The Warning of the Kingdom 3

The speaker is grateful for the song and talks about the importance of being prepared for the return of Jesus Christ. They mention a Bible verse about fulfilling the law. They thank God for the music and ask for His guidance in delivering the message. They discuss the significance of the law and how it reveals, rouses, and reproves sin. They emphasize that the law is not the problem, but rather our inability to keep it. The speaker concludes by expressing their desire to follow God's law but acknowledging their struggle with sin. Amen. It's one of my favorite songs. Thank you so much for that today. And Midnight Cry, we hope you are prepared, and that's kind of what we've been preaching through on Sunday morning is how to be prepared, how to make sure that we are ready when Jesus Christ comes back, because we do know that He promises that He is coming back. And in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 17, He said, And think not that I am come to destroy the law of the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Father, we thank you so much for the music. We thank you for the special. We thank you for the Scripture reading this morning. And we just ask you now through the power of your Holy Spirit to come and move in our service, to fill me with your Spirit, dear Heavenly Father, and use me as a vessel to proclaim the message that you have placed upon my heart. And Father, we just pray that when you go and hear laws, that they'll know you today before it's eternally too late. And they won't miss that call and that cry to come get to your children. Father, we thank you and we love you. In your name we pray. Amen. You know, we've been talking about last week, we talked about in this kingdom that there's going to be great and there's going to be least. And so there's a setting up. What judges that? What determines all of that? And so we saw the significance of the law. And what we came to the conclusion last week is that the gospel does not overthrow the law, but rather the gospel exalts the law. The law exalts the gospel. It takes it to another level because you never forget that for Christ to save you, what it took for Him to save you while you were still a sinner, He was completely innocent and He gave His life for you. And if you will this morning, we're going to look at a lot of scriptures this morning. I encourage you because there's nothing better than using your Bible and learning how to be familiar with your Bible and to use it properly. But I will put the verses on the screen. But if you have your Bibles, turn to Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7, you might keep your finger here, but we're going to be bouncing back and forth and we're going to look at a lot of scriptures this morning. But I want to try to explain to you the thought behind what He is talking about here. Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter in. And I think what we need to understand is that when we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, we become united with Him. We are now in Christ and Christ is in us. And so we are not only united with Him in His life, but we're also united with Him in His death. And so therefore, we are buried to ourselves. You die to the law, and we discovered this last week, basically, the part of the law that we die to is the power and the penalty of the law. In other words, the law has no power over us. The law has no penalty against us because Christ knelt at the cross of Calvary and said, It is finished. He died in our place. And so the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 7 and verse 6, But now we are delivered from the law that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. And so we see that, and man, the first thing, and I didn't even highlight it here because I know it already jumped out in your mind, we are delivered from the law, right? And so man, now that we are in Christ, we don't have to worry about this law anymore. But what does He say? He goes on because He knows these Romans are getting excited. These Roman Christians and these people there are getting excited because, man, we don't have to keep the law. But then He defines that for us. And before we get too excited, we are bound to the law in another sense. And what sense are we bound to the law? Well, He says that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. If you look also, and we'll come back to Romans chapter 7 here in just a minute, but I want you to look at 1 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 21. And it says, To them that are without the law, as without law, be ye not without the law to God, but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them that are without the law. In other words, what Paul is telling the church at Corinth is that we are not lawless. You are not under the law of God, but what? You are now under the law of Christ. And so there is a difference between the law of God and the law of Christ. And so as we look at that, we understand there's some things that the law does, and that makes it different under Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ has taken and fulfilled that sin. The first thing the law does to us is it reveals sin. Notice what Paul said in Romans chapter 7, if you're still there in verse 7. He says, What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid, nay, I had not known sin, but by the law. For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. And so what he's saying is don't blame the law for you being a sinner. You know, we want to get rid of the law, but he says don't blame the law for your sins. In other words, you take responsibility for your sins. You are the one that was the sinner. The law is not the problem, you're the problem. And that's what Paul is telling us. See, we have no problem with sin, but what happens is, is because we have the law, what we thought was a good person, and what we thought we were doing good, guess what? The law showed us that we were very much differently than good people. So the law reveals that sin, but the law also rouses sin. You see, what happens is, he tells us in verse 8 of chapter 7 there in Romans, he said, But