2/11/24 “The Sermon on the Mount - Part 3”

The Sermon on the Mount – Part 3

Matthew 5:33-48

There was a movie that came out back in 1997 called “Liar, Liar.”

It was a comedy starring Jim Carey as Fletcher Reede - a lawyer who literally lied all the time.

He lied at work, he lied at home, he lied with his friends & family….he pretty much lied 24/7 in order to advance his own self-interests.

One day, his son had enough of his dad’s lying, and he decides to make a wish before blowing out the candles on his birthday cake – the boy’s wish is that for just one day, his father would have to tell nothing but the truth.

The rest of the movie is – as you would imagine – a goofy, rag-tag, series of events that occur the next day in which Fletcher is forced to tell the absolute truth to everyone about everything.

This so-called “curse” of having to always tell the truth lands him into all sorts of trouble with other people – his co-workers, his clients, his friends, people he meets on the street…no more lies…big or small.

If someone were to ask Fletcher what his thoughts were concerning a particular subject – he would be forced to tell them what he really thought.

This movie is meant to be funny…but it also is a sad commentary on reality.

After a person watches a movie like this, we are forced to acknowledge just how much human beings lie from day to day…especially those little white lies that we tell just to make others feel good about themselves – or to avoid conflict.

For instance, I remember years ago, I was filling the pulpit one Sunday for Lisa’s great uncle Earl Clark who pastored a church in Albany, WI.

After the service, an elderly couple invited us over to their house for dinner.

After dinner, the wife excitedly got up from her chair and said, “stay right there, I’ve got a special treat for dessert…!”

She returned with a huge smile on her face and proceeded to tell us about how she spent half the previous day picking gooseberries out of the ditch – and that she had made gooseberry pie….just for us!

Well, I had never had gooseberry pie before, so I thought to myself…it will probably just taste like raspberries or blueberries or something – load me up a big slice!

After one bite of gooseberry pie….I realized that I do not like gooseberries!!

In fact, I so wanted to spit this fruit of Satan out of my mouth!

So of course, after a couple of bites, the inevitable question came from the wife.…”Well, what do you think…does it taste good?”

Now be honest…if you were in my situation…how many of you would tell this sweet little old lady who spent half a day ditch-diving for gooseberries the truth?

My response?  Mmmm…Mmmm…This is delicious pie!

I also drank more water while engulfing that pie than I think I ever had in one sitting before in my life…

As human beings, we lie…. A lot!

Think back to the last lie you told…some of you are going back about 20 minutes!!

If you think about it, in a way, our society - And many relationships - remain stable to some degree, because people tell little white lies…

Guys, you know what I’m talking about when she says “Honey, I want your honest opinion - does this dress make me look fat?”….don’t do it!...It’s a trap! RESIST the temptation to tell the truth!!...confess your lie later! 😊

We laugh about the lies we tell, but lying really is no laughing matter.

This problem of man’s natural dishonesty has caused many societies (Past & Present) to implement a way of attempting to draw out complete truth from individuals - by making them swear to an oath.

Many times, this oath would be sworn upon things that meant a lot to the one making the oath…or would invite God’s wrath upon them if they lied.

In Jesus’ day, it would be common to hear someone say “By thy life I promise…” or “By my head, I promise…” or “As God as my witness, I promise…”

When you were a kid, do you remember hearing the saying that goes: “Cross your heart, hope to die?”...if you agreed to this, you made an oath!

One day when I was in 3rd grade, a girl marched right up to me at recess and planted a big kiss on my cheek and said “Do NOT tell ANYONE about this – Cross your heart and hope to die?

This girl was bigger than me so of course I said “OK….?” ….I had never heard this phrase before so I thought she had just cast some sort of curse on me – I was fully expecting to be dead by the end of recess!

We make oaths upon things that mean a lot to us in an effort to bring credibility to the truthfulness of what we are saying….especially when the name of God is invoked in the oath.

mentioning the name of God also meant that one would be welcoming God’s punishment if you were to espouse anything less than the entire truth.

This is where we encounter our scripture for today.

Jesus is in the middle of contrasting 6 components of God’s intended law…with the distorted interpretations of those laws that the Pharisees had contrived for their own selfish purposes.

After dealing with the issues of murder, adultery, and divorce, Jesus now turns his attention to the topic of oaths.

In verse 33 (Matthew 5:33), Jesus says “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.”

