Matthew chapter 5 verse 20, now what you
have to recognize is Matthew 5.20 is
connected to 17, 18 and 19.
Let's read these four.
Do not think that I came to destroy
the law or the prophets.
I did not come to destroy, but to
fulfill.
For assuredly I say to you, till heaven
and earth pass away, one jot or one
tittle will by no means pass from the
law till all is fulfilled.
Now what you need to recognize is he's
talking about until heaven and earth pass away,
which means all the way to the end
of time.
The law and the prophets are going to
stand and whoever therefore breaks one of the
least of these commandments, clearly that comes from
the law and the prophets, teacheth men so
shall be called least in the kingdom of
heaven.
Whoever does and teaches them these commandments that
come from the law and the prophets, he
shall be called great in the kingdom of
heaven.
For I say to you that unless your
righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and
pharisees you will by no means enter the
kingdom of heaven.
What you really need to recognize is this,
the law and the prophets keeping and teaching
the commandments that come from the law and
the prophets, that is exactly the righteousness that
he is talking about in verse 20 that
we need to have and it better exceed
that of the scribes and the pharisees.
This is all one thought here and it's
all together.
And listen, verse 20 is really a summary
statement of pretty much everything we're going to
get in the Sermon on the Mount from
now on.
You recognize this, as we go through the
Sermon on the Mount what he's repeatedly going
to do is tell us what the scribes
and the pharisees are like and how our
righteousness needs to differ from theirs.
Basically the Sermon on the Mount is an
enlargement of 520, 520 is a summary statement.
So, look at it, unless your righteousness exceeds
the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees you
will by no means enter the kingdom of
heaven.
So let me create a scenario for you.
Let's say it's Saturday morning like it was
yesterday and you decide you're going to go
down and you're going to participate in the
evangelism.
So you're going to head down to the
city center and you're going to show up
there and you arrive and you grab your
handful of tracts and you take up your
position.
Just then imagine this, somebody comes up to
you and they ask you this question.
They say to you, what must be true
of me for me to get to heaven?
They ask you that question.
How many of you would even think in
terms of answering like this?
How many of you would go there?
How many of you would even answer in
terms having to do with a righteousness that
exceeds the righteousness of somebody else?
I mean, here's the reality.
We might very well say, well let me
tell you about imputed righteousness.
Unless your righteousness is perfect like Christ, see
often we go there.
You've got to be perfect to enter heaven.
But that's not what Christ is talking about
here.
He is not talking about imputed righteousness.
He is talking about the law and the
prophets keeping, and you'll see this as he
goes on.
He'll say, look, you know maybe the scribes
and the Pharisees, they've got perhaps adultery nailed
down to the seventh commandment even then they
thought they could put their wives away for
any reason under the sun.
So really they just had an out for
the adultery thing.
Well, we don't need to commit adultery.
If I'm sick of my wife, for any
reason I can just basically put, that's why
they were asking Christ what they were asking.
Doesn't Moses say we can put away our
wives for anything?
And he's saying, well hold on boys.
See that was what he was always doing
with the scribes and Pharisees.
Certainly they had it down to the letter
of the law.
But what we're going to find here is
this all together has to do with practical
righteousness.
And how many of us would even talk
this way?
Jesus is speaking about practical righteousness.
This would be like us being down there
and saying, you know, well, see that religious
guy over there?
I mean, your commandment keeping righteousness better be
better than his.
That's basically what he's doing.
How many of us would talk that way?
How many of us would say to a
young Muslim, I spoke to three young Muslim
guys yesterday, two at one time with George
and then there was another guy I came
across.
How many of us would even say, well
you see that Imam over there?
You see that Mullah over there?
Unless your righteousness exceeds his, you're not going
to enter the kingdom of heaven.
But that's how Jesus talked.
That's exactly how he's talking right here.
I mean, and none of us would do
this.
We don't even need to think about debating
it.
And yet, our Lord, what I love is
when I'm going through scripture and I start
seeing things that Christ does or Christ says,
and when I really get to thinking about
it, I start thinking, how come none of
us do that?
You know the truth is, a lot of
times we're afraid to sound like Jesus sounds.
Because think about this, if somebody came up
to you and said, what must be true
of me for me to get into heaven,
for me to enter the kingdom?
You know what you'd say?
What would you say?
Yes, you'd be talking about trust, you'd be
talking about repentance.
What would we say?
You need to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, or you won't enter the kingdom of
heaven.
I mean, we would say that.
Sometimes Sonny uses the law, kind of the
Ray Comfort deal, right?
You want to tell them they're liars, they're
full of lust, and anyway, he uses the
law.
A lot of times we would go there,
we'd undoubtedly take them to the cross, we'd
talk to them about repentance, the Bible says
if you don't, unless you likewise repent, or
unless you repent, you will likewise perish.
I mean, you've got to repent, or you're
not going to enter the kingdom.
That's a reality.
We might talk to them about being born
again, if you're not born again.
There's many things that we might say, we
might, typically we're going to speak about justification,
and what that looks like, and how that
works.
