[0:00] If you have your Bible, you turn to Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 through 20 will be our scripture today.
[0:22] ! And as I mentioned last week, we're going to take a break from Ezra, and through the summer months we'll be going to go to the Bible. We're going through a portion of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, and part of the reason why we're doing that is this is for my doctoral dissertation project, which I said would begin today, but it's not. It's going to begin next week.
[0:46] But we will be in the Sermon on the Mount, and so I thought it would be fitting to preach those verses that come before what we're going to look at in the weeks to come and answer a really important question. What did Jesus believe about the scriptures?
[1:05] And Matthew 5, verses 17 through 20 gives us that answer, and so if you're there in your Bible, would you please stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word together. Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 through 20.
[1:21] Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
[1:36] For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
[1:47] Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
[2:00] But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[2:19] May God add a blessing to the reading of His Word. Would you please be seated? In 1897, Lewis Klops was reading Luke 22, 20, a passage that records Jesus taking the cup at the Last Supper with His disciples, that cup which symbolized His blood and would soon be poured out on the cross to establish the new covenant of grace.
[2:52] And as Klops was reading that passage, an idea came to his mind to print all of Jesus' spoken words in red ink, the color of His blood.
[3:07] The first red letter edition of the Bible that Klops printed contained his explanation for why he chose to print Jesus' spoken words in red ink.
[3:20] This is what he wrote. In the red letter Bible, more clearly than in any other edition of the Holy Scriptures, it becomes plain that from beginning to end, the central figure upon which all lines of law, history, poetry, and prophecy converge is Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.
[3:41] He expounded in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself and the divine plan for man's redemption. And the red letter Bible indicates and emphasizes this divine exposition and personal revelation at each successive state, making them so clear that even the simplest may understand.
[4:01] The early red letter editions of the Bible were met with immediate success. I'm sure that many of you have Bibles and maybe even currently have a Bible that you're looking at right now or is in your lap with the words of Jesus written in red ink.
[4:20] Nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. Keep that Bible. Read that Bible. Please don't take what I'm about to say the wrong way and throw that Bible away.
[4:33] That is not what I'm trying to say. I have Bibles with Jesus' words printed, spoken words printed in red ink. And having said that, though, an unintended consequence of red letter Bibles is that some people believe that the words printed in red ink are more important than the words printed in black ink in the Bible.
[5:06] Some people have gone so far as to call themselves red letter Christians. Maybe you've heard that term before. Maybe not. But those who call themselves red letter Christians are of the opinion that if Jesus did not speak on an issue, that means that issue was either unimportant to Jesus or it's an issue that they're basically free to believe whatever they want to about it, even if the letters in the black ink in the Bible speak against it.
[5:40] For example, we could talk about the sanctity of human life. A red letter Christian could say, well, Jesus, and do say, well, Jesus never said anything specifically about abortion, but He did say to love our neighbors as ourself.
[6:00] So, if that's what my neighbor wants to do, the loving thing for me to do is to not only get out of the way of them doing that, but support them in that decision.
[6:13] That's very dangerous logic, especially when we are talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Savior of the world. You know, if we applied that logic in other ways, we could say things like, well, you know, Jesus never said anything about pedophilia, and I could go on, but I won't, because even though Jesus didn't specifically speak about certain things, we're not free to think that we can put words into His mouth.
[6:45] And it doesn't mean that He's for those things. As Christians, this logic is dangerous because it causes the one who accepts it to take a piecemeal approach to the Bible, to believe and concentrate on certain parts of it to the exclusion and even elimination of other parts of the Bible.
[7:11] Now, please understand this too. The authors of the Gospels, the original authors who were inspired by the Holy Spirit, did not write Jesus' words in red ink.
[7:26] There are no red letters in the original Greek manuscripts. The testimony of the Bible, the testimony of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, is that it is the Word of God.
[7:40] All of it. And thus, they are the words of Jesus, who is the Word of God. Our text today tells us, in red letters, what Jesus believed and what He taught about the Scriptures.
[7:57] So our main idea for this morning sermon is this. Jesus believed the Scriptures and taught us to trust and obey them. Jesus believed the Scriptures and He taught us to trust and obey Him.
