this morning in particular. Matthew 5. Last week we looked at a subject that brought to our minds at this time of year, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the coming of Christ into the world. The Lord and his apostles did not actually institute the celebration of Christ's birthday in the church. There was no mention of that until after over 300 years and no mention of any celebration of his birth. So it wasn't something that we got from our Lord's mandate or from the apostles. And as we want to be careful not to add things to what God has given us to do or to take things away. then we don't have any kind of official kind of a celebration of a holy day that would be related to Christ's birth. God would have to establish that, and not us. Nevertheless, we're very glad when the subject of Christ's birth comes up every year. and people are thinking about it, and it's certainly a wonderful thing, and it's something that we delight to tell people about and what it means. So many people, including avid Christmas observers, are ignorant about why Christ came into the world. I was that way growing up. I did not understand why Jesus came. I could say he came to save his people, But I really did not know what that meant. The church that I went to did not teach what that really meant. I've told you before that the minister in the church I grew up in, when I went to speak to him afterwards, it was a huge church, he said he didn't really believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead. That was the kind of church it was. He said that Jesus rises when we serve him, or something like that, and his love is spread in the world. And that it didn't really matter whether he rose or not, he didn't think he really did, that that was irrelevant. And I told him I couldn't go there anymore. I had come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But I had observed the day, had no idea what it meant. So as I often do, I thought that this would be a good thing to speak about this year. And I decided to take a look at what Jesus said about the reasons that he came. And there have been books written about this. Joel Beakey has one that has 31 reasons that he came. And I saw another one that was more than twice that many. So Jesus said a lot about this. He approached it from a lot of different angles. It's sort of like a multifaceted thing that you can look at this facet or that facet to understand the fullness of why he came. And so we actually took up this last week and looked at John 10, 10, where Jesus says that he came that those he calls the sheep of his father might have life and have it more abundantly. We saw that by life he was referring to spiritual life. Okay, because we are told, we looked at Ephesians 2, where it says that we're dead in our trespasses and sins. So people are dead toward God. God is irrelevant to them. They don't have any real following of the true God or knowledge of the true God. They're not connected with Him. They're estranged from Him, many times bitter toward Him, and His judgment is upon us because of our sin, and they need to be reconciled to God. They need to make peace with God. When our first parents first rebelled against God, we all died as far as a right relationship with God. We could no longer live as people are meant to live, okay, devoted to our creator. We couldn't fulfill his purpose for which he made us, that we would be a beautiful living expression of him. in our human nature as those made in his image. So on a human level, that we would show what God is like, that we would exhibit his love, goodness, kindness, wisdom, justice, and so on, on a human scale that he has on a divine scale. We became twisted, corrupt image bearers who are fit only to be cast into the pit of destruction as repulsive and an unclean thing. We don't see ourselves that way. We flatter ourselves, we flatter each other. But this is our condition. We don't readily grasp how detestable we have become in his sight because we're masters at covering up. But we do sometimes feel the weight of this when we are abused and mistreated and this sort of thing in this world, when we see the things that go on, the lying deception. And if we look in ourselves, we can see that these things are in us also. But when he makes us alive, we become aware of our sin. When Jesus says, I came to give them life, when he makes us alive, we become aware of our sin, and we see that we need Christ to save us. We repent, or we turn from our sin, and we come to him for forgiveness and new life. He graciously makes us alive who are dead in our trespasses and sins. And that's what Paul says to the believers in Ephesians 2, that you who are dead in your trespasses and sins, he made alive. Okay, so today I wanna look at why Jesus came from a slightly different angle. I want to take up what he said to us about his reason for coming and what is perhaps the most well-known sermon that he preached. What would you think of? Do you know which one that would be? I'm thinking of the Sermon on the Mount. And that's the sermon that a lot of people know. It provides us with the fullest example we have in the scriptures of Jesus preaching. We're told that he went everywhere preaching the gospel, the good news that God's kingdom had come because he had come. And we say, well, I wonder what he preached when he went around to all those towns and all those synagogues. What was the message that he preached? Well, Matthew gives us this rather full account of it from chapter five to chapter seven. It