We might speak of death, I did a
track on death, because I think that's a
good lead-in sometimes.
We talk about judgment, judgment's coming, how are
people going to stand?
And you know what?
All of that would be true, and all
of that would be biblical.
But isn't it interesting how our Lord speaks
here?
I say to you, you see, Jesus says
things we don't say.
He can float out into the crowd.
I mean, you may remember one of the
Tuesday studies.
I basically read from a portion of Ezekiel,
and I said, would this be a right
way to preach the gospel today?
And you remember, somebody said no, and I
said, why?
And they said, well, there's no cross in
it, there's no grace in it.
Well, I took them to the New Testament,
and I showed them right here in the
Sermon on the Mount, how the Lord could
often talk that way.
Isn't it interesting?
No mention of the cross, no mention of
repentance, no mention of faith, no mention of
forgiveness, no mention of imputed righteousness.
I know in other places we can find
these, but you know, it's very interesting.
It's very interesting to me how often Jesus
does not talk the same way Paul talks.
A lot of times we try to take
Pauline doctrine, not that they were at odds
with what Christ taught, but a lot of
times we try to take the Pauline doctrine
and read it in to what Christ said.
Christ spoke in ways that sometimes we just
have to come face to face with.
We have to come to grips with it.
I mean, listen, I was basically a nominal
Catholic before God saved me.
If somebody would have said to me, unless
your righteousness exceeds that of priests and nuns,
you will in no way enter the kingdom.
See, that's what it would have been like
for me.
It would have been like, what?
I thought you were supposed to believe.
I mean, I read somewhere about God so
loved the world, He gave His only begotten
Son, anybody that believes.
I mean, I read that.
I thought, what's this?
And of course, I had no idea about
anything.
I had no idea about repentance.
But if somebody would have said that to
me, what would...
I mean, imagine this if you're an Anglican.
And it's just like the arch...
Your righteousness better exceed that of the Archbishop
of Canterbury.
Or you're one of these Muslim guys, and
it's like, you see that Imam over there?
Unless your righteousness exceeds him, you're not going
to enter the kingdom.
Do you recognize just how radical this sounds?
I mean, to me as a nominal Catholic,
if you would have told me that, I'd
have said, forget you.
I'm out of here.
I mean, if that's basically the way it
is, what hope do I have?
I mean, you have to recognize just how
stunning, how shocking this is.
I mean, if somebody would have come along
and said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of
Mother Teresa, you will not inherit the kingdom.
And by the way, before you think I'm
making any kind of wrong judgment about Mother
Teresa, John MacArthur went to Calcutta, and he
visited her.
He said, this was years ago when his
children were smaller, but he took one summer
and he went over there.
He met Mother Teresa before she died.
He said that place was dark.
He said it was full of idols.
He said it was a horrible place.
Time Magazine ran a series on her when
she died, and they printed some of her
journals.
And she said, if they make me a
saint, I will be a saint of darkness.
She basically described in her life, she had
no assurance, except for one little space of
time back in the 1950s.
This woman was in the dark.
And if you would have come along and
said that to me, I remember I was
still very much lost right before God saved
me.
I had a collision at second base.
My knee was out.
I'm limping.
I'm just feeling miserable.
This was in the time right before God
saved me.
I walk into the break room, and one
of the guys said, you're Catholic, aren't you?
I said, yeah.
He said, you ever considered that the Pope
might be the Antichrist?
I said, just leave me alone.
Let me get my candy out of this
machine.
But I mean, you know, the reality, if
you start talking about the Pope, come on,
you Polish guy, you come from, you know
what it's like over there.
You start talking about Pope John Paul, I
mean, this guy is sacred.
You start talking about Mother Teresa, you start
talking about the nuns and the priests.
I mean, if anybody is going to get
in, what you need to recognize is that's
exactly what the Scribes and the Pharisees were
like back in that day that Jesus lived.
We need to talk about these guys.
Here's what Lloyd-Jones said about the Scribes
and the Pharisees.
He said, we must remember that the Scribes
and Pharisees were in many senses the most
outstanding people of the nation.
Now think about who these guys were.
Scribes.
Do you recognize before the printing press came
in how important a scribe was?
Everything got copied by hand.
And because they were copying the law of
God, you see, these guys were experts.
They not only copied it, they knew what
was in there.
Do you recognize when Herod, you remember the
wise men, the Magi came to town?
And Herod wanted to know where Christ was
supposed to be born.
Who did he gather together?
He went to the Scribes.
He said, hey guys, where's the Christ supposed
to be born?
Why would they know?
Well, they did know.
You see, these are the guys that were
copying scripture.
These guys were teaching.
Often these guys were lawyers.
Being a lawyer and being a scribe, they
often went because you're dealing with law.
You see, in the Jewish culture, law came
out of the scriptures.
And so to be a lawyer, these things
went together.
And then to be a Pharisee, you know
what the word Pharisee means?
It means to be a separatist.
It means to be set apart.
These guys were like the separated ones.
