Author: missionspaul

You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit Adultery; and we know the next one? You shall not steal.

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5 v 33-37)

So why doesn’t Jesus speak about stealing?

He does, this is it, but it is stealing with words. He is following an order that is seen elsewhere, in Jeremiah 7: 9 when God is telling His people He knows exactly what is going on and sees through their falseness, “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely …”

A BBC report today says that scamming someone out of money by pretending to want a relationship has been on the rise during lockdown. It reports of a terrible story where one widow in her 50s was defrauded of £320,000 by a simple, but evil, false talk.

These are extreme but real situations of perjury.

Also today the headlines of newspapers are pretty much all saying the same thing- 10 days quarantining after entering the UK or if you lie about where you have flown in from then it’s 10 years in a cell! I swear on my mother’s grave!

What about the times when you want to say yes or no but you know it is going to be really difficult to do so? Have you ever been tempted to make up a story to go along with your NO because you want to let someone down gently?

The heart of the Sermon of Jesus on that mountainside was hypocrisy. That was his main target when speaking to the Pharisees throughout the gospel. They were constantly pulling the wool over people’s eyes. It seems that the religious would make great promises that they had no intention of keeping. Jesus is not saying that oaths should never be made. He has just spoken about the sanctity of marriage and divorce. But he is telling his disciples in the hearing of the crowd not to be fooled by elaborate words and promises and indeed not to make them.

The pain that many have received from the Church because of the verses we will read today!

 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5 v 31-32)

In their failure to keep a marriage together some of the loveliest of people have found themselves in the outer courts of the Church. We must do better with our marriages and with other people’s divorces.

The Talmud says that when a couple get divorced, it is as if the Altar sheds tears.

So what was Jesus saying?

Is he giving the grounds for divorce? If so, he only mentions sexual immorality, what about physical abuse? Also can the wife divorce her husband, it appears it is only one way?

Jesus continues his fulfilment of the law bringing a deeper intended meaning. The Pharisee thought they were fulfilling the Law of Moses by issuing a certificate of divorce. They prided themselves on not just walking away from their wife but making it all legal. The Message helps us: “Remember the Scripture that says, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights’? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’ Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you’re responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you’re automatically an adulterer yourself. You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure.”

Jesus was living in a time when the Pharisees and teachers of the law were divorcing their wives for the craziest of reasons but were gloating that they never broke the commandments, like the 7^th one, adultery. They were interpreting Deuteronomy 24:1, “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her …” with the focus on he is displeased and has found something indecent about her. The indecency was anything that displeased him. Surreal that it may sound but that included permission to divorce her for spoiling his dinner!

Jesus is not saying divorce should never happen.

Jesus is not saying that adultery should lead to divorce.

Jesus is not saying remarriage is wrong.

Jesus is not saying divorce without grounds is blasphemy and the unforgivable sin.

But Jesus is saying that people should stop pretending they are carrying out the will of God when they are treating the sanctity of marriage so badly.

If a spouse divorces in order to marry someone else, if that is the reason, no matter if you follow the whole legal process, you are doing what an adulterer does and have broken the 7^th commandment.

It is the reason, the motivation, it is pursuing a course of action for your own personal gain. It is a matter of the heart. That is always the secret to the kingdom.

Can I have a divorce? Yes. But your selfishness and self-righteousness may reveal the answer is NO. The condition of your heart is everything.

If you got it wrong, then don’t worry, I know a Saviour who specialises in this kind of thing.

The Talmud speaks of 7 different types of Pharisee. One of which was called the ‘bruised Pharisee’ who walked into walls to avoid looking at women. Ridiculous but true.

Staying with the same theme of relationships having brought the deeper meaning that was intended with the Law of Moses regarding murder, Jesus continues to another commandment.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” (Matthew 5 v 27-30)

Jesus moves into the marriage relationship. Before he speaks of divorce he challenges the law of adultery.

We can easily imagine people being able to say ‘I have never committed adultery. I have been faithful.’ But what of the heart? Have you been singularly devoted? Has the spouse turned away from their married partner, to look, hope, dream for someone else, whether they are known or not?

Why is this important? It is once again because of the mirror of our relationship with God. This Old Testament verse is certainly in parallel, “Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices. (Ezekiel 6:9)

You may not have committed physical adultery. Bravo!

