Matthew (14)
Its all about the rules!
Matthew 5:17–20 (NLT)
17“Don’t misunderstand
why I have come. I did not come to
abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.
18I tell you the
truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s
law will disappear until its purpose is
achieved.
19So if you ignore the
least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least
in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God’s laws and teaches them will
be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
20“But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the
righteousness of the teachers of
religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of
Heaven!
The text today
·
Is Rarely preached on
·
But oddly heavily debated about its meaning
It's hard to teach and hard to write about, I’m going to
attempt to help you understand just how important this set of scripture is for
us all and the game changer it was in Jesus’s day and still is today!
Christ Came to
Fulfill the Law
Matthew 5:17 (ESV)
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
·
This is
Jesus’s mission statement!
o Many
wanted radical change
o The
religious powers were creating new laws every day
o Jesus
came to fulfill the law
o Fulfill
the prophesies of the old testament (Gods Scrolls)
Fulfill: (pleroo)
·
Fulfill means to teach the true meaning and
implications of the OT : I came to teach the full meaning of the Law and the
Prophets.[1]
·
Fulfill involves several aspects, including
doctrinal teaching, ethical laws, and predictive prophecy. It means both to
bring a new law that transcends the Mosaic law and to realize what the OT prophesied.
Fulfill means to establish the law and prophets by realizing or actualizing
them completely in his life and teaching. Jesus is the eschatological goal of
the OT, as well as being its sole authoritative interpreter. Jesus shows the
direction to which the OT points[2]
What all this
means
Jesus came for two reasons:
1. Jesus
came to fully live out a sin life as a living example for us to follow
2. He
came to give us a guide by which to follow, and clear up the misinterpretations
that we had and to abolish some of the man-made laws added to Gods law!
It was no
different for the people of God
·
The people were given rules they couldn’t follow
·
They were beat down
·
They were scared and mistreated because of all
the rules
·
They were second class citizens, bowing down to
the religious elite
·
They were ready for some grace, they were ready
for some mercy
·
They need a savior, they needed Jesus
Jesus breaks
religious rules, He was a rule breaker
August 2, 2016 by George
Dowdell 1 Comment
As we live in an imperfect
society we need some rules and laws to combat the worst forms of evil.
Religion has its own sets of rules, but Jesus showed us that if we follow
his way, love transcends rules. He was born into a Jewish society which had
built up a complex set of rules to moderate and control how people lived their
everyday lives. We will see in this article how Jesus broke many of the rules
and traditions that religion imposed.
Denouncing
Authority
Jesus denounced the religious
rulers because they heaped an impossible burden on ordinary people like you and
me. To even attempt to allow all the rules you would have to devote your
life, become a pharisee. The problem was that in keeping to the letter of
the law they omitted to do more important things like caring for other people
and promoting justice and mercy.
“Woe to you, teachers of
the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint,
dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law –
justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without
neglecting the former.”(Matthew 23:23 NIV)
In denouncing the religious
rulers he deliberately set himself against them so he could teach, and
demonstrate a better way.
Touching Lepers
A man with leprosy came
and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me
clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,”
he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. (Matthew 8:2-3
NIV)
According to Jewish law, if a
person touched someone who was leprous, they would become unclean. Why did
Jesus touch this leper? Jesus realised that this man’s needs were
emotional as well as physical. This man mattered far more than rules and
he needed touching! Jesus didn’t disobey rules to be rebellious but to
demonstrate that love makes the rule redundant.
Healing on the
sabbath
The law said that for one day
each week, no work should be done. This was basically good because it
avoided employers exploiting their workers. But the rules and traditions
had made the law difficult to keep. Jesus pointed out that they were
quite willing to save an animal on the sabbath, therefore it was quite
reasonable to heal somebody on that day. This really infuriated the
religious rulers who sought to kill him.
And a man with a shriveled
hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked
him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
He said to them, “If any
of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take
hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep!
Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Then he said to the man,
“Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored,
just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they
might kill Jesus. (Matthew 12: 11-13)
Sabbath made for mans benefit
Religious rules, carried to
the extreme, can just be plain silly. To equate picking a few grains of
corn with the act of reaping a harvest is ridiculous. The sabbath day,
and the principle of not working that day, was instituted by God for man’s
benefit. The religious teachers had tried to define “work” to the nth
degree. Rules dictated exactly what you could and couldn’t do, but Jesus
was quite content to let his disciples break with rules and traditions to
satisfy their hunger.