They set themselves apart.
They had drawn up a most stringent set
of rules and a moral code.
The Pharisees went beyond the scripture.
And you remember the Pharisee, the tax collector,
there in Luke 18.
The Pharisee said, I fast twice a week.
The Old Testament never called for that.
But he fasted twice a week.
You know what else they found?
They took issue with Jesus' disciples because they
didn't wash their hands.
There's nothing in the Old Testament scripture that
said you had to wash your hands before
you could eat.
See, these guys, they made more rules.
They went, these guys, they formed just an
excessive, stringent code.
They were the strictest sect among the Jews
for outward religion, for outward righteousness.
And you know what everybody looked at the
scribes and the Pharisees?
As the paragons of virtue.
In that day, if you would have said
to the common man, you see, the common
man was awed by these guys.
To the average man said to himself, hey,
there's little hope that I can ever be
as good as these guys.
Because they'd see these guys.
They'd see how they prayed.
They'd see how they gave.
They'd see these guys.
They stood apart.
They were outstanding.
So it would have been the same way
as you coming to me as a nominal
Catholic and telling me that unless my righteousness
exceeds.
You know what I thought?
I had a cross.
This isn't, I take it this was for
when I died.
So I'd always have it when I rode
my motorcycle.
It was like my protective charm that said,
I'm a Catholic.
Please call a priest.
Well, you know what a priest was like?
It's like, these guys exude holiness, right?
I mean, think about it.
They wear that thing on their neck and
they, what'd they do?
They don't get married.
I mean, they like gave their life for
the church and for God.
These guys are set apart.
I mean, you just, you look at these
guys like, if anybody's getting into heaven, the
priest and the nun is.
I mean, the idea that your righteousness would
have to somehow exceed them, the Pope.
I mean, come on.
This, brethren, I'm telling you this.
You know what?
To the average guy, you look at these
people and it's like, if these guys can't
enter the kingdom, if my righteousness has to
exceed, if even the least Christian, their righteousness,
the righteousness of the least Christian has to
surpass the righteousness of the greatest of these
scribes and Pharisees, what hope do I have?
Who can be saved?
I say to you that unless your righteousness
exceeds the righteousness of scribes and Pharisees, you
will by no means enter the kingdom of
heaven.
I'll tell you, this then is one of
the most vital things that we could ever
consider.
I mean, brethren, what is our conception of
true holiness?
What is our conception of true salvation?
What's our idea of being Christian?
I mean, this challenges it all.
What is it to be genuinely in the
Lord?
I mean, our Lord sets it right down
here in this verse, that the righteousness of
a Christian, it's, how is it greater?
I mean, we need to look at that.
This being the case, we need to examine
our own profession of our Christian faith in
the light of this analysis of the Lord.
I mean, the Lord knows what He's talking
about.
And this is serious stuff.
Have you ever noticed how often Jesus deals
with the scribes and the Pharisees?
I mean, if you just take the four
Gospels and you think to yourself, how often
do you see the scribes and the Pharisees
coming up?
How predominant were they?
Because you have to recognize this.
This is what God knew that His church
would need preserved for the whole of this
age, until heaven and earth pass away.
Do you recognize that not everything that Jesus
did is recorded?
John tells us that.
The world wouldn't even be...
Do you recognize that we only have a
very limited amount of information that's recorded for
us?
But think about this.
How often did God think it necessary to
tell us about the scribes and the Pharisees?
I would say actually quite a bit.
And I'll tell you what.
If we have eyes to see, there's a
reason.
Do you recognize that every form of false
religion on the face of the earth is
like the scribes and the Pharisees?
All of it, without exception.
It doesn't matter if you go look at
it in Hinduism, or if it's Catholicism or
if it's Jehovah's Witnesses.
It doesn't matter if it's Mormonism.
It doesn't matter.
It is the same.
And you know what?
It's the same in nominal Christianity too.
Which comes really close to home.
Everywhere.
This being the case, we need to look
at this.
One of the things that the Lord was
concerned about was the hollowness of these men's
religion.
Like the very heart and soul of what
true Christianity was lacking.
Look all through history, every nation, every culture,
we've got, no matter when we live, our
righteousness has to exceed theirs.
And so you know what?
We better look at what their righteousness looks
like.
Because you won't enter the kingdom unless your
righteousness exceeds that.
And so what we want to do is
survey the religion of the scribes and the
Pharisees just for a moment.
In order that we can see the defects.
In order that we might recognize what's meant
by a righteousness that exceeds theirs.
How does mine need to be a step
above?
What does that even look like?
I mean I want that righteousness that exceeds
theirs.
I want to enter the kingdom.
I trust you do too.
So, we must realize this is one of
the most serious important matters we can ever
consider together.
Because there is, look, it's got to do
with entering the kingdom.
And there is a very real and terrible
possibility of our being deluded and deceived.
And you just have to think, the sermon
on the mount ends with a wise man
and a foolish man.
The sermon on the mount ends with many
being deceived.
The sermon on the mount ends with the
narrow way that only few find.
