Let's turn today to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 5.
In our last study, we were considering how
Jesus began his description of nine wrong attitudes
at Matthew 5.21, and the first of
those wrong attitudes was anger towards a brother.
There may be cause for it, but where
it concerns our own rights and our own
honor and our own self, the word of
God is very clear.
We must not be angry with our brother.
Many Christians have never overcome anger because they
have never taken this command seriously.
They live under the old covenant, following Moses,
not Jesus Christ.
Think of a command like this, Ephesians 4,
verse 31.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and
clamor and slander be put away from you.
Let all wrath and all anger be put
away from you.
And yet in verse 26, there is a
verse which many believers like to remember.
Be angry, yet do not sin.
Let not the sun go down on your
anger and do not give the devil an
opportunity.
Many people justify their anger saying that is
just righteous indignation.
Whatever name you may call it, the Bible
calls it anger.
And yet people may say, doesn't it say,
be angry and yet do not sin?
That's right.
But five verses down in Ephesians 4, verse
31, it also says, let all anger be
put away from you.
Compare scripture with scripture.
And if you are honest, you will discover
that that anger which is caused by the
harm or hurt or injury or inconvenience that
another person has caused to me is selfish
anger and must be put away completely.
What then is the anger which is free
from sin?
It is an anger that concerns the purity
of God's house.
For example, when Jesus came to the temple
and saw people making money there in the
name of religion, he was angry with them.
When Jesus once went into a synagogue in
Mark chapter 3 and the people there were
so selfish that they didn't want a man
with a withered hand to be healed, it
says he looked at them with anger in
Mark 3, verse 5.
But when the people pulled out the hairs
from his face and spat on him, he
was not angry.
What do we learn from Jesus Christ?
That he was never angry when it concerned
anything done to his own person, whether they
called him the devil or spat on his
face.
But when it concerned the purity of God's
house, when it concerned other people being delivered
from their satanic bondages and people hindering them,
then he was angry.
He was angry in things that concerned God
and other people, but never in anything concerning
himself.
Anger, which has its root cause in some
inconvenience or injury done to me, is always
sinful and must be put away one hundred
percent.
The anger that we need to retain is
the anger that we should feel when God's
house is being dishonored, God's name is being
dishonored, His house is being abused, the church
is being abused to make money in the
name of religion, etc.
Unfortunately in many Christians it is the other
way round.
They see evil in God's house and they
are not angry at that, but they are
angry when it concerns themselves and somebody hurting
them.
Take it seriously, dear friends.
God wants you to overcome anger.
And then he goes on to say in
verse 27 about another thing.
In the old covenant it was written, you
shall not commit adultery, but I say to
you that everyone who looks on a woman
to lust for her has committed adultery with
her already in his heart.
And if your right eye makes you stumble,
tear it out and throw it from you,
for it is better for you that one
of the parts of your body perish than
for your whole body to be thrown into
hell.
And if your right hand makes you stumble,
cut it off and throw it from you,
it is better for you that one of
the parts of your body perish than for
your whole body to go to hell.
It is amazing how Jesus spoke about going
to hell.
In the Sermon on the Mount he says,
if you are angry with your brother and
you don't control it, you go on to
call him raka and fool.
Verse 22, you can go to hell.
Likewise he says in relation to adultery.
If you don't control those dirty thoughts and
overcome them and it leads on to sin
with your eyes, verse 29, and with your
right hand, verse 30, your whole body can
be thrown into hell.
How many people believe that?
How many people believe that sinning with the
eye can lead to a person being thrown
into hell?
Many have never taken God's word seriously.
They think that God doesn't mean what he
says.
Jesus said in John chapter 12, he said,
I do not judge anyone.
In the final day, if somebody has rejected
me, John 12, 48, and does not accept
my sayings, the word that I spoke will
judge him at the last day.
And here are the words that Jesus spoke.
If your right eye causes you to stumble,
tear it out.
It's better for you that one of your
parts of your body perish than for your
whole body to be thrown into hell.
What is the context?
The context is looking, verse 28, on a
woman to lust for her.
You haven't touched her, you haven't gone anywhere
near her.
You have looked.
Your right eye has caused you to stumble.
Right eye or left eye, it doesn't matter
which.
But it's caused you to stumble.
It's caused you to sin.
And you haven't taken it seriously.
This is the standard that God expects of
us in the new covenant.
You say, that's far too high a standard.
That's right.
That's why it's impossible, humanly speaking, to attain
to it.
That's why we need grace.
That's why we need the power of the
Holy Spirit.
That's why we need to come to the
throne of grace and ask God to give
us grace.