One Sabbath Jesus was
going through the grain fields, and as his disciples walked along, they began
to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are
they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” — Then he said to
them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark
2:23-24, 27 NIV)
Talking to Women
In Jesus’s day it wasn’t
considered right for a man to speak to a woman who was a stranger and certainly
not one of doubtful character and of another ethic race. But again, Jesus
wasn’t going to be tied down to convention when he met a woman at a well in
Samaria. They had quite a discussion which resulted in many of that town
believing in him as ‘the Savior of the world’.
The scandal of drinking his blood
The old testament Law forbid the drinking of blood.
For the life of every
creature is its blood: its blood is its life. Therefore I have said to the
people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of
every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off. (Leviticus 17:14
ESV)
Yet Jesus told his disciples
they were to drink his blood. To the disciples who had been brought
up in the Jewish traditions this must have sounded shocking, scandalous
and repulsive.
“Whoever eats my flesh and
drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
(John 6:54 NIV)
But Jesus invites to share
his life (blood) with us and this ushers in a new era. Trying to please
God by obeying religious rules has been proven ineffective. God has
intervened in human history and made the way open for all men to be one with
God through Jesus Christ. We can ingest the very life of God into our
lives
Other Examples
·
Overturning the
money tables at the temple.
·
Eating with
“sinners”, people of dubious reputation.
·
Not ritually washing
hands before eating.
·
Jesus’ commitment to
non-violence
·
Forgiving people’s
sins and thus bypassing the temple sacrifices.
Love
transcends law
The trouble with laws is that
they can only try to do away with negatives. “Thou shalt not kill”, “Thou
shalt not Steal”, etc. Love is the opposite to law in that it deals with
the positives. You cannot legislate for love or define degrees of love.
You cannot pass a law that forces people to love. You cannot define
degrees of generosity.
Why did Jesus break all these rules?
The old testament law was not possible for man
to keep.
Religious rules and
traditions only placed burdens upon people.
Jesus came to abolish the
idea of trying to please God through (any) religion.
When religious rules get in the
way of mercy, compassion and justice they should be overridden.
Jesus didn’t break rules to
be rebellious, he broke rules to show that people mattered more than rules.
Conclusion
The life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ provides the only way we can share in the life of
God.
We all need to ask ourselves
honestly, “Do I have any religious rules which get in the way of loving God
with all my heart, and my neighbor as myself?” and “What would Jesus have to
say about religious rules today?”
So
was Jesus sinning? No! God was fulfilling His promise! And a new era of
salvation
Jeremiah 31:31–34 (NLT)
31 “The day is coming,” says the LORD, “when I will
make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 32 This covenant
will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the
hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant,
though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the LORD.
33 “But this is the new covenant I will make with
the people of Israel on that day,” says the LORD. “I will put my instructions
deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God,
and they will be my people. 34 And they will not need to teach their
neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should
know the LORD.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me
already,” says the LORD. “And I will
forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
In gods perfect timing, he sent his son to fulfill his
promise to a world full of sin, a world that had turned their back on Him. The
world needs a savior, and God sent his Son.
So, what was this
new Covenant?
It’s Really
simple!
Matthew 22:36–40 (NLT)
36“Teacher, which is the most important
commandment in the law of Moses?”
37Jesus replied, “ ‘You
must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your
mind.’
38This is the first
and greatest commandment.
39A second is equally
important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40The entire law and
all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
John 13:34–36 (NLT)
34So now I am giving
you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should
love each other.
35Your love for one
another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
36Simon Peter asked, “Lord, where are you
going?” And Jesus replied, “You can’t go with me now,
but you will follow me later.”
Matthew 28:18–20 (NLT)
18Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.
19Therefore, go and
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit.
20Teach these new
disciples to obey all the commands I
have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end
of the age.”
·
Jesus
came to simplify things and we have made it hard again
·
We confuse
things
·
We study
each word, the way it translates
·
And Jesus
made it clear! “All the commands I have
given you!”
Paul echo’s this
throughout his letters
Galatians 5:22–24 (NLT)
22But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of
fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness,
23gentleness, and self-control. There is no
law against these things!
24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed
the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them
there.
Close:
I struggled with understanding
God, the more I learned, the more I thought I knew. Its wasn’t until I
understood the love of the father, his grace and patience with me, as I work
through my sin that I started to understand it is about love! The love of the
father for his children, that the fog was lifted, and I started to see things
clearer.
Don’t get caught
up in the fine print and miss the bigger picture!
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