Matthew 10

Brendan Thomas

Mathew • Sermon • Submitted 6 months ago • Presented 6 months ago

Matthew 5:17–48

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An overview of the Sermon on the Mounts teachings on our relationship to the people in the world.

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Relation to the World

As I have been studying over the sermon on the mount I really see it is split into four sections and honestly it is very similar to a modern essay in formatting style. So for, we have covered what I would say is the abstract and introduction section of the essay where Jesus gives us what He intends to teach us in this sermon. We are now moving onto the first of two major sections that make up the body of the sermon and this first one is all about how we relate to the world around us.

Matthew 5:17–20 ““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. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Same Covenant

Up until Christ the followers of God lived with the law as their guide. This law originally was handed down from God Himself in the Old Testament, but over the years had been added to and corrupted slightly by the leaders of the Jewish people especially in the four hundred years of silence from God that fill the gap between the old and new Testaments. This law is what all of the Jewish people would have been familiar with and would have cherished as a gift from God. Now that the Messiah has come though they were concerned that the law was being destroyed. Jesus is saying here that He is not destroying the law but fulfilling it since we could not fulfill it ourselves. Jesus points to the lives of the Pharisees who are considered the most righteous of all Gods followers and He says that to make it into heaven by the law alone you must be more righteous than even the Pharisees.

You see the Jews had a misguided understanding of what the Law did. They believed that through obedience to the law that they would be saved and go to Heaven. When we read the Old Testament though that is not the means of salvation that we see.

Psalm 51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

It was always a heart of Repentance that God desired from Man not a perfect fulfillment of the law because no mere human was ever capable of succeeding if that were the requirements to get into Heaven. This is a bit of a side point but that is something incredible that we can look through scripture and see that God never changes and his method of saving us from our sin never changed either. The Jews of the Old Testament repented and looked ahead with faith in a coming saviour and we today repent and look back with faith to the saviour who came.

So, Jesus is not bringing them a new teaching here but reminding them of what they had forgotten as a people over the years. Jesus continues to remind the people of their absolute sinfulness and inability to fulfill the law themselves with the beginning of each section here starting with two phrases, you have heard and but. Let’s look at the first one.

Anger and Imperfect Actions

Matthew 5:21–22 ““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

Jesus is reminding them that all sin is a seperation from God. They had begun to believe that so long as they are not committing any major sins then they would be ok. Jesus here tells them that even if you just called someone a fool out of anger then you are condemned to Hell. We are sadly guilty of this same mistake. We may say that we believe sin is sin and God makes no distinction, but when we are living our lives we make exceptions all the time. We cave in to our desires because we feel like it could be so much worse. What we are doing may not even be harming anyone. But Jesus is clear here that there are no levels to sin. A life of unrepentant sin leads to an eternity in Hell apart from God. Jesus is also making the point here that everyone is guilty because there is no one alive who lives a sinless life. We all make mistakes even if they seem small to us they are still a gap of seperation between us and a Holy and perfect God. God being Holy and perfect cannot be in the presence of sin of any kind because the sin would be destroyed. If we were to be in the presence of God as we are before Christ changes us then we would be destroyed along with the sin. It is only through the blood of Jesus that we are made righteous enough to get into Heaven and be in His presence. It is His blood that covers our sin and washes it away so that we may commune with Him.

That being said we are still called by Christ here to make an effort to be better and live more like Him.

Matthew 5:23-25 “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison.”

First, Jesus deals with when you have been wronged. We tend to hold that grudge inside and often we never even tell the person that we are mad at that we are mad at them. We feel like we are doing the right thing by holding our tongue, but Christ tells us we need to make it right with them before we come to Him. We need to wait sometimes until our temper has cooled down, but eventually we need to discuss it with whoever we are mad at.

Secondly, we need to make things right with people we have wronged. None of us are perfect so all of us can think of some way that we have wronged someone in our lives. Go to them and apologize. Don’t wait until it all blows up go as soon as you can and make things right with them.

Lust and Imperfect Thoughts

Matthew 5:27–28 ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Now Jesus wants to further stress the depravity of man by saying even if your actions were faultless. Even if you were able to stop yourself from committing a sin everytime the thought crossed your mind then you would still be guilty and derserving of Hell. He says that even if you just think of the sin you are guilty of committing it. This is not to say oh well then I might as well do it if I am guilty. No, we should still try to resist the temptation as Jesus goes on to talk about cutting temptation out of your life here in this passage. What Jesus is trying to say though is that we are totally corrupted. There is no way for us to make it into heaven by our own means because we are evil to our core and even if our actions do not display it our heart will always betray us and desire after what is evil. We all struggle with this. Maybe it is hard to see if you don’t struggle with lust in particular since this is the analogy that Jesus gives us here, but the principle can be seen in any sin. Your desire to eat that entire box of little debbie snack cakes? Seperation from God. Your desire to see someone you dislike fail? Seperation from God.

Matthew 5:29 “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.”

While we will never be able to totally cut out our sinful thoughts and desires from our lives we are still called to make an effort towards the purification of the mind. We are surrounded by temptations every single day and we need to be diligent in cutting the temptations out. Jesus does not literally mean to cut your eye out, but He means that there are things that we feel like are necessary in our lives that are actually hurting us and should be cut out. It will hurt and bring us pain and sorrow in the short term, but in the end it is better than the punishments for a life of unrepentant sin.

Love and a Perfect God

Matthew 5:43–48 ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Jesus is telling us here that we should love all of the people of the earth and pray for them and pray that God opens their heart to Him. Why? Why do we have to love people who hate us and wrong us constantly? Because God loves you. This whole time we have been talking about how evil and corrupt Man is and how we have disrespected God and we trample on His commandments every day yet God still loves us all and has given us all life here on Earth.

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