And we'll find that grace is sufficient, as
he told Paul, for every need of ours.
My grace is sufficient for you, even to
overcome dirty looks, dirty thoughts.
I wonder how many people have taken seriously
this matter of keeping our eyes pure.
Even in the Old Testament, Job considered this
as a very serious offense.
He lived before Old Testament times.
We read in Job 31 verse 1, I
made a covenant with my eyes.
He made a covenant with his eyes.
How then could he look upon a woman
sinfully?
So there we see that it was a
serious thing, even in Job's eyes, before the
Old Covenant was given.
How much more today?
To look and lust is a sin, Jesus
said.
Jesus expects purity in the inside, in our
thoughts.
And if a man's committed adultery in his
mind, Jesus said, as far as he's concerned,
that is adultery.
He has committed adultery with her already in
his heart.
And in that context, he said, deal with
it radically.
It's not the physical pulling out of the
eye, of the right eye.
It obviously cannot mean that, because you could
still sin with your left eye.
No, it means a radical attitude towards sin.
Lest your whole body be thrown to hell.
So Jesus used hellfire as a means to
warn people to stay away from sin.
Then he went on to speak about divorce.
In verse 31 and 32, whoever divorces his
wife, in the Old Testament it was said,
let him give her a certificate of dismissal.
And as we considered in a previous study,
Jesus said in Matthew chapter 19, that was
due to the hardness of men's hearts, that
God permitted that under the Old Covenant.
Now that the Holy Spirit is given, Jesus
says in Matthew 5.32, I say to
you, that everyone, and there is no exception
here, whether he calls himself believer or unbeliever,
who divorces his wife, except for the cause
of unchastity.
There is one exception.
Unchastity, where divorce is permitted, even under the
New Covenant.
That's where a man or a woman has
broken their covenant in marriage.
In such a case, it's permitted, but for
any other reason.
If a man divorces his wife or a
wife divorces her husband, they are committing adultery.
And if you marry a divorced woman, you
commit adultery.
For the cause of unchastity, divorce is permitted.
But remarriage is not permitted, even in such
a case.
And that is very clear when you look
at the parallel passages, which are mentioned in
Mark chapter 10 and Luke chapter 16 and
1 Corinthians 7, verse 11 onwards.
It's clear that though divorce is permitted in
the New Covenant for unchastity, remarriage is not.
Whoever, without exception, marries a divorced person, commits
adultery.
We need to establish these standards once again
in these days of compromise, where Christians consider
divorce and consider marrying those who are divorced
and marrying again.
Everyone, without exception, the Lord says, who divorces
his wife, except for unchastity, commits adultery.
And so we see that in this sexual
area, there is a very high standard that
God expects in the New Covenant.
In the area of anger and sexual lust,
two wrong attitudes.
In the area of anger and sexual lust,
God expects us to overcome, to seek Him
for grace, that we might live according to
the standard that He has prescribed for us
under the New Covenant.
Let's turn today to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 5
and verse 33, continuing our study on the
nine wrong attitudes that Jesus said we are
to be delivered from as New Covenant disciples
if our salt is to remain strong and
with taste and if our light is to
shine so that we fulfil our function as
the light of the world, as Jesus spoke
of in verse 13 and 14 of this
chapter.
In contrast to the nine right attitudes that
we need to have, which Jesus described in
the first few verses, Matthew 5, verses 3
to 12, he goes on to describe nine
wrong attitudes.
First of all, anger.
Second, sexual lust.
And third, in verse 33 to 37, he
speaks about lying.
You have heard, he said, that the ancients
were told, you shall not make false vows,
but shall fulfil 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, and anything beyond these is of
evil.
In Psalm 58, in the Old Testament, there
is a verse which says, that the children
of men go astray from their mother's womb,
telling lies.
Psalm 58, verse 3.
They speak lies from the mother's womb.
In other words, it's when they are babies,
they begin to tell lies.
Which means, it is not just a question
of speaking words from the mother's womb, which
means that they can tell lies without speaking.
And this is what we need to see,
that it is possible for us to tell
a lie without opening our mouths.
In other words, lying is more than just
the words.
It's speaking about deception by expressions, by a
certain impression that we convey on others.
In other words, it's referring to this whole
area of hypocrisy.
Consider Ananias and Sapphira, for example, whom we
read of in Acts of the Apostles, chapter
5, where Peter spoke to them and told
them, Why has Satan filled your heart to
lie to the Holy Spirit, he says in
verse 3.
And yet, if you read that passage, you
find that Ananias had not opened his mouth.
And yet, Peter says, you have lied to
the Holy Spirit.
It's possible to tell a lie without opening
our mouths.
