The Laws of the Kingdom

“The Laws of the Kingdom”
 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church –Sunday, April 23, 2017
Text: Matthew 5:17-20 // Series: Your Kingdom Come

Thanks, Pastor Wally.  As we move into our teaching time this morning, I want to ask you a question: How many of you would describe yourself as rule followers vs. Rule breakers?  My wife Meg is rule follower.  She loves to colour inside the lines, she admits freely that she could live in a police state with minimal disruption to her life.  Me, on the other hand?  Well, I’m much less inclined in that direction.  Let me give you an example… As part of our hiring process here at Jericho, we administer a candidate a work style profile called a Birkman.  It’s a fairly sophisticated psycho-analytical tool that gives a ton of information on preferred careers and what you need most in a supervisor and all kinds of good stuff.  So when I had mine done, I met with the facilitator and he started the time off by saying “this is most unusual” (Which is never the best way to begin these kinds of things, right?).  “What’s so unusual?” I asked.  “Well, let me put it this way,” he continued… “Everyone I know who has your type of profile is incarcerated!  I’m very surprised you went into the ministry and not into jail!”  “Um, thank you… I think?!”

He went on to say that the reason for his observation is that my personality type thinks that rules are great… FOR OTHER PEOPLE!  We prefer to forge our own path.  Which can be healthy and entrepreneurial but can also get you into trouble.  Can I get an amen from my fellow rule benders?

We’re currently in a teaching series here at Jericho called “Your Kingdom Come” and in this series, we’re tracing the theme of the Kingdom of God as it is found through the Bible.  We’ve explored together the notion that Kingdoms – whether the Kingdom of Denmark or the Kingdom of God - have some shared characteristics.  They have a ruler.  They have territory.  They have armies. And they also have laws or rules by which the kingdom operates, which is our topic today: What is the place or rules or laws within the kingdom of God?   

Often, when I am talking to people about Christianity, they have an immediate mental image of Christians: that above all else, we are a bunch of Rule followers.  That the Bible is basically a list of fun stuff NOT to do and we go postal on anyone who doesn’t keep themselves on the straight and narrow path. 

To be fair, we did earn that reputation, gang.  Because for most of the 20^th Century, vast swaths of the Christian movement in North America were caught up in something called fundamentalism.  When fundamentalism goes slightly off, it begins to overemphasize rule keeping and it very subtly but very quickly it becomes dry and ridged legalism.  Some of you grew up in that culture. 

Toward the end of the 20^th century, many Christians began to flee fundamentalism and came as refugees to another land.  We may still be a bit unsure as to what to call this new place (post-fundamentalism?) But in this brave new land (which, by the way, isn’t really new at all) some of those who left fundamentalism behind began to embrace a new definition of Kingdom of God. 

They went to places like Matthew 5 and said what Jesus is really all about is NOT rules or laws but helping people who are poor in spirit embrace their need for God.  What Jesus is really all about is humility and justice.  What the Kingdom of God is really all about is working for peace.  What defines us is not the rules we keep but the way we love.  And so we get people blogging and writing books about how as Christians we should be following our hearts and just loving.  

And all of these things are true BUT there is something we have forgotten or de-emphasized in this journey.  And it is something that we are going to explore together over the next few weeks, Tyler Harper and David McFarland and others will be jumping into the conversation.  What the “follow your heart” crowd has sometimes overlooked is that the very same Matthew 5 which contains the Sermon on the Mount also contains rules.  Like a LOT of rules. Very stringent rules.  Rules about loving your enemy. Rules about not taking revenge. Rules about making vows and keeping your word. Rules about remaining faithful to your spouse. Rules on sexual purity and lust. Rule about anger…. The first part of Matthew 5 sounds so great but the rest of the chapter is really a downer with all of the Thou Shalt Not’s!  What do we do with that?  Especially since in my Bible, Matthew 5 is in Red letters, meaning that this is Jesus preaching.   

