Best. Sermon. Ever.: Surpassing Righteousness

So before we jump in and read God's word together, I do want to invite you to move to Wilmington. Not joking. We're planning a church in Downtown Wilmington and a lot of what you do here at CTK is what we want to be about in Downtown Wilmington. It'll be a different church because it's a different place, but a lot of the things that you seek to breathe here—to live, speak, and serve as the very presence of Christ here in Downtown Raleigh—we want to be that in Wilmington.

So if you know of someone who lives in Wilmington, I would love to take them for a coffee or a meal. If you are serious about coming to Wilmington at some point, when you plant a church, it's not just the people who are there week one. It takes people who help to get it off the ground, but then it also takes people to help to grow it and sustain it and then go again as we seek to also plant more churches just like you. So if at some point in the next few years you think you might want to be a part of suffering for Jesus at the beach, we would love for you to join us. All jokes aside, we'd love that.

While I did come to recruit, I came more so to teach God's word this morning. This morning we're continuing in our series here this summer on the Sermon on the Mount. I was actually here back in April when you started it, and you went through the beatitudes, talked about salt and light, and now we reach this transition point in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five, verses 17 through 20, where we've heard about the ethics of the Christian life and the mission of the Christian life. Now we're going to get into God's law.

I think this week's really important because how we understand the rest of the Sermon on the Mount is really understood by how we understand these few verses right here. So as we walk through and understand God's law for us, I hope that this will help us not just today but in weeks to come.

The Sermon on the Mount is about life in God's kingdom—not a physical kingdom with borders, but a spiritual kingdom as Christ rules in the hearts of his people. It's a good kingdom to belong to, a glorious place to live. So as we understand the law of God's kingdom, we must understand what it means to surpass the righteousness of those who wanted to do something else with it.

Let's read this together. You can remain seated, but let the people of God read the word of God together here from Matthew chapter five, verses 17 through 20. This is the word of the Lord.

Do not presume that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever nullifies one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness far surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 5:17-20

Lord, by your spirit, would you be present with us today as we understand your word more deeply? Would you be gentle with us, Lord? Would you meet us in our sorrow, in our confusion, in our bondage, and would you show us the good news of the gospel? In your name we pray. Amen.

Understanding the Pharisees and the Law

The first five books of the Bible describe the law, and the Pharisees—these religious leaders back in the day that are mentioned here—they came up with 613 laws for their checklist. Some of you already have plans for tomorrow morning to make your checklist because you love having a checklist. For others of you, you will get to it at some point. That's the dichotomy I saw hands raised. There's a dichotomy in how we approach the things that we need to get done.

But the scribes and the Pharisees that are mentioned here in this passage, they thought it would be best to all inclusively list everything they possibly could that they would be good at and then do those things so that they would be right both internally and right and above and over people externally. Their distractions led them to the law that they decided on. They were distracted with themselves and not with others.

We use this word "law," and I think it's worth pausing and just considering how loaded that term can really be. Especially on a week like this, for some people—especially our brothers and sisters of color—this idea of law is not necessarily the most helpful thing.

Depending on where you've come from and your experiences, this idea of law can feel suppressive. For others, I was a good friend of mine and someone who will be a part of our church plant named Justin. He is a sheriff's deputy in Wilmington and for him, the idea of law is also heavy. It's also hard. You know, as we think about what's happened in our government and in Supreme Court in the last week with Roe being overturned. We've heard celebrations but we've also heard mourning and people being scared. We've heard people being disgusted about things. You know, there's even gun policy going through and some of us are cheerful and others of us aren't and so, when we use the word law, we just need to admit that it's loaded.

What we're talking about today is not the law of the land, right? It's not something that we're governed by that changed yesterday or will change tomorrow. What we're talking about today is God's law that serves to give us life as people in his kingdom and that's also weighty.

What is this law? Well, one of the things that one scholar says is that God has given to his people this law that would be for their whole life—moral, and religious, and social, and political—that this law from the word of God for his people would be something that's all encompassing in our life.

Now, even when I talk about that, that's loaded because when we approach the law of God, when we approach his word to us, some of us are confused by it. Maybe you're new to the faith or maybe you're not even a Christian in this room this morning and as people read from the Bible and you see people celebrate and raise their hands, you're quite confused about how anyone could celebrate some of the things that you read. Maybe you're in a season of confusion where you're wrestling through some of the things that the Bible says and you're not trying to fight but you're just internally conflicted and confused.

Maybe others of you this morning are sorrowful. That when you see God's law for you, you know you don't measure up and so you came in this morning reluctantly. You came in this morning knowing all your faults and failures and hurts and you just want to get through this so you can go and do something else this afternoon to forget how you don't measure up.

Maybe some of you are in bondage this morning. Maybe there's some type of issue or sin or a sin that's being done to you where you feel trapped. And God's law doesn't seem to help.

