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ប្រតិចារិក
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Today we are going to continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount. Last week we listened to what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, verses 3 through 12, where he described the characteristics of God's people, the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The title of today's message is God's Purpose for God's People. This is actually a message of theme that has four parts. As we will discover, Jesus announces God's purpose for his people, then very carefully teaches his disciples and us how that purpose must be realized. Our text for today will be Matthew chapter 5 verses 13 through 16 and verses 21 through 32. Let us begin with verses 13 through 16. Matthew 5, verses 13 through 16. Here Jesus says, You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." In these four verses, Jesus says that God's people are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. They possess invisible qualities that have purifying and cleansing and healing effects on the world. And their beliefs and lives shine the light of truth and godliness into the darkness of the world. You see, God's ultimate purpose is to glorify himself. God's ultimate purpose in the world is to glorify himself in the world, to display his existence and the infinite qualities of his perfections. God's purpose for his people then is to glorify himself through them as he makes them the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Here, Jesus declares this purpose. In chapter 5, verse 21, through chapter 7, verse 5 then, Jesus gives broad instructions to his disciples for fulfilling his purpose. And I kind of outlined that for you to give you a perspective of the approach to these scriptures. Because here in verses 13 through 16, Jesus declares the purpose of God's people. And then in this extremely long section, chapter 5, verse 21 through chapter 7, verse 5, he gives these broad instructions that we're going to examine over the next several weeks of how God fulfills this purpose in us and how we are to strive to fulfill this purpose. It is always important that we remind ourselves that Jesus meant to communicate something very specific when he spoke to people as he walked on the earth. He had specific things that he meant to communicate to those people. Whatever he intended to communicate to them is the same thing these words mean to us today. What he says then doesn't mean something different then than it means today. It always means the same thing. Now the people listening to him at that time thought he was a prophet or a miracle worker from God because he had been healing people. And they had probably heard some of his teachings by then. And he taught with authority. So when he begins teaching, they understood his teaching from a spiritual perspective. In verses 3 through 12, Jesus spoke extensively about the kingdom of heaven and about God. He was speaking about spiritual things. Now, in verse 13, Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth. Clearly, Jesus means this in a spiritual sense. He is not talking about the kind of salt we have at home in the salt shaker. He does not mean that God's people is some kind of white, sandy substance. He means that they have invisible qualities that have visible, dramatic effects on the world. the reason he uses that example. At the time that Jesus spoke these words, salt was one of the most important things on the face of the earth. It still is, but it was especially important then. It was so valuable that it was used to pay wages. Imagine going to work and they tell you, well, you're going to work eight hours today and we will give you three ounces of salt. I have a three-ounce job, you have a six-ounce job. Well, that's the way it was. That's where our word salary comes from. It comes from the root word for salt. Salt was used to flavor food, and salt was used as medicine, as an antiseptic to kill germs and fight infection. Salt was also used to preserve food. People would rub salt into meat to keep it from rotting. I'm very, very old, so I remember when I was a small boy, we lived on a farm way back in the Ozarks in the hills of Missouri. And my daddy would butcher hogs every winter. And to preserve much of the meat, he would salt that meat down. And it was salt pork. It would keep the meat from rotting. And there were many other uses for salt. So when Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth, He means that we have invisible qualities that are important to the earth. These qualities keep the world from rotting completely away. Firstly then, Jesus says, you are the salt of the earth, but he does not stop there. He goes on to say, but if the salt loses its flavor, How shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Here Jesus continues to draw a contrast between his disciples and the scribes and Pharisees. If we look at this in context and within the total context of Matthew, but specifically the local context of Matthew 5, 6, and 7, he's drawing this contrast continually. He actually introduced this contrast without naming the scribes and Pharisees in verses 3 through 12. In those verses, Jesus emphasized that the poor, the mournful, and the meek would receive the kingdom of heaven, inherit the earth, and see God, and the other things that he lists there. those characteristics contrasted sharply with the show of wealth, pride, privilege, and position that marked the lives of the scribes and Pharisees. Their spiritual qualities were all external. The point Jesus makes