[8:14] Again, our text this morning comes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. This sermon, recorded in Matthew chapter 5 through 7, is one that many, myself included, consider to be the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest person who ever lived.
[8:31] While the Scriptures in our Bibles are truly one book about one person, which progressively reveals God's redemptive plan to save sinners, the first half of the Bible, the Old Testament, explains how the first man, Adam, sinned and failed and thus brought a curse upon the whole world.
[8:56] The second half of the Bible, the New Testament, explains how Jesus, the God-man, succeeded where Adam failed, bringing salvation to sinners.
[9:09] I think John MacArthur explained this well. He said, The New Testament begins with the presentation of the new sovereign man, one who will not fall and one who brings blessings rather than cursing.
[9:46] The second Adam is also the last Adam, and after him will come no other ruler, no other sovereign. The first king sinned and left a curse. The second king was sinless and leaves a blessing.
[9:58] In this sermon, Jesus, the new king who brings blessing, teaches a way of thinking, a way of living, which if obeyed causes people to function in the way that God originally designed.
[10:21] Having said that, it's critical for us to understand that the person who is truly saved isn't saved because they obey all of these commands that Jesus gives in this sermon.
[10:37] But they obey these commands because they are already saved. In Matthew 5, 1 through 12, the beginning of Jesus' sermon, he makes that clear.
[10:49] The blessed person is the one who has been shown their sin, who mourn over their sin. And in that, they've seen their need for a Savior, and they've turned to Jesus as that Savior.
[11:05] In verses 13 through 16, Jesus teaches about those whom he's saved and who follow him, how they function as God's spiritual salt and light in a corrupt and sinful world.
[11:19] And Pastor Tyler will be preaching about that passage tonight. I encourage you to come. Now, in verses 17 through 20, Jesus teaches that the foundation for Christians to function as salt and light in the world is God's Word.
[11:35] This passage outlines four truths that Jesus believed and taught about Scripture. Why is this important?
[11:46] I think this is of extreme importance. When you think about who Satan is and what Satan most attacks when we read our Bibles.
[11:59] In the very beginning, in the Garden of Eden, Satan launched his attack against Eve by tempting her to doubt what? God's Word. In the wilderness, Satan launched his attack against Jesus by twisting what?
[12:17] God's Word. Taking it out of context to try to tempt Jesus to accept a crown without a cross. Satan desires your demise.
[12:28] And he works tirelessly to deceive you into either doubting God's Word or misinterpreting God's Word.
[12:39] In this way, he tempts us to put ourselves in authority over God's Word and become our own definer or our own interpreter then of the truth.
[12:53] But Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, would have none of that. And in these verses, he makes it clear what he believed and what he taught about Scripture.
[13:08] And if you truly follow Jesus, well, then you should share his beliefs, shouldn't you? You should share his desire to obey what he taught about in God's Word, all of God's Word.
[13:24] And so I ask you, do you truly believe what Jesus believed about the Scriptures, about the Bible?
[13:36] Well, we'll find out. Four truths that Jesus believed and that Jesus taught about the Scripture. The first truth, the first belief, I should say, comes from verse 17.
[13:52] Jesus believed that he fulfills Scripture. Jesus believed that he fulfills Scripture. In verse 17, he says, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
[14:04] I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. At this point in Jesus' earthly ministry, he had become famous. Large crowds of people were gathering to him and were following him around as a result of many of the miracles that he was performing and the way that he taught as one who had authority.
[14:27] The attention Jesus received was noticed by the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who, like everyone else, wondered who this Jesus guy was. Is he a prophet or is he maybe a false prophet?
[14:42] What was clear was that Jesus did not fit into the molds that these groups had established. Of primary concern to the scribes and the Pharisees was how Jesus taught things that contradicted what they taught.
[15:02] He taught things that contradicted their traditions, their laws, their traditions, which were based on their misinterpretations of Scripture.
[15:16] The scribes and the Pharisees realized, I think, that the standard of righteousness, God's standard of righteousness was impossible, even for them to attain and to keep, which was one of the reasons they invented their traditions, their rules, their regulations, because it was easier for them to keep those things than to truly keep God's law in every single way.