sin, taken occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for without the law sin was dead. Now that concupiscence is a word that means to crave, to lust, to desire, and once there was a law, God set a standard. Remember, we looked at the law as being God's standard. This is what He said. We are to be holy as He is holy. And He gave us the commandment in order to be this holiness. But what did all of a sudden did that do? It not only revealed I had sin, but it also rouses our sin. You say, how does it rouse our sin? How many of you have seen a sign that says, wet paint, do not touch? And what's the first thing when we see the command, do not touch, what is the first thing we want to do? Touch it. Nobody goes through just touching walls, checking to see if they're wet or dry. We don't do it. You don't find fingerprints way up on the wall. But the minute you put a sign up that says, do not do that, then what begins to happen? Now it rouses within me, I want to touch. I want to see. How long ago was that sign put up there? Is it still wet or dry? Is it going to hurt me if I touch it right? All of these things come to mind. See, Adam and Eve, what happened? The minute He said, do not eat of the tree of the garden of good and evil, what did they do? They went immediately to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and tried to figure out, why does God want us not to eat this? And so the law reveals sin. The law rouses sin. But the third thing the law does is it reproves sin. In other words, look at what He says in verse 9. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. All of a sudden, Paul said, man, when I found out about the law, when I learned the law of God, he said, all immediately, it condemned me as a sinner. See, immediately when I looked at the law, I am condemned. He goes on there in Romans 7 and verse 12, and he says, wherefore, which is the conclusion of this idea that he is going through, he says, here's my conclusion, wherefore, the law is holy. The law is holy and the commandment is holy. And then he goes on to say, not only are they holy, but they are also just and they are also good. The law is not the problem. But you and I want to do what? We want to focus on the law. We want to focus on thinking that the law is our problem. If I didn't have all these rules, and I hear it all the time talking to young couples and stuff in Christianity today. Well, if you didn't have all of these expectations and stuff, we might visit your church. If you didn't have all these rules and stuff, then we might like to come to your church. But guess what? He says here, the law is holy. And so the law is not the problem. The problem is, and it begins to make us ask this question, should I keep the law? Should I keep the law? And the question is immediately answered in verse 22. Most definitely. Look at what he says in verse 22. Paul said, For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Now look what he says in the next verse, verse 23, But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity, the law of sin which is in my members. God's law is good. So much so that Paul says, I delight in God's law. The problem is me. The problem is me. I can't keep the law. When I look at the law, the law makes me want to sin. When I look at the law, it entices me to sin. And then what happens? It automatically condemns me. And so notice Paul's response in verse 24. When he realized this, he said, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of death? It's not God's laws that's the problem. The problem is me. The problem is me. And Paul says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me? And notice what he says in verse 25, because this is where we're getting at, and this is where we're focusing when Jesus Christ set His disciples aside and He begins to preach this message. This is what Jesus is telling them. Paul said, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. We've heard three different laws. We've heard the law of the mind. What we think about the law. We've heard the law of God, the standard that we are to live by, and then there's also the law of the flesh that makes us sin. And so all of these things are affected by this. And so knowing that I can't keep the law, knowing that I cannot obey the law, do I just throw the law out? Absolutely not. What do I do? Here's the solution. Listen, in other words, it all starts with Jesus Christ. You've got to accept Jesus Christ. He goes on and He says in Romans 8, verse 4, then the next chapter, He says that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in who? Us. Fulfilled in us. Who is us? Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And look at these righteousness of the law in verse 20. And notice what He says in verse 20. Now back to our text in Matthew 5, in verse 20, and now all of a sudden it gives us this clear picture of what Jesus Christ was saying because the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And so notice the standard of the law. He says in verse 20 of Matthew 5, For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. And so notice what He says. He says your righteousness has to exceed someone else's righteousness. Now who does He mention? He immediately mentions two groups of people. And He calls them out by name. How would you love to be sitting in a church service with Jesus Christ preaching and all of a sudden He starts getting on. You know, a preacher every once in a while steps on your toes, right? But I never call you out by name, do I? No, but Jesus Christ, not only is He stepping on their toes, not only is He plunging it into their hearts, but He's making sure they're not shoveled, Baptists, and give it to the person behind them. No, He goes right at them. He says your righteousness, if you want to get into the kingdom of heaven, your righteousness has to exceed not be equal to, but exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. So immediately the first question that I had to ask myself is who are these scribes and Pharisees, right? Because if they can't get into heaven, then I definitely want to exceed their righteousness. And so when you look at the scribes and the Pharisees, you will