We lie when we do something or act
in a particular way to give people a
certain impression about ourselves, which is not true.
In that particular case, Ananias came into the
meeting of the church, bringing some money with
him, giving the impression that he was giving
everything when he was not giving everything.
There was no sin in holding back part
of the money.
But there was a great sin in pretending.
And he was judged not for giving all
his money.
God doesn't want one pie of our money.
But he was judged for pretending in the
presence of others, for being a hypocrite.
And in contrast to the Old Testament standard,
which said that you must speak the truth
when you are under oath, Jesus says here,
don't make an oath at all under any
circumstances.
There are people who lay their hands on
the Bible and take an oath.
Notice what it says here in James 5,
verse 12.
Above all, my brethren, do not swear, either
by heaven or by earth or with any
other oath, even by laying your hand on
the Bible.
Let your yes be yes and your no
be no, so that you may not fall
under judgment.
James is repeating what Jesus said.
Let your yes be yes and your no
be no.
There is no need to take an oath
and to say, I swear by the Bible
or I swear by God or any such
thing.
The very Bible on which you lay your
hands tells you very clearly in Matthew 5,
verse 36 and James 5, verse 12 that
you are not to make an oath.
That's clear.
And he who has ears to hear will
hear.
These are the small commandments of God's word
that we can take so lightly.
You are not to make an oath.
For as we said in an earlier study,
what is a person saying when he's taking
an oath?
He's saying that I tell lies most of
the time, but right now I'm speaking the
truth because I'm under oath.
But that's not the testimony a Christian should
have.
The testimony of a Christian is, I speak
the truth all the time, and so I
don't need to take an oath.
Your yes is yes and your no is
no.
When you have to qualify your yes and
no with other things, but this and but
that, Jesus says in Matthew 5, verse 37,
that is all evil.
It's evil.
It's not just substandard.
It's evil.
And we need to see it as evil.
So there we see the seriousness of telling
lies.
We notice that with children, how easy it
is for them to tell lies, and we
need to teach them right from childhood, as
parents, the seriousness of lying.
Children need to be punished severely for telling
lies when they seek to deceive their parents.
That's one of the most serious things that
children can do, to tell lies to their
parents.
And if parents don't take the lies that
their children say seriously, they can prepare their
children for hellfire.
Notice the emphasis on hellfire, hellfire, hellfire, again
and again, in these first three attitudes.
Anger, Matthew 5, verse 22, you are in
danger of hellfire.
Sexual lust, Matthew 5, verse 29, you are
in danger of hellfire.
Sexual abuse, Matthew 5, verse 30, you are
in danger of hellfire.
And telling lies, Revelation 21, verse 8, it
says, all liars will have their part in
the lake that burns with fire in Brimstone.
All liars, black liars, white liars, every type
of liars, it says in Revelation 21, 7,
21, 8, and in verse, it's repeated, in
verse 27, all those who practice lying will
be outside the city.
All those who practice lying.
In contrast to this, we read in the
book of Revelation, a group of people described
in Revelation 14, who stand with Jesus on
Mount Zion.
And it says about them in Revelation 14,
5, no lie was found in their mouth.
Here are people who were born of the
same race of Adam, but who had received
Jesus Christ and who had taken their Christian
life seriously, not like many other Christians, being
filled with the Holy Spirit, and who had
cleansed themselves of this lying nature that they
had inherited from Adam.
Jesus said in Matthew chapter 12, and verse
36, and 37, that every careless word that
men shall speak, they will render account in
the day of judgment, for by your words
you will be justified, and by your words
you will be condemned.
And so we see here that our words
are very serious, because by our words we
can be condemned.
Have you been cleansed from all lying, from
giving a wrong impression to others?
Is it only when you are under oath,
that you speak the truth?
Or has speaking the truth become a way
of life with you?
Think of a situation in your office, when
you are in a tight spot.
And you can tell a lie and get
out of that tight spot.
Or, you can speak the truth and perhaps
lose your job, or get into a difficult
situation.
What will you do?
The devil comes to you and says, a
lie is powerful now, a lie is almighty,
it can deliver you from this tight spot.
The Holy Spirit says, God is almighty, He
can deliver you, if you will honor Him
by speaking the truth.
Now it's a question at that point, whether
you are going to believe the devil, or
you are going to believe the Holy Spirit.
Whether you believe a lie is almighty, to
deliver you from a tight spot, or whether
God is almighty.
Many, even those who call themselves believers, very
often in a tight spot they tell a
lie, because they believe the lie is almighty.
They lose faith in the almighty power of
God, at that situation.
And here is where our faith is tested.
And that's why lying is very serious.