[15:46] Their traditions were very complicated. Their traditions were more detailed than what God had said in his word. But they gave the scribes and the Pharisees the impression that they were doing something.
[16:01] They were doing something to gain and to maintain righteousness. As a result, their traditions actually lowered the standard of Scripture.
[16:14] Their system of self-righteousness reduced God's standards and elevated their own imagined goodness, which Jesus often harshly criticized them for.
[16:27] And so many Jews assumed at this point incorrectly that Jesus sought to abolish the Scripture. And so here in verse 17, Jesus sets the record straight for everyone to hear.
[16:42] He did not come to abolish the law and the prophets. Those words together mean he's talking about all of the Old Testament, the law and the prophets. He didn't come to do away with the Scriptures.
[16:55] He says, no, I came to fulfill them. Jesus would have affirmed what we believe as Southern Baptists, the words about the Bible recorded in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 that says, all Scripture is a testimony to Christ who himself is the focus of divine revelation.
[17:17] Jesus said in John 5, 39, to the scribes and the Pharisees, those who accused him, and maybe even thought he was abolishing the Scriptures, he said, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.
[17:34] And it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. After his crucifixion and his resurrection, Jesus appeared to some of his followers on the road to Emmaus.
[17:48] They were confused about his crucifixion, and they struggled to reconcile the crucifixion, the death of the Messiah, with what they had read or what they had misinterpreted in the Old Testament Scriptures.
[18:02] And Jesus says to them, Later, when Jesus appeared to his disciples, He told them in Luke 24, 44 through 47, He said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
[18:53] Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, Thus it is written, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.
[19:15] So understand, Jesus did not unhitch Himself from Old Testament Scriptures. He came in fulfillment of them.
[19:26] He is the interpretive key that unlocks their true meaning. Without Him as the interpretive key to the Bible, we will misunderstand, we will misinterpret God's Word.
[19:40] All the promises that Jesus fulfilled, which proved that He is the promised Messiah, the King who brings blessing and eternal life to those who believe in Him.
[19:51] In the red letters, Jesus told us that the black letters are God's words, which He fulfilled. Well, what about the New Testament?
[20:04] The New Testament reveals how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament, doesn't it? And it instructs us in how to live as redeemed people, as followers of Christ, as salt and light in a sinful world.
[20:17] Those Scriptures are likewise inspired by Him, and there will be more on that in a moment. But let's move on to the second belief here that we see that Jesus had about Scripture.
[20:29] Jesus believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. Jesus believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. Verse 18, Now, the phrase there, for truly, is spoken by Jesus with a note of authority, an authority that transcends and exceeds the authority of all other teachers.
[21:02] The Greek word translated as truly in verse 18 is amen. And whenever you see Jesus use that word, or whenever you see Him say truly, truly, that's to alert you that whatever He is about to say is of extreme importance.
[21:22] In this case, it's to affirm the inerrancy and the authority of Old Testament Scriptures, which He came to fulfill.
[21:34] The next phrase, until heaven and earth pass away, occurs 31 times in Matthew's Gospel, and it means until the end of the age, or as long as this present world exists.
[21:47] In other words, as it pertains to His Word, God is not doing a new thing. He's not relaxed His standards.
[22:01] Though the times change, God does not. Some Scriptures pertain to a certain people, a certain time, for a certain reason.
[22:12] And we need to be discerning as we use Scripture to interpret Scripture. But we must exercise extreme caution when we study God's Word, because we can either be steered into extreme forms of legalism, or extreme forms of antinomianism, or lawlessness, without the law.
[22:38] Legalists are tempted to believe that the gospel just isn't enough. And we need to adopt some practices from the Old Testament, whether that's dietary restrictions, or different ritual observances.
[22:57] And the thought is that those things are necessary also for our salvation, or to keep us saved. But those things are no longer necessary for those of us who live on this side of the cross.
[23:16] Antinomians believe that God doesn't expect us to alter our lives basically in any way according to what is written in His Word.
[23:27] They are of the mind that, you know, if you love Jesus, then you're free to do whatever you want. But Jesus said in John 14, 15, If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
[23:42] A person who is truly saved loves Jesus because they know how great of a recipient of His grace that He's made them to be. They obey His commands because they love Him who first loved them.