is that the invisible qualities of salt is what makes it useful and valuable. In the same way, the invisible qualities of God's people are what makes them useful. What makes us salt is the invisible qualities God puts in us. We are poor in spirit. We mourn over our sins. We are humble. We hunger and thirst for righteousness. We are merciful. We are pure in heart. We are peacemakers. And when we are persecuted, we are to rejoice. See, that's a dramatic contrast to the Pharisees for whom religion and the religion they were teaching the Jewish nation was just the opposite of those qualities. Their religion was show and ritual and an outward demonstration of pseudo holiness. But Jesus says, here, these are the qualities. that are going to have this cleansing and preserving effect on the world. Secondly, in verse 14, Jesus says, You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand. And it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. To understand what Jesus means, we need to look at a few other things that Jesus says in relation to light. In the scripture that Robert read earlier, in the book of John, chapter 8, verse 12, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. You see, Jesus is God. That's what he's declaring there in John 8, verse 12. Jesus died to give us a life that will never end. When we have that kind of life in us, our lives are not hopeless and empty and meaningless and boring and full of darkness. When we have everlasting life in us, We are happy. Oh, we'll have times when we struggle and when we're heartbroken, but there is a consistent happiness in God's people because we know that no matter how bad life gets, it's going to be better. Just the other day, Patricia and I were talking about, in relation to this text, we were talking about the worst things we could remember in our lives as Christians. And we all have those times. And as we were talking, the things that came to our mind was that even in the middle of great tears and heartbreak and crushing stress, there was this encouragement upholding and underlying and running through all of that. That God had saved us and forgiven us and we were going to heaven. That this this suffering and difficulty that we were going through was something that was just going to last for a short time. It may last the rest of our physical lives, but it was still going to be something that lasted just for a short time. When we have everlasting life in us, we know that things are going to get better. We know that God really, really loves us and takes care of us. and changes our lives and works in our lives to bring us to worship Him, to draw us to prayer, to bring us to praise Him in song and to work for Him and to strive for moral purity and hope and generosity and kindness. And we fail in those things all the time. Just about every morning I get up and pray and ask God, make me gentle today. make my words and the touch of my life gentle on people because I've lived my life as such a harsh, hard driving person in my words and behaviors that that is a part of me that I must ask God to discipline. When God brings about these changes in our lives, which He does when He saves us. Our lives shine in the faces of everybody in the world who sees us. We may not know it, we may not understand it, and it's best that we don't, or we would dislocate our shoulders patting ourselves on the back. But God works in the regenerate. He does because He's given us a new heart. He's made us clean. He indwells us by the powerful Holy Spirit of the everlasting, eternal Creator God. Can you imagine that? God Himself lives in you today if you are, by His grace, saved and a Christian. Sinful you. Can you imagine that? Sinful me. The glorious God. Alive and shining in us. And working to show us our sin and working to bring us to put it to death. And that is the light of God, His person, His being, the Spirit of God shining in us that shines into the world. And through that, people see God in action. People see God forgiving us. setting us free from doing all the wrong things that enslave us when we are sinful people outside of Christ. They see God in action, filling us with the truth about life that never ends and changing our thoughts and words and actions. Before God saved me, I was the smartest man in the world. As a result of that, there was never a time that I ever had to or would admit that I was wrong about anything. And after God saves me, gradually, a step at a time, God taught me to listen to people and to then be faced with those times that I was wrong and be able to say, I am sorry, I was wrong. Or, I did wrong. Forgive me. Dear friends, if we live in God's city, people are going to know it. That's what Jesus means here. Jesus says, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. In other words, God's people cannot hide and will not hide the changes that God brings about in their lives. I think that's a beautiful image of the church, isn't it? A city on a hill. You can't hide it if it's God's city. In the book of John, chapter 14, verse 23, Jesus says, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. And in John chapter 12, verses 46 through 48, Jesus says, I have come as a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness. Therefore, God's purpose for His people is that they are to glorify Him. We are to glorify God. Our invisible spiritual qualities will have a preserving and healing effect on those around us and on the world. And the new life God gives us will shine the light of the existence of God and His holiness and law into the world as we strive to obey Him and as He enables us to obey Him