If we have lied, and hurt others, we
need to go and make restitution, and confess
it and set it right.
Anyone, who wants to be salt that has
not lost its taste, light that's burning brightly,
will take these commandments seriously.
Lying is a wrong attitude, that dwells deeply
in our flesh.
We will lie, when it's convenient for us,
when we will gain something from it.
Think of the false statements people sign in
offices, in order to make a little profit.
Many things are covered under this commandment.
Let your yes be yes, and your no,
no.
Take this seriously dear friends, so that, we
can be cleansed from this evil nature, through
the power of the Holy Spirit, and live
as Jesus wanted us to.
Honest and truthful, under all circumstances, whatever the
pressure.
Let's turn now to, Matthew's Gospel chapter 5,
and verse 38.
Continuing our study, in the Sermon on the
Mount, having looked at the nine right attitudes,
that Jesus described at the beginning, in verses
3 to 12.
He continues, with nine wrong attitudes, that we
need to be cleansed from, beginning at Matthew
5.21, which he prefaced with this introduction,
that unless your righteousness, surpasses that of the
scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the
kingdom of heaven.
The first wrong attitude, that he said we
need to really be cleansed from, is anger,
verse 21 to 26.
The second one, sexual lust, and all that
arises from that, verses 27 to 32.
The third one is lying, which we considered
in our last study, verses 33 to 37.
And the fourth one, that Jesus speaks of
here, is vengeance.
All these wrong attitudes, are wrong attitudes, that
dwell deeply within our flesh.
Anger, sexual lust and lying, have penetrated every
fiber of our being.
So also the desire for vengeance, to take
revenge on someone, who has hurt us or
inconvenienced us, in some way.
And Jesus said here in verse 38, you
have heard that it was said, this was
an Old Testament law, an eye for an
eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
That is mentioned in Exodus 21, verse 24.
And also in Leviticus 24, verse 20.
And in both those passages, what the Old
Testament law said was, that if a person
took another person's life, you must take his
life.
Life for life.
And if in a fight that two people
had, one person knocked out another person's tooth,
the punishment is that you take out, one
of the offending person's tooth, one of his
teeth.
And if he injured a person's eye, so
that it was damaged, you take out that
person's eye, as a punishment.
Now, this does not mean, that we are
to do it.
In the Old Testament, a person, who was
God's representative in the state, as his authority
was to do it, were not to take
the law into our own hands.
But under the New Covenant, the Lord says,
I am teaching you a higher standard.
Forgiveness, where you don't take vengeance.
If somebody has taken out your eye, there
is no need to take out his eye.
Do not resist him who is evil, in
this sense.
We must not misunderstand that verse, by taking
it out of context.
Do not take his eye, if he has
taken yours.
But whoever slaps you, on your right cheek,
turn to him the other also.
And if someone wants to sue you, and
take your shirt, that is your inner garment,
let him have your outer garment as well.
And whoever forces you to go one mile,
that is the Roman soldiers who compelled the
Jews, to carry their burdens for one mile,
have a good attitude towards him, and help
him and carry it for two miles.
Give to him who asks of you, and
do not turn away from him, who wants
to borrow from you.
This is quite a high standard.
Jesus is not saying here, that there is
no need to have law, where people's rights
are protected.
That if someone steals your property, you just
let him take it.
He is speaking about personal attitudes here.
He is not speaking about established law in
society.
But about a personal attitude of vengeance.
He says, we must not have that.
In other words, don't take the law into
your own hands, and slap him back.
But have an attitude, which is free from
covetousness, and from the love of material things,
and from defending your own personal rights.
Leave that to God.
In Romans chapter 12, we read, the Lord
says, never take your own revenge, Romans 12,
19.
Beloved, but leave room for the wrath of
God.
Let God do it.
For it is written, vengeance is mine, I
will repay, says the Lord, if somebody has
harmed you, God will repay him.
Leave it to God.
As far as you are concerned, forgive him.
What should you do then, if your enemy
is hungry, feed him.
If he is thirsty, give him a drink.
Overcome evil with good.
We will come to that a little more,
when we come to the next section.
But for the moment, on the matter of
revenge.
That is a quotation, there in Romans 12,
from Proverbs 24.
So, we find that this was something that
God commanded even in the Old Testament.
Proverbs chapter 24, verse 17 and Proverbs 25,
verse 21 onwards.
What is the right attitude towards an enemy?
If your enemy is hungry, feed him.
If he is thirsty, give him to drink.
Proverbs 24, 17 says, do not rejoice when
your enemy falls.
That would be an attitude of revenge.
Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.
But, have an attitude of love.