[23:58] They desire to live a life that pleases Him, a life that honors Him, because they know that He's worthy. And they know that obedience to Him keeps them safe from sin's consequences.
[24:12] They don't keep His commands to earn His love or to gain His favor, thinking that doing so somehow keeps them saved. At this point, Jesus communicates His belief as the Son of God that the Scriptures and the truth contained within them are not things which we can ignore.
[24:35] They are not things that we can change. And they are not things that we can pick or choose from based upon what we like and what we don't like. It was to those who believed that Jesus sought to abolish the Scriptures and to those red-letter Christians today that Jesus issues this statement.
[25:00] His belief that God's Word is inerrant. Inerrancy simply means that the Bible is without error and thus we are not at liberty to pick it apart.
[25:13] We should believe, like Jesus, that all of the Bible, not just certain parts of it, are the words of God. They're without error because God is a God who is without error and we should thus believe all of it.
[25:33] Jesus emphasized this point by drawing attention to the smallest letter in Hebrew which the iota here refers to. That letter is yod.
[25:45] The yod in Hebrew looks like, in our language, it would look like an English apostrophe. It's a very small little mark, semicircle, like this.
[25:56] The dot is a tiny extension of a Hebrew letter. So, Hebrew is very different from English. When you're looking at Hebrew, you're, it's like looking at alien language.
[26:11] All these, all these letters and how they're written and how they're spelled from right to left and how you're supposed to read it, it's very hard language to learn.
[26:23] Some Hebrew letters have something called a final form. And, and that final form appears whenever that letter is at the end of a word.
[26:35] And the final form is just an additional line or an additional stroke that slightly alters the shape of the letter. I remember my Hebrew professor in seminary when we were having exams.
[26:50] He would come around and he was a nice guy and he would look over your shoulder and he had to do this a lot for me and kind of point and he would say, hey, don't forget the final form. Which meant I just had to continue making a little line or a little addition here to put it in the right form.
[27:07] Think of, think of like the difference in English between O and Q. What is the difference between O and Q? It's that little slash at the bottom.
[27:18] And so, what Jesus is doing here is he's using the strongest possible terms that he can to communicate the reliability and the trustworthiness of Scripture as he spoke about it in its finest details in the letters that God used to communicate his word.
[27:39] Jesus believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. Jesus prayed to the Father that his disciples would be transformed by the truth of his word that they would likewise believe in its trustworthiness.
[27:55] He said in John 17, 17, he prayed, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Jesus also taught in reference stories in the New Testament that are about figures in the Old Testament.
[28:13] He preached and he taught about Adam and Eve as real factual people in those events as real events. Same with Noah in the flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and Jonah being in the belly of a great fish for three days.
[28:28] Jesus believed the Scriptures were true and without error. When Satan tempted him in the wilderness again, he tried to twist Scripture.
[28:39] But Jesus answered each one of those temptations with God's word in the right context and when he had said it, he basically was like, and that's it. Right?
[28:50] God's word has authority. There's no more for us to talk about. This is what God's word says. It is true and there's no other argument for you to make. So if you come to a point in Scripture that you don't like, or that you disagree with, if you want to be like Jesus, you will believe that the Bible is God's word and that it's inerrant.
[29:18] And ultimately, as a follower of Jesus, the word of God who became flesh, you will trust in those times that Scripture is right, God is right, and if you disagree with it, that you are not right, that you are wrong.
[29:38] We live in a time that tends to, you know, kind of shrug its shoulders when confronted with error. Instead of asking like Pilate did, what is truth, people in our day say, nothing is truth, or there is no truth.
[29:59] And if there is a truth, we can't know it. And you know, we've grown accustomed to being lied to in our culture, haven't we? We just expect it from our leaders.
[30:13] We're not surprised whenever they lie and they're caught in a lie, we just kind of have grown to accept that people lie. And we've become too comfortable with that.
[30:25] And I think sometimes we've become so comfortable with that, that we assume that maybe there are errors in God's Word and tempted to believe that the Bible isn't God's Word, but it's things that people made up and it's full of lies.
[30:45] If you believe Jesus and if you follow Jesus, then you'll believe what he believed about the Bible, that it's inerrant.
