The Sermon on the Mount – Session 4

But I Say Unto You

Reading: Matthew 5: 33-48

AUDIO

Lecture Handout

Sermon on the Mount Handout – Session 4

Lesson Notes

Introduction

We are continuing through 6 statements in which Jesus quotes the Old Testament Law but says His followers must go higher and deeper to meet the underlying heart requirement. Indeed, we must have the heart of God Himself!

These conclude with a jaw-dropping and overwhelming statement that should drive us straight into the arms of our Savior lest we give up in utter despair!

Swearing Oaths (Matthew 5: 33-37)

• Bonhoeffer, “What is an oath? It is an appeal made to God in public, calling upon Him to witness a statement made in connection with an event or fact, past, present or future. By means of the oath, men invoke the omniscient deity to avenge the truth.”
• Verse 33 – Quotes Leviticus 19: 12 (don’t swear falsely by God’s name) and Numbers 30: 2 (don’t break your oath)
• Verses 34-36 – Don’t take an oath at all!
  • By Jesus’ day, Mishnah had lots of rulings about what formulas for oaths were binding and which weren’t, so you could weasel out of them
  • Illustrated in Matthew 23: 16-22
  • Oaths were a tool of deceit!
  • Don’t invoke God of His substitutes to dramatically emphasize your truthfulness
  • Leave no space for a lie at all because we follow a God who can’t lie!
• Verse 37 – Just do what you say!
  • Let your character be so reliable and Christlike that you simply do what you say you’re going to do
  • We’re back to the fundamental heart/character issue! It’s about total integrity
  • You shouldn’t need to add extra emphasis by swearing on a stack of holy Bibles
  • We follow Christ who is the Truth – we must be truthful
  • Everything we say should always be truth – an oath only creates doubt about us when we aren’t under oath
  • Bonhoeffer, “The commandment of complete truthfulness is really only another name for the totality of discipleship. Only those who follow Jesus and cleave to him are living in complete truthfulness. Such men have nothing to hide from their Lord.”
  • What about swearing in court or government service?
    • Various perspectives on this throughout the ages.
    • The concluding “so help me God” – these are societal demands in which we invoke God’s assistance but don’t bank on His reputation
• Bonhoeffer, “When we know the cross we are no longer afraid of the truth. We need no more oaths to confirm the truth of our utterances, for we live in the perfect truth of God. There is no truth towards Jesus without truth towards man. Untruthfulness destroys fellowship, but truth cuts false fellowship to pieces and establishes genuine brotherhood.”

Justice (Matthew 5: 38-42)

• This is the part that’s so hard for us to swallow!!! Some of you are probably already itching to argue what Jesus said!
• Verse 38 – Old Testament law of proportional punishment – Deuteronomy 19: 21 – was to prevent inappropriate and unjust punishment
• Verse 39 – No – don’t resist!
  • Note, this is a personal injunction, not governmental (see Romans 13)
  • Our personal conduct toward those who wrong us
  • Offer the other cheek for another insulting backhanded slap rather than returning the insult
  • Bonhoeffer, “The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a standstill because it does not find the resistance it is looking for.  Resistance merely creates further evil and adds fuel to the flames. But when evil meets no opposition and encounters no obstacle but only patient endurance, its sting is drawn, and at last it meets an opponent which is more than its match.”
• Verse 40 – if threatened with lawsuit, give extra rather than make a defense
  • What Jesus said to offer (the outer garment) was immune from lawsuits under the Law, so this is quite a statement!
  • Be prepared to abandon our “rights”
  • Carson, “The legalistic mentality which dwells on retaliation and so-called fairness makes much of one’s rights. What Jesus is saying in these verses, more than anything else, is that his followers have no rights…Personal self-sacrifice displaces personal retaliation; for this is the way the Savior himself went, the way of the cross. And the way of the cross, not notions of “right and wrong,” is the Christian’s principle of conduct.”
• Verse 41 – Likewise with forced inconvenience and labor – give more with a good attitude
  • Bonhoeffer, “When a man unjustly demands that I should give him my coat, I offer him my cloak also, and so counter his demand; when he requires me to go the other mile, I go willingly, and show up his exploitation of my service for what it is. To leave everything behind at the call of Christ is to be content with Him alone, and to follow only Him. By His willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego.”
• Verse 42 – Be open to possibly being taken advantage of – giving to those who beg, lending to others
  • Don’t have to give foolishly (Matthew 7: 6), but discern real need and give generously
  • We can choose not to practice toxic charity toward those seemingly spry individuals at the corner of 123 and Old Bridge by giving to ACTS and pointing these individuals there (even helping them get there) where they can get comprehensive help if they’re really in need – 2 Thessalonians 3: 10-12
• You’re likely saying “what about…”, “what about…”, “what about…”
  • Instead let’s start with the belief that Jesus meant it!
  • Because He did exactly this Himself on His journey to the cross!
  • Bonhoeffer, “Suffering willingly endured is stronger than evil, it spells death to evil. There is no deed on earth so outrageous as to justify a different attitude. The worse the evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer; he must let the evil person fall into Jesus’ hands.”
    Bonhoeffer, “And the cross is the only justification for the precept of non-violence, for it alone can kindle a faith in the victory over evil which will enable men to obey that precept. And only such obedience is blessed with the promise that we shall be partakers of Christ’s victory as well as of his sufferings.”
  • Most of our objections to actually doing what Jesus says reflects a lack of faith in His ultimate justice, judgment, and reward.
• Note, this is about personal self-sacrifice, insults, and abuse, not civil government
  • The New Testament teaching regarding those in authority is focused on their living and serving with integrity and not abusing their power
  • A Christian can resist evil on behalf of others as a servant in the police or military
• After talking about our behavioral response to abuse, Jesus turns to our heart response…