find they were two different groups of individuals. Scribes is from the Greek word gremition, from which we get the word grammar. And so when you think of the word grammar, the scribes were simply those that had the letter of the law. The scribes were the ones that wrote the law, that wrote about the law. They recorded the law. They wrote the law down. They studied the law. They were authorities on the law because if you know anything about translating, if you know anything about interpretation, what a lawyer does is they have to also read the law, but they also have to interpret that law. And so they have to know it. As a matter of fact, my composition teacher told me one time, he said, really, a lawyer is just a good grammatarian. They're good with grammar. And you remember the lawyer Bill Clinton, you remember what he did? When he answered the question, it depends on what the definition of is is. You all remember that, right? Immediately, what did he do? In order to defend himself, he went to the grammar, right? The problem is not with the law. The problem is with us as individuals. And so notice what's happening. So these scribes are the ones that did all of this stuff with the law. And they struggled with the little bitty points of the law. How is this to be interpreted? How is this to be applied into our lives? Just like many of us do when we read the Word of God. How do we take this Scripture that was written for these people by this person nearly 2,000 years ago, and how do I effectively and rightly give my application and apply that to my life today? Same thing that the scribes did. The scribes were broken down into several different groups. A scribe could be a Sadducee which came up with the conclusions that guess what? There is no resurrection. There is no resurrection after death. We just die and go to this grave. There are no angels. And so the Sadducees was one group of scribes. Another group of the scribes was the Pharisees. They took the law and said guess what? You have got to live with it. And so these Pharisees were theological conservatives. Really and truly, as missionary Baptists, theologically, we would be a Pharisee because we are conservative. We take what the Scripture says. On the other hand, you take some of the other religious groups out there and they would be considered theologically liberal. In other words, theological liberals take a lot of Scripture instead of it meaning what it says. It is just an allegory or a metaphor or it could mean this or it really has to meet you where you are at. No, the Bible is not intended for me in my life because I am a sinner. I am intended to keep the Bible. And so the Bible is already applied to us in Jesus Christ. It's not up for debate. It's not up for interpretation. So that's the difference between the liberals and the conservatives. Kind of the same way if you're into politics, the liberals and the conservatives watch. The conservatives say what does the Constitution say? What does the law say? The liberals say what's the intent behind the law, right? What did they actually mean by that? Or what was there? And so now that we understand these scribes and these Pharisees, and really, there was two different scribes. There was the civil scribes and then there was the ceremonial scribes. The civil scribes would take down and write the affairs of government. They were kind of like in our day and time a notary. You ever wrote a legal document or something and had to have someone notarize it? That's what these was. They would read it. They would check it out. They would make sure that it was grammatically correct. And then they would sign it and they would put their stamp on it. And so it has been notarized. Somebody with the authority from the government has approved what you are doing. That's the purpose of the notary. And so then, not only did you have the civil scribes, but you also had the ceremonial scribes. These were the ones that involved the studying of Scripture. These are the ones that we thank today because we have the Word of God. There are no original transcripts anymore. But these scribes were so good at copying and duplicating and they would get these copies everywhere and they would pass them out. But man, can you imagine how tedious their job was. As a matter of fact, Jesus Christ said in v. 19 that He said, I came to fulfill every jot and every pill. That was down to the apostrophes and the dashes in there. They did not leave one single apostrophe or comma out of it. And the scribes was very, very meticulous when they copied. Everything had to be exactly right. The Pharisee, on the other hand, comes from the Greek word, the root of it means to separate. They were separatists. In other words, they were super-duper fundamental legalists of their day. They separated themselves from everyone. And because they were better, they were holy, they were keeping the law, the Pharisees differed from the scribes inasmuch as they didn't particularly study the law as a scholar would. They simply took and developed out of that law a system of rituals. They developed a set of individuals that you think like me, you act like me, and so therefore we are grouped together as Pharisees. It's not about understanding the Scripture. It's just about making sure that we make up something to fill the Scripture. And so now that we know who the scribes and the Pharisees were, Jesus Christ said, except your righteousness exceed the scribes and the Pharisees. And so the question was, if I have to now understand, now that I know who the scribes and the Pharisees were, what was their righteousness? What was their righteousness? Because I want to get into heaven, right? Do you want to get into heaven? Amen. So in order to get into heaven, we have to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. So when we look at their righteousness, there's four things you'll notice about their righteousness. First of all, their righteousness was outward. It was an outward observance. Everything they did was outwardly. When they observed the law, it was out in the open for everyone to see, for everyone to acknowledge. The problem was not with adultery. The problem was not with murder or idolatry, because