covers three chapters. And then after that, Matthew talks about the miracles he does. And he gives chapter eight and nine of the follow show us the miracles and signs that that Jesus performed. Give us some examples of those. Now this particular sermon, moralists, like the minister that I was talking about could be perhaps called when I was growing up, who think that man is good and doesn't need the kind of salvation that Jesus brought when he actually died on the cross to atone for our sins. They don't think that's really needed, that we just need to be good people. They often speak very highly of the Sermon on the Mount. Now why would they? Well, they like it because it doesn't say very much about Jesus himself as our savior. He doesn't really talk about that so much. Moralists like that because they believe that we humans are able to save ourselves. And so they pick up on a lot of the themes here and say, this is how we need to live, people. This is how we need to live in the world. We need to love our neighbor like Jesus talks about. We need to go the extra mile. We should not pray to God just to be seen by other people, or we should do to others as we would have them do to us. There's all kinds of things that they can talk about as good things to do. But the fact is that in this sermon, there is one place quite central to the entire sermon where Jesus speaks very plainly and directly about what he came to do. And of course, they don't pay much attention to that part, the moralist. He doesn't yet get into the fact that he must die on the cross, because even his disciples were not yet ready to hear that. It's all the way, go all the way over to chapter 16 before he addresses that. And that's where he asks them, who do you say that I am? And Peter confesses, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Then he tells them that he's going to go to the cross and die. And the first thing that Peter does is rebuke him and say, Lord, you can't do that. So you see, they weren't ready to hear that early on in his ministry. They would be confused. So what he presents is that you need me to save you, which has been presented all through scripture. I have come to bring salvation to you as sinners. So this whole sermon cannot properly be understood without what Jesus says in this part where he talks about why he came. The one place in this sermon. There's no good news. the gospel, good news, without this part. If all we have is, hey, this is the great way you should live in the world and this kind of thing, then we don't have nearly what we need. So what does he say in Matthew 5, 17 and 18? That's the passage in particular I'm talking about. Matthew 5, 17 and 18. He says, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn't come to get rid of the law. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For surely I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Every single thing in the law, he's saying, the smallest detail has to be fulfilled. So this is what I want to focus on today. Now before moving on, I want to have our scripture reading from the New Testament, which encompasses the verses I just read. I'll read from the first part of Jesus' sermon, starting in Matthew 5.1. So here is the precious and holy word of God. Listen carefully to it. Matthew 5, 1. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain. When he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 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. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. 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, Raka, shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, you fool, shall be in danger of hellfire. 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're 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 till you have paid the last penny. 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. 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. 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. Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, which shall perform your oaths to the Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your yes be yes and your no no, for whatever is more than these is from the evil one. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away. You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your father in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. And there we end the reading of God's holy word. Thanks be to God for his holy word. Now let me draw your attention again to Matthew 5, 17. Here Jesus tells us, that he came to fulfill God's law. What does that mean? Well, first, it means that Jesus came to do what was right in God's eyes. God's law tells us what is right. God's law sets forth the right way for a human being to live. The most basic summary is first that we are to love God with our whole being. with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Who can say, I have loved God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? The second is that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Who can say, I have loved my neighbor as myself? The Ten Commandments provide a more detailed summary. We recited them a moment ago. In loving God, we are to have no other gods before God's face, that we are to worship him, and approach him, the second commandment tells us to worship him and approach him in the way that he wants, not to make up our own way. That we are to revere him and all that is associated with him. We're to reverence him. We're not to take his