There are many ways in which we can
seek to take vengeance on others.
It is possible for parents to take vengeance
on their own children, when their children cause
them some inconvenience.
There are many countries today where child abuse
has become so bad that people torture and
there are even cases of people who pulled
out their children's eyes in anger and burnt
their tongues in anger because those children caused
inconvenience to them.
Now, we may say we never do such
things, but consider something lesser than burning their
tongue or burning their eyes or maiming them.
It is right that we must discipline our
children when they are disobedient.
Not because they cause us inconvenience, but when
they are disobedient.
But consider a case like this.
Supposing you were to ask your child to
drink up its milk and it is disobeyed
and you don't take it seriously.
You just keep on telling it until finally
the child spills the milk and it falls
all over your clothes.
Then you whip him.
You need to ask yourself whether your whipping
the child at that time is for its
disobedience or because it has caused you so
much inconvenience by messing up your clothes.
It may not be discipline, but revenge.
We can take revenge against our own children.
It is amazing how evil, how much evil
dwells in the flesh.
And so we need to cleanse ourselves from
this revengeful attitude to be happy as we
read in Proverbs 24, 17 when your enemy
falls.
Somebody who has done some wrong to you.
Are you happy when God judges him?
Then you have a revengeful attitude.
Even though you didn't take revenge yourself, your
attitude is one of revenge that you rejoice
when your enemy falls even under the old
covenant that was forbidden.
No.
We are not to have an attitude of
revenge even in our hearts.
As I said, Jesus was not teaching the
abdication and the abolition of all law.
If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn
the other cheek.
What did Jesus himself do?
In John chapter 18 we read in verse
23 that when he was standing before the
high priest and somebody slapped him, Jesus replied,
If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness of
the wrong, but if rightly, why do you
strike me?
He didn't turn the other cheek.
He asked for justice.
But when it was not given to him,
then he accepted it.
What does that teach us?
We have every right to ask for justice
on the basis of John 18.23. But
we do not fight for it.
If they continue to slap us, we do
not hit back.
That's the point.
We can ask for justice.
Law has not been abolished in society.
But it's a question of attitude.
What about this verse which says, Give to
him who asks of you and do not
turn away from him who wants to borrow
from you.
Here again we need wisdom.
Jesus said that no one can be his
disciple if he does not forsake all that
he has.
Luke 14.33. Everything that we have, we
need to forsake if we are to be
disciples.
And this commandment is only for disciples.
Supposing you have earned your salary on the
first of the month, maybe a thousand rupees.
You need to forsake that to God if
you want to be a disciple.
Not 10%, but 100%.
In other words, you need to recognize that
that entire salary which you have earned that
month belongs to God.
God allows you to use it for house
rent, food, clothing, children's education and many other
things.
But it belongs to God.
Now, we need to obey the commandment which
says, Give to him who asks of you
and do not turn away from him who
wants to borrow from you.
When somebody comes and asks you for that
money, if it's yours, you can give it.
If it belongs to God, what shall you
do?
You have to ask God, Shall I give
it to this man?
Just like if you were keeping money with
you that belonged to somebody else, you couldn't
give it away without asking the owner's permission.
And there's not a single pie that we
have in our home or in our bank
account that should really belong to us.
It should all belong to the Lord.
Then we understand how to obey this command.
That when somebody asks of us, we go
and ask the owner.
We say, I have to ask the owner,
the Lord.
If he permits me to give it to
you, I give it to you.
Otherwise I cannot.
If he permits me to lend it to
you, I lend it.
Otherwise I cannot.
Thus, we can obey even this command in
all situations.
It's all a question of attitude.
When we are disciples, we understand how to
do everything right in all situations.
Let's turn to Matthew chapter 5 and verse
43.
We were considering in these last studies the
wrong attitudes that Christians can have that they
need to cleanse themselves from if they are
to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
Having described the nine right attitudes in verses
3 to 12, Jesus begins to describe the
nine wrong attitudes that we need to cleanse
ourselves from.
First of all, verse 21 to 26 of
Matthew 5, anger.
Second, verse 27 to 32, sexual lust.
Third, lying, verse 33 to 37.
Fourth, vengeance, the spirit of vengeance, from verse
38 to 42.
Now we come to verse 43 to 48
where Jesus speaks about selectiveness in love as
a wrong attitude that we need to cleanse
ourselves from.
He said, you have heard that it was
said under the old covenant, you shall love
your neighbor and hate your enemy.
Of course, the children of Israel when they
came into the land of Canaan were taught
to show no mercy to their enemies, to
the Canaanites.
There was a reason for that.
The Canaanites had indulged in various types of
evil described in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 19.
