Marc Hunter - Class 2: What Righteousness Is

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:07

   Big Brother Joseph brother, Mark forward, try to record it. So just waiting for the The Moon that sorry. Talked about two mountains yesterday, you have not come to the mountain, which may be touched into a blazing fire and darkness and Gloom and Whirlwind to the blast of a trumpet. And the sound of Words, Words, which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them for they could not bear the command. If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned. And so terrible was the sight.

2. 1:15

   That Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling first moment of introspection is, is that the mountain that you come to Is that the mountain that you worship? That is that the mountain that people see when they observe you in your equation when they observe you and your family and your family, when they observe you at work, but you have come to Mount, Zion to the city of the Living.

3. 1:44

   God the heavenly Jerusalem and to Myriad of angels to the general assembly and the Church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men. Made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a New Covenant and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel, and we come to the mountain that Jesus calls us to when people see you in your daily life. When people see you in the equation, like, do they see you at the mountain that Jesus called you too, and in that we’ve been considering the life of Joseph and several people came out and brought up the fact that all the It’s our manifest that in the life of Joseph is a peacemaker. He mourned.

4. 2:32

   He was persecuted. He was poor in spirit. He was Meek, how did he do all that without a list of rules? And he didn’t have the command, he didn’t have the Ten Commandments he didn’t have most of the Old Testament. How was he able to show forth? Christ’s character without checklists? Somehow he did somehow even then Joseph came to this mountain. Now we have to balance this a little bit with me. What does it mean to come to?

5. 3:07

   This mountain doesn’t mean that everything is just always sweetness and light. If you read the next verse in, Hebrews chapter 12, see to it that you do not refuse him. Who is speaking for those did not Escape when they refused to him who warned them on Earth. Much less shall we escape? Who turn away from him who warns from heaven?

6. 3:34

   The last verse in this chapter, our God is a consuming fire. We are being offered this wonderful Vision. The fact that this is wonderful means that if we reject it, we Face an even greater consequence than those who rejected the law of Moses. Jesus starts to bring this up in Matthew Chapter 5. When we saw the verses on salt in life, right? It’s all fine to talk about a spiritual Concepts, but if people can’t taste Christ in you, if people can’t see Christ in you, if you successfully hidden it. So that none of your co-workers, or your neighbors, know that, there’s anything different about you, then what was the point, right?

7. 4:19

   Becomes all academic academic is not enough academic is The starting point. And then we had the kicker. Unless your righteousness exceeds, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will, by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. And we have to put ourselves in a historical context and say, to an ordinary Merchant to an ordinary, you know, Shoemaker in Israel.

8. 4:54

   The Pharisees were the Pinnacle of religion. They knew more than anybody. They tried harder. More than anybody that they they taught, right? They were the teachers, they were the experts and Jesus is saying what they’re doing, which you think is so far above, you is not enough, if all you do is what they do, you’re not going to be in the Kingdom. So that brings us to Matthew chapter 5 verse 21, and Jesus starts a process of seven ways to be more righteous than a Pharisee.

9. 5:35

   And the first one is that will shout not to kill one of the Ten Commandments. Okay. Remember Jesus is subtly continually making a comparison and a contrast with the Ten Commandments Thou shalt, not kill now Jesus tells us that just not killing people happens to not be good enough, right now. We like the law of not killing people because it’s very measurable. And I can go to bed at night and I can tell myself today, I did not kill one single person, right? Check box, I’m righteous.

10. 6:11

    I have fulfilled the Mosaic law, right? I have become as righteous as the most righteous Pharisee with respect to this law and Jesus says no no, no, no misunderstanding. That was just the starting point. You can take this concept and push it all the way. How are your relationships with other people? And when I was at, when I was a young man in the faith, I had visions of, you know, battling people over the Trinity and and having these great, you know, intellectual skirmishes with with people of other faiths.