name in vain as if he's a light thing, not an unimportant thing. We're to observe the weekly Sabbath. where we praise Him and give thanks to Him for His works, for creating the world and all that is in it, giving us all that we have, for the redemption that He has brought about to save His people, or to look for His blessing on that day. He set apart that day and He blessed it. And then the second one, loving our neighbor, the second part, the second table, that we're to honor our parents and to be honorable as parents. that we're not to murder, that we are to be chaste and faithful in our marriages, that we're not to steal from others. We're not to lie. We're not to covet, but to rejoice in what others have, what God has given them. In the Sermon on the Mount, where our text is taken from, Jesus shows that this standard of righteousness that he came to observe this law is a whole lot higher than most people think. I think the people hearing this, many of them would have pulled back. I have heard even modern day Jews who speak about this sermon, and they're offended by it. They say, well, no one could do that because they see this is something that they keep. They want to see it is something that they actually keep God's law, God's standard. But it's much higher than what most people think. For example, he speaks of how the command not to murder. This is the first thing he talks about when he starts talking about after he says, I came to fulfill this law. And then he talks about the command about murder. We're not even to hate anyone or to be angry with anyone without a cause. And the one about adultery. Next thing he talks about is that anyone that lusts after someone to whom they're not married, that they have committed adultery already in their heart. And that God sees these things. You've already broken that commandment. And so he shows us that this standard is way up there. You see, it came from God. And God doesn't have jurisdiction the way human courts do, where he cannot see your heart. God can see everything going on inside of us, and it's offensive to him where we would break his law. He talks about how loving others would include loving our enemies and actually doing good to them. He says that it's not acceptable, as he goes on, the part that we didn't read, going on into chapter 6, to do our service to God with a desire to impress other people. How many people have ever done that? You know, you do something for God, worshipping, and you're thinking more about other people. Fasting, giving, praying, should be done with an eye toward God alone. And he says that we must trust God in His goodness, instead of worrying about food and clothing and stuff. If God is not going to take care of us, everything is all in His hands. And if He is our Lord, and this fallen world chooses to deprive us of some of those things, we're to trust Him to give what is best and to honor him by that trust instead of becoming all anxious about things. So even that, you say, I can't help that. Well, yes, we could say that about all these things. I can't help but lust. I can't help but become bitter toward people in all of these things. This is our problem. Sin saturates us. It's all within. In Matthew 5, 48, Jesus summarizes the standard with just simple words. He says, therefore, you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. This is what I referred to before. We were made in God's image, and so we, meaning we're a human-sized picture of Him, not physically. God doesn't have a body like we do. God is a spirit. but we're a picture of him in terms of how we behave, of our life, our conduct. And you see, we're a maiden in God's image that we're meant to be a human-size picture of him, to be just, holy, wise, kind, merciful, gracious, loving, faithful. Since God is perfect, on a divine level. Another way to say it. He's perfect on a divine level. We need to be perfect on a human level because we're an image on humans are images of God. We're still God's image, whether we're a good image or a bad image. And that's where the offense comes in, because we represent him wrongly because of the hatred, the bitterness, the lust and all these different things that are in us. So need I say that nobody has ever met God's standard? The world had been around for 4,000 years and nobody had ever fulfilled God's law. And then Jesus Christ came and he said these astounding words here, I came to fulfill God's law. And he says it in our text. He did not come to modify the law, to destroy it, or to break it down so that it would be easier for people to keep, to make it irrelevant, to say it doesn't apply. No, he didn't come to destroy it. He came to actually fulfill all that is required. God's honor was at stake, in a certain way, from it not being fulfilled. Because if God made us to be a picture of him, and we're all a distorted picture, Then we were dishonoring God with that picture. Somebody needed to come and fulfill that beautiful image of God that we were made to portray to represent him rightly. No one did that. for 4000 years until Jesus came and he said, I have come to do that. Jesus was the first person to do it. Now, for the first time, there is someone to glorify God in this way, and he did it marvelously and beautifully. Hebrews says that he was holy, harmless, and undefiled, that he was entirely separate from sin. There was never a single wrong action or wrong thought in our Lord Jesus Christ, even under the scrutiny of his father, who sees right down to the depths of the heart. Can you imagine