More on the Law of God

Pastor Michael Wheatley, January 29, 2012

Background. Last Sunday we looked at a passage from the Sermon on the Mount from which we could examine what Jesus believed about the law of God. We learned that the law of God is eternal, as solid today as when God first delivered it, often misused to justify our sense of entitlement with God. The law of God is such a wonderful thing when properly understood and rightly used. God gave it to us to help move us in the right direction of experiencing His best.  Also, God gave it to us to help move us in the right direction of trusting Christ rather than ourselves.

This Sunday we will look at some of this more. We will see more clearly that the law of God is not an external code of conduct. We will see that its intent is to reveal to ourselves how much we need all that Jesus offers, which He is all so willing to give.

Scripture. You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, "Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment." But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, "Raca," is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, "You fool!" will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

Sermon. We will begin with three questions. We will do this to warm up our minds, prime the pump, and introduce the subject, which you can probably guess from the text we read. Question #1: Do you remember from the sermon last week or previous knowledge why God gave us the law, the Ten Commandments? If you don’t, you are in luck because we will touch on that again today. The answer is important because often those who don’t know it lead a life of needless guilt and anxiety. They are totally unnecessary. Question #2: Have you ever murdered anyone? By God’s definition of the sixth commandment, are you guilty of murder? Question #3: Have you ever gotten angry? Anger is a subject we will deal with today. It is actually useful in an odd way and we will look at what God wants us to do with it.

Now that you know where we are going, let’s go there. This is a bit of a review. Why did God give us the law? The law, first of all, is an expression of God’s will. He wants us to experience the best in life. He tells us how to get the best out of life. It should be obvious that it’s easier to follow one god than many. That could get confusing. It should be obvious that it’s better to follow the one true and living God who wants the best for you, who loves you more than any other gods, who don’t have a clue. It should be obvious that life works better when you don’t steal, murder, mess around, covet, when you tell the truth, and when you don’t work yourself to death.

That’s one part of the answer as to why God gave us the law. The second part is this: God gave us the law to keep us from getting cocky and independent. This is where we can draw the religious leaders into the story. The religious leaders took the law and turned it into an external code of conduct. It was a bunch of rules, something like a recipe book. And they kept them to the letter. They got cocky. They thought they were so good. They were self-confident, self-assured, self-righteous. People like that don’t need God. People who are self-sufficient don’t need God. They’re so full of self. And they think, if I can be so good, so must everybody else, and when others are not, they become judgmental.

Jesus spoke to that elsewhere and we come to that here in the Sermon on the Mount. He talks about people who are so quick to point out the faults in others, not seeing their own glaring problems. The purpose of the law is to close every mouth, so we don’t judge and so we don’t boast about ourselves.

This is the purpose of the law—there is a progression to it—to show us that we can’t keep it; nobody can. We try to keep it, but we fail, so we try harder and fail worse. We try even harder and fail miserably, until in frustration we finally throw up our hands and say, like the apostle Paul did, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Paul was driven in utter frustration to utter faith in Christ. He came to realize he couldn’t keep the law no matter how he tried. Jesus would have to do it for him. The purpose of the law—it’s a schoolteacher leading us to faith in Christ.

Let’s get back to the religious leaders and what they did to the law. They turned it into an external code of conduct. They would look at the law. It said make no idols. They checked their house and they saw no graven images, no idols. They checked their barns, their basements, their attics, and found no idols. So they patted themselves on the back and checked one off the list. They took the Sabbath off. Check another off the list. Two down, eight to go. They hadn’t murdered anyone. They may have wanted to, but…that’s another they could check off the list. So all in all they looked pretty good. How could God fault them? So long as they made it an external code it was pretty hard to do.

This is where Jesus comes into the picture. He took, for example, law #6. Do not murder. I began by asking you if you have violated this commandment. I would expect that all or most of us could say that, according to the Ohio revised code, we’ve done well on this point. How about according to the law of God? Well, it depends. Most people will say no. According to the law of God they have not committed murder. But that’s only because most people understand the law the way the religious leaders interpreted it. It was to them an external code. Jesus is saying not so fast. Jesus is saying that the religious leaders made the law way too superficial. They made it both hyper legal and superficial. Jesus is saying that if we want to understand the law of God the way God gave the law, we must get under the surface of behavior. We must get to the heart. The law of God says that if we are even angry with, let’s say, our brother, we are as guilty of breaking the law as if we had put him to death.

