True Greatness: Embodying God's Love and Righteousness

"Jesus has already said don't think I've come to abolish the law prophets I've have not come to abolish but to fulfill them that is one of the most staggering things anybody has ever said everything in the Old Testament all of those uh promises was pointing to me and in particular when God came to Abraham a long time ago and said you will be blessed and you will be a blessing and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you and now Jesus has come and this he planned this he's opening the doors wide open up until this time the kingdom of God God's presence and friendship was something that pretty much you had to enter into cultural Israel to access but now Jus going to throw the gates wide open and that means there's going to be some changes in terms of uh particularly civil law because it's not going to be restricted to One Nation anymore or ceremonial law sacrifices are not going to need be needed anymore once Jesus gives the ultimate sacrifice circumcision and so so there's going to be some shifts but they're not arbitrary they fit exactly with the fact that Jesus has come to fulfill that promise now the blessing is going everywhere and the law that God gave remains his great gift to people and a picture of what true human greatness like is like and that's why Jesus goes on to say uh therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven it's a good thing to want to be great but our world puts greatness in one C category we're not far off from the Super Bowl as I'm recording this and what's actually getting ritten about probably the most is the question will Taylor Swift make it from her concert in Japan the night before and arrive at the Super Bowl and will she and her boyfriend you know be seing because to be the greatest pop star in the world and an NFL football player that's kind of looks pretty great in our eyes and and what Jesus is saying is actually ultimate greatness is available to the most obscure and the poorest and most humble person in the world blessed blessed blessed blessed so be greatly encouraged by that and he actually wants you to pursue that kind of greatness but we do that by becoming the right kind of person uh I'll say one other word about this people sometimes wonder when it comes to the kingdom of heaven he's talking about it quite a lot in this passage uh as you may know that when Jesus came he brought the kingdom he said now the kingdom is at hand and it's and yet everything wasn't perfect yet so it's already here but it's not yet fully here and folks Wonder um how much is it not yet here is it just like only half here and if it's only half year should I just try half try to live in it so I not get my hopes up too much um the clearest writing on this already not yet Dynamic that I have ever read was written by Taylor Swift in her book The Divine conspir iracy and uh she says one thing that may mislead us about the meaning of at hand in Jesus basic message is the fact that other kingdoms are still present on Earth along with the kingdom of the heavens they too are at hand this is The Human Condition persons other than God such as you or I are still allowed on Earth to have a say that's contrary to his will a kingdom of darkness is here certainly all of this God still permits and the lack of human unity and intelligent love under God not only leaves us at the mercy of man-made disasters War famine oppression uh but also with many so-called natural evils uh such as disease scarcity weather related disasters that we are prevented from dealing with successfully so um the reality is Jesus lived fully in the kingdom of God God can't be half present he's not that kind of a person if he's present he's fully present we don't yet know how far it's possible for a human being to live into that Kingdom um so then Jesus goes on to give what's really really Central to this passage um uh I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven now I used to think that this is pretty bad news as like um man those guys were so righteous might remember the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector where the Pharisee says I fast twice a week and I give a tithe on everything I've got they would often memorize you know the entire Old Testament it's like so I got to do more than that or else I don't get to go to heaven that is not the point um two real Central Concepts we want to keep in mind as we're working through here when Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of Heaven entering the kingdom of heaven he is not talking about who gets to or doesn't get to go to heaven after you die God knows and we can trust him with that the Kingdom of Heaven is here right now and what he's saying about the Pharisees is not these people are people with a lot of righteousness what was righteousness to Jesus and very often uh we forget this in religious circles including in churches righteousness to Jesus if you got to choose one word to summarize it would be love two words authen IC love genuine love love for God love for other people Good Will that is in action and then along with that joy and along with that peace now how did the Pharisees and the teachers of the law do when it came to love not well at all um our constant temptation is to substitute devotional practices for love when it comes to understanding righteousness so what Jesus is saying is not you know unless you do a lot more practices than the scribes and Pharisees do you're out of luck when it comes to Heaven um he's talking about righteousness and righteousness simply is the kingdom of God at work in me at work in my mind so it's not that God has to keep anybody out of him and it's not artificial or um external to living to live in the kingdom of God is to have God's will be done in my mind so it's like um if you can't read I mean if you can't if you don't know the ABCs you can't read or if you don't know how to swim you can't play water poool nobody has to keep you from doing it you just can't do it I had an argument back when I was in college with my friend Mark Nelson who's a brilliant philosopher way way way smarter than me and he was trying to make some point and I just didn't get it couldn't see it disagreed with it and he tried probably three or four times to explain it it's like no I don't think so and finally he just said well you you can't hand a football off to a man with no arms and you know that that's the deal it's not that somebody's made a rule against it if you want to hand off a football somebody got to have arms to receive it that's the idea here in order to live in the Kingdom of Heaven I must want that Kingdom to come inside me and here's the key difference between Jesus and the Pharisees the religious leaders of his day that will be unpacking in the days to come they defined good primarily in terms of outward actions make sure you don't do bad things and make sure that you do good things and Jesus said no you will never you will never be transformed if that's your aim you will never keep the law by trying to keep the law you must aim at becoming the kind of person who naturally does what is good and who just naturally would not do what is wrong because what's been changed is the inside of you those thoughts and feelings and desires and perceptions that are going on all the time that's changed and he uses images like uh Matthew 23 where he accuses these religious lead you clean the outside of the cup but you don't pay any attention to the inside of the cup now that's that's the mind that's our thoughts that's our is what what do I want to do what would I do if I could get away with it unless your righteousness your genuine goodness exceeds um one of my favorite pictures of this he uses a word or the words in the text there is a Greek word periso Paul loved it a lot it was a word of abundance or overflowing it was a extravagantly generous kind of a word when uh our youngest was a little guy maybe 5 years old he really wanted to pour the milk himself so got a cup out asked his mom the carton's a gallon it's real full she was like this is not going to end well but okay go ahead and he poured it and just dumped it out really fast it filled up to the top of the cup so full that it actually crowned at the top of the cup didn't spill it drop and we all cheered and then he took that cup and Whirled it around to the side and of course half the content Spilled Out what is inside you will spill out as you go through the day so today ask God God would you make me great in your eyes would you help me to keep directing my desire for greatness towards humility and generosity and goodness and kindness and God would you give me that surpassing righteousness would you give me more joy and more love and more peace and then I'm living in the kingdom of God make it a golden rule day if you like hearing John talk about The Sermon on the Mount we've got a whole series on that so go ahead and subscribe to make sure you don't miss any future episodes in that series you can also go back and catch up on any episodes that you may have missed now if you're interested in the email or the text alert that goes along with each episode you can let us know at becom new.com ssubscribe and we'll make sure that you get those if you want to help us spread the word about become new the best way to do it is just to watch like and comment each video that we put out so we would love to hear your thoughts if you want to chime in in the comments that would help us and we'd love to engage with you there lastly if you've got a prayer request there's a group of us who meet each weekday to pray for viewers just like yourself you can send us your prayer request to the number 855 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