But have you thought it?

One of the saddest verses in the Old Testament is this:

From his vantage point on the roof King David saw a woman bathing (2 Samuel 11:2)

No one else saw him, but he from his vantage point, alone, was able to see what was for him beautiful.

The world’s most successful industry is the porn industry and yet it is the most destructive in a person’s life and on those involved.

When I was a teenager – only vantage point was on the highest shelf of the newsagents. You would have to stand on the Readers Digest and puzzle shelf to have any chance of reaching it and then risk causing a collapse of the whole shelving unit. It wasn’t worth it. It was left to the diagrams in the human biology books!

Today it is so different. The vantage points are all around and so easily accessible.

But there is one finer measure. If you are looking at another person lustfully then you have turned away from your spouse. God says through Ezekiel that His people ‘have turned away from me’. So here is another question for us.

Have you turned away from your spouse with a commitment to other things or yourself?

This is also the adultery.

But what if we are guilty of parts or all of this?

What is Jesus suggesting? The leading Theologian in the 3^rd century, Origen of Alexandria, known for his huge work on the Trinity, was also known for making himself a eunuch for the kingdom, though this self-mutilation was never proved.

So we haven’t done this yet have we? We haven’t cut our hands and feet off, we haven’t plucked our eyes out and thus saved ourselves from an eternal fiery hell.

If we were to start where would we stop? We would have no body parts left for sure!

With the use of exaggerated language to stress the difficulty, Jesus advocates for us to take it really seriously. The point is to go to great lengths. Maybe become narrow-minded and reduce our freedoms. Do whatever is needed to make sure you don’t reject your spouse by looking away. There will be other people and things out there to look at but don’t do it. It will lead to sadness.

If you have ever had a fine then you will know you can settle the matter now or leave it and when you get to court it could be even worse for you.

“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.” (Matthew 5 v 25-26)

Jesus tells another story.

When things go wrong and you don’t try and reconcile they can get even worse.

This story is more severe than the previous.

Jesus says if you don’t do anything you can end up in a debtor’s prison, the Gentiles would understand that from the Roman culture, perhaps not so much the Jew. It is impossible to pay the fine in a debtor’s prison as you cannot earn money. It is left to the family to pay the fine to get the debtor released. They were abolished in the UK in 1869. Charles Dickens’ book ‘Little Dorrit’ was inspired from his childhood when aged 12yrs he had to work at a shoe-polish factory to raise money because his father was imprisoned in 1824 for failing to pay a local baker £40.

The point of Jesus’ story is that if we leave things unreconciled then the offence will remain and increase enough to destroy completely.

Are we to blame?

If we are to blame then we must do all we can to reconcile. The Message translation says, ‘Make the first move.’

Who will apologise first? For most often than not the other person is also to blame.

There will be times when reconciliation is impossible because the other person may not want to. But failure in reconciliation is not the same as failing to try.

So is there anyone today you can at least try with?

Most days I am walking into someone’s battle. It is usually not with an enemy as such though they have made it so. It is with another Christian, maybe an authoritative figure or just a fellow member of their Church. Often they haven’t counted the cost of their argument. They haven’t considered what they would lose, the damage they would cause to themselves and to others. They neither ask for peace and they never get on to the cross. The one word I never seem to hear is the one word everyone is fighting for, ‘sorry’. I said to one person who was in a fight with their Pastor, “Do you not realise the damage this is causing you? Even before we think of the people in the Church. If you carry on like this then you will die a sad, old, bitter person with bad memories.” I met this person at the end of the service of a church I visited a year ago. I had noticed how she had come forward to serve the bread and wine during the Communion part of the service. She was one of the two members who then went row by row collecting people’s tithes and offerings. After I called people to the front for prayer after my sermon she was the first one out. She wanted more of God and was praying through tears. After the service had ended she was the first to approach me to tell me how much God had spoken to her through my message. After a couple of questions I realised this was the woman the Pastor had told me had given him so many problems because she wanted rid of him for he had made too many changes!

When was the last time someone hurt you? The list of names come easily. Here’s another question: When was the last time you hurt someone? Is that even possible?!!

Many are living with open wounds and cannot truly be the person God has called them to be. Those wounds could have been caused by you and me.

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5 v 23-24)

Maybe our church buildings need to stay empty for this reason alone?