11. 6:50

    And what I’ve realized is the hardest thing in my walk has been getting along with other people. Keeping relationships, positive healthy, constructive is so hard, right? We underestimate how hard that is and is Ezra and Zion back when they used to be able to walk along together and hold hands. That’s okay. There’s still hope relationships. But Jesus says, you know, if you go to present your gift at the altar and you remember that, your brother has off against you, you put that aside and we don’t, we don’t do gifts before the altar in quite the same way.

12. 7:37

    But what we can say, is there are ecclesial functions in a collegial. Ian’s, there are ceremonial parts of our religious life. And if we are putting those ahead of our personal relationships, we are in big trouble. We think it’s important to do the things of the Ecclesia and it is, but it’s not as important as your relationships with other people.

13. 8:06

    And if there’s something you can do for your relationships that wins over your equation responsibilities. If there’s something you can do for your family, that wins if that’s counterintuitive. That’s not what our expectation would be. L shall not commit adultery. Now, we have, you know, David and Bathsheba, you know, Samson and Delilah. Jesus brings up the eyes in this chapter. I say to you, everyone who looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. And and and we see with David, right? He was up on the palace and he looks and we see in this in the story of Samson.

14. 8:52

    He looked, and it set off a chain of events, which resulted in actual, you know, over sin, which is undeniable and visible to everyone. And Jesus is saying he that happens and that’s terrible and that should never happen. But you can fail in this way and it can all just be in your head.

15. 9:13

    It is not enough to just do with the Ten Commandments. Say, you have to elevate your game and there’s an equivalence here, which is Is absolutely terrifying, right? Jesus says, everyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her in his heart. And when we assess the relative, you know, weights and severities of sins, like, do we put those in the same category?

16. 9:45

    The people who have committed adultery and the people who have lusted in their minds? Do we rank those? The same because Jesus is putting those in the same category. Do we treat the people in our community who have failed in this way? Equally if they have failed in either of the waist, A little bit unsettling. And then he says, if your right eye makes you stumble pluck it out and throw it from you.

17. 10:17

    And this one, I struggle with because I’ve been walking around again and I haven’t seen anybody missing any eyes and yet here is a commandment of Christ and here is a righteous Community dedicated to the service and the study of scripture and somehow, we we read this verse and we automatically assume that Low blow. Jesus, can’t mean that literally

18. 10:49

    Yes, I suppose, but he did say it, and he said it for a reason. And if you had to actually look at it technically and say, look, I’ll trade you, I’ll make a trade with you, we’re gonna pluck out your right eye and, and you’re in the Kingdom. Would you take that trade? I sure would I’d be in there.

19. 11:11

    Might like if Jesus Christ showed up to you today and said look step through it, like it’s going to cost you your right. I go through that door, you’re being the kingdom. I think most of us would take that and that’s what Jesus says that’s the suit is saying like are you willing to do that?

20. 11:27

    You say you’re willing to do that. And yet here I am looking looking for none of us have done that. Okay, so what I can do is is doing here is what I call emphasis by extremism and This is going to come up over and over in here and I’m not sure I’m actually not. I have to say, I don’t think Jesus means for us all to be plugging our eyes though.

21. 11:51

    But what he is saying is you must take radical counterintuitive action, against sin in your life. It isn’t just enough to say, oh, I’ve just this little checkbox. No, you have to do things that people in. He would consider absurd, right? Like if we started walking around town with, you know, and most of us were missing, eyes people go. That is a crazy cult.

22. 12:20

    That is a crazy cult, right? But Jesus says crazy stuff and we forget about it because we’re so used to it, right? But it had, Jesus said, eat my flesh and were like, oh yeah, that’s great. We do that every Sunday know people walked away from Jesus because that is an absurd concept, right? You’re a and of cannibalism.

23. 12:40

    I just that is so bizarre, right? But Jesus says, because he’s trying to get your attention, he’s trying to tell you, look, take this seriously. This is a radical religion. This isn’t just the walk around every day and no fit in with everybody else.