more and more. God is at work making us more like Jesus. Not making us healthy, wealthy and wise and more and more successful. He may bless us in those ways and He may not. But His work is to sanctify us, to make us more like Jesus. Immediately following verses 13 through 16, Jesus teaches his disciples about the right religion, which is a righteousness that is greater than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. We have already studied what Jesus says about this right religion in verses 17 through 20. Most importantly, Jesus says that he will fulfill all the law. And he is talking specifically about the Ten Commandments. In very logical fashion, Jesus connects God's purpose for his people with religion. And that religion is expressed in a perfect righteousness reflected in perfect obedience to God's law. And it is that perfect obedience that Jesus fulfills. Jesus follows this teaching concerning God's law and perfect righteousness. with a discussion of eight broad categories of instruction for fulfilling God's purpose for His people. The first instruction He gives us is found in verses 21 through 26 of Matthew chapter 5. Please open your Bibles to Matthew 5 verses 21 through 26. Beginning in verse 21, Jesus says, You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother Rekha shall be in danger of the counsel. But whoever says you fool shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on your way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny." Now obviously, a very thorough study of these verses would take four or five or many more sermons. That is not my goal. My goal is for us to come to a clear understanding of the major truth or truths that Jesus teaches here. Certainly, there are more detailed aspects of his teaching that we can learn and may learn from these verses, What we're going to focus on are the major truths that Jesus is teaching in these verses. Notice that in verse 21, Jesus says, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. Jesus refers here to the teachings of the Jewish rabbis in the past that had been passed down from generation to generation. These were the teachings followed and taught by the scribes and Pharisees. Dr. William Hendrickson comments on the teachings of the rabbis when he writes, what was wrong was not what they said, but what they had left unsaid or at least unemphasized. They were not giving a full summary of the law regarding murder. You see, the Pharisees and teachers of the law were only or primarily concerned with the outward actions of a person. In other words, if you did not actually kill anyone, according to their teachings, you were innocent of murder and therefore not guilty of sinning by breaking the sixth commandment. But Jesus points to a higher standard. Jesus corrects this wrong understanding and the teaching of the law in verse 22 where he says, But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raker, shall be in danger of the counsel. But whoever says you fool shall be in danger of herald fire. In other words, anger is murder committed by the heart. Anger is murder committed by the heart. Hendrickson says it this way, the beginning of the outward act of murder is sinful anger, hatred. Now none of this is new, if we really look at scripture. As we noted earlier, the command that Jesus talks about here is the sixth commandment of God. It is recorded in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, verse 13, you shall not murder. And in Exodus, chapter 21, verse 12, we find the judgment for murder, where we read, he who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. These verses are not talking about the killing of a person who has not been found guilty by court of a crime that deserves death. That's not what these verses are talking about. These verses are not talking about an accident. The Bible addresses accidental death also, but these verses are not talking about those times when someone is killed by accident. These verses are talking about the killing of the innocent, and the penalty or judgment for murder is death. Now, Jesus does not disagree with that. He just makes it clear that murder is, first of all, a condition of the heart expressed in anger. Therefore, anger without a justifiable cause is sin. Now, a justifiable cause isn't some minor thing. It isn't because someone looked at you funny. It isn't because your husband left his socks on the floor." Or, it's something serious, a justifiable cause as a matter that is serious, that is in itself sin. And throughout the Old Testament, God states clearly that anger must be put out of our hearts and lives from the very beginning of the Bible. In the book of Genesis, chapter 4, verses 6 through 8, it is written, So the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. Now Cain talked with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. You see, the first thing that happened with Cain was that he was angry with Abel. And God warned him. God warns Cain. God tells Cain to get rid of his anger. And in the book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verses 17 and 18, God says, You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord." Anger is a form of hatred. Anger is not an expression of love. Anger is not love in the heart, in action. God tells us not to hate. other people, but to love them. When we are angry without good cause, we are practicing hate. And we sin against God and we sin against what God has created, that is, other people, and we sin against ourselves. To paraphrase Hendrickson, murder begins with anger in the heart. In the book of Mark, chapter 7, verses 21 and 