[30:59] And if you truly follow him, you will desire to know his Word and to believe it and trust it and apply it to your life. Third, we see what Jesus now begins to teach about the Bible.
[31:14] He's told us what he believed, now he tells us what he's teaching about God's Word. And Jesus taught us to teach Scripture correctly. In verse 19, Jesus says, therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
[31:41] And so here, Jesus is building on what he just previously said about the authority of Scripture. And here, he commands us to handle God's Word with great care.
[31:56] To teach others to ignore it or that they can alter it has serious consequences. To teach others that portions of God's Word are not a big deal is a big deal.
[32:14] W.C. Fields was a famous comedian and actor in the 1900s. And he led an unrestrained showbiz kind of life displaying his fondness for things of this world.
[32:30] He was not a religious man. But one day when he was in the hospital and he was sick and he knew he was probably approaching death, a friend came into his room and saw that Fields was reading the Bible and had been reading the Bible.
[32:47] And when a friend saw him reading that and knowing that he had nothing to do with Christianity or religion or Bible for all of his life, the friend asked him, what are you doing?
[32:59] And Fields replied, I'm looking for loopholes. You know, there are a lot of teachers today who stand behind pulpits and who proclaim God's word, even people who study the original languages and they're scholars.
[33:26] And what they're doing is they're trying to find loopholes in an attempt to make the Bible say something that it doesn't say. And they do that in order to support whatever their political views or their socioeconomic beliefs are.
[33:45] There are others who do that because they want to try to make Christianity more appealing and so they remove the cross that we are called to bear as we follow Christ.
[33:57] They don't talk about what it means to be one who follows Jesus, that it's a life of self-denial as you bear the cross and follow him.
[34:09] I have a sign in my office, it's a quote from R.C. Sproul and it says, you are responsible to preach and to teach what the Bible says, not what you want it to say. And that's in my office and a place I can see it every day because I need that reminder every single week that what you need, what's most important for me to give to you is to preach to you God's word as it is without diluting it with worldliness or softening its edge with human opinions.
[34:41] If you've been in my office, you've seen that I have a lot of books and those books are my tools. I use them when I prepare sermons because I desire to get it right.
[34:55] And if you teach God's word, you must be prepared when you do that. as James 3.1 reminds us, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
[35:18] Some of you have commented to me that I use a lot of scripture when I preach. And I do that primarily for two reasons. One is because God's word is better than any word that I have to give.
[35:31] And second, I want you to know that what I'm preaching, what I'm saying, whatever points I'm drawing from the passage are supported by the rest of the Bible.
[35:45] That I'm not making this stuff up. I'm just sharing with you what God has said in His word. I stumble on my words as I have this morning.
[35:57] Sometimes I'll say something in a way that I didn't intend to say it. But my desire is to get it right. To preach it correctly. To rightly handle these words of life.
[36:11] And all who teach, all who preach must have the same desire. Because it's a major responsibility. The Bible teaches different degrees of punishment in hell.
[36:27] we see that in Matthew 11, 20-24 and it also affirms as I think Jesus does here different degrees of reward in heaven. You can read more about that in Matthew 25, 14-20.
[36:41] But what I want you to notice here at this point is that Jesus does not say that whoever relaxes these commandments and teaches others to do the same is outside of the kingdom of heaven.
[36:54] He didn't say that. He said that they would be called least in the kingdom of heaven. And again, there are some preachers, there are some denominations, there are some churches within our denomination who preach the gospel.
[37:14] They preach about Jesus. But they take a pragmatic approach to this, to God's word. word. Sometimes they avoid passages of scripture because they deem them to be too controversial.
[37:32] Now, that could cause problems within our church. You know, that's kind of controversial. Maybe we will avoid that one. Or unfortunately, maybe sometimes they avoid preaching certain passages in scripture because of how divisive they could be amongst God's people who should be united.
[37:49] They're preaching the gospel and that's good. But I think they're in danger of being called least in the kingdom of heaven. I don't want that to be said about me.
[38:06] And I hope that if you are teaching, that if you ever ask to preach in our church, that you don't want the same thing to be said of you.
[38:19] that you would be okay with being called the least in the kingdom of heaven. Paul urges Timothy, a young pastor, to impress this truth, these words of life, on God's people in the church.