man, they didn't do any of this stuff. Nobody could catch them. There were no accusations brought against them for this. Their problem was inwardly. They wanted to keep the law outwardly, but there was something that was messed up on the inside. Their thoughts were impure. Their hearts were impure. They coveted like crazy. They wanted what everybody else had. They hated people with the fury. If you was not a Pharisee, guess what? They didn't like you. They hated you. Kind of like we see the hatred going around in our world and our society today. They were cold in their hearts toward God. It wasn't about a relationship with God. It was about looking good in front of others. And they were able to look good on the outside, but their inside was rather disgusting. You say, where do you come up with that idea, Brother Donnie? Well, look at Matthew 23-25. Jesus Christ said, Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees. There's that phrase again. Both of them, the writers of the law and the maker-upers of the law. Hypocrites. Both of them are what? Hypocrites. You claim to be followers of God. You claim to be doing what God wants you to do, but guess what? You're not. And so right here, He labels them as hypocrites. For you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within, you are full of extortion and excess. And so He goes on, and what does He talk about in Matthew? And we're not going to cover all of this in the Beatitudes. I'm going to jump past them next week and we're going to start moving on just a little bit. But what is the next several phrases that Jesus Christ says when He says, Accept your righteousness. Exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. He immediately says, Have you heard? Have you heard it was said by them of old times? The scribes knew because how did they get it to them? The scribes wrote it. They copied it. You have heard it be said of them of old times, Thou shalt not kill. And whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. And you jump down to verse 27 of chapter 5. He says, You have heard that it was said of them of old times, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Again, in verse 33, You have heard that it has been said by them of old times, Thou shalt not persuade thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. And so forth and so forth and so forth. And you can go through them. And if you get this part that we're talking about today, you can quickly, easily understand what Jesus was talking about in the next section of the Sermon on the Mount. But basically, He is saying you look great on the outside, but on the inside, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. You have failed miserably. He goes on and He explains this in Matthew 23, 26. He says, Now blind Pharisee, you blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and the platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. And then He goes into verse 27. He says, You're worried about this outside and keeping the law, but on the inside, you are filthy, you are disgusting. And so He says in verse 27, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like a whited sepulchre, which indeed appears beautiful on the outside, but within is full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. What is a sepulchre? It's a grave. It's a grave. He said, man, what is a whited grave? One that has been freshly painted. The flowers are there. The tombstone has been trimmed. It is all pretty on the outside. It looks good. Man, everything is right to the perfection. But what's under that tombstone? Dead bones. It's just a dead body. It's a decaying body. And so look at what Jesus says now in verse 28 of Matthew 23. He says, Even so you also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Listen to me very, very carefully this morning. Our life can become very superficial. And a lot of our churches and a lot of Christians today are very, very superficial. You say, what do you mean by that? We are very concerned about our outward things. Amen? We make sure we attend church. We make sure we tithe. We make sure we read our Bible. We make sure that we pray. We make sure when the hymns are being sung that we sing out, that we participate, and we come to church and we check all of these outward boxes, but we walk out of here and our inside is disgusting because we've got hatred against other people. We've got idolatry in our hearts. We've got things that we want to put before God. Remember when they asked Jesus the greatest of these commandments? Because you remember the scribes and the Pharisees, it's not about a relationship with God. It's about understanding and keeping the law. And so what did they say? Man, they narrowed it down to the Ten Commandments, right? But God, they come to Jesus Christ. If you're really God, we want to be righteous. We want to follow You, so tell us. And this is the context of where they ask the question. They wanted God to take these commandments and narrow it down to one commandment. Because guess what? They knew they couldn't keep all the commandments, right? There's no way I can keep the whole law, but God, if You'll just give me one law, I'll keep that one. And so what did Jesus say? Well, I'm glad you asked the question. The greatest of all the laws is to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, with all your strength. Uh-oh, we've got a problem. Do we love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our might, and with all of our strength? That's a hard one to keep, isn't it? Go ahead and give me all these multiple laws, right? I've got a better shot at keeping them than I do of focusing on You. And then He throws the nail into the whole entire deal. And He slams it shut. And He said, here, I'll go ahead and give you two laws. The second is kind of similar to the first one, but instead of loving God whom you have not seen, now I want you to love your neighbor whom you have seen as you love yourself. Wait a minute. And you remember the rich young ruler who was very pharisaical who said what? I've kept all these things from my youth. And when Jesus told him that, go and sell all you've got and come follow Me, what did the rich