22, Jesus says, For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. That is why Jesus is so concerned with the condition of our hearts. That is why God tells us throughout the Old Testament not to be angry. because actual physical murder begins as anger in the heart, and anger is sin. And here in verses 21 and 22, Jesus declares that anger without good or justifiable cause is sin because it breaks the sixth commandment. In order to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, we must realize that the kingdom of God The Kingdom of Heaven involves our hearts. It is our spirits, our souls, who we are, what we think, how we feel, how we talk. It is that deep inner workings of us that God is interested in. Anger has no place in the hearts of God's people. We cannot walk around with a bitter taste in our mouths and minds and our hearts. Even if we're biting our tongues, trying to control it. That's good, you want to control it if it's there. But Jesus says we must deal with it. That bitterness towards others, that anger, is sin. We must not allow unjustifiable anger in our lives any more than we should commit murder, which is not at all. Jesus concludes his instruction about anger in verses 23 through 26. There we read, Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny." You see, anything less than a loving relationship with others is wrong. Think about it. God tells us we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus gives us a new commandment that we are to love our brethren. He's talking about other Christians there. He says, I give you a new commandment. I give you love, love one another as I have loved you. So. Our relationships, according to God, ought to be relationships that are characterized by loving our thoughts and how we How we train and discipline our emotions and our hearts should be directed towards loving others. Later in this Sermon on the Mount, we're going to come to a point where we hear Jesus say, love your enemies. Love your enemies and pray for those who spitefully use you. So, if we are practicing anger in our lives, we are holding on to sin. and we are wasting our time trying to worship God. That's his point here in verses 23 and 24. Anger is sin and if we practice anger or hold on to anger, we have had for many years, God does not listen to our prayers or our praise, we cannot truly worship God. But Jesus says much more than that. He certainly says that if we have anger in our hearts, for that matter, any sin, we need to deal with that before we come to worship God. And that's the point of getting up from the altar and walking away. You need to deal with your sin before you worship. We cannot tell ourselves we're worshiping God if we're holding on to to anger or holding on to our sin. But Jesus demands much more than that. In verses 23 and 24, Jesus makes his point by saying that it is even our responsibility to make peace with our brother who is angry with us, even though we may not be angry with him. Or even though we may not have done anything to actually offend him. In order for God to accept our worship, we must do everything we can to make peace with others who have something against us. They may be wrong. They may be mistaken. They may have misunderstood something, or they may just not like my bald head or gray hair. But whatever it is, we must take some steps to resolve Whatever it is that person has against us. You see, God rejects our worship when we fail to strive to make peace with others when we know someone has something against us. It doesn't matter whether we did anything to make the other person angry with us or not. God's people are to love other people. The right thing for God's people to do is to make things right with the people who have something against them. God's people must do everything they can to be in good standing, in good favor with other people. If the other people refuse to be reconciled, then they are guilty before God. But we have done what God tells us to do. We have humbled ourselves before God. And we have, if we've approached it properly, we have humbled ourselves before the other person. The thrust of verses 25 and 26, if you would look at those, I'm not going to read them again, but it talks about someone taking you to court. Someone could preach probably seven messages on these two verses. But let me just say that simply the thrust of these two verses is that we must settle anger or conflicts or relationship problems with other people as quickly as possible. That's the thrust of those verses. Because if we do not do so, the situation will get worse and worse. And if we do not do so, we disobey God and continue in sin by failing to take steps to bring about reconciliation. And such a failure shows an unregenerate heart. And if we truly have an unregenerate heart, we will stand before the judge and we will not get out of the prison that he places us in. The second instruction Jesus gives his disciples after he gives This instruction about the Sixth Commandment and anger and relationships is found in verses 27 and 28. If you have your Bibles open, please follow along as we read these verses. Here Jesus says, You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Here again, Jesus corrects a wrong understanding of the law of God just as he did in relation to the sixth commandment. You see, if God's people are going to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, they must know the truth about the standards or laws of God's kingdom. The Jewish rabbis had taught or emphasized the outward act of adultery was sin, but they either ignored or failed to emphasize the fact that the