One of the images of Jesus that has become very common in our day and time is that Jesus came to get rid of all of these silly rules and to start something fresh and new.  That the announcement of the inauguration of the Kingdom of God by Jesus meant that all those rules in the Bible – Old Testament Laws. Principles for living in a right relationship with God and others – that we could chuck those out.  The Kingdom has only one law – the law of love.  It’s a good question and one that bears a closer examination.  So please turn in your Bibles or on your devices to Matthew 5 and I’ll be reading from verses 17-20.  This is Jesus immediately following the Sermon on the Mount and all that love stuff.  And in v 17 Jesus says

So, was Jesus a rule follower or Was Jesus a “Rule Releaser?”

In his own words here, Jesus describes his relationship with the law. 

1) Jesus is the FULFILLMENT of the Law

“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.” (Matthew 5:17)

Some people think: awesome… Jesus is here.  Out with the old, in with the new.  He’s going to take all of the silly Old Testament laws, dump them out and start filling the bucket with fresh stuff.  But Jesus says exactly the opposite here. 

The Image He uses is like a bucket or a cup.  If the contents is the law and the prophets, and it is partially full, Jesus came to FILL UP, not POUR OUT.

When He says that He has come to “accomplish their purpose” Jesus is saying that He is not interested in altering, replacing, or nullifying the former commands; rather, as one commentator notes “He establishes their true intent and purpose in His teaching and accomplishes them in His obedient life”.  Jesus is the fulfillment not the nullification of the law.  Part of this is rooted in

What is the Purpose of the Law?

The New Testament helps us understand that one purpose of God giving us rules and laws is To make us clearly aware of our shortcomings 

Look at Romans 3 where Paul spends an extended time on this discussion:
“It’s purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. 20 For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.”                                                     (Romans 3:19-20)

If there’s no speed limit, there’s no accountability to road safety, there’s no need capacity to hold anyone to account for how they are driving.  This is the case in many developing countries – complete absence of compliance with the rules of the Road.  I often chuckle when our friends from Tanzania come here and marvel that everyone stops at the red lights and obeys crosswalk signals.  They can’t believe how efficient things flow when you follow the rules. 

This is the other aspect of the law.. It’s not only has a negative purpose, to keep us from doing wrong, but also a positive purpose: to help guide us.  The same argument could be used around speed limits on roads – that the engineers, the ones who designed the road, know things about it that you and I as drivers may not be always attuned to.  They know the grade of a hill. They know the pitch or cadence of a given curve. And so they have given us the gift of limits to help Not only point out where we are in the wrong, but more importantly, to help

To guide us into wisdom  

This is really the deeper purpose of the Laws and Rules in the Kingdom.  They lay out for us how to live in right relationship with God and others.  I’ve been struck this week in our Life Journaling reading in Psalm 111 – you can access it anytime in the app or follow along with the monthly bookmarks…   
“How gracious and merciful is our Lord… all His commandments are trustworthy. They are forever true, to be obeyed faithfully and with integrity… All who obey His commandments will grow in wisdom.” (Psalm 111:4,7,8,10)  Do you want to be wise? Follow God’s laws and rules. 

This week in our Bible reading we’re coming into Psalm 119, an entire chapter (longest one) devoted to helping us see the benefits of following God’s laws! 

So back to our question: Was Jesus a Rule Releaser?  What was His vision of how we should live?   Should we just follow our hearts or is there something else to guide us?  Something that guided Jesus in His own life…

We saw that 1) Jesus is the Fulfillment of the law – he came to

Secondly; 2) Jesus Affirms the Continuity of the Law

“I 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.” (Matt 5:18)

One day, the day when the Kingdom of God is fully realized, we won’t have need of God’s laws because our relationship with God as King will be so perfect and face-to-face that we won’t need a set of rules to guide us into wisdom.  But today is not that day!  So we are still living in a time when the law has a clear purpose – and not even the smallest detail of it gets erased or chucked out until that purpose is accomplished. 