Jesus is on the mountainside teaching his disciples with the crowd around listening. The Temple in Jerusalem is a long way away (perhaps 75 miles) but it is etched in the imagination of the people. So Jesus tells a story of travelling all that way to Jerusalem, to the altar, this is a special occasion and everyone would know how exciting this trip would be. The purpose is one of thankfulness for all that God has done, you desire to celebrate Him and you have purchased an animal, it was bought whilst there or you brought it from Galilee, either way it cost you. But then at the altar something happens, you remember, not how hurt you are, but the hurt you have caused to someone. You realise it is more important to stop worshipping and giving and going to reconcile than it is to continue knowing someone is angry or hurt with you.

Go back in the same way that you came. You came with excitement, with personal cost, with thanksgiving and Jesus tells us to approach the person we have hurt in the same way. There is no condition attached to this on whether or not the person is innocent and actually the argument is 50/50. Just go because of your part. Stop singing, leave your money or your lamb and leave the building. Then come back and start again. Reconciliation is more important than your worship.

This word ‘reconciled’ means to change thoroughly, it means to bring back together a relationship that was broken. For that to happen repentance needs to be present; the willingness is hugely important; pride needs to fall; humility needs to rise; it won’t be easy but when we hurt someone the first place to go is not the altar though that may be where the conviction comes. We must go and use a word that is more longed for than spoken, ‘sorry’.

Over the next several days we will see how Jesus challenges the Pharisaic interpretations of the Old Testament with his own. Whose would you want to follow? The Pharisees interpretation or Jesus’?

They focused on external behaviour but he focused on an inner interpretation.

 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. (Matthew 5 v 21-22)

Let me give an interpretation of some of the words:

Murder – is the premeditated and deliberate attack.

Anger – What Jesus challenges is the hypocrisy of feeling proud that you haven’t committed physical murder but you have ruined the reputation of someone by stabbing them in their back.

Raca – meaning empty-headed. Stripping away a fellow disciple’s identity through defamation.

Fool – a word meaning contempt, viewing a fellow disciple as less than they really are.

Fire of hell – Gehenna, west and south-west of Jerusalem where the rubbish was continually burning, a place where its history was shameful (known for child sacrifice and judgment)

The children’s song isn’t true is it?

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

They do hurt. They can injure for a long time. It ruins our self-confidence. It can destroy an individual. But those who condemn will be condemned.

Here is a prayer for anyone battling with anger today. I hope it helps.

Father,

This life has heartache, betrayals and failures, grief and loss so deep so hurtful that it feels like an illness than an emotion. All around me are deceitfulness and lies, abuse and mistrust, stories of the wounding of people and riding roughshod over the weak so that the powerful become more powerful.

In their trails lay broken hearts and a pain never known unless you experience it.

This has the potential to destroy me. To make me no more. To remove me. I feel its power. It wants to change my vocabulary. It feeds me words that I have never used. It taunts me, laughs at me, sneers and all the time tempts me to explode with new wicked words that will only backfire to cause more destruction.

How do I get rid of the raging war in my soul? How do I get rid of the anger of the injustice done to me and to others?

Do I hope it isn’t there in the morning? Do I think you will take it from me?

I make that commitment today to choose to bless others. Even those who don’t know what they are doing to me.

I bless them. I want them to be happy. I pray for their well-being. I think of them not as my enemies but as my friends. I don’t have to hold their hands but I hold my hands up for them. Bless them my Father. As I see your goodness and grace fall on them and as I see heaven open over their lives I commit to smiling at them. I smile through the tears. Bless them Father, Bless them Jesus, Bless them Holy Spirit.

I choose to bless until peace arrives again. Quietness will come after the pain. I bless to get to the stillness of the soul.

Amen

So in the Christian league of Christians are you nearer the top or the bottom? How tired are you at being simply the best and above all better than all the rest? Exhausted?

How many rules of life do you keep? How’s the diet? How many miles have you run today? C’mon I am typing this at 7.30am surely you have been out running, walking, keeping fit?!!

If my Christianity is about keeping to the rules then all that will lead to is finding myself in a place where I feel ultra-good about myself or in my case feel utterly worthless!

If I succeed I will not have encountered grace because I wouldn’t need it and if I fail I will have so focused on the duties I will have been blinded to the Divine.