evil sexual lust in a person's heart is adultery. Such lust breaks the seventh commandment and is sin. Recently a young lady told me that she knows many young adults who claim to be Christians and attend church regularly who think that there is nothing wrong with having sexual relations with someone as long as neither person is married to someone else. They understand the seventh commandment concerning adultery to apply only to someone who is married. Not even the Jewish rabbis had such a faulty idea of adultery. The seventh commandment is and always has been a standard that establishes sexual purity and define sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is any sexual relations outside of a marriage between one man and one woman. The Old Testament makes clear that there is an extensive list of forbidden sexual relations. It's not a complete list because they didn't have computers and online pornography back then. But we get the idea from looking at these lists. Now I'm not going to read the list, but I'll give you the references for just a couple of them. Leviticus chapter 18 verses 6 through 23 and Leviticus chapter 20 verses 10 through 19 gives us some understanding that this command not to commit adultery has an overreaching effect in defining sexual relationships. And these lists give us specific examples. Here in Matthew 5, verses 27 and 28, Jesus again emphasizes the sin committed in the heart. Jesus says, whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. You see, any use of God's gift of sex other than between a man and a woman married to each other is wrong. We can commit adultery in our hearts. We can break the seventh commandment in our hearts. We can sin in our hearts. We can be sexually immoral in our hearts. Here is William Hendrickson's comment on this verse. He writes that the man Jesus refers to in verse 28 is not one who, without any evil intentions, happens to see a person of the opposite sex. No, he is looking, gazing, staring at a woman, in order to lust after her, to possess and dominate her completely, to use her for his own pleasure. Of course, the same standard applies to women. God's people must cherish and respect and honor each other as God's creations. We are made in his image. God is spirit and we are spiritual creatures as well as physical creatures. God's people must not live like animals or worse than animals. We must not use other people selfishly for our own pleasure, either by our actions or by our imaginations. When we lust after another person, we deny that the other person is anything except a physical body. We deny that the other person is created in God's image. And we deny that we are created in God's image. We deny that we are spiritual creatures. We are totally engulfed in and interested only in using the other person's body to satisfy our lust. And by doing so, we worship the creature instead of the Creator. Now let's turn our attention to verses 29 through 30. of chapter 5. Please open your Bibles there. In these two verses, Jesus tells us, If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell." We should remember that this statement by Jesus immediately follows his teachings about anger and lust. Jesus has just said that anger is the same thing as the murder in the eyes of God, and that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart. Can Jesus really be serious when He says these things? How can we stop getting angry with other people? And how can a man help but have sexual thoughts about a beautiful woman? Or how can a woman help but have sexual thoughts about a handsome man? Let me tell you, dear friends, that Jesus is very serious, and not just about anger and sexual immorality, but about all sin, all sin, in the book of Matthew chapter 18. verses 7-9, Jesus uses some of the same language. But here in chapter 18, He's talking about all sin. Here He says, Woe to the world because of offenses. For offenses must come, but woe to the man by whom the offense comes. If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. Here Jesus says that all sin is so serious and so deadly that we absolutely have to do something about it no matter what it takes. We cannot say, Well, it's not all that serious. It's really kind of a little, small, harmless sin that simply needs some cookies. So, I'm going to invite it in to sit down and calm it down and feed it for a while. We can't do that. We must take radical action to deal with sin. That's Jesus' point here. God's people must handle those things in their lives that cause them to sin. That is how God fulfills His purpose for us. That is how we function as salt and light in the world. If we are one of God's people, we are radically different than the world. We do not feed those appetites or desires that cause us to sin. My dear friends, the causes of sin in us run deep. We like to hide them. In fact, we do hide them. We don't tell anyone about them. We are ashamed of them. Sometimes the causes are the way we were raised. How many times have we heard someone say or have we said, well, that's the way Daddy did it or that's the way Mama did it? How many times have we heard or said, I just didn't feel loved when I was a child, or all of these bad things happened to me in life. Sometimes the causes are a love for the things of the world. It may be the love of a man or a woman, or the love of money, or the love of attention, or the love of comfort and security, or the love of popularity, or the love of feeling important. Any of those things and more may be the cause or at the root of our sin. It takes radical surgery to get rid of the causes of our sin. Jesus makes