In some of the older English translations of the Bible such as the King James, they used a fully phrase to capture this idea.  They said not one jot or tittle will pass from the law till all be fulfilled.  Photo: Tittle – Jot These are not terms we use every day but a Jot is the 10^th and smallest letter in Hebrew alphabet. And a tittle is the smallest part of the smallest letter…  Like a tiny dot on a lower case letter i. In other words, you just don’t mess around!  In the book of Revelation, 22:19, this is spoken to “Don’t removing anything from this book of prophecy”

But this notion of the continuity of the law brings up a healthy question for us to wrestle with: Does that mean all of the OT laws still apply? 

I mean I’ve read or tried to read the OT book of Leviticus and some of it is boring but some of it is super –specific.  Like don’t eat shellfish!  Don’t wear clothing made from two types of materials!  So if I wear a shirt that has some polyester and some cotton, am I sinning?  (everyone is checking their labels!)  On Friday, as I was thinking about this, watching the hockey rink crowd come in outside my window a dad had this shirt on: “Jesus loves me AND my tattoos”.  Referenced Leviticus – no tattoos. So did Jesus do away with this?

In order to get at this and other more complicated questions like what do with slavery and war in the Old Testament, we have to look at the Old Testament and try to wrestle with the question: Do all Old Testament laws apply today? The short and potentially less helpful answer to the question is

Yes and No…

For example, if you look at the very start of the Bible, in

• Eden: only vegetables were permitted for food,
• Moses: Vegetables and clean meats
• New Covenant: Vegetables, clean & unclean meats

So within the pages of Scripture and the unfolding of time, we see a shift in the laws that are to be followed.  In certain areas, we see a progression in revelation.  The way our Confession of Faith as Mennonite Brethren unpacks this is to say   

“God’s revelation in history could be considered “progressive” [yet] The relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament is one of the more difficult questions believers face in the interpretation of the Bible”

So God spoke to people at times in history in ways that they could understand but also in ways and with laws that may not have been aligned with the fullness of God’s revelation, which we see in Jesus.  But again, we have to hold this in tension with the reminder that Jesus didn’t just dump out all of the old covenant… He filled it up.  Fulfilled it.  So unless a law is strictly done away with in the New Testament, or we can see a trajectory of progressive revelation that we can trace out clearly such as with foods that we can eat, then we should assume that it is still in force.  Don’t kill.  No coveting.  Don’t be greedy but be generous… Don’t be gluttonous but be wise in how you care for a steward your physical bodies and also the earth.  Still on the books, so to speak. With tattoos, which in the time of Leviticus, were used only by people to mark their allegiance to pagan deities and so God says “don’t ink yourself, please” – no one presently assumes that if you have a tat that you worship Satan so Jesus does love you and your tattoos.  It’s a complicated subject, though, and we have to be careful about taking it too far into areas where we do see a clear ethical boundary still in place such as sexuality.

So, we’ve see that

• Jesus is the FULFILLMENT of the Law
• Jesus Affirms the CONTINUITY of the Law. Thirdly,
• Jesus Affirms the COMPLETENESS of the Law

“So 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.” (Matthew 5:19)

In other words, there is a unity to the law of God.  We don’t get to ignore some commands and say “well, that’s just a small rule”… I’m OK if I break that one so long as I keep the big ones.  So long as I don’t murder anyone I’m OK, right?”  But listen to the strength of the language: It’s not your law to get to make those kinds of calls.  This is true in any kingdom: Whether the Kingdom: if I break the laws evading paying taxes or if it’s vehicular manslaughter: I’m still a law breaker. 

