It Takes More than Having Religion

Reading the word of God from Matthew chapter 5, beginning at verse 17 and concluding with verse 20. And then I want to add to that from Philippians chapter 3, where the Apostle Paul gives his testimony concerning his salvation.

Matthew chapter 5, our Lord speaks and says, For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Philippians chapter 3, verse 7. But what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ? Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss. For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.

For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse that I may win Christ and be found in him. Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering, being made conformable unto his death. God is looking for righteousness, and God is providing righteousness.

When our Lord Jesus Christ began his ministry, the big question in everybody's mind was this. What does he think about Moses and the prophets? What is he going to do about the past? We ask questions like this ourselves when a new president is elected. Is he going to wipe out everything in the past? When a new mayor comes into office, how will he change things? In fact, I've known churches to ask that question when they call a new pastor.

Is he going to change everything? Is he going to rework everything? And so when our Lord Jesus was preaching his sermon on the mount, he answered this question. He said, don't think that I've come to destroy the law or the prophets, meaning the past, your past teaching, the word that God has given to you in the past. Quite the contrary, he said, I've come to fulfill it.

And the big question, he says, is not what is my relationship to God's law? What is your relationship to God's law? He talks in verse 19 about whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these commandments and by so doing, teach others to do also, he shall be considered least in the kingdom of heaven. Our Lord is not talking here about Mosaic legalism. He's talking about the basic moral law of God.

We today don't celebrate Passover. We don't celebrate Pentecost. We have all of these in Christ.

But as our Lord continues his sermon, he deals with the basic moral law of God. He talks in verse 21 about murder and he talks in verse 27 about adultery and he talks over in verse 33 about lying and bearing false witness. And as you go through this chapter, you hear the Lord Jesus as he reaches into the past and he takes God's revelation in the past, his moral law, and applies it to us today.

Now, of course, he goes much deeper than Moses. I hear people say my religion is the Sermon on the Mount. They don't know what they're saying.

It's much easier to obey the Ten Commandments than it is to obey the Sermon on the Mount. The Ten Commandments say, Thou shalt not kill. Jesus says in this sermon, if you hate, you kill.

That makes all of us murderers. Moses said, do not commit adultery. Jesus said, if you lust in your heart, you've committed adultery.

And the Ten Commandments deal with the outward actions while the Sermon on the Mount deals with the inward attitudes and motives. And so it's not the Lord Jesus who's on the spot here. We're the ones who are on the spot.

We can't look at him and say, what is your relationship to God's moral law? He looks at us and says, what is your relationship to God's moral law? Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. You shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. I understand from this passage that if I want to get into God's kingdom, I need righteousness.

And if I want to make any progress in God's kingdom, I need righteousness. And therefore, I had better be rightly related to the righteousness of God. Have you thought lately about the righteousness of God? Most of us rarely think about the righteousness of God.

God is holy. Be ye holy, for I am holy. The angelic creatures before his throne constantly are praising him with holy, holy, holy.

And yet we live our everyday lives and don't think much about the righteous demands of a holy God. In Matthew 5, verses 17 through 20, our Lord Jesus tells us what his theme is. The whole theme of his sermon is righteousness, true righteousness, not a false righteousness.

And he says to us that he has a relationship to the righteousness of God. And the Pharisees had a relationship to the righteousness of God. And you and I have a relationship to the righteousness of God.

Here are three relationships that our Lord Jesus discusses that you and I might have the right kind of a relationship to the moral law of God. Let me remind you once again why this is important. If you and I are going to get into the kingdom, we need righteousness.

If we are going to grow in the kingdom and not be the least, we need righteousness. And therefore, everyone listening to my voice needs to understand these three relationships to the law of God. Let's begin with our Lord Jesus.

What was his relationship to God's law? He tells us he fulfilled the law. Now, the Pharisees thought that he was destroying the law. When our Lord Jesus came and began to preach, he preached with authority.

He said, now Moses said this, but I say unto you, Moses said this, but I say unto you, no Pharisee would dare do that. Jesus spoke with authority. The Pharisees spoke from authorities.

