I Almost Swore Part 2.

I shared a personal story with you yesterday from about 25 years ago when I almost used a word that I had not used for 20 years. The Paradox of Christianity is that it is easy to be saved because it is a gift, and who ever had a problem accepting a gift, but it is hard to be a Christian and remain such. There is a war going on.

We should be like the builder who was walking down the road at lunchtime. As he did so, a great big dog came bounding across a lawn and sunk his teeth into his leg. In one cool move the builder whipped out the hammer from its holster and whacked the dog on the head and it fell down dead. The owner came running outside crying, “What have you done, you killed my dog, couldn’t you have just hit him with the handle?”

“Lady” said the builder, “If your dog had bitten me with his tail then maybe I would have hit him with the handle. But that is what we need to do with sin “Hit on the head and hit it dead.”

I was taking a Bible class once and the subject got around to sins of omission. When asked what they are, someone said, “they are sins we should have committed but didn’t get around to.”

I am sure most of you have read Jesus ‘Sermon on the Mount.”(Matthew 5 -7) This sermon is Jesus exposition on the law similar to what Deuteronomy is to Exodus. This sermon portrays the advancing line of Christian growth. It gives the essentials of the Christian faith. On first reading it appears to have an uncompromising harshness, an extremism that will leave you gasping. For example, the instruction to “be perfect” is tucked between 2 casual commands to love your enemies and give your money away. This extremism turns up elsewhere in the gospels, e.g., the rich young ruler is told to give everything away, Peter is told to forgive 70 x’s 7.

How do we respond to these apparently impossible ideals? Ideals are like the stars you can plot your course by them, but you can’t reach them. Think for a moment of the extreme background for this sermon. The chaos and violence of the Roman invaders. The brutality where they strung up Jewish men on crosses. They shoved hysterical wives to the ground and even spared babies. They wanted a Messiah who would teach these Jews a lesson.

Into this tumultuous scene of blood, tears, mourning, and the desire for revenge and the throwing off of the Roman yoke, Jesus starts saying “love your enemies,” “Be perfect.” This was shocking! It would have created murmuring. Then His last statement makes you sit up straight. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What! Theses teachers of the law competed with one another in strictness. They had atomized the law into 613 rules (248 commands/ 365 prohibitions) and then bolstered that with 1521 amendments.

For example; to avoid breaking third Commandment they refused to pronounce His name at all. To avoid sexual temptation they lowered their heads ( they were called the bleeding pharisees because they were always bumping into things). To avoid breaking the Sabbath they outlawed 39 activities that might be classified as work. Every society has a Law about killing but no society has ever come up with this enlarged version, “anyone who is angry with his brother will be subjected to judgment” “ anyone who says ‘you fool’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”  Do we believe in facial mutilation on account of wrong thoughts? The list goes on. Who could even survive these rules that Jesus laid down. Does Jesus really expect me to live to this code. Should I cancel my insurance and trust everything to God?

Some missionaries in Kenya once showed a film about flies and hygiene. The camera zoomed in on a fly until it was as big as a VW. The locals considered themselves “fortunate that they didn’t have flies that big.” We minimize the situation and put our hope on the performance tread mill and do our best. We become schizophrenic Christians because we say one thing but know our lives are different. It is an incorrect understanding of the Sermon on the Mount that causes our spiritual restlessness. We think that if this is God’s standard of holiness then we might as well resign. The Sermon on Mount doesn’t help us improve it simply revealed all ways we haven’t. As Paul says in Romans 3 the law has no power to save, it only shows us how far we fall short.

Remember Paul’s words in Philippians 3:12-14, “Not yet perfect… but I press toward the mark” The Sermon on the Mount is God’s ideal towards which we should never stop striving, but remember Ideals are like the stars, you can plot your course by them, but you cannot attain them.

Don’t mix performance with salvation.  Don’t mix Justification with sanctification. Jesus always illustrated his words with a parable or a miracle. The first thing that happens after His Sermon On The Mount is that He heals a leper (Matthew 8:1.) We are all moral lepers in need of healing by the physician of the soul.

Remember, Jesus said, “I am the way” and we don’t need a way to the way He is the way and there is no other way.