[38:39] In 2 Timothy 2, 14-15, he says, remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel about words which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.
[38:51] Do your best, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be shamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
[39:07] In chapter 3, verses 14-15, he says, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you have learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
[39:28] Like rails for a train, scripture provides the track that guide the Christian life. faith in Jesus, loving Him, loving His commands, His words, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit provide the energy to power the engine that moves us forward as His word lights our path.
[39:51] So, don't wing your messages. Don't prepare your lessons or your devotions at the last minute. Don't fail to prepare.
[40:04] don't take the task lightly. Don't be okay with being called the least in the kingdom of heaven. Now, number four, the fourth truth.
[40:18] Jesus taught that scripture reveals our need for righteousness. He taught that the scriptures reveal our need for righteousness. In verse 20, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[40:38] So, Jesus has addressed the antinomians and their interpretation of scripture thinking that Jesus had somehow abolished all the other parts and that the red letters for us are more important than everything else.
[40:50] He's done away with that interpretation and now he's addressing the legalist interpretation of scripture. Scribes and Pharisees were highly respected people in Jesus' days.
[41:05] And I wouldn't doubt that as Jesus made this statement there would have been an audible gasp from the crowd. There would have been shocked expressions on the faces of those who heard because these men of all men, of all people were supposed to know and thought to have known God's word and obeyed God's word more than anybody else.
[41:29] They had developed 248 regulations, 365 prohibitions to fence, they believed, and protect the law, the words of God.
[41:40] They appeared righteous by their adherence to these regulations and these prohibitions. But as Jesus would later tell them, you are whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones.
[41:52] On the one hand, Jesus was telling the crowd that they needed a righteousness that went deeper, that penetrated further than the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees who created, again, an appearance of righteousness by keeping the regulations and prohibitions that they created and looked down on others who didn't follow those things.
[42:19] On the other hand, Scripture teaches us repeatedly that the righteous standard of God is impossible for sinful people to attain and measure up to.
[42:34] Isaiah 64, 6 says, we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
[42:49] The Bible tells us, over and over again, that we need a righteousness that is not our own, but one that only God can supply.
[43:02] And who has supplied it? In Jesus Christ, his son. Romans 4, 3 through 5 says, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
[43:16] Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
[43:32] Righteousness comes by faith in Jesus. It's not external. It's not based upon what we do. It's internal. And it goes to the heart.
[43:45] And from the heart, it seeks from the heart the kingdom of God and his righteousness. It produces a desire to serve him and to obey him, to apply and to adjust our lives to what we read and study in his word.
[44:05] The Old Testament law revealed our sinfulness and our need for a savior. The New Testament reveals that savior in his life, his death, and his resurrection, which set us free from sin's curse and eternal consequences.
[44:27] When a person is saved, they receive as a gift Christ's righteousness, his sinless life, as Jesus takes away their sin, taking it on himself, atoning for it on the cross.
[44:48] So what did Jesus believe about the New Testament? I don't want you to walk away thinking, well, that was primarily about the Old Testament. Well, what did Jesus believe about the New Testament? Is that something that Jesus believed was in Aaron as well?
[45:01] Is that something that Jesus would say was God's word? Well, the answer, the short answer to that is yes. And just real quickly, we see in John 16, 13 through 14.
[45:14] Jesus is talking to his disciples, those who will go and proclaim the gospel, some of whom will write gospels or who will give their account of Jesus' life to another who will write that down, which we have in God's word.
[45:27] He says to them, when the spirit of truth comes, he's talking about the Holy Spirit, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
[45:40] He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine, and he will declare it to you, and they declared it to us. Jesus appeared to the apostle Paul and called him to ministry.
[45:55] A lot of the New Testament was written by the apostle Paul. And Peter, disciple of Jesus, says this about Paul's letters which we have in the New Testament in 2 Peter 3, 15 through 16.
[46:08] And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, as he does in all of his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.
[46:24] I love this part. There are some things in them that are hard to understand. Does that make you feel good that even Peter, who walked with Jesus and who was a witness to his crucifixion and his resurrection and who preached that first message in Acts chapter 2 and the church was birthed and exploded, that even Peter found some of Paul's writings to be hard.