Now a rabbi says this and a rabbi so and so says this and another rabbi says that, but Jesus didn't preach like that. Our Lord's messages were not a compilation of other people's opinions. Our Lord's messages were a declaration of God's revelation.

And this frightened the Pharisees. They said this man is taking the place of Moses. Not only did his authority frighten them, but his activity frightened them.

You know what he did? He healed on the Sabbath day. You know what else he did? He worked on the Sabbath day. And you know what else he did? He encouraged his disciples to work on the Sabbath day.

They went through the fields one day and they were hungry. It was a Sabbath day. And so they took some of the current grain and they worked the grain.

That was threshing. The rabbi said that was threshing. And the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, why do your disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day? Jesus deliberately healed two people on the Sabbath day.

He could have waited a day later or come a day earlier. He didn't perform all the ceremonial washings that they performed. And they looked at him and they said this man's a threat to us because he doesn't live the way we live.

Furthermore, the friends that he kept, publicans and sinners, the people who deliberately were disobeying the law of Moses. The sinners in the New Testament, when it talks about publicans and sinners, it means Jewish people who weren't keeping a kosher home. Jewish people who weren't keeping the law of Moses.

And these were the ones that Jesus was attracting. In fact, he went so far as to call a tax collector to be one of his disciples. And so the Pharisees got together and said, this man is destroying the law.

Jesus said, you're missing it, folks. I've come to fulfill the law. I'm exposing the true meaning of the law.

Oh, you have your traditions, but I have come for the fulfilling of the law. How did Jesus fulfill the law? He fulfilled the law in four ways. First, by his life.

He was born under the Jewish law. They circumcised him under the Jewish law. He was raised under the Jewish law in his birth.

When he came to be a young man, God the Father said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. For these past 30 years, he has kept my law. In his life as a young man, in his life as a preacher, in his life as a healer, he fulfilled the law.

He fulfilled the law, secondly, in his death. You see, when they arrested Jesus, he was able to look at them and say, can you find some fault in me? They had to hire false witnesses because he'd kept the law perfectly in his life. And in his death, he fulfilled the law.

He bore the curse of the law. Every one of us has broken God's moral law. And as a consequence, we are under the judgment of God.

And yet that judgment fell upon the Lord Jesus. In his death on the cross, he fulfilled all the types and the symbols and the sacrifices and the pictures in the law. In his death on the cross, he rent the veil of the temple.

He said, we don't need priests anymore. We don't need sacrifices or altars or temples. I have fulfilled all of that.

So in his life, in his death, in his resurrection, when our Lord Jesus arose from the dead, it was the certification of God that righteousness had come. He was delivered because of our transgressions. He was raised again because of our justification.

And now God had fulfilled the righteousness of his law in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Fourthly, our Lord fulfilled the law in his teaching. When you read the teaching of our Lord Jesus, you don't find him giving us a second Ten Commandments.

He's not a second Moses coming and laying heavy burdens upon us. How did Peter describe the law? Peter said in Acts 15, the law, which was a yoke, which none of us or our fathers were able to bear. John says the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

What was Jesus relationship to the law? He fulfilled the law. Every righteous demand of God's holy law was fulfilled in the person, the teaching, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So that today my Savior in heaven is the fulfillment of God's law.

That's why we don't go to Mount Sinai. We go to Mount Calvary. That's why Paul wrote and said, Christ is the end of the law for everyone that believe.

That's good news. Now, the law was never given to save anybody. The law was given to prepare the Jewish nation for the coming of Christ.

And there he was. The law was given to reveal to man how sinful they are. The law is a mirror that shows us our dirty face.

But you don't wash your face in the mirror. You look at the mirror and say, my face is dirty. And then you draw some water and get some soap and wash your face.

The law is the mirror that says to you, your heart is dirty. You have disobeyed God, but then you turn to that fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. If you want to have the fulfillment of the law, you have to go to Jesus Christ.

What is his relationship to the law? He fulfilled it. That's why Paul is able to say in Romans 8, verses 1 through 3, There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For what the law could not do, in that it is weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

I like that. What was the Pharisees' relationship to the law? They were destroying the law. When Jesus said, I have not come to destroy the law, I've come to fulfill it.