24. 13:02

    So if we’re not going to pluck out our eyes, you know, if you’re on a diet, this should not be on your counter in your kitchen. All right? Because you know that if you’re on a diet and this is on the counter, in your kitchen, you’ll be okay for an hour and you may be okay for two hours and if you’re strong you may be okay for six hours, but if this is on your counter when you’re on a diet, it is inevitable that you will succumb.

25. 13:38

    It is impossible for you to sustain yourself, will long enough indefinitely and this speaks to what, brother, Nathan talked about last night, right? Like if we think of these as we write, if you just leave them there and you just ignore them. And you don’t proactively, try to remove the things from your life, that cross-contaminate. Then you’re going to wake up one morning and it’s just, it’s all going to be weak.

26. 14:08

    Eat. And there’s a well let me let me jump to this next one first and I’ll come back to that. We have anger and we have lost the two Commandments that Jesus is leaving too. And in each case, we have a domino effect, right? Where you had a small thing that turned into a bigger thing to turn into a bigger thing and eventually in somebody’s dead or a marriage is destroyed.

27. 14:39

    So, This is the weeds concept, catch it early, right? If you don’t catch it early, if you don’t take it, seriously when it’s small, you’re going to have a disaster when it’s big and I read a book, I highly recommend it. It’s called Thinking Fast and Slow by Jewish men named, Daniel Kahneman, and they examined. People who are in the midst of you might call it lost or rage or like when somebody’s lost their temper, if you have kids, you see a kid throws a temper, tantrum. Okay.

28. 15:18

    That same thing happens to us even as adults just manifest a little bit differently, but if you let your anger cross a certain threshold, you become entirely unreasonable. And so they test these people who are in the midst of anger and they make statements that are absurd that in their normal selves, they would, they would never do such a thing.

29. 15:42

    And this is why you get people who have temporary insanity, right? They don’t get the same consequence for a murder. When you’re under the influence of passion, because there’s an understanding in law. That once you’re under the influence of passion, you basically become an animal And in their research, they said well what can we do? What can we do to help these people. So that, when they’re in their passion, they don’t go off and do these terrible life destroying things, whether it’s adultery, whether it’s murder or violence, people do this. How do we stop them?

30. 16:19

    And they tried all kinds of things. And what they discovered is, there is no way to stop. Okay, once you’re in that rage, once you’re in that position, Passion. You are literally unreasonable. You cannot be reasoned with and any of you who tried to reason with a childhood middle of a temper tantrum.

31. 16:40

    No, there’s nothing. You can say, you can’t explain the only thing you can do is wait, wait for this moment to pass because your brain is literally in a different state, and it’s absolutely terrifying. Because there’s there’s nothing we can do to, even we can read scripture, we can do whatever. If you let yourself get into a passion.

32. 17:01

    Whatever kind of passion, you become a different creature. The only solution is don’t go there in the first place. Don’t let yourself be built up into anger. Don’t let yourself be built up into lust. That’s what Jesus is trying to tell you. He’s like, stop this early. Don’t try to wait till the last minute and then say, Oh no, I’m not going to commit adultery, it wasn’t really adultery, he got to catch it early.

33. 17:30

    So this is clearly a pattern developing here but let’s learn some of the lessons from. Just these two first ones. Proper relationships are crucial slippery, slopes are slippery and matters, right? Catch things early. We didn’t actually coordinate the evening program. Really grateful for that last night with anything words, matter, right. Whoever has said, you fool, you know, as anybody ever said anything unpleasant to anybody, yeah, everybody. Drastic action is called for we belong to a radical religion. If our lives are not radical and unintuitive and counterintuitive to an observer and we’re not doing it right? So, let’s come back to the theme. How does this, you know, how can I be more righteous than the Pharisees?

34. 18:22

    So Jesus, as you see is is contrasting. You have heard, but I say to you my, so he’s putting the two concepts together. And the first thing is bringing up is that we see the law as a limit, right? There’s a line and you should stay on this side of the line, but what happens when you have a lying, right?