it clear that it is like gouging out an eye or cutting off a hand or a foot. It's painful because we have to get rid of something that we are. Our sin is not simply something out here outside of ourselves that we accidentally step into. maybe once a week or once a day and bump into it and we get splattered a little bit. That's not our sin. Our sin is part of the vital living creature that we are. And to deal with it, we must put it to death. It takes radical surgery. Jesus says it's like cutting off a hand or gouging out an eye. It is painful because we have to get rid of something we are. Something we have grown to be. And the longer that we have been that sin, the longer that that sin is a part of the innocent person that we are, the harder it is to take care of it, the more radical surgery it will take, the more violently we must deal with it. Just think of a person who has cancer. If you diagnose quickly, If you're diagnosed quickly, many times it can be dealt with even without surgery. If you're not diagnosed quickly, it grows and grows and grows. It takes greater and greater surgery and greater and greater treatment to deal with. That's the way sin is in us. It grows. It grips our minds and lives and habits. Except sin is even worse because it's part of how we think and feel and relate and react to people. And we justify it. And we don't want to deal with it. And it's always the other person's fault. I am unhappy because of what she said and how she treats me. I am unhappy because of what he says and how he treats me. I am unhappy because of The fact that my boss is a jerk. Whatever. It's always somebody else's fault. I don't have to take you back to the Garden of Eden. I will. Because I love that story. Who ate the apple? He. And when God approached Adam, was it Adam's fault? She made me do it. Who made her do it? Well, that was a certain. It's always somebody else's fault. But God's people must confront the sin, because we are to be the salt and light in the world, and we must deal with it with radical surgery, and it's painful. If we belong to Christ, we will frequently find ourselves cutting out some part of us that we do not want to let go of. It will not make us popular or wealthy. It will not necessarily make us respected or even love, but it will make us more like Jesus. I use a picture sometimes that is a graphic picture, I think. When we deal with sin, we have to grab it by the throat. and beat it and drag it out into the street bleeding and naked and stomp it to death. That's what we must do. We must deal ferociously with the sin in our lives. The book of Colossians chapter 3 verses 5 through 10 says it this way, Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth, in your members which are on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these things, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds. and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him." We are to put to death sin. Do you hear God tell us that? Put to death sin. Now this brings us to verses 31 and 32. You might want to follow along in your Bible of chapter 5 where we read, furthermore it has been said, Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery. Now, dear friends, the world has not changed much in the past 2,000 years. You see, it was just as easy to get a divorce in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago as it is to get a divorce today in Las Vegas. The Jewish religious leaders had taken God's holy law and turned it into a lie. They taught that a man could divorce his wife for just about any reason. All a man had to do was give his wife a certificate of divorce. A man could divorce his wife because he did not like the way she brushed her hair. Or he could divorce her for burning his toast. And the religious leaders would approve the divorce. So divorce was easy. All they had to do was find some little excuse and get a divorce. That's why Jesus addresses this matter. And this is the same way people are today. Now, when people first read what Jesus says here, they often think that Jesus in some way is approving divorce. or even commanding it. Or sometimes they are looking for an excuse to get a divorce. You see, that is exactly what the Jewish people were doing when Jesus was here on earth. They were just looking for one excuse after another to get a divorce. So Jesus tells them, if you divorce your wife for any other reason than sexual unfaithfulness, you will be responsible for her adultery when she marries someone else. And anyone who marries her is also guilty of adultery. Divorce is either caused by adultery or results in adultery. So the big point here, and definitely there are other points and valuable ones that can be taught from this section, but the big point here is that divorce is not good. Divorce is not good. The message here is do not get a divorce in most circumstances. You see, Jesus does not say that if your husband or wife commits adultery, you must get a divorce. He does not say that. What Jesus says is that adultery is the only reason God permits divorce. In Matthew 19, verses 8 and 9, Jesus says, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. And whoever marries her, who is divorced, commits adultery. God does permit or allow us to get a divorce in the case of sexual unfaithfulness. You see, sexual unfaithfulness or adultery denies God's purpose for men and women in marriage. The wife or husband who is sexually unfaithful denies God's authority over them and over their marriage. In the face of such disobedience and hostility to God, the innocent husband or wife is permitted to get a divorce and remarry. God