man say? He said, oh, you're asking way too much, God. I can't keep that rule, right? I can't keep that regulation. Jesus didn't respond with an external commandment. You see, He could have said and lifted one of them Ten Commandments as the great, but it's not about the external commandments. What did Jesus do? Jesus went to an internal commandment. He said, quit worrying about which one on the outside you're going to do. Not kill, not steal, not lie, not forsake the Sabbath, not honor your mother and father. Quit worrying about the external parts of the law and focus on the internal part. He said, just love God. Love your neighbor. See, love is not an outward thing. Love is an internal thing. And if love is inside and you're full of love and you're full of Jesus Christ, then it will come to the external, right? Love will be shown. And so that's what He does. He goes and He said, just love God. Love your neighbor. In other words, manifest this. As a matter of fact, Jesus Christ followed it up and He said, if you love Me, if love is in your heart for Me, then keep My commandments. Do what I say. If you'd like to do some extra study sometime, study Matthew 23 and Matthew 5. Just read Matthew 5, read Matthew 23, and then just read them both together right down by down. What you'll find out is Jesus starts this message that He has with eight Beatitudes that we've already looked at. In Matthew 23, that is really the bookend to His ministry. Because after Matthew 23, what's fixing to happen? He's fixing to go to the cross and He's fixing to die. Before He goes to the cross, He started His ministry with this sermon right here. And He said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. And so He starts with eight Beatitudes. Eight blessings. In Matthew 23, He ends His ministry with eight woes. Eight woes to the scribes and the Pharisees. And every one of these woes, go down and you can check them off, every one of them go down, and He says, Be poor in spirit. And then after three and a half years of ministering to them, He finally comes in Matthew 23, and He says what? Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, you haven't been poor in spirit. You're focused on yourself and what you want. And so, it'll make a good study, but notice what He says in Luke 16, 15. And He said unto them, You are they which justify yourselves where? Before men, but God knoweth your hearts. For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. Galatians 2.16, Paul said, Knowing that a man is not justified, not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by works of the law, but by works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Outward accomplishments never change the inward. You can put on makeup all day long, but it doesn't change who you are on the inside. The outside doesn't change the inside. Not only was their righteousness outward, but their righteousness was also one-sided. You say, what do you mean by one-sided? Well, notice this woe in Matthew 23, 23. He says, Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin. What in the world is mint, anise, and cumin? They're spices. They're spices. You remember the tithe was supposed to be of everything, ten percent of what they produce. These are very, very small herbs. He says, You tithe of these small herbs, but you have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These you have to done, and not to leave the other undone. These little tiny things, you make sure that you tithe and you check them off. I mean, can you imagine taking cumin seeds? Have any of you seen cumin seeds? They are very, very tiny. Can you imagine sitting down at your table and dividing out ten percent of all of them little bitty old seeds so that you would not break the tithe when you offered it to God at the sacrifice? That's what they were doing. And he said, Man, you are counting down these little bitty seeds to get a tenth of it, and you are ignoring the big things about the law. The major things. Is it really going to matter if I only give God eight percent of them cumin seeds? Not really, other than the fact that God said give ten percent. But if I'm dealing with God, you know what I do? I don't deal with the ten percent. I throw in some extra in case I counted something, right? That's what the New Testament talks about. Our tithe and our offerings. Given above, beyond, right? I want to make sure my bases are covered. And so he goes on to say, and he illustrates it this way in v. 24, you blind guides. In other words, the scribes and the Pharisees, everyone looked at them as the examples and the pattern to get to God. I mean, if you want to get to God, you've got to be like the scribes. Man, you've got to spend your life writing the law, copying the law, interpreting the law. You have got to get in there and dig with the law. And maybe not the scribes. Maybe grammar's not your thing. Well, then be like a Pharisee and you work, you know. There's them introverts and then there's some extroverts. And the Pharisees were extroverts. They like to show what they know. And he says, so here you've got these scribes that like to study and they're in their office. They're quiet all the time, writing and copying. Then you've got this Pharisee that's trying to live his life the way that he wants to do. And he says, you blind guides. All of the world is watching you guys and you're leading them into hell. Not the kingdom of heaven. He said, you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. You know what he's talking about there? They would go to the whales and they would get water. Now any of you that have had a farm when it gets really, really hot and you have a water trough outside and all of the animals come to drink out of that water, what else comes to drink out of that water? All of the gnats, the flies, everything else. So literally, beside their whales, you know what they did? They literally would dip their water and they would take it and they would run it through a strainer to make sure that only the water comes out. All of the gnats and the bugs that was with their water, they'd chunk out and they'd drink their water. Here's the one problem. How many of you kids drunk out of the horse or