And the Lord said very clearly there that
there were all types of abominations and idolatry
and in the areas of sex that they
had indulged in, that if they had been
permitted to live, the Israelites were not strong
enough to resist the temptation that would come
through the evil of these people around them
and they would have been corrupted and the
testimony of God in Israel would have been
corrupted.
Their hearts were hard.
They were not yet ready to resist the
evil around them and therefore the only way
to keep the testimony pure was to destroy
the people around them.
And that's why there was a command to
destroy all the Canaanites.
It's something like cutting off a gangrenous hand
or leg.
We love the hand and leg, yet it
needs to be cut off lest it corrupt
and destroy the whole body.
We need to see Old Testament destruction of
Canaanites in this light.
But in the New Covenant, God has given
us the Holy Spirit.
There's no need to destroy the people around
us in order to keep ourselves pure.
We live in the Spirit by the power
of the Spirit and grace that strengthens our
heart, we keep ourselves pure.
So this is the context in which we
need to understand this Old Testament commandment about
hating your enemy.
It was never God's will.
It was for a period because of the
hardness of the hearts of people.
But Jesus said, Now I will tell you
what God's will has been from the beginning.
Love your enemies.
That's God's nature.
God doesn't hate His enemies.
He loves His enemies.
Pray for those who persecute you, Jesus said,
in order that you may be sons of
your Father who is in heaven, for He
causes His Son to rise on the evil
and the good and sends the rain on
the righteous and the unrighteous.
Here is a standard God has given for
us to follow that Jesus has given to
us.
To be like our Heavenly Father.
How does God make the sun shine?
He makes the sun shine on evil people
and on good people.
Does God send rain on the fields of
the righteous only?
No.
There are unrighteous people whose fields are prospering
because God sends rain on them.
Why?
If God were to bless only the righteous
with material things, that is, then the unrighteous
would have a terrible time on this earth.
No.
Why does God send rain and sunshine equally
on the just and the unjust, on the
evil and the good?
Because He does not want people to turn
to Him merely for material things.
That is one reason.
If God blessed only the righteous with material
things, a lot of people would become righteous,
not because they love God, but because they
wanted the blessing of material things.
If God sent rain only on the fields
of righteous farmers, a lot of farmers would
become righteous, not because they loved righteousness, but
because they wanted their farms to get rain.
There is a fundamental principle here that we
need to understand, that God has made it
easy for a man to be unrighteous if
he wants to be, because he wants that
man to turn from unrighteousness because he loves
God, not because he wants material blessing.
And so God's nature is this, that He
is good and kind to unthankful people as
we read in the parallel passage in Luke
chapter 6.
And Jesus says, in the Old Testament they
couldn't be sons of their father.
Remember, they had to just wipe out the
Canaanites.
But now, be a son of your heavenly
father.
And if you want to be a son
of your father, you have to behave like
this.
Here He is not telling us how we
can be children of God.
We become children of God according to John
1.12 by receiving Jesus Christ as our
Lord.
But, to become a son which is speaking
about maturity, there is a difference between a
son and a child.
We have to behave like our heavenly father.
That's what He says.
Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you so that you can become sons.
So that, this is the condition.
Otherwise we are not sons.
Just like we considered in verse 9 of
chapter 5.
Blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called
the sons of God.
It's more than children.
Here also, to have the same attitude towards
people who are good to us and evil
to us.
Look at the sun in the sky for
example and learn a lesson.
If you were to smile at the sun,
the sun would shine back at you.
If you were to frown at the sun,
it still shines back at you.
It's attitude towards you does not depend on
your attitude towards it.
You can praise the sun, it will shine
at you.
You can curse the sun, it will still
shine at you.
And there, we can learn a lesson as
to how God wants us to be towards
other people.
That when people curse us or praise us,
our attitude towards them remains the same, one
of love.
Further on, verse 46, Jesus said, If you
love only those who love you, what reward
do you have?
Do you love all the good brothers and
sisters in your church who love you in
return?
According to this verse, you don't get any
reward for that.
Did you know that?
Verse 46 is very clear.
If you love those good brothers and sisters
in your church who love you in return,
you have no reward for that.
Because, even tax collectors do the same.
We could say today, even unconverted people do
the same.
And if you greet your brothers only, what
do you do more than others?
Do not even the heathen do the same.
If you love and greet only those who
greet you, you are no better than the
heathen, you are no better than evil godless
atheists who love one another.
The communists love one another.
But, if you can love those who don't
love you, then you are a disciple of
Jesus Christ.
And it is very good for you to
check up personally, dear friend, as to how
many people who hate you, do you love?