This morning, I hope that by the power of the gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit that we will find rescue from these things or at least the beginning of it.

You know, I'll never forget my oldest daughter, Lane. She wears glasses. She'll have to have it written on the back of her license when she starts to drive. I'll never forget when we found out she couldn't see. We're at a playground in Wilmington a number of years ago when we lived there and as we were walking to the car, I noticed she was squinting. She really couldn't seem like she could see and I said, hey, Lane, what does that sign say over there? She's a great reader and her response was, what sign? Right? Not what words but what sign. And so at that point, my wife and I looked at each other and like, how long has she not been able to see, right? And so, as the great parents we were, we figured that out and we got her some glasses from Zenni which were super cheap and awesome and she put those glasses on when they came in the mail. I'll never forget the first time I rode with her in a car after she had her glasses on. She said, daddy, the colors are so pretty. This is like this beautiful realization that she'd never been able to see those things before. She was just living in this world where she thought the world was blurry.

And I think this morning, if we can see this law that God gives us through the lens of the good news of Jesus, I think we'll see it beautifully and I think it will begin the process of healing for those of us who are confused and sorrowful and in bondage. I think it will give us hope regardless of where we identify on the political spectrum. This law draws us together under the grace of Jesus.

When we see the law through the lens of Jesus, what happens is we're able to begin to move from confusion to understanding. We see that in verses seventeen and eighteen. Jesus says right here:

Do not presume that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. — Matthew 5:17-18

He doesn't come to repeal it. He doesn't come to reinterpret it. He doesn't come to change anything about the Old Testament.

Now, for some of us, that may seem a little bit close-minded not to be able to change something. You may ask the question, what if we hadn't changed the law about slavery in the US, or what if we hadn't given women the right to vote? I'm glad we did those things, but I think what happens when we look at God's law and hear that Jesus doesn't come to abolish it or repeal it, that bristles us. I think that our individualism is beginning to spike up. Our individualism distracts us in all types of ways today. We are so distracted with what we think is right. We forget that Jesus has given us hope. He's given us goodness, morality here in the scriptures.

As sinful human beings, we have a desire to take God's law into our own hands. We want to change it, but Christ is the author and the perfecter of our faith, and he says, "Listen. We're not trying to change this law. I came to fulfill this law. This law is perfect." He is perfect, and he says, "I wouldn't change a thing about it."

So if you're confused about whether the Bible is really trustworthy, Jesus is saying yes, it is. The law of God is good. Don't let the distraction of our individualism take us away from it. It's like a kid in class who's playing with a little piece of paper under his desk and has no clue what's going on. Let's open our eyes and our hearts to the good news of Jesus. He doesn't come to change the law, but he does come to fulfill the law. He comes to complete the story.

Now, for some of you, when you hear that Christ doesn't come to abolish the law, maybe that stings a little bit because people in your life have used the scriptures almost as a sword against you—to hurt you, not to help you, not to lead you to the gospel. They were trying to use the scriptures for themselves. But Jesus is saying here, "The scriptures are about me. I'm the one doing the work. I'm the one completing the story."

As we look at the Old Testament and read it, if we try to read it without Christ as our lens, it's almost like watching an old show. Have you guys ever heard of Lost? Okay, I'm going to offend some people here. Season one—awesome. It ends there, right? Because they introduce all this mystery, all these questions, and then it's almost as if the writers don't know where they're going, and they never get there. So maybe I'm wrong, but it was really difficult to follow. The Old Testament can feel like that. God's law can feel like that. It can feel like, "What is the author of this whole thing trying to communicate?"

But when we see the law through the lens of Christ, when we understand that he fulfills this and the importance of him coming to fulfill this—when we read this and it says, "I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill"—Jesus is actually pronouncing his mission on this earth to do all that he needed to do, to bring complete fulfillment, to finish the story, to make it more clear, because he loves us. That's why he came to fulfill—because he loves us.

We see this all throughout the scriptures. From Genesis 3 where there's a promise of the gospel and Satan being defeated, through the time of the judges where they're looking for a king and they want a political king, but Jesus the Messiah is more than a political king. To David who points us to the true Messiah, Jesus, who takes the place of the temple, who says, "Destroy it and I will rise again in three days." All of the Old Testament is not just better understood, but it's fulfilled. It's kept by Christ. Christ is the climax and the resolution of the story of the Old Testament.

If we take him out, we don't understand it. If we take him out, it can be a weapon. If we take him out, we're lost, in some way. The Old Testament reads like verses in a song that are missing a refrain, and Jesus is the refrain that brings it all together. It's the chorus that brings it all together.