I have never met a joyful legalist only prisoners.

I want to turn the table upside down. I used to think a spiritual mature church were members who were committed to the spiritual disciplines of prayer, bible study, witnessing etc. I don’t think that is an indicator of spiritual maturity anymore. The proof of your maturity is not in disciplines or the beatitude check-list. But it is in the awareness of your own impurity, that you cannot fulfil the laws and everybody’s personal lists of acceptability, but you need Him and you need a community that will hold you accountable and ask you the hard questions. I think this is spiritual maturity.

Here are some words from Jesus on this matter:

 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 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. For 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. (Matthew 5 v 17-20)

Grace is hard to understand. People often say you can’t be accepted by God through grace alone, but I don’t see how else it would work.

How can only those who are good be accepted by God?  Where do we draw the line? Is it so long as you’ve not murdered someone or stolen something, or is it about never telling a lie, or so long as you’ve not sworn? Where is the cut-off point?

I can easily categorise what I regard as absolute evil, and then the other end of the spectrum say something is a sin, which is not great to do, but it’s not the worst thing ever. A sliding scale of acts. We all have them. Let me give an example by posing a question: As a man if I look at a woman lustfully is that better or worse than if I look at a man lustfully?

If I go to Africa as a Pastor and have a glass of wine it would be an abomination but in Europe it is acceptable. Which Pastor is nearer to God?

The Bible says compared to the perfection of God all our good works are like dirty rags, so we don’t really stand a chance at earning acceptance.

Unless we have to have a righteousness which is way above the Pharisees and all their law keeping.

Unless our righteousness is internal we’ve no hope.

It’s not externality, it’s not like the Pharisees: how long your beard is; how long the gown you wear is; the colour of it; what you do on the Sabbath day; whether you trail a chair across the ground and it constitutes ploughing; whether you lift wood; whether you speak; whether you do other things that were prohibited on the Sabbath day and certain parts of it.

It is nothing to do with externalities the Lord Jesus Christ is saying, but He is saying it is something deep within your soul – it is something internal.

They always accused Him of destroying the law: ‘He’s not saying what the law said’. Jesus is still not saying what the law says nor what any Key Performance Indicator says. He is still saying this:

‘I have not come to take the law away, but the law is lacking, the law is not the finish. I have come to finish it, to fill up that glass, to be the purpose of the law.

I, myself as I stand before you, Jesus Christ the Son of God, am the fulfilment of it’.

To be better than the best is to acknowledge you need a Saviour and you need friends who will walk with you. This is what the Church was always meant to be.

God and Light. It is all through the Bible. Darkness will be overcome. Light has come. Darkness is overcome. The story of the Bible. What is hidden is brought into the open. It is the Gospel.

But wait!

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5 v 14-16)

With similar metaphors as salt in that it is impossible for a city on a hill to be hidden or that of a lamp which is only extinguished by the small measuring bowl to snuff it out; we are the light of the world! The disciples of Jesus.

In Zundert, Holland in 1853, a Lutheran pastor became the proud father of a baby boy. At 16 the boy went to work for a firm of art dealers in The Hague. A few years later he took the opportunity to travel to England. There he fell in love with his landlady’s daughter, but she rejected him. In his grief he turned to Christ. He began helping a Methodist minister in Turnham Green and Petersham. The conviction grew that he should become a full-time evangelist, and in his mid-twenties he returned to Holland. He soon found great success in preaching to the poor, dressed like a peasant and living in their company. He washed their clothes, cared for their sick, consoled their dying and he led them to Christ. However, the Church leaders of the day rejected him and forced him to give up his ministry. For many this would have brought a crushing blow with no recovery. But God can bring light out of darkness. He went back to the world of art and tried his hand at painting. His name was Vincent van Gogh. Yes he battled throughout his whole life but he constantly looked beyond, to the starry sky, he carried continually a sense of wonder forcing itself through the dark shadows that attacked him. On one occasion he said, ‘For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.’

 Maybe you have unanswered questions. Maybe you have pain in your life. Maybe you can make no sense of it all. Today a disciple may wake thinking their life is over. They were a city on a hill, they were a light in the house, but this morning darkness has come.

I want to get hold of that person and shake them.

There is hope. Great hope. There always is with a God who is the light of the world.