We do see oaths being referenced in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 19:12 says “Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God…”

In Nehemiah 10:29, The Jews who returned from the Babylonian Exile to Israel took on themselves a curse and an oath to walk in God’s laws.

It’s important to remember, however, that God never requires man to make an oath.

…And this is why Jesus says what he does in verses 34 (Matthew 5:34) “But I tell you, do not swear at all….”

In other words, as a man or woman of faith, all of your words and your promises carry the weight of God’s discipline if you should be telling something other than the entire truth.

We cannot include God in certain transactions and exclude him in others.

God is in all things and through all things…and He owns all things, therefore, it really makes no sense for a Christian to think that he or she needs to amplify one’s words with a special oath.

Jesus speaks to this in the next verse, verse 37 (Matthew 5:37) when he says, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’, ‘No’…anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Jesus is actually raising the standard of our verbal integrity….when you say Yes, mean it!....when you say No, mean it!...no other padding or fluff is needed….or warranted.

26 years ago, I stood face-to-face with a young lady from the LaValle area who was wearing a beautiful long white dress. We stood at the front of the church before God and before many family & friends.

Our marital vows to remain faithful to each other ‘Till death do we part’ contained a lot of fancy words, but just a simple “I Do” was really all that we needed to hear from each other that day.

Let your Yes be Yes, and your No be No…

Jesus then moves on to what is traditionally called the “Law of nonresistance.”

Verse 38 (Matthew 5:38) says “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for Eye, and tooth for tooth.’”

This phrase is a direct quote from the OT law regarding  judicial protocol concerning proper retaliatory punishment amongst the Jewish people.

 Exodus 21:24 reads: “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

Leviticus 24:20 says: “Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured.”

Deuteronomy 19:21 reads: “Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

These laws were a component of what is referred to as the lex talionis…one of the most ancient law codes known to exist.

Simply put, it required that the punishment exactly match the crime.

For instance, If I killed your ox…it would have been proper compensation for one of my oxen to be killed as well….or one of my oxen to be handed over to you as compensation for your dead ox.

The lex talionis had two basic purposes:

1)     The first was to serve as a deterrent against further crime.

Think about how low the crime level must have been under this system when people knew that whatever they did to someone else (Or to their property) the same would be done to them in return.

2)     The second purpose of the lex talionis was to prevent excessive punishment based on personal vengeance or angry retaliation.

We sometimes forget that our human nature wants to fly right past the law of same-level-retaliation….

*** Play Mascot Fight Video***

How many of you think that when the gorilla catches up to the bear, the gorilla will probably enact upon the bear something harsher than what the bear originally did to the gorilla?

Yeah…It’s human (…or mascot?) nature to want to retaliate to a level more severe than what was originally done to us….The lex talionis was put into place to ensure that the victim was not legally able to retaliate to a more sever degree – causing things to escalate even further.

One of the most important things to remember about these OT laws is that they were always meant to go through the civil justice system…individuals were never afforded the authority to enact retribution on their own without having their case go before a judge.

Part of the problem in Jesus’ day was that people were being allowed to exact retaliation on their own, without going through the judicial system.

Nowhere in scripture does God ever allow for vigilante justice…we are never to be our own judge, jury, and executioner.

This is why Jesus introduces a better way to end personal feuds in the following verses.

In verse 39 (Matthew 5:39), Jesus says: “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

He goes on to provide more examples of personal non-resistance in verses 40, 41, and 42.

Unfortunately, these verses have been some of the most misinterpreted verses in the entire Bible.

When Jesus says to not resist an evil person, he is NOT teaching that we ought to invite someone in to rob our house, or to passively stand by and watch someone take our belongings, or (On a national level) allow another country to walk right in and take us over…

If Jesus were teaching these things, it would contradict numerous passages of scripture elsewhere in the Bible – and we know the Bible does not contradict itself.

Some people have used these verses in an attempt to defend things like extreme pacifism, or defunding the police, or to completely disassemble our military, or to passively sit back and invite thousands of people with malicious intent to enter our country illegally.

 Jesus is NOT teaching that we are to be a doormat for people with evil intent – individually or politically. (I Repeat)

Jesus himself resisted evil on numerous occasions, with the most well-known example being his driving out of the money changers in the temple courts recorded in Matthew chapter 21 and John chapter 2.

So, what exactly is Jesus saying in these verses?

If we look at the context of what he just said in verse 38, we realize that he is instructing us as to what our reaction ought to be when a personal slight against us has already occurred.