One of my favorite books of all time is the Jesus Storybook Bible, where it says, "Every story whispers his name." That refrain takes us back to Jesus. Spend some time this afternoon. Go back and read Isaiah 7. Go back and read Psalm 22. Go back and read Psalm 119, and see how these things point us back to Jesus or point forward to Jesus.

He doesn't abolish the law. He comes to fulfill the law. As he helps us move from confusion to understanding, it helps us to know that God's law doesn't change.

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. — Matthew 5:18

Nothing will pass away until all is accomplished. God's desire for his people's lives in his kingdom certainly requires contextualization. Just like planting a church in Downtown Wilmington is different from planting a church in Downtown Raleigh, but the word of God never changes, no matter how much our world does.

We want to speak in a way that loves this creation that God has given us. We want to speak carefully, but we want to speak the word of God as this world changes day in and day out. There have been times and places throughout the history of the world that God's law wasn't popular, yet it still is law. It's for our good. It's for his glory.

We need to understand that people hear us differently in different ages and times. God's law doesn't change, and I think what's important about that is it means that we can appeal to it. We can appeal to the law of God when there's injustice and oppression and inappropriate power dynamics. We can appeal to God's law and to our sense of right and wrong in those situations, but we appeal to something bigger than us. We appeal to the word of God.

The PCA just released a domestic violence and sexual assault report, and all through it, there are appeals to the word of God to care for victims, to enter into injustice and hurt and domestic violence and sexual assault. I would commend it to you to see how God's word speaks up for those who cannot speak for themselves.

From confusion to understanding—maybe some of us today are sorrowful. I believe that God's word, I believe that God's law, both as we've led up to it here in the Sermon on the Mount and as we will hear it unpacked in the next few weeks, I believe that it helps us begin the journey to joy. In this life, as Christians, there's always going to be measures of sorrow and joy, but God's law—it's good, and it takes us more and more to joy.

Therefore, whoever nullifies one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 5:19

Greatness in God's kingdom depends on this. It fosters a desire for greatness in his kingdom. I love feeling great, right? I had COVID for two weeks at the beginning of May, and I still think I kind of have it, somewhere down in my lungs. I don't feel great. Even though I did everything right—I rested, I quarantined like I was supposed to, I followed all the rules. I still don't feel great.

I think sometimes that's how we live our Christian life. We think just because we're doing all the right stuff, or mostly the right stuff, we should feel great, but we don't because what we do is not enough. Who is really great in God's kingdom? Jesus. He is the one who is great. He takes us from sorrow to joy. We should live and teach this law. He is the one who is great.

Which Laws Do We Still Follow?

What law is this? Do we teach our churches, our children, our friends, our community groups to make blood sacrifices anymore? No, we don't teach them to make blood sacrifices anymore. Do we teach them that if a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale—that for a full year, he shall have the right of redemption? Some of you real estate agents are like, "Yes! Sell the house, get it back, sell it again!" No. We don't operate like that.

There are examples in the Old Testament of different types of laws—ceremonial laws and civil laws that were given to Israel that we no longer continue to practice. But the beauty of God's law is that Jesus even fulfills these laws. Jesus was the blood sacrifice, the final sacrifice for our sins. He brings full redemption of all things, and he calls us to be people who are about redemption.

What does that look like in this world? How do we offer redemption to those who've suffered injustice? The person who misses seeing these laws through the lens of Jesus will have great sorrow, because the more you read God's law in the Old Testament, the heavier it becomes. If they understand that God requires perfect obedience to the law in order to be great or even to be accepted as part of God's kingdom, then what we also see very quickly is that there's no way we can keep these laws.

As we look at God's moral law, we cannot help but see our failure in it. That's true of me.

I'm not just preaching at you. Jesus seems to add to the burden here. He didn't often get accused of that, but it seems like he's doing that. When he says we can't even relax the simplest law even a little bit. Do you feel the weight of that?

But joy comes through our growth, through our failure. When we see our lives look more and more like Jesus because of Jesus, because of his grace, we'll see growth in how we live. But we don't get the glory for that. He gets the glory. God gets the glory.

Joy comes not from checking boxes on a spiritual checklist, but it comes from honoring our Father with our lives because of the life of the Son who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to make us pure as his people, eager to do what's good. It's different than a checklist.

You know, we moved three weeks ago. We arrived in Wilmington three weeks ago. So five weeks ago, my wife Bethany and I made a checklist. We have the notes app and we shared it, and we put this long checklist with these little open circles. Every time we got done with something, we clicked it and it was awesome because it puts a check in—a little yellow. It fills it in yellow and it's appealing and amazing. Sometimes we would do something that we didn't have on the list and we put it on the list just so we could check it off, right?

The night before we left, we checked the last thing off. I mean, can we break out in hallelujah right now? It was awesome. Until the next morning, when we realized that we weren't ready to go yet. We were going to leave at 4 AM to drive across the country. We left at 7 AM because we had forgotten to put stuff on that list.