that kind of purity. Jesus gloriously reflected in human flesh, which he took to himself, the almighty God. With him, we were able to see what God's love and justice and wisdom, mercy, grace, kindness and truth look like at a human level. Jesus himself was God. He was the son of God from all eternity, and he became fully man with a human body and a human spirit so that we can see now what does God's image really look like in a human level? We see it with Jesus Christ. He was a beautiful sight to behold. and he is revealed to us in the scriptures. We read of him in the scriptures. The father was very pleased with him. He met the standard that God has given to every human being. So fulfilling the law as a human individual was a grand and marvelous thing in itself. But he also came to fulfill God's law in another very, very important way. When he said, I came to fulfill the law, There is another very important meaning to that. Besides, I'm going to personally be all that a human being ought to be. Jesus came to fulfill God's law for the people that God had chosen out of the world to save, to be his people. God declared through the law and prophets that he had chosen a people to save, and he came to the people that he had chosen to save. He still comes to them, and he makes himself known to them, and he calls them to come and be his people. Because we all failed to keep the moral law that Jesus kept, we were all highly offensive to God, as I've mentioned. And as we saw last week, the wages of sin is death. That's the penalty for it, that we're dead toward God. Therefore, God consigned us all to the pit of destruction with the devil and his angels who led us into rebellion in the first place. We were entirely unfit to dwell with God, so he sentenced us to the pit forever. But the Lord declared that he had chosen a people to redeem. He would restore these people to be his people. He would be their God, he said, I will be your God, and you will be my people. As perfect as Jesus was, like Adam, it was not good for him to be alone. Even though he was a perfect man, for him to be by himself, as a perfect man was not sufficient. For God to be properly represented by His image bearers, by human beings, there needed to be a whole kingdom a whole kingdom living together in harmony, worshipping and serving as God's beautiful people, as those who are His image, serving as His image. In the Law and Prophets, God raised up a nation, Israel, to be redeemed as His own people, to live for Him and to bring forth Christ the Redeemer. And we saw that God had to, he said, just to keep these people from completely abandoning me and going off to idols and all these other things like the other nations have done, I'll keep on chasing them. I'll be faithful, I'll keep on chasing them. If their sons depart from me, I'm gonna visit them with strong chastisement to restore them and bring them back, just so that they can maintain a looking toward me for this salvation until I bring it. And so that's what God faithfully did to maintain his people. There was much that had to be done. So the law and the prophets declared what must be done for these people who are not righteous to be made righteous, to live for him and to bring forth Christ the Redeemer. or to fulfill his law. How could these people who are not righteous become righteous? How could God's law be fulfilled in them? First, the law and the prophets, God said through them that he must give them a new heart devoted to him as their God. That would be a heart of repentance. In other words, you see that you have come short. They would see their sin and they would loathe themselves. They would turn from their sin to serve God. They would look to him for forgiveness and new life. They would say, I can't do this. I've got to rely on God. God brought about this change in them by putting his spirit in them so that their eyes were open. When God opens your eyes, when he comes to you like this, you begin to see things in a way that you never saw them before. You can say, oh, I'm the problem. I'm the sinner. I need God's salvation. I need him to pardon me. I need him to restore me. I can't do this myself. And you turn to him. This is what happens when he gives you his spirit. So that's the first thing that has to happen. Yet there has to be a change in us. We call that the new birth. We come alive, you see, to God. We're born unto God. So that now with reference to him, we see the situation. We see it as it really is. And we see our need that we need this salvation. Second, the law and the prophets show what Christ had to do to fulfill righteousness for them. What is God going to do to make these people now that he's opened their eyes to see? How is he going to make them righteous? What's he going to do to make them right with him? Well, he had to. First, Jesus had to be a righteous man to do that. What we saw already had a common human flesh. He is the standard bearer of the righteous kingdom. He is the representative of all the other members of his kingdom as what is required. He is there as the righteous man before God. And besides that, if he is representing these people who are sinners, he had to bear the penalty of that sin because they couldn't bear it. They would be completely cut off. God established in the Old Testament, but in the law, he established the whole sacrificial ceremonial system to present atonement for sin by a substitute. An animal dies to atone for sin rather than the individual who sin. So there's a death in their place. Now, of course, an