35. 18:45

    You walk Ray. Alongside that line. And Jesus is telling you don’t do that. When there’s a line you turned up. You’ll be, you know, opposite way of the line. He try to stay as far away from the line as possible. We’re not just trying to cross the line, we’re trying to cross the line and then keep moving indefinitely.

36. 19:10

    The other interesting point Jesus makes everyone Who is angry with his brother will be liable. Everyone who is angry with his brother. And everyone in this room has been angered. His brother, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has committed adultery everyone When we think legalistically, we have this little hierarchy of who’s done which sins and which ones are worse than others and and where we are, and how we compare. And you all know it, we all know it, we track it, it’s not the way Jesus thinks.

37. 19:53

    When Jesus looks at this room, he says everyone. Has committed murder and everyone has committed adultery. You sitting in a room full of murderers and adulterers.

38. 20:08

    How does that effect? And so we have a really interesting comment concept that Jesus puts forward here. The keeping the law is not actually the definition of righteousness, right? The Pharisees have been have been approaching their religion this way. And he says no, you can do it. You can do those two, Ten Commandments and not be a righteous person.

39. 20:35

    And the problem I had to get at least one sort of computer, ish, kind of slide up here, but this is binary 1 or 0, right? And Jesus, is saying, righteousness is not binary. It’s not like true or false black or white, Righteousness. And this is a very featureless life, but actually what we have done at the bottom is complete darkness.

40. 21:01

    And what we have at the top is complete light. And righteousness is up there and we are not. We are somewhere in here and each of us are in different places in each of us in different aspects of like maybe an anger control. Some of us were over here in the maybe in gluttony. Some some of us are over, there may be in love, some of us are over here, right?

41. 21:27

    It’s you you’re never done with some scriptural principles. You’re just somewhere on this scale. And you still have somewhere to go. There’s another. Sort of philosophical technical question here, which is, is Jesus establishing a new law when we have the law of Moses and it’s described on the Ten Commandments and we just read a whole bunch of Commandments.

42. 22:00

    A whole bunch of additional Commandments on top of the Commandments that are in the law of Moses. Is this a new law is this law 2.0 gets the second computer.

43. 22:14

    Deuteronomy says, everything that I command you. You shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it? That’s interesting. The law itself suggests that you shouldn’t add to it or take from it.

44. 22:28

    In Romans, it says the law of the spirit of life in Christ. Jesus has Set Me Free from the law of sin and death.

45. 22:41

    The law of sin and death. So, the question is, did the tablets that came down from Mount Sinai? Did they have the wrong words on them? It’s a weird thought experiment. But you go if we had taken the words from Matthew Chapter 5 and the other Commandments of Christ and we had chiseled, those onto the tablets way back when and Moses it come down with those words on the tablets.

46. 23:11

    Would it have all been fine? Would that have solved the problem? And instinctively, you know, know, right, like that would have eliminated the need for Christ. So, there’s an interesting thing that we have to wrestle with here.

47. 23:34

    Romans 8:3 says for what the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh. You see, the problem isn’t the words on the tablets. The problem is the Flesh and the flesh is still with us. No matter what words you write on the tablets, the flesh is still here and we have to remind ourselves of that because sometimes we come across problems in our community and in our lives and we think to ourselves, you know what, the solution to this is, we need to write something down on a piece of paper.

48. 24:04

    We need to post it on the wall and all of our problems will be gone. Doesn’t work that way, right? The problem is in the flesh. Is the law then against the promises of God, certainly not. If there had been a law given which was able to impart life. If such a thing existed, such a formula of words existed, truly righteousness would have been by the law. If there had been words that could have done it, God would have put those words on the Ten Commandments and that would have solved the problem.