In other words, the lex talionis remained in effect, but the better way to handle an injustice against us is to show compassion – because showing compassion in such an instance is so counter-cultural, that it will naturally draw people around us to Jesus.

The apostle Paul says in Romans 12:17 “Do not repay anyone evil for evil….”

And then a couple verses later (Romans 12:19) he says “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.”

Let the omnipotent, omniscient God of the universe handle the retribution…you and I just need to trust in His perfect will & timing.

Now, this compassion for the perpetrator - and the legal retribution levied against the perpetrator – are NOT mutually exclusive….they are not inconsistent with each other.

For instance, I remember hearing about a man who had killed a young girl. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

The parents of the girl were Christians and they decided to visit the man in prison who killed their daughter.

Amazingly, they prayed for him and said that they had actually forgiven him. They would continue to visit him for many years, showing him the love and compassion of Christ.

Eventually, moved by this supernatural, self-less (agape) love, he gave his life to Jesus.

The man who murdered the little girl would still be in prison for the rest of his life – his civil punishment did not change - but his eternal destiny was forever changed because of the way in which two people responded to evil with good.

THIS is the kind of thing that Jesus is teaching in these verses when it comes to nonresistance.

Folks, there is POWER in our actions…and when we respond to the evil deeds of people with God’s supernatural love, we can literally change the world.

Lastly, Jesus turns to the law of love itself in verses 43 through 48.

In verse 43 (Matthew 5:43) Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”

The first part of Jesus’ summation of the law comes from Leviticus 19:18 where we read “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself….”

The second part, however, “Hate your enemy” was not a command from the original Mosaic law.

Most theologians believe that Jesus was referring to a longstanding Rabbinical tradition that was erroneously added to the original law at a later time.

This unbiblical addition would make it much easier for the Pharisees to perpetuate an atmosphere of antagonistic actions and hate toward all non-Jews.

Samaritans and Gentiles were looked on with contempt by the Pharisees – and this erroneous edict to hate one’s enemy naturally fed into their evil attitude toward these groups of people.

Jesus corrects this heresy in verse 44 (Matthew 5:44) when he says “But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

This was one of those “Polar-Plunge” moments of the sermon that we talked about last week (If you weren’t here – check it out on Facebook)

People were shocked to the core when they heard this teacher tell them to love their enemies.

Frankly, these words shock us today as well, don’t they?

Our natural tendency is to want to ignore this command from our savior – or at the very least, try to redefine it somehow to make it more palatable.

But…there is only one possible meaning to this command…it means what it says….we really are to show love to those who mistreat us and we are to pray for those who persecute us.

Why? Again, because we are to be different than the world!

Jesus says in verses 46 & 47 (Matthew 5:46-47) that “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”

In other words, as believers, we belong to a different kingdom – one that operates on a different set of principles.

We are expected to adhere to a higher standard of life – one that, in many ways, will clash with the ways of this world in which we live.

1 John 4:7-8 says “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Nowhere here is John saying that we are to love only those who are nice to us or just those people who love us in return.

This is one of the hardest commands in the entire Bible to obey – but it is one in which we, as followers of Jesus, are expected to obey.

It’s important to remember that Jesus is speaking specifically about personal relationships here – he is not talking about the governmental or nationalistic realms.

He is not saying, for instance, that Israel needs to sit down with Hamas and sing Kum-ba-yah around the campfire.

The “enemy” spoken of in Exodus 23 is not the enemy soldier met on the battlefield, but an individual – someone who is antagonistic toward you personally.

It is in the spirit of loving our enemy that Jesus says in verse 48 (Matthew 5:48) to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Jesus is not talking about living a perfectly sinless life here…there are too many passages of scripture that remind us that sinlessness is impossible for us this side of heaven.

What he is saying here, however, is that if we truly love our enemies, we will be achieving the highest form of love possible (called agape love) – and by so doing – we will be perfectly exemplifying God’s love in our lives.

In conclusion this morning, these teachings from Jesus about murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, nonresistance, and love for our enemies are some of the most difficult commands to obey because they are extremely counter-cultural and radically go against our natural, human tendencies.

….But when we submit our will to God’s perfect will – when we go all-in on becoming a follower of Christ – we will see our attitudes and decisions begin to align with these commands….

It is then that you will be a city on a hill that cannot be hidden, giving the light of Jesus to the world.

Let’s Pray.