And then at the end, he makes that startling statement. You must realize that the Jewish people considered the scribes and the Pharisees to be the holiest and most righteous people on the face of the earth. And when Jesus said, I say unto you, and here's this Jewish congregation listening to every word, except your righteousness shall exceed.

And they thought he was going to say the righteousness of the publicans and sinners. He didn't say that. The righteousness of the Gentiles.

He didn't say that. Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Romans. He didn't even say that.

They would have enjoyed that. He said, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. And they looked at each other and said, what is wrong with him? If anybody in Jerusalem is righteous, it's the scribes and Pharisees.

Jesus said, you've got to do better than that. You shall in no case, in no wise, enter into the kingdom of heaven. You see, the Pharisees thought they were preserving the law, but they were destroying it.

Now we have a similar situation today. They thought they were protecting the law because, well, for one thing, they opposed the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the liberals of their day.

You had these two camps in Israel, the Pharisees and they said, we must hold on to the traditions of the fathers. The Sadducees, they said, now look, let's get liberal. Let's get up to date.

Let's not be tide-bound by all this old tradition. And the Pharisees and Sadducees fought each other. There was a split in the Jewish Sanhedrin, the council, because one part was Pharisee.

We hold to the traditions. The other part was Sadducee. We believe in going forward.

We have a similar situation today. We have folks today who say, well, we're conservative, and there's nothing wrong with being conservative. A conservative is one who conserves.

He's one who saves the best of the past. But if all you do is save it and you don't invest it, you destroy it. I'm going to repeat that.

If all we do as a church is preserve the doctrines that God has given to us and we protect them, but we don't invest them or practice them, we're destroying them. How did Jesus fulfill the law? He fulfilled it by destroying it, and he destroyed it by fulfilling it. You say, what are you talking about? I'll explain it.

Suppose you take an acorn. Suppose I'm holding in my hand an acorn. Now I want to destroy this acorn.

I can destroy this acorn in one of two ways. I can put it on the sidewalk and get a hammer and smash it. I've destroyed it.

Or I can take it and I can plant it. And by planting that acorn, I allow the acorn to grow and to fulfill the purpose for which it was given. That's how Jesus fulfilled the law.

You know why we do not obey the Old Testament sacrificial law? Because he planted that seed and the fulfillment was in himself. We're not under law today. We're under grace.

How did Jesus destroy the law? By fulfilling it. How did he fulfill it? By planting himself as a seed in the ground and coming forth in resurrection glory. You see, when God gave the law, he gave to them seed.

He said, now plant this seed in your heart and let it fulfill its purpose. Let it produce what it's supposed to produce. They didn't do that.

The Pharisees took the seed and they put the seed in a jar. And they put the cap on the jar. And then they put cement around the jar.

And they preserved it. And in preserving it, they destroyed it. We have people like that today.

We have churches today that say we are conservative. And they are. They have conserved the past.

But all they're doing is protecting it. You can't change anything. You can't take that seed and plant it in the heart and let it fulfill itself.

And when some life starts to come into those churches, they put it out. John Wesley appeared one day. And God was using John Wesley mightily.

And he said, let's take these doctrines that we have and let's apply them. Let's share them with the people. And they threw them out.

Same thing happened with a Martin Luther and a John Calvin and a John Knox. Why is it when someone comes along who says, let's start using this? Let's start putting it to work. They throw him out.

The Pharisees were destroying the law. Now, they thought they were protecting it. But they weren't.

In their hypocrisy, they were destroying it. Oh, they said one thing and did something else. In their legalistic attitude, they were harsh, critical.

When they walked down the streets, they drew their robes around them. They were separated. There's nothing wrong with Bible separation.

Be separate, saith the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing. Not a thing wrong with that.

But if your separation becomes isolation, you're in trouble. And so the Pharisees actually destroyed the law when they thought they were protecting it, when they thought they were teaching it. And worse than that, they had their traditions that they added to the law.

God gave them that acorn, and they put tar around the acorn. They put concrete around it. They just add it all.