cow trough? You worry about the stuff that you can see, right? You scoot it over. You do it before you take that drink. Make sure there's no bugs, nothing living, nothing swimming. But you forget about all of the cows and the camels and everything else that's been drinking in that water. He says, you blind guys. You blind guys. And notice what he says. He says, you strain at this gnat. You try to get this gnat out of this water and then you go by drinking the camels, right? That doesn't sound very sanitary to me. See, it was all one-sided. But not only was it one-sided, but it was very opinionated. It was very opinionated. They made up their own rules and what they wound up doing was totally redefining everything in the law. They took the law and they would break it down into all of these parts. You remember they came up to Jesus Christ and they said, Jesus, when we get into heaven, a man that has been married to four women, who's he going to be married to when they get to heaven, right? Because they had taken this and they had worked it down to try to figure out exactly so they could look good on the outside. And God said, you're worried about things that don't matter. There's not going to be no marriage in heaven. You're not going to have a spouse in heaven. And so they were very opinionated. Look at what he goes on in Leviticus 11.44. And God said, For I am the Lord your God, you shall therefore sanctify yourselves, set yourself apart, and you shall be holy, for I am holy. Neither shall you defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Peter confirmed this in 1 Peter 1, verse 15. He says, As he which hath called you as holy, referring back to this passage of Scripture, Peter is talking to the New Testament Christian, the one that is on the other side of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and he says, So be you holy in all manner of conversations. Why? Because it's written in the Old Testament, Be holy, for I am holy. Matthew 5.48 says, Be you therefore perfect. Jesus in this same sermon later on will say, Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Folks, that's the standard. That's what God says it takes to get to heaven. They knew they couldn't make perfection. They knew they couldn't be holy. And so what they did is they changed the standards. They redefined the rules. And they gave their opinion on what they could accomplish. The righteous was outward. They were one-sided. They were opinionized. But the last thing is they were obsessive. They were obsessive. What do you mean by obsessive? God addressed it in the Beatitudes. Quit being obsessed with self-righteousness. And recognize your poorness in spirit. Mourn. Humble yourself. Obey me. Hunger and thirst for me. And so on. And so man, he gives this. Hunger and thirst for righteousness. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, For by grace are ye saved through faith, that not of yourselves is it the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. The scribes and the Pharisees would brag in their external righteousness that they invented, they adopted, and they measured. And so they bring us to the final question in verse 20. And notice what he says. He says, For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and if you really look at that, you will notice if you're in the King James Version, and it's on the screen because I used the King James there, you will notice the righteousness is in italics. That means that it is supplied. You will also know that that definite article before the righteousness is supplied. And so in other words, For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. And they supplied that because what is it about the scribes and the Pharisees that we're talking about is righteousness. But it's not the righteousness. It's not the righteousness that gets us to heaven. And so really that you drop that D off of that because except your righteousness exceed what? Their righteousness. So that's not the righteousness. What is the righteousness? And so that's the last question we've got to answer this morning. And look at Samuel 16 and verse 7. It says, But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord seeketh not as what man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh where? On the heart. Man looks at the outward appearance. God looks at the heart. You say, and this is exactly where we get Pharisaical just like the Pharisees because we look at outward righteous, right? We look at an individual and we say, well, they've got all these piercings. They've got all these tattoos. Their hair's all this different color. All of this. And what do we do? We automatically throw them into a category that they can't be followers of Jesus Christ, right? And look that way. And so what we do is immediately do what they do. We look at the outward appearance and we never examine the individual's heart. We don't even give them a chance and an opportunity to look into their heart. How good must I be to get to heaven? As good as God is. How perfect do I have to be to enter the kingdom? As perfect as God is. How holy do I have to be to get into heaven? As holy as God is holy. That's how holy. You say, wow. Wow, you ought to be where Paul was, that old wretched man that I am, right? No matter how religious I am, there's no way that me or any one of you is able to be holy, righteous, and perfect as God, right? We're guilty. And Paul came to that conclusion in Romans 3.23 for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none of us that seek God and love God 100% of the time with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our might, with all of our strength. So the question becomes, if the standard of the law is holiness, perfection, and righteousness, how do we obtain that righteousness, right? If it takes more than what the Pharisees and the scribes were doing outwardly, what do I have to do to obtain it? Because I want to go to heaven, right? That's the question. How do I enter into heaven? He says in verse 20, I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, let's go back for just a minute to Galatians 2.16. Paul said, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the what faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of who? Christ. And not by the works of the law, but by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Now, I want you to notice, because it mentions a couple of times there, notice it uses, and I didn't underline it, but notice it says justified by the faith of who? Christ. Not our faith. We know that we are saved by faith, right? We are saved by faith through grace. It's not of works lest any man should boast. It's a gift of God. But now he mentions the faith of Christ has to be responsible in this. How are we justified or be made righteous? And the answer is by faith in Jesus Christ. And what did Jesus Christ do? He had faith that what He did would be the sufficement for you and I's sin. What is faith? Trusting and obeying. Remember Jesus Christ? I must be about the Father's business. He believed that the only way that you and I could be redeemed is if He died in the cross of Calvary. The only way that you and I can be redeemed is by believing in Jesus Christ, who believed that His death, burial, and resurrection would be enough for our salvation. And we believe in His faith that He put before the Father. And what happened to His faith? Did it prove right or wrong? It proved right because He didn't stay in the grave for three days, did He? No, on the third day He rose from the dead. God accepted His sacrifice, and so no longer is it faith, no longer is it trusting, but now it has become a reality, right? And that's the excitement. We don't celebrate the crucifixion of Christ. The cross is not what associates us with Jesus Christ. If all you're doing is associating your life with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, you are just like the Pharisees and the scribes, and you're going to die and go to hell. Do you get that? If you are putting your faith and trust in the cross of Jesus Christ, you're going to go to hell. What saves us is the resurrection. What saves us is the resurrection. See, Christ didn't stay dead. Every one of you and I are what? For the wages of sin is death. You and I, when we die, guess what? That's it. This body is not going to be resurrected. This body is never going to be inhabited again. This body that you live in right now is going to literally rot in the grave. Why? Because we're sinners. We're sinners. But guess what? Because Jesus Christ rose from the dead, my body may stay in the grave, but guess what? My spirit is already with God. And God promises when my spirit gets there, guess what's going to happen to my body? I'm going to receive a new body. I'm going to receive a new body. One that is without sin. So you see this faith in Christ? It's not by works of the law, but by works of the law shall no flesh be justified. He goes on and he says in Romans 3.21, But now the righteousness of God without the law is revealed. Now, how are we saved? How do we get to the kingdom of heaven? Without the law, we are justified in Jesus Christ. Being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Remember what Jesus said when we started this three weeks ago? I did not come to destroy the law and the prophets. I came to fulfill. That's the key. Right here in Romans 3.21. And he says in verse 22, Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that what believe have faith, for there is absolutely no difference. The scribes and the Pharisees are not saved any differently than you and I. If they're going to go to heaven, they have to believe that Jesus Christ died for their sins. And he says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 5.21 says that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. We all understand that sin brings about death. Right? We understand that concept. But somehow or another, when we become Christians and we accept Jesus Christ, we forget that we are now to live in righteousness. But guess what? I'm still in my fleshly body, right? I'm still in my flesh. So I cannot live righteously in my flesh. But guess what? Because of the grace of Jesus Christ, I can live righteously. Because Christ has already taken my sins and nailed them to the cross of Calvary. When God looks at me, God does not look at my flesh. He doesn't look at what I do and what I don't do. He looks at who I am. He looks on the inward side. And then notice what He says in Romans 8.4. Because this is kind of the conclusion of all of this thought of our life in Romans. And He says in verse 4, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but what? After the Spirit. See, folks, we need to get our eyes off of the physical and start looking at the spiritual. We pray to Jesus Christ, but we need to be praying more to the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus Christ left us who? The Holy Spirit. He said the Holy Spirit will comfort you. And the Holy Spirit will point us to Jesus Christ. And when we get to Jesus Christ, He points us to the Father. So what do we do? We pray in the name of the Father. And what? We pray through the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ. And guess what? Now we have the whole God who had taken care of us when we pray. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, But of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. But of Him are you where? In Christ Jesus. If you are in Christ Jesus, then what? God has remade you. You are a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new. You are no longer a fool. Remember, a fool has said in his heart there is no God. But he said now you have been made wise because why? You know that there's a God. You have believed in God. You have trusted God. It's no longer living in self-righteousness. What can I do for God? But now what? God has made me righteous. It's not because I set myself apart. I've decided this morning to come to church. No, God has already sanctified me. Whether I come to church or not, He has set me apart to live for Him. And therefore, I cannot redeem myself. Only Jesus Christ can redeem me. When I couldn't reach the standard of God and His holiness, God gifted me. He graced me with holiness through Jesus Christ. Let that sink in for just a minute this morning. When I could not reach the standard of God's holiness, God