49. 24:38

    But the problem is laws and the words cannot solve it Now that no one is justified by the law before. God is evident for the righteous man shall live by faith. However, the law is not a faith on the contrary he who practices them shall live by them. Romans 10, verses 3 and 4 for not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own. They did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. Christ, is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone Who believes?

50. 25:30

    We’re going to read a lot more in this chapter. We’re going to encounter a lot more Commandments. We’re going to encounter ordinances and statutes and all the same sense that we find them in the Old Testament. But we have to recognize, this is not law of Moses 2.0. There is a qualitative difference between the Commandments of Christ and the Commandments of Moses.

51. 25:58

    So, let’s jump to the next one. Let him divorce. Verse 31, it was said, whoever sends his wife away. Let him give her a certificate of divorce. Now this one’s interesting because if you actually look through all the different sections in this chapter, pretty much all of them. If you, if you look at them, sincerely your you’ll go. It is impossible for me to fully live up to the things in this section, you know, is it, can I really never be angry, can I really Never Last Can-Can my yes be yes, really like every single time, like if there’s a whole list of impossible commands in this chapter, and this one kind of jumped out at me is like, I think I can get through life without divorce, you know, and I have it easy easy for me, it whether whether most feels the same way, but one thing to understand here is the cultural context.

52. 27:06

    When the subject of divorce comes up elsewhere in Matthew and Jesus says no divorce not a good not a good thing to do and his disciples these righteous men say if such is the case of the man with his wife it is better. Not to marry. These are the Disciples of Christ considering life without divorce and they’re like I would never get married right. The foundation of marriage for them was divorce in that sense. Right by the reason I am willing to marry you right now is because I have the option to bail whenever is necessary, right?

53. 27:55

    And what’s more by the law All of Moses. All I need to do is sign a piece of paper on the dotted line, right? It is, there it is permissible. In the law of Moses, I can be righteous in the law of Moses by signing this piece of paper and I can move on to another woman if I want to perfectly legal in the law of Moses.

54. 28:20

    Okay? So luckily we don’t have quite the same cultural context. But what Jesus is saying here, that the reason is bringing this up is because we do similar things. Things you can use law to legally sin, right? And so if you’re married, you know, if this man is married to that woman and this man decides that he would rather be with that other woman.

55. 28:47

    Well, if he just runs off with her it’s adultery and that’s against the law and he’s an evil man. But I have two pieces of paper here and if you sign on the dotted line on the first one. Yeah. And then now you come sign on the dotted line over here. We’re all riches. Yes.

56. 29:02

    That’s that’s the law. And by law, they would have been righteous by law and that circumstance. And we look at that, we say, that’s insane. And that’s what Jesus is telling them. Look, this is insane. You’re filling out paperwork and you think that that makes you righteous. If the intention behind your activity is not Divine, then I don’t care if you follow the law.

57. 29:30

    I don’t care what the law of Moses says. All right, if you are pursuing another woman that’s it it might be in your head. It might be legalistic went. No, it’s all wrong. Even when you do it legally, And bear in mind again that in the culture of the time, they would have considered this an impossible demand, it would have said, wow that’s just going to destroy the fabric of our society. Just re-emphasizing.

58. 30:04

    I guess what I just said righteousness is not does not mean keeping the law does not mean righteousness. Might you can fill out the paperwork and you cannot be righteous. We can do this in our occasional life. Do you write that you can show up, you can do your readings, you can do all the sort of technical things and that does not mean righteousness.

59. 30:26

    Okay, let me jump to the next one number for you shall not swear falsely as again. It’s an interesting in the context of marriage right? Where it like your yes. Be yes and your no be no you said you’re going to marry this person. You know till death. Do you part? That’s what you said your yes should be. Yes, you shouldn’t go back on that, right? It’s not just oh, so, I mean, again, pull truly were not big into oats.

60. 30:49

    That’s not things that we normally do. So, that’s not a big imposition to us, but is our yes. All Always, yes. And is are no, always, no, no, right. We constantly equivocate, we constantly do Shades of Grey. Now, why is this so important? Well, often when we agree to things, we actually have a hidden list of subject tubes. Now, I don’t know how many people have bought a house, you have experienced this and you have a contract and you make an offer, right?