There's a broad way that many are on.
And that's these people.
It's people with a righteousness like theirs.
And so we want to sit up and
take notice.
Because brethren, one of the terrible realities about
these Pharisees and scribes is they're being denounced
by our Lord as being hypocrites.
But do you know this?
They were unconscious hypocrites.
Do you ever recognize that when you get
to the end of the sermon on the
mount, these people that actually are lawless, they
were very religious.
And they had this external religion and they're
surprised.
You see, that's what makes this so dangerous.
Is that we might just say, well we
should all know.
We should all be able to see it.
No, isn't it amazing, at the end they
didn't see it.
Lord, Lord, we did this in your name.
I never knew you.
They really believed they were spiritually well off.
They even believed that they were superior.
Listen to this.
The Pharisee stood and prayed with himself this
way.
God, I thank you that I'm not like
other men.
This is what they really thought.
They thought that they were superior to others.
Do you remember how they talked to the
blind man in John 9?
You were altogether born in your sin.
Do you teach us?
What are they implying there?
They're implying somehow they weren't.
You teach us?
I mean, you're born in your...
Do you remember when the officers came back
and they didn't take Jesus?
And they're asking why you didn't take him?
And they said, because nobody ever talks like
this.
They said, do any of the Pharisees believe
in him?
But you people who know not the law
are cursed.
Isn't that interesting?
They thought they were better.
They thought they were higher.
They thought they were superior.
They really thought all was well.
The terrible danger the Lord is bringing us
face to face with is there's a possibility
that we can be relying on the wrong
thing.
I mean, we can...
You know what happens?
You can start resting on the things that
have to do with worship rather than actually
being a true worshiper.
And that's huge.
Because you know what?
A man can pray and he can rest
on his praying.
I prayed.
I fasted.
I gave the money.
And you know what?
That's a lot different from coming to the
prayer meeting because you desperately need the Lord.
And you're looking to Him and you want
to find Him and you want to cling
to Him and you want God to be
good to His promises and you need His
help and you're desperate and you're fasting, not
so that people can see it, but you're
fasting because you really want to lay hold
on the Lord.
You want Him to come near.
You want the riches, the reward of the
Father that He gives.
You give because you care.
You give because you feel for the need
of the widow, for the need of the
orphan.
You feel for the need of the pastor
or the missionary.
So, here's the thing.
They had a form of righteousness.
You know when He talks like that?
Your righteousness needs to exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and the Pharisees.
See, He's not saying they didn't have any
righteousness.
It's that their righteousness was defective.
And so that's...
Even if you can equal the best of
them, it's defective.
It's not enough.
It's got to exceed.
So, let's follow our Lord's own analysis of
the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.
Turn to Luke 12.
This is key.
In Luke 12, our Lord really sums it
up.
Luke 12, 1.
When an innumerable multitude of people had gathered
together, so that they trampled one another, He
began to say to His disciples, first of
all, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,
which is hypocrisy.
You want to get that.
Because, here's the thing.
Jesus spoke this to real people.
Just like I'm speaking this to real people.
Jesus is speaking to people truth that has
to do with the well-being of their
soul.
Hypocrisy.
Beware of hypocrisy.
And He says this.
One of the reasons you want to beware
of it is because you can't hide forever.
He says there's nothing covered that will not
be revealed.
Now, you go away to a secluded place
this evening.
You just sit by yourself.
And you think deeply about that reality.
Nothing that happens in the recesses of your
mind.
Nothing that has happened in the secret place
that won't be revealed.
Nor hidden that will not be known.
Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark
will be heard in the light.
What you have spoken in the ear, in
inner rooms, will be proclaimed on the housetops.
Now, Jesus is saying this.
It's all going to be brought out.
Now, I know this.
For the Christian, there's no condemnation.
How much of it's going to be brought
up that we're actually forgiven for?
I don't know.
I haven't endured judgment day.
Neither have you.
We don't exactly know what it's going to
be like.
But right here, Jesus says, nothing's going to
be hidden.
I know this for the Christian.
All the sin's going to be under the
blood.
Some people think that there will actually be
tears that will have to be wiped away,
even from God's people on that day.
I don't know.
But hypocrisy, do you know what it is?
It's like a stage player.
An actor.
It's a movie actor.
Do you know what's happening in the movies?
You watch a movie.
You see the actor playing the part.
They pretty much sold you that they are
that person that they're playing.
But you know what's going on in their
minds, right, as they're playing that part?
They're not really that person.
They're trying to think of their lines.
They actually are another person than the one
they're portraying.
They're doing this for money.
They're doing this for fame.
They're doing this for fortune.
That's what they're doing.
They're not that person that they're portraying.
We all know that.
That's what hypocrisy is.
It's creating a public impression that's at odds
with my real purpose and my real motivation.
It's an outward show.
It's to be pretentious.
It's pretentious, pretentious, and pretend are related.
It's basically pretending on the outside to be
something that I'm actually not.
There's no factual basis for it.