(!) Don’t weaken what God intended for your protection

You don’t get to sit in judgement and decide which rules to keep conveniently and which to break.  The law is a cohesive whole and

PHOTO: The Laws of God are NOT like a Buffet

Scholar and author Dr. Craig Keener is his excellent commentary on Matthew puts it this way: “God does not allow us the right to say, "I will obey his teaching about murder but not his teaching about adultery or fornication"; or, "I will obey his teaching about theft but not about divorce." To refuse his right to rule any of our ethics or behavior is to deny his lordship.”  You don’t get to go through the Bible and say “I like this law about loving people.  I’ll keep that one. But this stuff about giving or truth-telling, I’m going to conveniently ignore those.  If you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. I don’t want that. I don’t want that for you, friend. 

As we come to the last verse in our little section this morning, we have seen

• Jesus is the FULFILLMENT of the Law
• Jesus Affirms the CONTINUITY of the Law
• Jesus Affirms the COMPLETENESS of the Law. Lastly
• Jesus Highlights the DEFICIENCY of the Law

There are things that the law cannot do. The law comes with a warning/challenge 

“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!”

Jesus is not saying that you should try harder to be a better rule keeper than these groups did.  The teachers of the law and Pharisees were absolutely scrupulous on keeping the law!  On finances, the tithed to the down to the percentage of their herb gardens!  These people were SERIOUS about the rules and keeping them.

What Jesus is saying is that getting into the Kingdom of heaven doesn’t happen by out-rule keeping others.  Because the question will always be

How Good is Good Enough?  Have I done 51% good vs 49% bad things in my life?  Better than so and so but not as good as Mother Teresa.  The biggest problem with comparison is How do you know when to stop trying / striving? 

The whole rest of Matthew 5 Jesus embarks on a discussion of deeper holiness.  Deeper love for Father God expressed in specific action of obedience…  The point is that Jesus demands deeper obedience, not disregard for the Law

The law is deficient.  Because it alone cannot get you where you want to go: into heaven.  Into a right relationship with God.  Where your guilt is taken care of.  Shame has no place. Piety, right behaviour, crossing all the I’s and dotting the t’s to make God happy with you is completely inadequate, whether you are a Pharisee or a Christian.  Because it’s not about the law, it is about your heart.

Jesus was not upset with the Pharisees for their strict observance of the law but He was upset with them for their emphasis on outward conformity to rules without any focus on the heart.  Because you see, friends,  

• Outwardly obedient people without transformed hearts are still eternally lost

“Good People don’t go to heaven. Forgiven people go to heaven”

Just like the Pharisees, we can spend time focused on externals.  How we behave. How our children are behaving.  How much people are attending church events or not. How much money people are giving to charity.  But external metrics only tell us so much.  And when wrongly weaponized into legalism, they can become an exercise in missing the point.  The point isn’t about a focus on how many of the behaviours or external rules you got right, the focus Jesus is getting at is how do you enter the Kingdom of heaven if not by rule keeping? 

We are saved by Faith…

“But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. 22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.” (Romans 3:21-22)

…Not by Works

“Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law…  If we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law.”

For those who have not ever clearly made a decision to say “I want to enter the Kingdom of God, become part of God’s forever family” and I’ve been trying to do this by rule keeping and being a good person.  Today you have realized that you can never get in via that doorway.  The doorway that is always open is the door of faith.  By saying I accept that the only way for me to be made right with God is by accepting what Jesus did for me. The events we celebrate last weekend.  So Friend, today is your day. As Ron & team come and lead us in 3 songs, our prayer team Wally, Sylvia, Dale, Constance – are here are would love to lead you through that process of repentance today.  Nothing could be more important!    

Some of you are here today and you have fallen into the trap of focusing on externals.  Using rule keeping to mark who is in and who is out.   Repent. God alone looks at the hearts of others.  You may feel this tug yourself. Repent.  The one thing that grace prompts as a response in our hearts is gratitude.  Thank you Jesus that I don’t have to worry about if I am going to heaven based on good behaviour.  Thank you for your mercy and forgiveness. Give me a heart to obey!