Love Your Enemies (Matthew 5: 43-48)

• Verse 43 – Leviticus 19: 18
  • The Old Testament never says hate your enemies – apparently that was circulating in the 1st century, viewing neighbors as the only people you had to love
• Verse 44 – Instead love enemies and pray for them
  • Bonhoeffer, “This is the supreme demand. Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.”
  • These are the people mentioned in Matthew 5: 10-12 persecuting us for righteousness
  • Bonhoeffer, “To the natural man, the very notion of loving his enemies is an intolerable offence, and quite beyond his capacity: it cuts right across his ideas of good and evil.”
  • Verse 45 is critical – so that you may be sons of God
    • It exhibits the character of God -this is who He is
      • Giving basic blessings to all – sun and rain (“common grace”)
      • Romans 5: 8 – “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
      • We’re here because God showed this grace to us at the cross
      • Luke 23: 34 – “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
    • In Christ we are sons of God, so the point is that true followers of Christ will do this!
    • We need to take this seriously then!
• Verse 46 – Any jerk can be nice to people he likes – there’s no salt or light in that
  • Bonhoeffer, “How then does love conquer? By asking not how the enemy treats her but only h ow Jesus treated her. The love of our enemies takes us along the way of the cross and into fellowship with the Crucified.”
• Bonhoeffer, “It is the urgent duty of every Christian soul to prepare itself for it. The time is coming when the confession of the living God will incur not only the hatred and the fury of the world, for on the whole it has come to that already, but complete ostracism from ‘human society,’ as they call it. The Christians will be hounded from place to place, subjected to physical assault, maltreatment and death of every kind. We are approaching an age of widespread persecution. Therein lies the true significance of all the movements and conflicts of our age.”
• Verse 48 – “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”
  • Conclusion to all these antitheses we’ve looked at for 2 weeks
  • This is the Christ’s call and expectation, the standard we must meet
    • Bonhoeffer, “And how does this quality work out in practice? The ‘extraordinary’ – and this is the supreme scandal – is something which the followers of Jesus do. It must be done like the better righteousness, and done so that all men can see it. It is not strict Puritanism, not some eccentric pattern of Christian living, but simple, unreflecting obedience to the will of Christ.”
    • We need God’s grace, because we can’t do this on our own
    • Christ makes us positionally perfect, His Spirit transforms us toward increasing perfection, and His grace forgives us when we fail
    • Bonhoeffer, “These men are the perfect, the men in whom the undivided love of the Heavenly Father is perfected. It was that love which gave the Son to die for us upon the cross, and it is by suffering in the fellowship of this cross that the followers of Jesus are perfected. The perfect are none other than the blessed of the beatitudes.”