How many of your enemies do you love?
How many people who persecute you, have you
prayed for?
How many people who have done evil to
you, have you done good to?
To how many people who frown at you
and despise you and do evil to you,
have you shone upon like the sun in
the sky?
This is the difference between human love and
divine love.
Human love, this is a very easy way
to distinguish the two.
Human love is manifested when there is a
response of love from the other party.
Or when the other party shows love.
It's easy to love those who give us
gifts.
What about those who rob us?
Leave alone give us gifts, they take away
what is ours.
What about those who inconvenience you?
Take away your rights, take away your reputation,
scandalize you.
Dear friend, whether you got God's love in
your heart or not, is tested by this.
Your attitude to those who despise you, speak
evil of you, and who have harmed you
in some way or the other.
And we need to take this seriously.
If your righteousness does not exceed the righteousness
of the Pharisees, leave alone the Pharisees, righteousness
does not exceed the righteousness of sinful people
who love those who love them, you shall
not enter the kingdom of heaven.
That's clear.
We need to take seriously this matter of
being selective in our love.
Loving certain people, being warm towards them, being
cold towards others.
That is hatred.
Coldness does not come from love.
It comes from hatred.
Some things which we don't call hatred, you
may say, I don't hate him.
But you don't love him either.
That coldness towards that person is born out
of hatred.
That is not a child of love, that's
a child of hatred.
It may not be fully grown up, mature
hatred.
It may be a little baby, that cold
shoulder that you give to that other person.
But it is part of the family of
hatred.
And so this is a high standard.
And it is in this context that the
Lord says, you are to be perfect, verse
48, as your heavenly father is perfect.
There is one area in which the Lord
asks us to be perfect as our heavenly
father and only one.
In Luke 6.36 it's explained more clearly.
Be merciful just as your father is merciful.
This is the parallel passage.
We cannot be perfect as our heavenly father
is in wisdom or in knowledge or in
power or perhaps even in holiness.
But we can be perfect as our heavenly
father is perfect in one area and that
is mercy.
We cannot be perfect as he is perfect
in love or holiness on this earth.
But in mercy, in other words, as he
forgives everyone, we can forgive everyone.
As he is good to all, we can
be good to all irrespective of their attitude
towards us.
If others serve Satan by being evil, why
should you serve Satan by being evil towards
them?
Be like Jesus who said, Forgive them father
for they know not what they do.
Then we also can be sons of our
heavenly father.
Let's turn today to Matthew 12 chapter 5
and verse 1 and verse 13.
Beware of practicing your righteousness before men otherwise
you have no reward with your father who
is in heaven.
In the previous studies we have been considering
what Jesus was speaking to his disciples about
the right attitudes that a disciple of Christ
should have.
Nine right attitudes that Jesus mentioned in Matthew
chapter 5 verses 3 to 12 followed by
nine wrong attitudes that he warned his disciples
to beware of in the following verses.
We consider the wrong attitude of anger mentioned
in chapter 5 verse 21 to 26 and
the wrong attitude of sexual lust verses 27
to 32 lying in verses 33 to 37
vengeance in verses 38 to 42 and selectiveness
in love in verses 43 to 48.
And now we come to a sixth wrong
attitude which is seeking the honor of men.
And the Lord spends eighteen verses on this
more than on any of the other subjects
that he dealt with.
This matter of doing that which is right
but with a wrong motive.
He speaks here particularly about three things.
One is our righteousness in verses 1 to
4 prayer in verses 5 to 15 and
fasting in verses 16 to 18.
All of these are legitimate activities good activities
activities that Jesus himself practiced and encouraged all
his disciples to practice and that we are
to practice till the end of our days.
But the significant thing here is that the
Lord says that all these actions and good
activities become corrupt when they are done with
the wrong motive.
In the Old Testament there was not so
much emphasis on motive because the Old Testament
dealt only with the man's external life.
The Lord could touch a man punish a
man correct a man only in that part
of his life which was external which was
visible by others.
In the new covenant Jesus said in Matthew
5.20 that our righteousness must exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.
And when we studied that verse I mentioned
how in the following verses Jesus explained how
our righteousness is to exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees.
We have seen in Matthew 5.21-48
that that which was fulfilled externally in the
Old Testament is to be fulfilled internally in
the New Testament inwardly.
In other words it was not just a
question of not committing murder but also of
not being angry not just of not committing
adultery but also of not lusting in the
heart.
And in chapter 6 in the first 18
verses he speaks about how our motive in
doing these good things must also be pure.
And this is where our righteousness must exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.
They gave alms they did external acts of
righteousness they prayed and they fasted but their
motive was wrong selfish seeking their own honor.