61. 31:22

    You’re right up a document. You say I will buy your house. House subject to inspection and subject to financing and subject and it’s a legal document so you I am eyes it. So you’re saying yes I’m I’m going to almost buy this house if everything else works out, correct? And the problem we have is that we make a lot of yeses with hidden lists of subject tubes. In our baptism might be one of those yeses, right? We get baptized we’re saying yes I want to follow God to death or the kingdom.

62. 32:04

    Is it subject to something? Is it subject to having good health? Is it subject to belonging to a nurturing Ecclesia? Is it subject to your spouse treating you perfectly? Is it subject to the safety and well-being of your children? Like is it subject to not having a object– poverty’s subject to not dealing with addiction?

63. 32:27

    Like do we have a long list of subject to? And I think the short answer is we do. I think we all have subject to use in our marriages, in our, in our baptism in all of our commitments and it’s a lifelong task to uncover them all and try to eliminate them from our spiritual contrast. Right, although the Fig Tree, shall not blossom yet. Will I rejoice in the Lord?

64. 32:57

    We see this all over scripture, the whole Beatitudes, right? Like you are blessed, even when you’re poor, you are blessed. Even when you’re persecuted, right? If you’re rejected by Society, does that weaken your commitment? It should. And if it does, you had it all along as a little subject to writer. But we like hidden subject tubes. They bring us value and I want to present it in the concept that you sold pizza, right?

65. 33:28

    And I said, okay, I’m going to sell you a pizza, and you’d give me $20, and I’m going to deliver a pizza. You’re Expecting the whole pizza. Right. But if I actually have a bunch of subject twos, a or may not get the pizza or you may or may not get all of the pizza and you only find out later.

66. 33:50

    But but I’ve already got the Dollars, right? So for me, as the person saying, yes, I’ll give you the pizza, I get all the benefit and then you later on when you only get half the pizza. Well, we’ll worry about that later, right? So, when we commit to things and don’t deliver on our commitments, we are stealing, right? It’s a form of stealing.

67. 34:14

    It’s like somebody ordered a pizza and you only gave him half a pizza. And we do this all the time and little subtle ways we have to live up to our commitments.

68. 34:29

    Zap joke, I found online parents. It’s okay to say no to your children. They won’t explode true story. And the reason I put that there is because is your, no, no, and children have an uncanny ability to know when you’re know is not actually know, right? And so and you like they ask you for something you say no and they ask you again, why do they keep asking me?

69. 34:58

    But it’s because It’s a no whistles objectives, right? And they’re trying to figure out what are the four subject is this time? Because last time you said no twice and then I got it. So maybe the key is to is to get you know 3 knows it’s so hard like it is so hard to be thoroughly consistent in our commitments.

70. 35:20

    Interesting question of control. Here, there is an arrogance to commitment. Now we sometimes, say God willing, right, and we should say it more often because Jesus says, take no over at all, either by heaven for it, is the Throne of God, that’s massive the Earth. It’s still massive, but smaller by Jerusalem. Now, it’s just a city nor you shall taken off by your head.

71. 35:48

    Are you cannot make a single hair white or black? Right. We start thinking all, you know, having the smallest thing. You can’t even control the hair on your head. Right. We make these commitments foolishly because we assume that we can deliver right. If your commitment has subject to use, you should clarify them up front.

72. 36:13

    I’ll be there. God willing, I’ll be there. All being well, my uncle Charlie. I was To say all being well. And I try to inject that wherever I can, which is I’m going to make an effort to deliver but I am accepting my limitations. I’m accepting that things may happen, which prevent me from delivering Psalm 15 verses 1 & 4 who shall dwell on your Holy Hill. There’s a number of other attributes but an interesting one here he who swears to his own hurt and does not change. You made a commitment.

