July 24, 2022 Trinity 6 The Sunday of Righteousness Greater than the Pharisees
Trinity 6
Matthew 5:17-26
July 24, 2022
“Don’t Play Games with God: Be United with Christ”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Matthew 5:17-26 is our text. The Gospel reading. You can keep that in front of you on the insert there and we’re gong to walk through it and see what Jesus means here.
“Don’t think,” He says, “that I’ve come to abolish the Law.” Why does Jesus say those words, “Don’t think…?” Why would He tell us not to think something? Because we do think this, of course. This is one of the games we play with God, we think that He sent Jesus to get rid of the Law and say, “No more rules anymore. Do whatever you want.” And we’re going to see we play other games as well.
The whole issue here is our hearts. God sees how dirty and sinful our hearts are. The Ten Commandments, the Law, which we heard read this morning, is a bright mirror into our heart that shows we’re very sick and we’re dying. Now, don’t think you’re going to ever fool God about your heart. He sees inside you. He knows exactly how dirty and sick you are. The only way to deal with your sinful heart is for Jesus to come in and work. That’s it. You’re not going to fool God. I’ll say that one more time. Did you hear all those commandments this morning? You’re not going to fool God about them. He sees your heart.
I was caught cheating on a math test when I was a freshman in high school. Ashamed to say it. It was sinful. Thank God that I’m united with Christ and He’s never cheated on anything and He gives me forgiveness and new life through my Baptism into Him. But I didn’t fully know that then. Instead, I was going to try to fool others about it. There was an 8th grader who was coming to the high school to take this geometry class with us. And he and I sat next to each other and became friends. We were both quite good at geometry and the teacher was older and not very good at keeping watch over the room. During one test we were quite simply talking about the problems together and not really even paying attention that it was a test. And the teacher caught this one. We were told the next morning we’d meet with the superintendent. Now all night I schemed how I would fool this godly man and tell him this and tell him that to make it look like we really hadn’t done anything wrong. But my younger and wiser friend was not so foolish. When we met the next morning I said something along the lines of, “What are we going to say to him?” and my friend said, “Nothing, we’re just going to tell the truth.” And that’s what we did, praise God. Anything else and the superintendent would’ve seen right through it into our heart.
God isn’t fooled by us. Just like we’re hardly ever fooled by our government leaders in office these days. This last week there was protesting at the Supreme Court again because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the end of the lie that our Constitution guarantees us the right to kill our babies. Now, we see right through these protests. All they want is the picture of them being arrested so they can blast it on the internet and pretend that they’re a hero like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks. And to make the foolishness complete, when two of the politicians were arrested this week they put their hands behind their back like they were handcuffed to make the picture look even better. Now it’s very possible that I’ve misjudged them and they were only putting their hands behind their back for no certain reason. But what foolish games our politicians play and Americans aren’t fooled.
They all do it. In Illinois we finally got a respite from all these flyers we were all getting in the mail before the primary election. All these flyers saying, “He said this” and “she said that.” But we’re not fooled. We see the heart.
Now the same is true for you with God. You’re not going to fool Him. Jesus says, “Don’t think I’ve come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I haven’t come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” What a sweet word that is, “fulfill”. Fill it to the full. Jesus doesn’t play games with you. He simply comes to fill you to the full with His own forgiveness and life since you’re full of sin and death yourself.
So I’m going to pull in a bit of our Romans 6 Scripture also here to complete this picture. You go to the Doctor, which in this case, is Jesus. And you get asked the twenty questions as always happens only Jesus’s questions aren’t about your family history of diabetes or what medicines you’re taking. He asks, “Have you been worrying? How many times are you praying a week? Have you looked at anyone in a sexual way that isn’t your wife or husband? Have you called anyone names? How many times a week does that happen? Have you been experiencing any anger? How many times a day have you thought about money?”