allows divorce in the case of adultery because God is perfectly just and fair. Adultery violates God's purpose in creating man and woman for each other. When God's purpose for marriage is violated, the foundation of trust and faithfulness in marriage is broken. Because God is perfectly fair, he allows the innocent husband and wife to divorce and remarry. Or in other words, he allows the innocent party to treat the guilty wife or husband as though they were dead. Remember, death was the original punishment for adultery. It is true that Jesus permits divorce in the case of adultery, but Jesus makes it clear that divorce is not God's command. It's not God's intended will for marriage. God made us to be married to the same person all of our lives. In Matthew 19, verses 4 through 6, Jesus says, Have you not read? that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female and said, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. In these verses, Jesus quotes from Genesis chapter 1 verse 27 and Genesis chapter 2 verse 24. You see, Jesus goes all the way back to God's act of creation to answer the question about divorce. In other words, Jesus says, look at how you were created. You were created to be together as husband and wife for as long as you live. That is God's purpose and will for men and women. One flesh. Think about that. That means that divorce is like ripping out the bones in your arms and legs and throwing them away. Divorce is like tearing out your heart and throwing it into the street, still bleeding and throbbing and full of indescribable pain and torment. And it is. It is. It's just like that. In the book of Malachi, chapter 22, verse 16, we are told that God hates divorce. hates divorce. No place in the Bible does God command us to get a divorce for any reason, including sexual unfaithfulness. God hates divorce. God's message to us is a message of forgiveness. The book of Colossians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 tells us that God has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins. And in the book of Acts, chapter 10, verse 43, we are told, To him that is Christ all the prophets witness that through his name whoever believes in him will receive remission of sins. And we are told that we must also forgive others. In the book of Matthew, chapter 18, verses 21 and 22, Peter asked Jesus, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Peter thought he had the answer. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. In other words, we must forgive our brother more times than we can keep track of. Of course, the phrase, our brother, includes husbands and wives. It really includes everyone. You see, God accepts the death of Jesus Christ as full vengeance, full justice for all of our sins, including anger and adultery. The death of Jesus is sufficient for God to forgive the husband or wife who has been sexually unfaithful. Now, if God forgives a repentant husband or wife who trust in Jesus, surely those who receive the Spirit of Christ to live in them can also forgive an unfaithful husband or wife. You see, when we put our faith in Christ Jesus, He forgives us completely of all our sins. He gives us spiritual life that lasts forever. He sends His Holy Spirit to live in us and with us. Thank God. We begin to live our lives in and with the presence of the Holy Spirit. And God makes us clean and pure and full of His grace and His love. He doesn't make us perfect overnight, but that is the work that He's doing in us. And we see His work manifested more and more as we follow Him. And God gives us the invisible, supernatural grace to forgive others as we realize how much God has forgiven us. Jesus tells us that God's purpose for His people is to make them the salt of the earth and the light of the world. May the Lord Jesus work in all of us so that we confront the sin in our hearts, whether it is anger or lust or greed or lack of mercy or whatever it may be. May God display Himself in us so that we have a preserving and healing effect on the world. And so that the light of His presence and truth and love and salvation shines in us like a city on a hill. May God make us such people. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we are so thankful that you speak to us from the Bible. We are encouraged and strengthened by Your Word. We are amazed that You would have Your light and Your truth and Your grace shine out of us. We are astounded that You would describe us as a city on the hill, God's city on the hill. Lord, make it so. You know how sinful we are. You know how we struggle with sin. You know how much we disobey You. You know how much we fail to do what we should do. Lord, You know our weaknesses, but You are not weak. You have all power. All holiness and purity and goodness. You tell us in the book of James that you give more grace. And that's a picture of a waterfall, a Niagara fall of grace to your people. You give more grace. God gives more grace. We ask, Father, that you will daily, hourly, minute by minute, pour out your grace into our hearts, into our thinking, into our mouths, into the scripts that we've developed, into our relationships, Lord, so that we will be enabled by you to deal with the sin in our hearts and in our lives, and that we will Truly be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
God's Purpose for God's People Part 1
ស៊េរី Sermon on the Mount
លេខសម្គាល់សេចក្ដីអធិប្បាយ | 323141911282 |
រយៈពេល | 1:02:15 |
កាលបរិច្ឆេទ | |
ប្រភេទ | ការថ្វាយបង្គំថ្ងៃអាទិត្យ |
អត្ថបទព្រះគម្ពីរ | ម៉ាថាយ 5:13-16; ម៉ាថាយ 5:21-32 |
ភាសា | អង់គ្លេស |
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