73. 36:49

    It is now ridiculously inconvenient to keep that commitment. How far do you go and just like not sorry, not going to work. You know, baseball game is on, you know, or that, you know, a hockey team made it. Next set of the, you know, of the Stanley Cup. So I’m not going to go to make that anymore.

74. 37:07

    Like, what kind of things do you rail? Our commitments? We have heard that it was said an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. One thing to keep in mind that Outsiders like to portray this as a Savage statement of the law of Moses, because it feels so violent, right? I’m taking out people’s eyes.

75. 37:36

    This is actually one of the most clear statements of fundamental human rights that you will find in ancient literature because I can tell you that in An ancient culture, it was not an eye for an eye. If you took out my I kill you, right? And it all had to do with your social status, if you’re a slave, and you hurt me in even less than I, you’re dead, right? And it goes all the way, like, maybe your whole family’s dead. This is completely this statement in the law of Moses is saying, everybody is equal your eye. My eye, all eyes are worth the same. They didn’t around the didn’t run around. With the time of Moses, plugging people’s eyes out either, right there was a compensation.

76. 38:21

    If you cost somebody their Vision, you must compensate their Vision. Everybody’s vision is worth the same. But then he goes on to say, Do not resist. The one who is evil.

77. 38:38

    And that is a really difficult statement. Do know, how do you live that one perfectly and completely do not resist the one. Who is evil. I did you just supposed to fold, you know, and give in to everybody, whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two, how do you run a business with that, right?

78. 39:03

    Give to him, who has to be? Do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you? And we do that a little bit. But how many of us can live? This oh, can I borrow your tractor might bring it back or I might not but like, This is this is again it’s extreme, it’s absolutely extreme.

79. 39:25

    Is that really what Jesus says? Okay can I have your house? Can I borrow your house all? I just yeah my children and I guess we’ll just go camp in the backyard if that’s okay with you because it’s now your house like we can’t lose sight of the extremism of these statements, these are radical statements.

80. 39:45

    Now just because they’re radical. Does that mean we don’t we don’t try to live them at all know. Jesus is saying I’m telling you that this is you doing got a long way to go, right? The distance to righteousness is further than you would ever imagine.

81. 40:05

    Peter 3, verse 9, not returning, evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead for you were called to this very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. Love your neighbor and hate your enemy and we have a story of the Good Samaritan. The interesting thing here is he speaks of the blessings on the undeserving right that God makes it rain on the just, and on the unjust, are we selectively?

82. 40:34

    And how we love people? Or are we like God, where we were just willing to be loving to everyone? We’ve had six so far, but there’s a pattern here and I propose to you that this, these six is not the complete list. Jesus isn’t saying, oh no, the book is closed. Jesus is saying this pattern. This concept of going to an absurd extreme is something that you can do with every Concept in commandment. Tithing the law says 10% that’s just the starting point. Jesus would tell you right there presented just where you start. Don’t think you’ve achieved something because God gave you 100 and you gave him back 1000 how Noble of you, right? Like try for 11 and then when you’ve got 11 even try to like, you can go all your and you say but that’s impossible, hard work?

83. 41:33

    Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting, right. The Sabbath concept. Do you take the rest sacrifice, Hospitality humility, praise modest fee of this morning honesty. Generosity study, service prayer. Take your pick work on it for a year, right? You can just keep going. and then, We start to feel. That everything keeps loading up, right? No, the first one was hard, not being angry. I was kind of stuck on the first one and then he followed with five more and then he says you therefore must be perfect. No, I want you to really try to feel how radical this statement is.

84. 42:44

    This is a commandment of Christ. You vowed to serve him and he commands you to be perfect. And what way in case you want to quibble about what exact definition of perfect, well, let me tell you how you need to be perfect in the same way that God is perfect. so, if you think, That there is some kind of moment in life where you’re going to be able to sit down and say, oh yeah, I got that right today was a good day.