As we've moved here, we've kept that list and we realized that moving is not just something you do before—it's also something you do after. So that list that brought this temporary joy for completing everything we had to do has now become a burden to us because we keep adding to it or ignoring it. We have the sorrow from this temporary joy that came from our own efforts.

Do you see where I'm going with this? We fail. We sin. We miss the mark of God's law, and it's only by his grace that we find restoration. He keeps his promise to us. He cast our sin as far as the East is from the West, and you know what? Tomorrow morning, there's no more work to do. It's finished, he said.

From sorrow to joy is the life of the Christian, and we will forget about it, but the reality of it never changes. His grace, the gospel of Jesus, is that good. From sorrow to joy. When we see the law through the lens of Christ, we can begin to move from bondage to freedom.

The Surpassing Righteousness

Look in verse 20.

For I say to you, that unless your righteousness far surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 5:20

The scribes and the Pharisees, to their credit, were morally impeccable from the outside. They were admired for their knowledge. They were admired for how well they kept 613 laws. That club was a club that I can't get into.

What's at stake here? This says that entrance into the kingdom is at stake. If my righteousness, if my goodness, if my holiness doesn't far surpass that of the people that are the best, then I will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

But the problem is that the Pharisees and the scribes were adding to the gospel. And like Paul tells us all over the place, adding to the gospel is no gospel. The gospel was only found in Jesus, not in what we do.

Maybe the question we should ask is: what was the righteousness of the Pharisees and the scribes? If we are to surpass it, what was it?

Well, first of all, they limited God's law where it was meant to go much deeper. Do we do that? Do we try to limit God's law? They took commandments like "do not murder" and "do not commit adultery" and they limited them to physical acts. What we'll find out later this summer is that God's law is bigger than that. It's also how we think and relate to others, not just the physical acts.

When the law said "love your neighbor," the scribes and the Pharisees limited the law to loving only their race and religion. Are we guilty of that? Do we limit "love your neighbor" to the comfort of where we live? I try to. That's limiting the law of God, but Jesus shows us the real depth of his command—that we love all people without limit or exception. Limiting it made it easier for them, but Jesus calls us to far more.

What was the righteousness of the Pharisees and the scribes? They expanded God's law when it was meant to be pointed. There were certain things that were spoke to and they made it bigger. So what they did is—laws for divorce, for example. They told men basically they could divorce their wife for any reason.

When we see in the scriptures that apart from abuse or abandonment or infidelity, there we hold to that covenant. They expanded it when it was meant to be pointed. The righteousness of the Pharisees was no righteousness at all. It actually led to bondage for them without even knowing it because self-righteousness makes you feel like you're free, but you're not. And it also brought bondage to those they taught because they saw that they weren't good enough.

So how do we exceed that righteousness? Only Jesus. Only Jesus.

We repent of missing the mark of God's law. We repent of misunderstanding, of falling short of his commands on this side of heaven because he invites us to confess that to him. We believe in Jesus who perfectly understands and fulfills the law. We rest in the life that he lived. Because of his death on the cross, we can receive a full righteousness.

We repent and we believe. And guess what else we get to do? We get to enjoy. And so these next few weeks as you talk about the Sermon on the Mount, as you talk about substantive, hard things, you get to enjoy that because of the work that Jesus did on your behalf. And then you get to go out and you get to live in the fullness of that as you apply it to love your neighbor more deeply and more beautifully. We get to enjoy the freedom of eternal life under God's rule in his kingdom, and it will grow because of that.

One of the ways that God's law works is that it takes us right to the foot of Christ. In just a few minutes, we're going to confess our sin together. I remember as a kid I thought it was ridiculous that we would actually talk about our sin corporately together. But as I've gotten older—I turned 40 this year—here's what I love: I love the opportunity to confess with my brothers and my sisters who all need Jesus. We get to confess our sin together and run straight to the feet of Jesus who washes away all of our sin.

And then we're going to get to come to the table and take communion together and be reminded of his death on the cross, which restores us in the right relationship with the God that loves us and sends us out into this world.

And so this morning, whether you're confused, you're welcome. Whether you're sorrowful, you're welcome. Whether you're in bondage, you're welcome—not to do better, but to come to the feet of Jesus who changes our life and who one day will redeem all things.

Let me pray.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we thank you that you love us. Lord, we thank you that you ordered this world in such a way that your law would be heavy. God, we thank you that you don't just supply a way out, Lord, but that you completely fulfill and keep the law. And God, you bring great joy as you do that.

Lord, meet us where we are. Lord, whether our sorrow is really, really deep, God, whether our bondage feels almost unable to get out of—Lord, I pray that you would meet us in those moments and you would bring rescue.

This time we pray. Amen.