Jesus said this, Therefore when you do a
charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before
you as the hypocrites do.
That comes from the Sermon on the Mount.
You see, he's going to unpack the reality
of the hypocrisy of the scribes and the
Pharisees right here in this sermon before he
gets done.
Matthew 6.5, when you pray, you should
not be like the hypocrites.
Matthew 6.16, when you fast, do not
be like the hypocrites.
In Mark 7.5, the Pharisees and scribes
asked him, Why do you disciples not walk
according to the tradition of the elders, but
eat bread with unwashed hands?
He answered and said to them, Well, did
Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites?
And of course, Matthew 23.
Matthew 23.13, Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites.
Verse 14, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites.
Verse 15, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites.
Verse 23, verse 25, verse 27, verse 29,
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
In Matthew chapter 23, he calls them hypocrites.
I mean, you can just imagine him talking
to these guys in this fashion.
But you know what's amazing?
For one, it's amazing he talked to them
like that.
For two, it's amazing that God thought that
needed to be preserved for all of us
to see.
The most basic, elemental, fundamental reality about man
-made and devil-made religion, even nominal Christianity,
is this.
The inside and the outside are at odds.
They're not in harmony.
They're not in rhythm with each other.
Listen to this.
Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the
cup and dish, that the outside of them
may be clean also.
This inside-outside, the fact that they're not
in harmony, this is where the danger is.
You see, the hypocrite, the scribe and the
Pharisee, their righteousness, it was external and it
didn't line up with what was true internal.
The true Christian, even with our imperfections, the
fact is that what we are on the
outside and what we are on the inside
is the same.
That doesn't mean we may not struggle with
certain aspects of hypocrisy, but by and large,
when you sum up the person's life, what
they are on the inside is what they
are on the outside.
That is the difference in this righteousness and
it's a life and death issue.
Listen to this.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.
You're like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful
outwardly, but inside, you see the comparison, outwardly,
but inside are full of dead men's bones,
all uncleanness.
Even so, you also outwardly appear righteous to
men, but inside, you're full of hypocrisy and
lawlessness.
Now you want to get that.
On the inside, lawlessness.
That's key, because when we get to the
end of the Sermon on the Mount, it
says, not everyone who says to me, Lord,
Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven.
He who does the will of my Father.
You see, he's talking about practical righteousness.
He's talking about actually doing the will of
God.
He's talking about the law and the prophets.
He's talking about what God has expressed in
his will.
Those are the people that enter the kingdom.
And when he tells these other people they're
not going to enter, they're saying, externally, we
prophesied.
Externally, we cast out demons.
We did many mighty works.
And you know what, when he says, I
never knew you, he says, you workers of
lawlessness.
You see, that's the issue.
They did many things on the outside, but
inside, lawlessness.
This is the same thing he just said,
if you had ears to hear this.
Inside, you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
You see, the inside and the outside.
There's a contradiction.
This is what we have to get.
When Jesus says that our righteousness has to
exceed, exceed the righteousness of the scribes and
the Pharisees, Jesus isn't just saying we have
to do better.
Basically, we need a righteousness that's like theirs,
we just need to do better than they
do.
That's not what he's saying.
He's not saying a higher degree of the
same kind of righteousness.
He's saying you need another kind of righteousness
altogether.
You need a different kind.
Their kind of righteousness was wrong.
Theirs was all about show.
It was all external.
And so you would think it's as simple
as this.
Can all of us be honest?
I'll tell you this, if you're not honest
with yourself, dishonesty is a path to destruction.
People have to be honest with themselves.
And so, you know, my question is this,
how can we try to wake people up
to this reality?
Hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying,
these people draw near to me with their
mouth, honor me with their lips, but their
heart, you see that's the inside, their heart
is far from me.
Do you realize this?
There's two kinds of Christianity.
One kind of Christianity is that kind where
the heart is close to God, and one
kind the heart is far from God.
Those are the two different kinds.
And so, you know what?
Both groups, they carry a Bible.
Both groups, they may come to the church
service.
Both groups have outward activities, but you see
the place where you can tell out the
true from the false.
The place where we've got to exceed, remember
this comes right out of the Beatitudes, they're
pouring Spirit in the heart.
These guys in the heart, God I thank
you, I'm not like that guy.
That's how he's praying in Luke 18.
No, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed
are the pure in heart.
You see it's a heart matter.
Blessed are the merciful.
Again, it's a heart matter.
Two kinds.
Listen, even here this can be hard to
find out.
Why?
Here's the problem.
When our hearts are far from God, the
hypocrite imagines that his heart is close to
God because he's actually created a God that
he's close to, but he's not the God
of Scripture.
Listen to this, they said to Jesus, we're
not born of fornication, we have one Father,
God.
Jesus said to them, if God were your
Father, you would love me, for I precede
you.
You see what was happening?
Here's Jesus dealing with these scribes and Pharisees
and yet they believe that they're close to
God.
And he says, no you're not.
If you were, the way you'd deal with
me would be different.