85. 43:25

    I did it. I got all the checkbooks to check boxes today, Jesus is giving us the seventh challenge, the seventh impossible challenge. In this chapter, we had our Shades of Grey. What do we do with our Shades of Grey? We’re all starting in different spots in different parts of our discipline and what Jesus is telling you is that your lifelong task is to push that Arrow from Darkness to light wherever you start and until the day that you die you need to move that arrow and what this is here.

86. 44:07

    Is an imaginary line drawn by the Pharisees that says well that is the line of legal righteousness. Right. And and look, I’m above it and you’re not. So I have a better person than you and the only used to be above it, but I fell behind it. So now I’m not going to be in the kingdom and I’m a bad person. This is the parasail.

87. 44:29

    Go legalistic mind, it’s inside of each of us. What Jesus is telling you is don’t worry about the line, the line is in your head. The line is imaginary, this is the line, but there is a line. It’s just I was the line is up here where you can’t see it, that’s how righteous you have to be. If you’re going to be in the kingdom of God, on the basis of your righteousness.

88. 45:04

    Now, I’ve Ranted long. So let’s see how I can wrap this up quickly. That I can’t get away. Sorry for Mark chapter 10 verse 17. Maybe you’ll just narrate it. Throw you guys know the story of the rich young, man. He comes to Jesus. And he says, what should I do to be righteous?

89. 45:22

    And Jesus says, well, if you look at smart guy, you know, the Commandments, don’t kill. Don’t commit. Adultery yourself and the rich young man, says, I’ve done that. Right. He says, aha, I’m here. I got over the line and then Jesus looks at him and, and I just, it gives me chills. He looked at, and you can almost see Jesus. Lots of people around.

90. 45:46

    Somebody says, oh, I have a question about whatever and the case is not, I’ve done that and Jesus going, you’ve done that and he looks at him and he loved him. She doesn’t say very much, not very many people that it’s a Jesus. Loved like specifically individually. We know he loved him and he loved it this man. He loved them.

91. 46:08

    And he said, oh, Good for you. Just one more thing, sell everything you have and give it to the poor. What did Jesus do for that, man? That he loved. Erased, the line. He gave that man, a goal that he was going to wake up every morning and go to bed every night and look at every one of his possessions and say, I didn’t I didn’t pull it off. I didn’t achieve my own righteousness. How does Jesus Love Somebody by giving them a goal that they can never attain?

92. 46:57

    How is that love? But it is And so, this is what we have to consider this morning. If you are playing a game that you cannot win. You can’t win this game of right. You will never win this game of righteousness, if that’s true. What do you do when you get up in the morning?

93. 47:21

    Why even bother, I can’t do it. Why even bother and whatever close to you is, that Jesus is trying to give us an approach to righteousness that is less legal in more like a craftsperson. Right? If righteousness is your craft, like a person who loves Pottery, they are, they never reached the Pinnacle of pottery a person who loves music, never reaches the Pinnacle of music, right? When something is someone’s passion and crafts, they get up in the morning and they pursue it, not because they’re going to get seven points out of wood.

94. 48:12

    No. It’s because they love the thing for its own sake. They love righteousness for its own sake. Jesus wants you to be Craftsmen of righteousness. Were you just you can’t imagine waking up in the morning and saying, no, I’m gonna I’m gonna honor the flesh today. Today’s a flesh day that you would be horrified by that. You would go, let’s be absurd, right? No, no, you were good all week, right? So you get to take Friday off, your right, your extra righteous.

95. 48:46

    You know, you worked extra, my make Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, so now you can take Friday off from righteousness, right? If it’s a quota, if it’s an amount. If it’s something we’re measuring, you could maybe do that. And we’re like, it’s absurd, if you are a follower of Christ, because in your heart, you want to be like Christ, no matter who’s watching, no matter who’s counting, no matter where you might be on some scale, you’re going to wake up in the morning and say, I want to be perfect as my, heavenly father is perfect.