And here Jesus said your righteousness must exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees in
that when you do good it must be
for the glory of God.
Remember what we thought of when we looked
at chapter 5 verse 16 that when our
light shines before men it must be in
such a way that when they see our
good works they must glorify not us but
our father who is in heaven.
And so in verse 1 of chapter 6
he says beware of practicing your righteousness before
men to be noticed by them.
And if we are honest we will confess
what a tremendous lust and longing there is
in our flesh to get honor from men
for being spiritual.
In fact the first sin that was judged
in the early church that we read of
is in Acts chapter 5 the first few
verses where we read of Ananias and Sapphira
who were punished with death because they gave
only part of the money which they obtained
through the sale of their property.
The important thing that we need to recognize
there is that they were not punished for
not giving all of their money which they
got from selling the property but because they
pretended that they were giving everything.
And so we see here that the danger
is of trying to get the honor of
men for our religious actions.
The Holy Spirit says in 1 Corinthians chapter
3 and verse 10 to 15 about the
day that will come when all our work
is going to be tested by fire it
says in verse 13 there 1 Corinthians 3
.13 that all of our work will be
tested and revealed by the fire and it
says very specifically in verse 13 that the
fire will test not the quantity but the
quality of each man's work.
In other words not the amount of righteousness
that we did but why we did it.
Not how much we prayed but why we
prayed.
Not how much we fasted but why we
fasted.
In the eyes of men it's quite different.
They evaluate us by quantity in terms of
the amount of work done.
If you have done a lot of righteous
deeds you get honor before men and yet
all of that may be wood, hay and
straw according to 1 Corinthians 3.13 to
15 just because the motivation for those righteous
actions was selfish.
In men's eyes we get a lot of
honor if we are known as those who
pray for a long time but God places
value on the reason why we pray rather
than how much we pray.
It's not a question of whether we spent
six hours on our knees it's a question
of the motive with which we prayed whether
it was the glory of God or honor
for oneself or perhaps some satisfaction for our
conscience.
And we will discover according to that verse
that we looked at in 1 Corinthians 3
that in the final day when we stand
before the Lord the important question will be
not what we did but why we did
it.
In 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 31 Paul
says that even our eating and drinking ordinary
everyday activities like that must be done for
the glory of God.
Think of that every single thing that we
do eating and drinking is the most ordinary
thing that we do every day of our
lives and he says there whatever you do
whether you eat or drink do all to
the glory of God.
In the Old Testament there was such a
thing as religious activity mostly done on the
Sabbath and secular activity that people are engaged
in the other six days of the week.
But when we come to the New Covenant
there is no such distinction between the sacred
and the secular.
Everything is sacred.
We are to do everything for the glory
of God.
Jesus Christ is our example.
For the first 30 years of his life
he did not engage in what we would
call religious ministry but he was glorifying God
making stools and benches and working in his
carpenter shop and obeying his earthly parents and
there we see what it means to follow
Jesus.
It's not a question of preaching and healing
the sick it's a question of doing everything
for the glory of God.
A mother with children who does not have
the opportunity to travel around preaching like other
men can who are gifted can live for
the glory of God and get as great
a reward as a world traveling preacher if
she does everything she does for the glory
of God.
The question is not how much a person
travels or what he does but why does
he do it.
This is the main emphasis in all these
verses verses 1 to 18.
Be careful.
Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to
be noticed by them otherwise you have no
reward with your father who is in heaven.
That's a very strong word.
That means that we can spend a lifetime
engaging in righteous acts and doing all types
of good things for the work of God
and yet at the end of it get
no reward from God at all.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 3 it speaks about
a man's work being burned up 1 Corinthians
3.15 in such a way that he
suffers loss everything he lived for and did
is burnt up but he himself is saved.
It's speaking about a born again person who
spent his lifetime doing a whole lot of
good things not a heathen not someone who
lived in a false religion but one who
did everything for Christ and yet he sought
honor for himself in it.
The result is that his life's work is
burnt up.
And so we see that it's not enough
to say that we have like the couplet
goes only one life and it will soon
be past only what's done for Christ will
last it's not enough to do it for
Christ it's also necessary that we do it
for the glory of God or the glory
of Christ not our own personal glory in
other words only what's done for the glory
of Christ will last.
There are a lot of other things that
I do for Christ but in which I'm
seeking the honor of men and in a
sense of course that's not done for Christ
at all it's just done for my own
honor so we need to distinguish between work
for the Lord and work done for the
glory of God if we make that distinction
then we shall see that our life's labors
remain when they are finally tested by fire
in the day of judgment.