We align ourselves with what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:6

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness, ‘made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

It is never over for us because of the eternal light which will always shine through our lives.

We face trouble but the light is shining through our troubles.

We approach the darkness of people’s lives and the light brightens their perspectives.

Death does its best to cast its fear but the shadows flee because of the light.

This is our peace and it is our message.

Don’t give in and don’t give up!

Go and do some good deeds.

Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Turn on the light.

Usually followed by ‘that’s enough Dad”.

I like salt.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (Matthew 5 v 13)

.Every day Jesus was influencing, winning over, gaining favour and leaving people fascinated with what he was saying. He wants us to do that.

Turning to the disciples he gives them 2 images of their life in this world. Salt and Light.

This Christian life is pretty much the same every day. Yes, there are a variety of things we do in work, rest and play. We meet lots of different people and go to different places. But when we break it down the same 3 things happen:

1. We live our life for Jesus revealing his teaching and values and we do it all to try and preserve people’s lives from the many pitfalls in our world.
2. We live our life for Jesus and reach out to those who through disappointment and discouragement need the seasoning influence of God adding to their life.
3. We live our life for Jesus recognising that God is already at work in people’s lives and so our involvement is to enhance, fertilise and help them realise His presence is near.

That’s it. It is that simple. Preserving, Seasoning and Fertilising. The impact of salt.

You may not have a huge ministry and you maybe unknown. You don’t need all that anyway. Just need to be a little bit of salt in your world and you can be a huge influence where you are.

If we are not doing that. If the Christian life is only about going to a building on a Sunday to sing some hymns and say some prayers then we have missed it completely. We might as well give up.

This final beatitude, given to the disciples on a hillside with crowds listening on shows that this is not a list of requirements to enter the Kingdom of God. If they were then this 8^th saying would be an endorsement from Jesus for some masochistic lifestyle!

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5 v 10-12)

I’ve been in church services where the members have affluent lifestyles and whose problems are based around what they thought they should have but didn’t get. I’ve been there with them and their problems have so overwhelmed them that they have struggled to rejoice in any way.

I’ve been in church services where the members have lost what appears to be everything. The women have been brutalised, their children taken, their men have been maimed. They have lost it all. I have been there with them and I have been overwhelmed at their joy in praising Jesus.

Those who appear to have it all sometimes don’t have anything. Their kingdoms may be shinier but nothing of their life matters in the real kingdom.

Years ago, there was a master violinist in Europe. He would play in concerts, and he had a magnificent Stradivarius violin, extremely expensive. He would play the Stradivarius violin in concert and everyone would whisper in the crowd, “Listen to the beautiful sounds of the Stradivarius.” He would play in churches, and people would say, “Listen to the beautiful sounds of the Stradivarius.” He even played before kings and queens, and they, too, would turn to one another and say, “Listen to the beautiful sounds of the Stradivarius.” All the glory went to the instrument.
Then one day this master violinist was walking by a pawn shop. He noticed an old, beat-up, worn-out violin. He walked into the pawn shop and asked how much it would cost. The owner of the pawn shop told him the American equivalent of five dollars. He bought the violin, and he took it home. He polished it, and he refined it, and he tuned it, and he re-tuned it, and he built some character into that violin. Then, when he was to play the greatest performance of his life in a concert hall, he took out the little, five-dollar, worn-out, beat- up violin that he had polished and refined. He put it up to his chin, and he began to play, and everybody in the concert hall whispered, “Listen to the beautiful sounds of the Stradivarius.” (“Rejoicing in Our Suffering,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 74)

I have met and will continue to purposely meet many five-dollar, worn-out, beat-up, violin-type people around the world. At first glance there isn’t much to look at until you realise the master has got hold of their life and something beautiful emerges. I have heard the beautiful sound of the Stradivarius from the amputees of Sierra Leone; the persecuted of northern Nigeria and Burkina Faso; the raped and the child-soldiers of DRC; the prisons of Niger; the HIV stories of Eswatini; the famine of many nations; the slums of Kenya; the graves of Zimbabwe; the orphans of Malawi; the list just goes on.

And the sound coming from the pain … there is none like it in the whole world!

They are happy.

It isn’t an earthly happiness based on circumstance or feelings. But it is a happiness from heaven and found with those who are living in the Kingdom. That’s the true meaning of being Blessed.