See, most people with a righteousness like the
scribes and the Pharisees, they think they're okay.
And they're going to keep on thinking they're
okay until it's too late.
How can I try to wake up somebody
who has a righteousness exactly like the scribes
and the Pharisees, who are not going to
enter the kingdom, if they continue on the
path that they're on.
How can I do that?
Well, I can just try to do what
the Lord does.
I can try to do what scripture says.
But we've got to be honest.
And this takes more than just right now.
When you're sitting alone, and you're really thinking,
what's going on inside?
What's going on at the heart level?
I mean listen, you know that it's been
said before, but it's so true.
What you think about the most is what
you love the most.
Is Christ in your thoughts?
Is the Trinity in your thoughts?
Do you think about the Father?
Do you think of the Son?
Do you think of the Spirit?
How much are you really motivated by a
desire to please this God?
How much are you in scripture to really,
I mean how much do you hunger and
thirst after an intimacy with this God?
And hunger and thirst after righteousness?
Or how much of your religion is basically,
it chafes at your flesh, you really wish
it wasn't this way, but you're trying desperately
to escape hell?
See, we've got to be honest.
Jesus said to certain individuals, because I tell
you the truth, you do not believe me.
You remember that?
He said to these guys, because I tell
you the truth, you don't believe me.
Do you hear what that's saying?
It's like you're such lovers of lies and
of darkness, that when I come along with
the truth, you can't even hear me.
So the question to be honest about is
clearly this.
Is my Christianity a matter of the heart?
Is my righteousness a matter of the heart?
And how can we know?
Well, our Lord recognizes that genuine Christian is
genuine in secret.
Right here in the Sermon on the Mount,
you know what He says?
He goes to our giving, He goes to
our praying, and He goes to our fasting.
And He says, in the secret place, repeatedly,
do your charitable deed in secret.
When you pray, go into your room.
When you've shut your door, pray to your
Father who is in the secret place.
Someone has said this, Religion is that which
a man does with his own solitude.
In other words, if you want to know
what you really are, you can find out
the answer to that question when you're all
alone, with your own thoughts, with your own
desires, and your own imaginations.
In the secret place.
You see, up here is a secret place.
You can be sitting here, and I have
no idea what you're thinking about.
When you're alone, what happens there?
I recognize.
This has been said before.
We are aware when we're in the presence
of others.
Do we change our conduct, somewhat, when we
get around others?
Yes.
Is there a degree of, I don't know,
I wouldn't call it hypocrisy, I would just
call it social etiquette, probably, right?
You don't do certain things that you might
do in private, in front of other people,
because you want to be proper.
But listen, that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about when you're all alone.
What do you desire?
What are you after?
What do you hope for?
What do you long for?
That's the real issue.
What you are when you're all alone.
You see, we're careful in what we say
to others.
We're careful in how we present ourselves to
others.
But the question is this, what do you
say to yourself?
I mean, what do you really want?
What is your heart after?
What goes on inside?
I mean, is basically this whole thing, listen,
hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Are the scriptures drudgery to you?
Do you find that you kind of have
to force yourself?
Now look, I know that there can be
a place for having to develop good habits.
But I would ask you this, it's kind
of like prayer meeting, it's kind of like
evangelism.
Are there some times when my flesh says,
like yesterday morning when the rain's coming down,
it's like, do I really want to go
out there and stand in the rain?
It's so nice just to sit here and
stay here in my nice dry office and
work on my sermon for tomorrow.
And you're going to go out there.
But once I was there, was I thankful
to the Lord?
Absolutely.
It's kind of like a prayer meeting.
Your flesh can feel like, oh, you know,
just getting rest tonight.
But then you go and you pray and
you come home and it's like the Lord.
I mean, do you recognize those realities where
there's this reality that God is helping you
and you go and you're among God's people
and you recognize certain things.
You want to be here.
It's not just drudgery.
We can all understand what it's like when
you have a child who is forced to
go to the prayer meeting, forced to go
to the Sunday service when they don't want
to.
Their parents are Christians.
They don't want to go.
Maybe they want to go because they want
to play with the other kids.
But it's just kind of drudgery to them.
Do you know that false religion is basically
like that?
I've got to do this because if I
don't do this, I'm going to end up
in hell.
I'm going to end up perishing.
You see, people are afraid of it.
People have a sense of death.
They have a sense of having to answer
for their sins and it drives men to
want to worship something.
It drives men to religion.
But I would ask this.
How satisfied are we?
Do you recognize this?
When the Pharisee prayed, he said, God, I
thank you that I'm not like other men.
I'm not an extortioner.
I'm not this, that and the other.
I'm not like this tax collector over here.
Did you get that?
They're satisfied.
You know what?
The tax collector is pretty satisfied when he's
tied his anise and his mint and his
cumin.
He's satisfied.
Because he's externalized it all.
Do you recognize these guys?
They're wanting to crucify Christ, but they won't
go into the Praetorian, lest they be unclean
for the Passover.
They're killing the Messiah.
Oh, but we don't want to go in
there because we'll be unclean.