And when Jesus came, he had to break through those traditions. We have our traditions today. Let's not be critical of these men 2,000 years ago.

There are churches today that have traditions that have taken the place of the word of God. The teachings of men, not the teachings of the Bible. And you try to break through that, and they'll throw you out.

Why did Jesus say you couldn't get to heaven on the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees? Do you ever contrast the righteousness of Christ with the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees? You ought to do that. Paul was a Pharisee. Paul had righteousness.

If they had taken a poll of the 10 most righteous men in Jerusalem, Paul's name would have been at the top of the list. The Pharisees had an external righteousness. God gives us an internal righteousness, a clean heart.

Our Lord talked about this over in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the pure in heart, they shall find God. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, they shall be filled.

David said, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts. Jesus described the Pharisees like this. He says, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for outwardly ye appear righteous unto men, but inwardly you are like a grave that is whitewashed and filled with dead men's bones.

Whitewashed sepulchers. And so when you're saved, God gives you an inward righteousness. All the Pharisees had was an outward righteousness.

God gives you a living righteousness. He gives you the righteousness of Christ and you enter into a life. The Pharisees' righteousness was dead and artificial and brittle.

The righteousness that God gives you is the result of humility. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

But the Pharisees did not have humility, they had pride. They were proud of their righteousness. They were proud of their praying in the marketplace.

They were proud of their giving. When they came to give, they blew trumpets. That's where the phrase comes from, tooting your own horn.

The righteousness that God gives you is a gift by his grace. You don't earn it. You don't deserve it.

You don't merit it. But the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was a righteousness of self-effort. You do so many works.

You pray so many prayers. Oh, what a contrast. Here were men who thought they were preserving the law and by their hypocrisy and their self-effort and their pride and their artificiality and their deadness were destroying the law and destroying themselves.

When God gives you righteousness, it sets you free. That's a beautiful thing. When you come and receive Jesus Christ, he gives you life and liberty.

There was no liberty with the Pharisees. It was bondage. Don't do this and don't go here.

And you can't talk to that person. You can't eat this. We have people like that today.

Paul was that way. Paul said, if you're looking for a righteous man, here I am. You measure me by the law blameless.

But one day I had the shock of my life. I was storming down the Damascus road so proud of myself. Now I was going to get the Christians.

And I saw a light brighter than the sun. And I heard a voice. And that voice said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You can't keep fighting against those goads.

And Paul fell off of his high horse and said, who art thou, Lord? I'm Jesus whom thou persecutest. What wilt thou have me to do? Get up. You see, when Paul saw Jesus Christ and he looked at himself, he saw he was dressed in dirty rags.

All of his righteousness was filthy rags. Has that ever happened to you? Do you tell God that he's fortunate that you're around? Pharisees did. Two men went up to the temple to pray, the one a publican, the other a Pharisee.

And the Pharisee prayed thus with himself, saying, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess.

I'm not an extortioner or an adulterer or like this filthy publican. Do you do that? Jesus came to fulfill the law. The Pharisees destroyed the law and themselves.

And my friend, if you have a self-righteousness, a religion righteousness, a flesh righteousness, a pride righteousness, you're destroying yourself. The only way to get into God's heaven is to have the righteousness that is better than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. I was at a summer camp in Ohio many years ago, and in the course of the camp, we gave to the young people a survey sheet with a very simple question on it.

What do you think a person must do to go to heaven? You got to do this sometime. And so we turned the young people loose in a small town near the camp, and they went up to people on the streets, knocked on doors and said, Sir, we're taking a survey asking one question. What do you think a person must do to go to heaven? Now, you know what 99 out of 100 people said.

You must be good. You must be good. Of course, this opened up opportunities for witness, and some people were won to Christ.

They discovered they were not good and they could not be good. The only one who is good is Jesus, and he gives us his righteousness. That leads us to the third relationship here.

Our Lord's relationship to the law, he fulfilled it. The Pharisees' relationship to the law, they destroyed it in themselves. Our relationship to the law, we must do it and we must teach it.

Verse 19, Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of the least of these commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. You say, hold it, Pastor.

