Be Remade to Reflect

This past Sunday, I preached over Matthew 5:27-30, where Jesus is calling out how everyone is in violation of different areas of the Law. This section in particular is pointing to Exodus 20:14, 17 regarding adultery, and Jesus points out that those thinking they have skated by not breaking the law at face value are still in violation of the law when he says “everyone who looks lustfully… has already committed adultery.” This section and the ones around it are very sobering, pointing out how no one comes out looking righteous when you look at the law through the lens of holiness which Jesus is using. 

The summary from the main points of this last week’s sermon was: The letter of the law sets a tangible standard for righteousness, the spirit of the law shows we all inevitably miss that mark, and the only answer to that is having a new heart to reflect the law, which is given through Christ. We see that in the text because Jesus points to the law, and at face value many would feel they were in the clear, but when you look a little further into the spirit of the law that Jesus points to in regards to a person’s wayward heart, we generally don’t come out looking so righteous under that lens. That’s the reality with all the sections here in Matthew 5:20-6:7, as Jesus is laying out the spirit of the law in such a way to expose the darkness in all our hearts. 

But the good news is that ultimately the Son of God did not come “into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). That’s what I want to remind us of now as we continue to ponder the last few sections of Matthew we’ve been through and the next several coming up in the Sermon on the Mount. While I did say last Sunday that, yes, we should all feel conviction from these passages in Matthew 5, the point of the Gospel is that God does not leave us there. Anyone who, in faith, turns to Him to find forgiveness, acceptance, reconciliation, and ultimately redemption through His blood on our behalf will find it. That is why I pointed us first to Romans 3:21-26: 

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

That’s the Good News, that even though we are all culpable of sins and slaves to them, Jesus came to redeem us from that bondage and to stand in our place as payment, or propitiation, for the wrath those sins deserved. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does point out how no one measures up to the letter or the spirit of the law, but in John 8:24-26 Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” The Son came to set us free and give us a new heart, so that through the power of the Spirit in and through us, we can be remade to reflect the compassionate heart of the law, summed up in the Great Commandment:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matt. 22:37–40