And then they get the money that Judas
sold out Christ for.
It's not lawful for us to put it
in the offering box.
So they went out and bought us a
graveyard, basically.
I mean, these guys were meticulous when it
came to these things.
They just externalized all the righteousness.
They performed their task.
They're basically content.
Here's what Jesus said.
Won't you, you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you
pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin,
and have neglected the weightier matters of the
law, justice and mercy and faith.
This is what external religion always does.
It basically, go to church, check.
Went to the prayer meeting, check.
Read a chapter of Scripture, check.
That's how it is.
That's how these guys lived.
More interested in the actions of religion than
the motives behind the actions.
You see, they would become consumed with the
details.
And they would miss the larger principles of
love, of mercy, of compassion.
They were more interested in their doing, what
they did, their list of things than actually
of what they were, what becoming something.
And when the scribes and the Pharisees, listen
to these guys, when they saw them eating
with the tax collectors and sinners, they said
to his disciples, how is it that he
eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?
You see, often times you get Christians supposing.
And you know what?
We go to church and we put our
money in the offering box.
And we're happy to have money go to
some orphan over in Myanmar.
But you know what?
You remember the Pharisee?
Jesus, they invited him over to eat.
And a woman of the city, a sinner,
she comes in and she begins to wash
his feet with her hair.
And that Pharisee is over there thinking, if
he knew what kind of woman that was.
You see how these guys were?
Do you remember what it was?
It was a Sabbath day.
And they're watching him to see if he
would heal.
Now think with me.
You've got a man with a withered hand.
If a man with a withered hand came
in here, and you saw him and he's
suffering, and he hasn't been able to use
that hand, and you recognize what these guys
are doing.
They're down meticulously.
They've got their laws for the Sabbath.
You can do this, you can do this.
You can't do that, you can't do that.
Everything is by the book.
That's how external religion is.
And yet, Jesus heals him.
And they go out and plot how to
destroy him.
Seriously?
If you had a guy with a withered
hand, would you not be thankful?
God sent his Son into this place to
heal this man, and deliver him from that.
The Scribes and the Pharisees were constantly, you
know what?
Down to the letter of the law.
On the Sabbath, your disciples are doing that
which is unlawful to be done.
And Jesus is saying, guys they're hungry.
Have you ever read what happened when David
and his guys were hungry?
You see the difference?
You get where it's all the rules.
But it's a matter of the heart.
Blessed are the pure in heart.
Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after
righteousness.
Blessed are the merciful.
When you're merciful, you see that's the thing.
Oh, they're very careful.
Counting out their seeds of their anise, their
mint and their cumin.
Boy, down to the exact.
Oh, am I not great?
Look what I did.
I do all this.
And I'm superior to other people.
And he says, you absolutely are neglecting the
weightier parts of what Christianity is all about.
What God is all about.
They're primarily concerned about themselves and their own
righteousness.
When it came to the glory of God,
when it came to the needs of others,
they just went on with their religious duties.
So, the reality is this.
What's true?
What's true in here?
I mean, look, one of the things is
we're not perfect.
I recognize that.
Do we have our flaws?
Do we have our blemishes?
Do we have our fights with the passions
of the flesh?
Do we have our fights with worldliness?
Are we resisting the devil?
I mean, there are these battles.
But in the end, I mean, look, in
the end, you can recognize certain things in
your own heart.
Do you just fear hell?
Or is there a real desire to be
with Christ?
Is there a real desire to draw near
to God?
Is there a desire?
Brethren, I can tell you this.
When I think about coming here, like right
now, two o'clock service, what motivates me?
I mean, there's numerous things that motivate me.
Can I, honestly, can I say, oh, the
only reason that I come here is I
don't want to go to hell.
Quite honestly, I don't even think that way.
Is it just because I want to do
my duty and be able to say that,
did my church thing check?
No, that doesn't even enter.
Why?
I mean, if I'm honest, why?
I can tell you, I so desire to
have God meet with us.
To experience the power of God.
And my trust is when two or three
meet together in His name, things are going
to happen and we're going to experience things.
I do want to help God's people.
I desire that.
I greatly desire that we're going to use
our gifts mutually to encourage one another's strength
and encourage one another's faith.
I greatly desire that.
Brethren, what we have to recognize is this,
when we boil our religion down, is that,
you know how the Pharisees were.
They basically could be contented in the fact
that they didn't commit adultery.
But Jesus comes along and He says, but
look at the heart issues.
This isn't just an action.
Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness?
You see, that's a healthy dissatisfaction that the
Pharisee doesn't have.
The Pharisee goes through his checklist and he's
very self-content.
He's very content and happy when he's done
his deeds.
But you know one thing I find about
the Christian, is they're never content.
Because they won't be content until they're like
Christ.
Because we groan.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Because we see our failures.
We take them to the Lord.
We confess these things.
That Pharisee in Luke 18, he was very
self-contented.
I thank you I'm not like others.
Brethren, I may recognize this.
I may recognize that I'm not like a
lot of people in the world.