[46:46] It's not an excuse not to read them, but I love that. Things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant are unstable and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do with the other scriptures.
[46:59] He's comparing those letters to the other scriptures that God has inspired. When Jesus concludes this Sermon on the Mount, he provides a striking illustration.
[47:20] And in this illustration, he communicates that his words, recorded here in the New Testament, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are not only ones that you can, they are not ones, I should say, that you can simply have a take-it-and-leave-it attitude towards.
[47:41] They're of the utmost importance for your salvation, for your life, for your eternal life. Look at what he said. He's concluding this sermon in Matthew 7, 24-27.
[47:54] Verse 7. Everyone, everyone, who then hears these words of mine, and does them, will be like a wise man, who built his house on the rock, and the rains fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
[48:26] And everyone, who hears these words of mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.
[48:47] So what does Jesus want us to do? What is God's expectation for us? How to adjust our lives, considering what we've just heard about what Jesus believed and taught about Scripture?
[49:00] Well, I think it's very simply this. Trust and obey the Bible. Trust and obey the Bible. Trust and obey the one who inspired it.
[49:14] You know, last night we had a pretty, I mean, for Oklahoma it wasn't real intense, but it was a thunderstorm, right?
[49:25] And I know the first time we moved here, just where our house is at, it's on a little bit of a slope, and that was one of the first questions I asked our realtor was, are we in the floodplain? Is this house going to get flooded? I do not want to go through that.
[49:37] Oh, no. No, it's not. You'll be totally fine, and I trust her, and she's right. House is never flooded. But, man, sometimes when it rains like it did our little front patio, it starts to get a little bit high, and you know what I think in those moments is I'm so glad that this house is situated in a place where it will not flood, and I'm so glad that this house has a foundation, a firm foundation underneath it, and that I can stay in here, and I can stay dry, and I can stay safe.
[50:11] That is the case for the one who has put their faith in Jesus Christ, the one who knows that they are a sinner, who's been convicted of that, as Jesus says, who mourns over that, but then whose mourning turns to joy when they are shown that Jesus is that Savior.
[50:37] And it's not about who they are. It's not about their good works. It's not about what they must do to be saved or to stay saved. That Jesus is that rock, and he's that foundation, and the one who builds on that rock, that foundation will be safe from the eternal consequences of sin.
[50:58] Safe from hell. But don't miss what he said to those in the crowd who did not believe him. And if that's you this morning, you're not safe.
[51:11] The rains fall. The winds blew. That house fell. And it just just fall. Jesus said it was it it fell in a great terrible way.
[51:26] And if you're here this morning, if you're listening to this message, I'm glad. God, and I hope that our Lord in his grace has revealed to you that you are building on the sand, and that if you continue to do so, ignoring his word or rejecting his word, ignoring him as your savior, rejecting him as the son of God, that you're on dangerous ground.
[51:51] There is no more dangerous ground to be on. And he's calling you today. Turn to me, and I will save you. Turn to me, and I will heal you.
[52:04] Turn to me, and you'll be mine, and I'll be yours. You will have eternal life. Let's pray. Lord, it's clear from what we've read this morning, what you believed and what you taught about scripture.
[52:23] Lord, it's clear that the Old Testament scriptures pointed to your coming, revealing our sinfulness and our need for a savior.
[52:35] And in the New Testament scriptures, Lord, we have the fulfillment of that promise. You're coming. You're living. You're dying. You're rising again. And what that means for us now as salt and light in this world, as your people, Father, who you've called and you've commanded to go and make disciples.
[52:58] Lord, we will not be good. Our churches will not be strong, and our witness will be weak if we don't know your word, and if we don't trust your word, and if we don't take seriously the command that you've given us to be prepared whenever we're called upon to teach or to preach.
[53:19] God, I pray that for every one of us this morning, Holy Spirit, that you would grow our desire to know your word better, that you would increase our desire to apply it to our lives.
[53:32] Lord, that you would increase our desire to know it, not so that we can win arguments, but so that you can use us to express clearly these truths in the hopes that people will be saved by you and have eternal life.
[53:48] we ask for your help, we ask for these things, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. I'll see you next time.