled by the Holy Spirit so that you may be able to live a life of righteousness that is pleasing to God, and will one day be united with God to live with Him forever and receive your reward.  I urge you today to receive this invitation and call upon the Lord while He may be found.  He is ready and willing to save all who call upon Him in faith.  

For the past several weeks, we have been studying the first recorded sermon that Jesus preached which is called the Sermon on the Mount. And at the beginning of this sermon Jesus has given a series of statements which are called the Beatitudes. They are characteristics of someone who belongs to the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is a spiritual kingdom, ushered in by the Messiah, Jesus Christ. He is the King of this spiritual kingdom. And those who are citizens of His kingdom exhibit the characteristics of these Beatitudes.

We have been looking at these each individually over the last few weeks and we are now on number 7. It is found in vs.9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” As we have previously noted, all of these characteristics are essential for all who are a part of the kingdom of heaven. A citizen of the kingdom of heaven will exhibit all of these characteristics. And the other thing we have noted is that these characteristics build upon one another. There is a definite order to them that is not haphazard. But they build upon each other and are related to each other.

Many of you here this morning look old enough to have been around in the 60’s during the hippy movement. And you may recall the peace protests that were emblematic of that period. But the desire for peace did not originate with the hippy movement, nor has it diminished since that time. Peace is the cry of the world, and it has been for centuries. There has never been a time when there wasn’t war somewhere on this planet, and even today there are wars going on all over the globe.

But the idea of peace encompasses so much more than just military wars or the lack of it. There are social wars, political wars, cultural wars, race wars, gang wars. There are wars in families and between family members. There are wars in neighborhoods, neighbor against neighbor. There is strife and conflict and all the consequent anguish and heartbreak going on all over the world in all kinds of ways.

James said in chapter James 4:1-4 “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend [it] on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

When James is talking lusts and motives and desires he is talking about the nature of our heart. Our hearts are the source of our conflicts. Man’s heart is the source of war, of hatred, of murders and all the rest of the evils of this world. For there to be peace in the world, there must first be peace in the heart.

Imagine for a moment a river which has at it’s head a factory. And the factory produces toxic byproducts as the result of it’s manufacturing. Suppose the factory routinely dumps it’s toxic refuse in the river. As a result, the river downstream is polluted and makes the water and the land surrounding it foul. The fish are sickened. The animals which drink from the river are sick. The land along the river is sick and the foliage is dying. A possible solution might be to add chlorine and other disinfectants to the water to try to make the water potable. To make it smell better and look better. But as long as the factory is in operation upstream, operating in the same manner in which it has always done, then such efforts would be futile. The only real solution is to deal with the source of the pollutants, with the factory itself.

Such is the nature of mankind. The problems of society, the wars, the strifes, the contentions, the murders, the abuses of people towards each other, are not able to be fixed by trying to add something to society, whether it be laws or government programs, or educational awareness. The solution will not be found in a particular political party or their platform. The solution to the civil and social unrest has to be dealt with at the source. Mankind needs a new heart. The problem is the heart. The world reflects the heart of man. Jeremiah 17:9 says, ”The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” I like the translation which says that the heart is sick, but I would also point out that the KJV renders it the heart is desperately wicked. Mankind’s desperately sick, wicked heart is the source of his troubles. It is the cause of a lack of peace.

Thus God says twice in Isaiah, “There is no peace for the wicked.” And because the heart is wicked and knows no peace it simply projects itself into all of its relationships. The world that man creates is a world without peace. It’s a world of chaos. It’s a world of conflict. Jesus said in Matt. 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”

In this world there is no peace because the heart is evil. And as a result of that wickedness there are murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lying, slandering, wars and more wars. The world needs peace. Mankind desperately needs peace. Yet the peace that God provides is not simply the absence of war at any cost, such as the hippies cried out for in the 60’s. The peace that really can change the world and the men and women of the world is the peace that Jesus gives. Jesus said in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” Notice in that statement that Jesus ties peace to the heart.