And we might try to play games with Him. “Oh no, I haven’t done any of those things, Doctor. I’ve been quite healthy.” And then Jesus says, “Okay then, I’ll just need to do a little test. A scan of your heart. I’ve got this machine, the Commando Ten, and we’ll just slide you through the machine and we’ll get a print out of what all is going on in your heart.”
So He scans your heart and what shows? He says, “I’m sorry to give you this news but you don’t have long to live at all. Your heart is in bad shape.” But Doctor, what can I do? “Nothing,” He says, “You’re going to die. The wages of sin is death. Nothing you can do about it.”
“However, I have an answer for you,” Jesus says, “I have this magical, supernatural water called Holy Baptism and I myself have been through this water and made it holy and if I put this water on you then you will die with Me and then you will come back to life with Me and I will live in you and you’ll never die again.”
Don’t think Jesus has come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. He hasn’t come to play games. He’s comes to fulfill them and to fill you up with Himself in Holy Baptism so that, as He says, everything is accomplished as it should be.
Now I’m going to summarize the rest of these verses by saying that Jesus points out two ways you and I try to play games with God rather than being united to Christ our Savior and living in Him.
The first way we play games with God is pretending that Jesus came to abolish the Law and so, verse 19, we relax all the commandments and teach others to do the same. Since we find the commandments too hard, we say, “Well, Jesus came to get rid of all those rules and laws. We don’t have to keep them. Jesus just wants us to be ourselves, to be as good as we can, and to be happy.”
So get rid of the third commandment about remembering the Sabbath day – Jesus doesn’t care if you go to Church or not. Get rid of the second commandment about keeping God’s name – Jesus doesn’t care if you curse and swear. He wants you to keep it real. (And don’t think I’m kidding about that. It’s not hard to find sermons where Christian pastors are cursing in the middle of them.) Get rid of the commandment about gossiping because Jesus doesn’t really care if you talk about others. Get rid of the sixth commandment about marriage. As long as two people love each other, Jesus doesn’t care what they do. And he certainly understands if you need to get divorced a few times. He just wants you to be happy. Get rid of the fifth commandment about not murdering because we need to be able to abort our babies and assist our elderly with suicide.
But what does Jesus actually say, “Truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” God isn’t fooled. He sees right into your heart. He sees all of it and the only way you’re going to make it is if you’re united with Christ.
The second way Jesus says we play games with God is by pretending that God only wants us to look good on the outside. As long as we look basically good, basically better than other people, then God will be okay with us. This is the Pharisees. Jesus says, “Unless you have a righteousness that’s better than those Pharisees and scribes, you’ll never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
If you think to yourself, “Well, I haven’t murdered anyone so I’m good,” then Jesus says to you, “God isn’t fooled by you.” How many times have you been angry with another person? Why? Were you justified in your anger? And how many times have you insulted someone else? Talked about them behind their back? Called them names to other people? Stewed over how much of an idiot they are?
And how many times have you called someone a hurtful name? How many times have you said rude words to another person or yelled at them or given them the silent treatment or been spiteful to them at every turn? You’re liable to the hell of fire, Jesus says.
There’s no playing games with God. He’s not fooled by freshmen in high school who cheat on tests. He’s not fooled by politicians who grandstand and virtue signal. He’s not fooled by you. He sees your heart. So what does God want from you? Do you remember at Pentecost when Peter gave a rousing sermon about how God wasn’t fooled by them and their hearts were dirty and sinful and they were cut to the heart and said, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And what was Peter’s answer? “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.”
There’s the answer. Repent. Tell the truth to God. He knows it anyway so you might as well come out with it. Tell him the truth about what all is hiding in your heart. Don’t play games. Verse 24 and 25 of our text Jesus is talking about being reconciled and coming to terms quickly with our brother. This is also exactly what we want to do with God. Be reconciled to Him and come to terms with Him in Jesus Christ.
Live in your Baptism into Christ. Be united with Jesus and walk in His new life. That’s the only answer to our hearts. Everything else is just playing games.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.