graced me with holiness through Jesus Christ. I don't deserve to be holy because I'm a sinner. But God gave it to me as a gift. And back to them old scribes and Pharisees, their works were not good enough. They were impeccable on the outside, but they were disgusting on the inside. We have to be completely righteous, not just on the outside. We have to be righteous also on the inside. And when we get to be righteous on the inside, then guess what? The fruit of the Spirit of Jesus Christ living and reigning in our heart, the fruit of the Spirit, is love, joy, peace, goodness, gentleness, kindness. All of a sudden, what begins to happen? When Christ gets inside of you, you are then sanctified, and you begin to start oozing Jesus Christ. You can't help it. You can't help it. And what should shock us is not when we mess up. What should shock us is when we do good. When we do the things that God asks us to do, because that's not within our mindset. That's not in our flesh. It only comes through the grace that Jesus Christ has given us. In Acts 16, they brought them out, and they said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And this is what Peter said in Acts 16, verse 31, or Paul. He said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house. Is this house saved because of his profession of faith? No, but because he makes his profession of faith and says, guess what? I am absolutely nothing on the outside, but Jesus Christ is now living on me in the inside. Guess what? That inside is going to flow to the outside. His family is going to see it. And when his family sees it, guess what? He's going to become salt and light in their lives. And guess what? They're going to desire salt. They're going to desire the light that they found. And guess what? It's going to cause them to hunger and thirst after righteousness. And guess what? When they come to mom and dad, and they say, Hey, I see something different in you. I taste something different in you. They're not going to point them to look at me. This is what happened. No, let me take you back to a time when I met Jesus Christ. And see their testimony, because the only thing that saved them was the grace of Jesus Christ. The only thing that's going to save that house is the grace of Jesus Christ. Folks, we need to quit trying to live the outward and let the inward flow out. Let Jesus Christ flow out of us. And so I want to ask you three questions today as we close in an invitation. Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? It's not about the cross. It's not about His ministry. It is about Jesus Christ, sinless God, Who became man, Who lived a perfect life without sin. He is the One that was death upon Himself and cried, It is finished. Not the law. Not the holy standard of God. But our trying to obtain that holiness is now stopped. All we have to do is accept it. And so that immediately, have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? If you have, then the next logical question is, are you obeying Him? Are you allowing Him to live through you? Are you salt? Are you permeating those that you're in contact with? Are you sprinkling and enhancing the lives and preserving the lives and protecting the lives of those that you're close with? Are you being alive? Are you people being attracted to you because Jesus Christ is coming out? Every one of you, if you're honest with yourself, love to be around people that are loving, that are kind, that are good, that are gentle, that are patient, right? We don't like to be around an impatient person, right? I have problems with patience. God's still working on me, amen? And my wife does not like to be around me when I'm not patient. But man, when God gets ahold of me, I take a deep breath. Okay, God, I'll wait on You with this one. All of a sudden, my wife wants to be around me. My kids want to be around me, right? Because we're attracted that we become light. Because why? We're not being our normal self. We're being the life of Jesus Christ. And so are you obeying Him? Which leads us to that influence. You can only influence people. You can only become salt and light if you obey Jesus Christ. And you can only obey Jesus Christ if you have accepted Jesus Christ. You can't get the cart before the horse. And so sometimes we've got to go back to the basics. Is there a time and a place that I relied on Jesus Christ? I had faith in the faith of Christ, knowing that the death alone, knowing that anything else that Christ could do to save us. He said what? Right before the night of the crucifixion? Nevertheless, Father, not my will, but there is no other way. There is no other plan. This is it. So Father, I'm going to go through with it. And He prayed in John 17 that you and I, 2,000 years later, would have enough faith to believe in the faith that He exhibited there on the cross of Calvary. Do you realize Jesus prayed for you? And I want you to understand this morning that I have prayed for you. And others have prayed for you. If you do not know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you get to today. Whosoever will may come. Whosoever will. There is no separation. There is no difference. It doesn't matter what you have done in the past. It doesn't matter what you're doing right now. It is simply saying, not my life, but Jesus, I want Your righteousness. I want You. I'm not a holy person. So Father, thank You for the gift of Your holiness. And when I realize what it costs Jesus Christ to give me the gift of holiness, and I accept that on the inside, it's a whole lot easier for it to live out on the outside. I don't have to worry about what am I supposed to do and don't do. I've just got to make sure I do what Jesus Christ commands me to do. And go where Jesus Christ wants me to go when Jesus Christ wants me to go. And so, man, I've already... all the hard part of living the Christian life is already decided. The easy part is just, what do You want me to do today, Lord? Where do You want me to go today? Who do You want me to speak to today? Because why? His grace has already taken care of the law. His grace has already made me holy. As we stand and have a verse of invitation, Brother Philip, all we have to do is trust Him.