But I guess I've grown enough inside that
I don't walk around feeling superior to the
people out here who are lost.
Because when I look at people like that
young Muslim guy yesterday, and look at him,
I recognize that's me.
He's Muslim.
He's nominal Muslim.
I was nominal Catholic.
But that's me.
I recognize this, aside from the grace of
God, there go I.
And there I would be still.
And you can all look in your own...
Do you feel gratitude?
And I know it has an ebb and
flow to it.
But do you feel gratitude for your salvation?
Does the cross...
Not just that you get stirred up by
the songs, but I mean when you sang
some of these songs today, I mean there
were several stanzas on before the throne.
Do you feel it?
I mean everything in you wants to jump,
because you're worshiping inside.
It's not a matter of, oh it's a
catchy tune.
No, it's not that.
You feel it.
You well up.
There's appreciation.
There's joy.
There's truth.
You're affected by truth.
You're not just going through the motions.
I mean what's true in here?
This is where our righteousness has to exceed
theirs.
And what we're going to be doing is
we're going to look at this.
Because this is where Jesus goes.
It's really an interesting sermon.
If you're not careful, it can have a
legal feel to it.
But you don't want to go there.
Because the reality is that this is what
Christ makes of people that He saves.
And what He's going to do is He's
going to show us the difference between this.
Because He wants us to see.
He doesn't want us to be put off
by this kind of external religion.
He wants us to go, He wants us
to see the heart of the matter.
And remember this has to do with law
keeping.
This has to do with, it has to
do with the law and the prophets.
It has to do with taking what God
has said and doing the will of God.
And God wants our hearts.
You heard it, you hypocrites.
Isaiah said it.
That we can speak the right things but
their hearts are far.
God wants our heart near.
And when our heart's near, we're going to
obey Him.
We're going to do what He says.
The wise man hears and does.
The foolish man hears and does not do.
This is exactly what the Sermon on the
Mount is talking about.
It is that kind of obedience that comes
forth from faith.
This is the kind of thing where right
from the beginning we read, Blessed are the
poor in spirit.
We are a people who are bankrupt without
Him.
So you recognize that everything He's calling us
to do here, it's by the grace of
God, that we're going to look any different
from the rest of the world.
The grace of God.
We're poor in spirit.
So we need, we need His help.
We need His power.
We need His grace.
And as we look through this, when it
comes to purity, when it comes to anger,
when it comes to prayer, when it comes
to giving, when it comes to fasting, when
it comes to not having anxiety, not judging,
when it comes to all these different things,
Jesus is actually calling us to live on
a whole other plane in these areas than
the external religionist.
Because the external religionist has things to say
about prayer, and you can see what they
do.
They have things to say about murder, and
you can see what they do.
They have some things to say about adultery,
and you can see what they do.
But He's looking for something, He's going to
differentiate here between us and the hypocrites, us
and the scribes and the Pharisees, us and
the mere religionist.
And what it is is a great time
to look in the mirror, and it's going
to be a learning time, it's also a
time to hear how Christ teaches, and to
do exactly what it says at that allegory
at the end, that analogy at the end.
We want to be the wise man who
builds his house on a rock, and we
want to hear what Christ teaches us here,
and we want to press on with these
things.
And by the grace of God, see the
religionists, they walk in their own strength, and
so they can say, I thank you God,
this is an insult to God, I thank
you, I am, it says he prayed to
himself, not even praying to God, even though
it says, I thank you God that I'm
not like other men.
But basically it was because of their own
efforts, it was basically what they did, they
were very satisfied in their own efforts.
So here we are, I mean we're right,
it might seem like we've done this for
lots of weeks already, but now we're coming
in to dive into the depths, of the
heart and soul of the Sermon on the
Mount.
You'll see it, first thing is anger, then
lust, then divorce, then ulce, then retaliation, loving
your enemies, giving to the needy, praying, fasting,
treasure in heaven, anxiety, I mean these things
are so massively practical, I mean Jesus is
just going to the heart of where we
live.
Father I pray that in these coming weeks
and months, Lord I pray that through this
truth, my great desire is that there's not
a single person sitting in this room, who
lacks that righteousness that exceeds the scribes and
the Pharisees.
I pray that every professing Christian in this
place is real, and the reality of this
life that you call for in the Sermon
on the Mount, it would be displayed by
us.
Lord I pray that this would, in all
the purity, and poverty of spirit, and all
the mercy, Lord in that hunger that fills
the true child of God, Lord I pray
that all of it would so characterize us,
Lord I pray that we would be a
people given to the word of God, and
to the will of God, to be a
people that are wise, that hear and do,
Lord I pray that no one here would
be forgetful, that as we walk forward from
this place, we suddenly forget, like the man
James speaks about, and hear the truth and
then we just, we're forgetful, it's gone.
Lord please, give us a healthy dose of
trembling at your word, of hearing what Christ
says, and being gripped by it, rocked by
it, moved by it, help us Lord I
pray in Christ's name, Amen.
You are dismissed.