So what is the peace that Jesus gives? It is the peace of reconciliation. It is the peace between you and God. Whether or not you realize it or not, the unbelief of a person is not simply an innocuous thing. But his unbelief is actually rebellion against God, so much so that the Bible characterizes it as being at enmity with God. In other words, as an unbeliever you are actually an enemy of God. You are in rebellion against His sovereign, divine order for the universe. You are in rebellion against your Creator. And that rebellion has brought about the judgement of God against sin which is death. There is a war going on, and you are either on God’s side or you are against Him. Jesus said in Matthew 12:30 “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” There is no neutral ground. You’re either in the kingdom of heaven or you are in the kingdom of darkness. One or the other.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Now it should be evident these sons of God are the very citizens of the kingdom of heaven. So to be a peacemaker is not only a requirement to enter the kingdom, but it must also be a characteristic of the citizen, the children of God. I would submit that you have to receive peace with God before you can have the peace of God. And the way you receive peace from God is for God to give you a new heart. So that you become a new person, motivated by a new heart, new desires, living in a new way, that is pleasing to God.

That new heart comes as a gift in God in response to your coming to Him, realizing your spiritual bankruptcy as in the first beatitude, “blessed are the poor.” Coming to Him in repentance for your sins, as in “blessed are they that mourn,” mourning over your sin is true repentance. Then humbling yourself before God as in “blessed are the meek,” recognizing that you need a Savior, that you need forgiveness, that you need to be remade, then hungering and thirsting for righteousness, that you might be made right before God. And then that righteousness comes by transference, by faith in Christ, your sins are transferred to Him, and His righteousness is transferred to you, so that you are made pure in heart. Then and only then, can you have peace with God. As Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That peace with God provides the basis of our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven as the children of God. Col 1:13-14 says, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” That spiritual transaction is what Jesus called being born again. That is how we obtain a new heart. That is how we become a new creation. And that is how we become peacemakers. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.”

Listen, before we can go any further in examining this principle, you must ask yourself honestly, have you been born again? Have you come to God in your spiritual bankruptcy, confessing and repenting of your sins, and like David in his prayer in Psalm 51 cried out to the Lord to create in you a new heart, a clean heart. There is no other way to become a child of God. You must be born again spiritually, and that means you must be given a new heart by God. You cannot try in your natural state to add some of the beatitudes, hoping to make your sin smell better, or look better. The source of your new life has to be the product of a new heart which is a gift of God.

God spoke of this new heart in Ezekiel 36:25-27 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

Now then, what we are given, then we must give. As we are given peace with God, so we must be makers of peace with men. We must be makers of peace for the kingdom of heaven. Now what does that mean? What is a peacemaker? I would suggest that to be a peacemaker one must be peaceable, but that is not all that is included. That is only the beginning of his character. He must have the peace which comes from God abiding in Him. But more than simply being a peaceable man, he must make peace. To be a peacemaker you must make peace. In other words, you must actively make peace. You desire peace. You desire for the world to know peace, the true peace of God. And to that end you deliberately do things to accomplish peace in the world.

This principle builds upon the previous one. The previous beatitude was “blessed are the pure in heart.” As the recipient of a pure heart, then our motives are pure. A person with a wicked heart brings forth all the terrible things such as murders and envying and slander and lying and fornications and so forth. So you must have a pure heart, in order to lay that old nature aside and look out not for your own selfish interests but for the interests of others. The peacemaker is not always looking at everything in terms of how it may benefit them but how it may benefit others. That is really the essence of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Having a pure heart towards God and towards man, that is more concerned about others than themselves.

I believe that our culture has elevated narcissism to an unprecedented level today. And I’m not speaking just in the realm of “selfies” either. I think the whole current attitude in our culture is that everything has to be centered on me and on my rights and my preferences. I was speaking with my kids the other day about the danger of cell phones and computers and how it isolates us from society because we now have this technology which can cater to our every whim and individual preferences to the point that we find it more desirable to cocoon ourselves in this self serving, self gratifying cyber world that caters to our specific desires. And so we end up isolating ourselves from society. We don’t have the patience for other people, or for normal interaction. We become narcissistic introverts.

The citizen of the kingdom of heaven though does not exhibit that sort of self love. If they truly mourned over their sinful condition, if they truly humbled themselves before the Lord, if they really realized that their heart is desperately wicked, then they don’t operate any longer in the realm of self love. They agree with Paul who said there is nothing good in me. I have actually read Christian literature that talks about self love and the need to love yourself first before you even love God. That’s a false doctrine. Actually, the exact opposite is true. Jesus said he that loves his life shall lose it. He was talking about the natural man, loving ourselves, putting ourselves first.