Somebody might say that’s harsh. No, I don’t think so. What’s harsh is the condition of the heart. All the law is doing is throwing light on the condition of the heart. All the law is doing is revealing the nature of the human heart. It is not so much that we murder as it is that we are murderous. It’s not that we have idols. Rather it is that we are idolatrous—we have all kinds of things that we worship. It is not that we covet, but that we are covetous. But let’s not get distracted by this and miss the point. God’s intention is not to make us feel terrible about ourselves. That accomplishes nothing. God’s intention is that we would turn to a solution to fix the problem. If we don’t see a problem, we won’t look for a solution. This was the problem the religious leaders had. They didn’t see a problem. As they saw it, they were good people. It is a problem when you don’t see a problem. But seeing the problem—that’s where the law helps us—we turn to the solution. Since we are the problem we have to look outside ourselves.

So we turn to Christ. He has done everything necessary to remove the sin and fill us with his own righteousness. There is no getting cocky when the law does its job. When the law does its job we don’t consider ourselves more highly than we should, nor do we beat ourselves up, because God has provided the solution. I don’t have to deal with worry, wondering whether I have done enough good to earn God’s favor. For the law says I have not and cannot. However, Jesus has earned it for me. It takes the pressure off.

I want to emphasize the heart side of this equation. Certainly Jesus did. Some teachers of the law came to Jesus with a complaint. They had traveled—walked—all the way from Jerusalem to Galilee—75 miles one way—to complain to Jesus because his disciples were not washing their hands before they ate. This tells us something about their attitude toward the scribal law—their man-made code of law. I’m sure Jesus was just beside himself when he heard their complaint. And we pick that up in his response. He shot back and said something like this: “You’ve got to be kidding me. Here you are breaking the law of God in the way you treat your parents, your neglect of your parents, and you come whining to me because these people are not washing their hands before they eat. You nullify the word of God, yet you are concerned about washing hands. You have lost all perspective on life.” Then he quoted from the prophet Isaiah. “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” They had lost all sense of what the law was about.

The religious leaders left, returning 75 miles back to Jerusalem. Jesus’ disciples asked him to explain things. He told them that it’s not what goes into the body through the mouth that causes the problem. The problem comes out from the heart. It’s a heart problem. The religious leaders were concerned about behavior. God’s law is concerned about the source of the behavior. Dirty hands are nothing. The unclean heart is everything. Again, don’t let this get you down. Find the solution that God offers in Jesus Christ.

Let’s return to the subject of anger, whether it is displayed or not. The apostle Paul says some very interesting things. He says, “Be angry, but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” (Ephesians 4:26) Paul is saying we are going to get angry. People do. It starts there in the heart. He also says do not sin. He meant do not act on anger inappropriately. Don’t lash out. Don’t get even. OK, you are angry. Cause no harm. Instead, watch your tongue. How many people have we murdered with our tongue? That’s the whole point of verse 22. And forgive. Also, Paul says don’t let the sun go down on your anger, meaning act quickly. Deal with it soon. Don’t feed it. Don’t brood over it. Forgive and forgive quickly. Anger is corrosive. It is like a little puddle of battery acid lying in the palm of your hand. The longer it sits there the more damage it will cause.

Jesus says something similar. He says someone is taking you to court. Don’t let it get that far. Deal with it quickly. Settle out of court quickly, before things get worse.

Anger can be useful. It tells us something is wrong in a relationship. You are angry with God. You are angry with yourself. Or you can be angry with another person. But it’s telling you that a relationship is in trouble. It’s a warning sign. Fix the problem. Work on the relationship. Mend it. Repair it to the extent you are able.

And as Jesus reminds us, anger tells us that at heart, we are human, fallible, imperfect creatures, who are in no position to judge anybody, who are in need of him to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. The law reminds us that at heart we are human, fallible, imperfect creatures. That was the reason it was given. Don’t make it into an external code of conduct by which you might be tricked into thinking that you don’t need God; that you are better than somebody else. Each of us has a heart that’s in need of repair. We’ve all murdered. We’ve all gotten angry. We’ve all sinned. This is why Jesus came.