animal couldn't really take away anyone's sins, but God appointed this to show them as a picture of a copy of what needed to be done. He appointed a temple with priests and many sacrifices offered to take away sin, showing what was required of His people, the payment of their sins by the death of a substitute. It had to be a substitute that was without blemish, without sin. Where would that substitute come from? With these ceremonies, he showed what was required, but the ceremonies did not and could not provide the real sacrifice that was required for sin. They couldn't fulfill the law. They couldn't fulfill what God required for sinners to be righteous. The law and the prophets declared that Christ would come to bear the sins of God's people. In Isaiah 53, 6 through 8, it says, All we like sheep have gone astray. This is God's people talking, not people outside the kingdom. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. That word laid is a strong word. It's like to pound down upon him. He's pounded down upon him what we did. He's charged him with it. He was oppressed and he was afflicted because our sin was charged to him. He represented us. He said, I'll take responsibility for what they did. He was oppressed. He was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. He didn't protest because he was bearing our sins. There was justice in all of his suffering because he was representing sinners. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. So you see the lamb, that's the animals that were sacrificed. He was the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Verse eight, this is Isaiah 53. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living. He died. He was cut off as a judgment against him from the land of the living for the transgressions of my people. He was stricken. Transgression means sin for breaking God's law. So Jesus came to fulfill what God's law required to make sinners righteous. He came as an acceptable sacrifice to atone for sin. Jesus came then to fulfill God's law for his people, and he did that perfectly too. Just like he himself was righteous personally, he also fulfilled God's righteous requirement for people that were sinners. He went to the cross and he bore his people's sins. He himself, the son of God in human flesh, was an acceptable sacrifice. He fulfilled what God required to redeem his people when he went to the cross. Now the father could be glorified by a whole kingdom of righteous people forever. They are given a new heart to turn back to God and to look to Jesus for salvation. And Jesus has secured their pardon and he gives them his spirit forever. He has fulfilled the righteousness for a whole kingdom. So when he said, I came to fulfill righteousness, it wasn't just for himself or to fulfill the law. It was not just for himself, but he did what was required for people who had broken God's law, as well as himself who had not broken God's law. That's why all the suffering. Make sure that you are in this righteous kingdom. Jesus concludes, this great sermon on the Mount with these words of solemn counsel to all who hear his sermon. Matthew 7, 24. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. In other words, the life was founded on the righteousness of Christ. Okay, not something that is solid, something that is what it must be. Verse 26, he says, but everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell. and great was its fall. The point of the sermon is that Jesus came to fulfill God's law. And unless you look to him for the fulfillment of God's law, you're building on the sand instead of the rock. The law showed us what God requires And again, it has a whole lot more to it than what most people think. A higher standard than what most people think. And Jesus is the one who came to fulfill it. When he preached this sermon, they did not yet grasp what he would do, what he had to do. to fulfill the law for his kingdom. It had been revealed in the prophets, and it was something that you might say they should have understood, but he did not begin, as I mentioned earlier, to explain it until later on in Matthew 16, when he begins to tell of how he must go to the cross. It was at that time that he began to tell them that. They could not fathom that this one who was a son of God would become the cursed one who was on the cross. And even when he told them, he told them multiple times and they could not accept what he was saying until after he actually did it and rose again for their justification. And then they were forced to account for why did this happen? And they came to delight in what he did because they realized that it was for the forgiveness of sins that he had fulfilled God's law for the salvation of his people. So in this sermon, Jesus describes what the people are like who receive the blessing of the kingdom, the people to whom the kingdom belongs. We read Matthew 5, 1 through 16. He describes these people as people that know that they need God to make them righteous. They know that they cannot fulfill God's righteous requirement themselves. Do you recognize that? Do you recognize that you cannot meet the standard of God, God's law, what it requires? It is a righteous standard that you cannot possibly meet. So look at how Jesus begins in Matthew 5, 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. What is he talking about? Poor in spirit, within, poverty inside. I recognize that I'm bankrupt spiritually, that I'm dead in my trespasses and sins. I'm poor in spirit when I'm someone who is blessed with his kingdom. What does he say? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom belongs to them. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So if you don't recognize, if you're not poor in spirit and see your spiritual need and your poverty, then you're not in this kingdom of righteousness that he came to establish. You're outside of it. You're relying on something else. They're impoverished. He goes on to speak about how they mourn over their condition. They don't say, oh, well, I don't care, I'm impoverished, what difference does it make to me? No, they mourn about it. And then he says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The earth is gonna be given to God's people forever and ever, and all the others will be cast away into the pit. And so he says, the people of my kingdom, they're meek, meaning that they realize, I can't govern myself. I need to be governed by God. They come to him and they put themselves in his hands to be governed by the Lord. And Jesus goes on to say in verse six that they hunger and thirst for righteousness. Why were they hungry and thirst? Because they know that they don't have it. And so they look to him and his salvage. Who came to fulfill the law? Jesus did. I can't. Jesus came to fulfill it. I'm hungry. I'm thirsting for that righteousness. When Jesus said, I did not come to destroy the law, to get around it somehow, but to fulfill it, he tells us why he came. to fulfill what God required for all of us because no one else can do it. His kingdom does not belong to you then unless you are trusting in him to fulfill what God requires of us. As I showed you, Jesus spends much time showing that the standard of righteousness is much higher than even the righteousness of the Pharisees. That was the righteousness that everybody admired. They said, if you want to see a righteous person, look at those Pharisees. Everybody admired them. They were highly regarded at Jesus' time. God is perfect, and His standard for His image bearers is perfection, and those Pharisees were far from perfection. Do you suppose when they heard this, if anyone lusts in his heart after a woman that he's not married, then he's committed adultery with her in his heart? If you hate someone in your heart, then you've murdered? Do you suppose they heard that and said, oh yeah, we're righteous? Jesus made it very plain. So what do you what do you want the right? Or do you want the righteousness that Jesus Christ brought into the world. What should you do if you want that righteousness? You should ask for it. As Jesus says in Matthew 7, 7 through 11, toward the end of the sermon, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks it will be open. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? Jesus came to bring the good thing of righteousness, fulfilling God's law in our behalf. for people who could not do it themselves. We become righteous in God's eyes when we believe in him, when we trust in him for our right standing with God. Then we meet the standard with Jesus. We cannot meet it on our own, but we meet it trusting in him, relying upon him. Please stand and let's give thanks to the Lord for his provision. Oh Lord God, we come before you confessing that we cannot possibly fulfill the requirements of your law. When we were first created, we did not have sin to deal with. And Adam and Eve had a situation where they potentially could have continued to follow your way. We were created upright. But father, when they send, we became desperately undone and unable to possibly renew our hearts or to pay the penalty of the sin that we had committed. And father, we were left this way and yet you did not leave us. You came immediately to tell us that you are going to provide that a son would be born to us who would bring us out of this bondage and bring us back to your salvation. And we thank you that that son that you promised is the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is the one that was born of us. and yet was sent from heaven. And we thank you, O Lord, that that he came forth declaring that he was had come to fulfill your law. No one had ever done it. No one could do it. He did it. And we praise you that having done it, he not only fulfilled it for himself as an individual, but he also fulfilled it for all of your people. that he came and bore the penalty that was due to us himself, that he was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And we pray, oh, Lord, that you would fill us with gladness about what Jesus has done about his coming. Who is like our Lord? Who would do such a thing for us? Oh, Lord, we praise you and we thank you. And we have glorious hope now because of what our Savior has done. He said, Come to me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And father, we who have come to him know that rest. We know what it is to have our sins forgiven, and we thank you for it. I pray, Lord, that if there are those who do not know this rest, that they would be able to come and trust in Jesus today, that they would not labor under the bondage of sin, that they would come and find rest in the salvation that he has provided, that he has accomplished, that he has fulfilled for his people. We pray these things in his name. Amen. And now let's join together in singing. Receive now the blessing of the Lord. May God make you worthy of his calling and may he fulfill all the good and may he fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you and him according to the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.