The Christian needs to remember that he has two natures in him, the old man and the new creation. The flesh and the spirit. And he must mortify the flesh if he is going to live in the spirit. And furthermore, he needs to see in others that same principle. When he sees the unsaved man who is acting in rebellion against God’s design, then he needs to recognize that man is still dead in his sins. That he is blind to the truth. And if you have that attitude, then you will act with mercy towards that person. He realizes such people are still under the captivity to the kingdom of darkness. So if he loves that person, then he will try to show them how they might have peace with God. How they might be forgiven and receive new life. That is a peacemaker.

That’s what Christ did for us, was it not? Did He not see us dead in our sins, held captive by the lusts of the flesh and under the domination of Satan? And did He turn up HIs nose at us and let us drown in our sinful condition without pity when He knew the way to make us reconciled to God, when He had the means by which he could give us new life? No, of course not. Phil. 2:6 says, Jesus, though being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be held onto, but He humbled Himself, taking on the form of a man, and became a servant to man, that He might lead us to God. Jesus was Himself a peacemaker. He is called in scripture the Prince of Peace. And in like manner, we should consider how we might make peace for those who are outside of the kingdom of heaven, by imitating what Jesus has done for us. We are to have the same attitude that He had.

That means that we even love our enemies. Jesus said, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him.” Your enemy may have said terrible things about you. Not only do we not retaliate, but we have mercy on him and pray for him, and look for an opportunity to show him the way to peace. God had mercy upon us and forgave us when we were enemies towards Him, then should we not show the same consideration on our enemies? I realize that does not come easily. It certainly doesn’t come easy for me. It is not natural. But if you have received mercy, then you will show mercy. If you have been forgiven, then you will show forgiveness. If you have been shown kindness, then you will show kindness. We operate not out of the natural tendencies, but out of the spiritual heart which Christ has given us.

That does not mean that being a peacemaker is always going to be without conflict. We are not told to seek peace at any price. Real peace cannot exist without righteousness. And so we don’t accommodate sin for the sake of peace. We can never turn a blind eye to sin in order that we may keep the peace. Listen to James 3:18, “And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Peacemakers sow the seed of truth whose fruit is righteousness. They confront sin with the truth because the only true peace is the peace that is gained when sin has been dealt with. There must be a dealing with sin according to the truth of God’s word. And sometimes the truth is offensive. But it can still be sown in a way that produces righteousness as a fruit of that truth. You don’t hate the sinner, but you should hate the sin. And the person you are dealing with should recognize that difference.

Psalm 85:10 says, “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” You’re not going to have peace without righteousness. As long as a person is unrighteous, as long as a person is still in their sin, as long as a person is untransformed, there will never be any peace because righteousness and peace kiss each other.

And lastly, being a peacemaker is nothing less than living a life of sanctification. It’s growing to be like Christ. Not just being born again, but learning and growing and maturing in your walk with the Lord so that we act like He acted, we love like He loved, we speak like He spake. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Once we have been born again, it’s time to start growing like Christ. In Hebrews 12:14 we are told to “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” So the writer there correlates being a peacemaker with sanctification, without which we display the fact that we are not children of God. If we are God’s children, then we will act like Him.

Galatians 5 reminds us that there are two natures. And if we are children of God, then we are going to operate in the spirit and not in the flesh. Starting in vs19 it says, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

I close by asking you again to examine yourselves. Have you received a new heart, have you been born again into the family of God? Without a new heart, you cannot be a child of God, and you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins that you might have peace with God. Simply believe in what He has done for you, and repent of your sins, and you will receive a new heart that can know the peace that only God can provide. I pray that today you will recognize your spiritual bankruptcy, and repent of your sins, mourning over your condition, humble yourself before God and ask Him to remake you, and make you into a child of God.

Do you want to know the peace of God which passes all understanding? I urge you today, make peace with God. Surrender to Him as Lord and Savior, trust Him to give you a new heart, to create in you a clean heart, a pure heart, that you will have peace with God. When you make peace with God, then you can know the peace of God. That offer of peace is extended to you today. Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and become a child of God today.