I can't do the law. Good, go to the head of the class. Neither can I. And our Lord knew it.

When he was speaking to these people, he said, Now, look, if you're going to make it, you've got to have a righteousness greater than the scribes and Pharisees. And if you want to get any place in the kingdom, you've got to do and teach the righteousness of God. And they threw up their hands and said, But, but, Lord, we can't.

And he said, That's exactly what I wanted to hear you say. We can't. You know, there are multitudes of people whose bodies are lying in cemeteries today because they waited too long to go to the doctor.

They said, Oh, we can take it, take an aspirin or two, and that'll take care of it. It didn't. It didn't.

You see, God requires that you and I do the law. God never changed his moral law. It's still wrong to lie.

It's still wrong to cheat. It's still wrong to be immoral. It's still wrong to murder.

And Jesus says it's wrong to hate. There's not a person hearing my voice who does not stand guilty under the law of God. And yet God says to us, I want you to do this law and teach this law.

I want you to practice righteousness and teach righteousness. Lord, I can't do it. Thank you for telling me I'll help you.

You see, it's in this section our Lord is preaching the gospel. No, he's not talking about dying on the cross. His own disciples didn't know about that yet.

He doesn't spell out justification by faith. His own disciples didn't know that yet. He's planting the seed.

And people are saying, but we cannot do the law. It was impossible for us to do the law. God knows we can't do the law.

The only way we can ever do God's righteousness is to have the right kind of a heart. And Jesus said, I'll give you that heart. You see, I'm going to die, he said, and I'm going to bring in a new covenant.

Not the old covenant on stones, a new covenant written on your heart. Not an old covenant where God says do, but a new covenant where God says done. You and I know Jesus as our Savior.

If you've trusted him, then you know him as your Savior. If you've trusted him, you have received his righteousness. Now he says, reveal this righteousness.

There is righteousness which is imputed, put to our account. That's justification. There is righteousness which is imparted, put through our lives.

That's sanctification. Our Lord is saying here, no one has a right to call himself a true Christian who is not walking and seeking to do my righteous will. You can walk every aisle of every church in Chicago.

It won't save you. You could sign cards every Sunday. They raise your hand, even go into the prayer room.

But until you receive Jesus Christ in your heart, there is no righteousness. And it reveals itself in the daily life by doing and teaching, doing and teaching. That's what Paul discovered.

I do count these things but garbage that I may win Christ and be found in him, not in myself, in him. Not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of Christ, by faith, that I may know him. Salvation's a personal experience.

And the power of his resurrection, salvation's a powerful experience. And the fellowship of his sufferings, salvation's a painful experience. Being made conformable unto his death, salvation's a purposeful experience.

Do you know him? Oh, we sang, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness. Can you say that from your heart? Dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne. On whose righteousness are you depending today? Jesus said, I have come to fulfill God's law.

I can provide the righteousness for you. Don't be like the Pharisees who destroyed the law and themselves by a self-righteousness. No, let's move into that thing he's talking about.

Let's trust him. Let's receive him. And then every day, all day, let's do his will, teach his will.

Do, teach, and he'll call you great in his kingdom. Someone listening to me right now needs, by faith, to receive Jesus Christ. You've been like these Pharisees.

You've been trying to weave your own robe of righteousness in your own strength, according to your own pattern, for your own glory. My friend, it won't work. There must be that righteousness of Christ that comes by faith in him.

And we offer this to you today, and he offers it to you today, if you'll but come and trust him. Heavenly Father, thank you that we are not condemned to a religion of self-effort that puts us into bondage and slavery and condemnation. Thank you we have been set free, and we have a relationship of grace and faith.

And Jesus Christ has paid it all, and he's fulfilled every demand of your law. Thank you that we are found in him, not having our own righteousness, but his. May we rejoice in this. And may we reveal his righteousness in our daily lives, in our doing, and in our teaching. I pray for those, O Lord, who have heard the word, who need to come and respond by faith, and receive Christ, and be saved. Lord, speak to their hearts, I pray.

With thanksgiving, in Jesus' name, amen.