a little bit concerned when I saw the passages, because they seem kind of disjointed. And I thought, you know, Mark had this nice parable that he talked about with the Shrewd manager last week, and there's another parable following this section. And these verses at the surface look a little bit like, wow, just a bunch of random verses. In fact, in the NIV, there's a subheading that splits the verses I'm going to be using. And it says, additional teachings. And so we're going to look at some additional teachings. Mark said that the Shrewd manager was a parable that was very strange, and maybe one of the strangest parables. And so what we're looking at are some strange verses this morning. And some of the strangest maybe that Jesus shared. But let me just open us with a prayer, just for God to bless this time and our word together. I do ask that you would just instruct us from your word this morning, open our eyes that we might see in our ears that we might hear, that we might see you in a fresh way this morning, and bring glory to you through our lives, for we pray this in your name, amen. All right. Well, well, like I said on the surface, it looked like these might be a little bit disjointed. But the title here, putting yourself above the law, I'm not going to be teaching you how to do that, that, okay, I just want to make that clear. This is about how the Pharisees sought to justify themselves by their own actions and putting themselves above the law even. While these might look a little bit, like I said, kind of disjointed, there's some common themes. And so I wanted to look at a little bit before we get into the verses of some theological themes that we see in the gospels, in Jesus' ministry. And these certainly aren't the only three there's others that we could come up with. But these are at least three common ones that you see over and over again, and they actually are addressed in these particular verses. One of them, the first one, the kingdom of God. It's a theme you see in Jesus' ministry over and over again, and he'll make reference to the kingdom of God as come upon you. Sometimes the phrase will be, the kingdom of heaven is near. And it's because when Jesus came on earth, the kingdom of God entered into human history in the person of Jesus in a unique way. And so that's one of the themes that we'll see over and over again. And the kingdom becomes real in people's lives as they get connected to the king. One of the other themes, of course, the saving work of Jesus, it almost goes without saying, but it's the biggest theme, of course. That's what it was all about. Jesus came to save people from their sins, and to offer his life as a sacrifice. When Jesus speaks to people, he points out their need for repentance, and he exposes the motivation of their hearts. And then also there's what I have titled the ethics of God's family. When we're saved, we're not just left in the same place and then we go on with our lives without giving any further thought to what's happened. There's expectations as a child of God. We're forgiven by God. We're to forgive others. We're loved by God. We're to love others. And so there are these ethics that God expects us to live. We're to reflect our Heavenly Father whom we serve. In these verses that we're going to look at, Jesus really starts with sort of the ethics in talking with the Pharisees and exposing their heart and how they sought to justify themselves. Then he's going to talk about John in the end of the age and we'll see that in the kingdom of God and he'll address some ethical issues there. Let's look a little bit about the context where these verses fall. It's always important, and Mark likes to harp on it in 92, you have to look at the context of a passage to understand what's gone on before. Is it a new section? Does it fit with the one that just came? Is it going to tie into the next one? And last week, Mark talked about the strange parable, the shrewd manager, in which he was dealing with the Pharisees and how they handled the resources. And following this, next week, the rich man and Lazarus, which is another parable about handling resources and what people did, and that's not why we started the offering this morning. You know, we are going to be talking about money and I saw and I thought, okay, well, I'll see how that ties in as I go if it does. But finally, and also, 1613, that kind of sets up what we're going to be looking at this morning, okay? As Jesus ended that teaching on the shrewd manager, he said, you cannot serve both God and money, okay? Well, let's go ahead and look at an overview and let me read the passages we're going to be looking at, picking up in verse 14. The Pharisees who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, you are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts, what is highly valued among men, is detestable in God's sight. The law and the prophets were proclaimed until John, since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. It's easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the law. Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorce woman commits adultery. Okay, I told you they seem kind of random, right? So I'll be giving six lessons this morning in the next, well, it is, and I think there is some connection, although sometimes you do get this in the gospels where you know, it almost seems like Luke heard these things, and they were shared to him, and as he was writing he wasn't sure where in the sequence of Jesus' ministry they fell, so, okay, let's put them all here, and sometimes there may be, but as God led them. In any way, we'll see the overview, we'll go through the verses and hopefully see some tie in here with them. Verse 14, how the Pharisees responded to Jesus, okay, they sneered, we'll talk about that. And then Jesus rebukes them. He comes back with a review, and then in verses 16 to 18, I saw that as, there we go, the only way to get right with God, and he talks about getting into the kingdom and our attitude. He addresses the law and talks about the law still being in effect. And then verse 18, you know, with marriage and divorce and remarriage and such, and adultery I just put, ethical living, and we'll look at those, one by one, okay, and let's look at the first one though, okay, their response, they sneered at Jesus, says, the Pharisees who loved money heard all this and they were sneering. The idea of the Greek word, there was sort of, gives the idea of a snort. Have you ever done that when you kind of discredit someone, you know, and it's not blowing the air through the nose and the mouth, that's what they're doing. In some versions, it'll say they ridiculed him. But they just, they didn't really agree with what he was saying, and it gives a real insight into their hearts, okay, they didn't hold Jesus in very high esteem. And so they were scoffing at him. And there's a little bit of irony going on here. In chapter 15, if you remember, when Mark taught, he used the whole chapter there, because that was about the lost things and found things, right, you remember that, the lost coin that was found, the lost sheep that was found, the lost son that's found. And in that particular chapter, it begins and kind of sets the whole thing up, because it says now, the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, this man welcomed sinners and eats with them. And so in chapter 15, the Pharisees were kind of critical of Jesus, because he was being too lax. I mean, look at the company he was keeping. He wasn't being very, very ethical as a rabbi, as they saw it. And yet in this verse that we look at now, now it's kind of the opposite complaint because if he suggests that you have to make a choice between serving God and money, they think he's being too tough. And so there's a little bit of interplay there. And the one hand Jesus is not strict enough, and now when he's talking to them, he's too strict. Well, it comes to the first takeaway there that I think you have in your notes, and that is that money matters because it shows where our hearts are at. You know, the human heart was made to love God supremely. Now there can be a lot of things that we love, but one love has to have the controlling influence. And if it's not love for God, and it's something else, we're in a bad place, and that's what happened to the Pharisees, Jesus points out their love for money. You know, money is a funny thing. I'm not here to talk about tithing or the offering, but the bucket's going around, there's more up here if you need them, just kidding. But the interesting thing is, money is sort of like a test run for us, because when we have something in our hands, one, it's necessary, right? We need money. So there is a necessity to it. The Bible doesn't teach that money is wrong, so if you have a lot of it, that's not bad. The whole issue is how your heart is with it. You can have a lot of money and have your heart be in the wrong place with it. You can have very little money or virtually no money, and your heart can still be in the wrong place with it. And the Pharisees, they happen to have, they liked money, and many of them were fairly well off. They loved their money, and their money was a barrier, and then being able to see and understand who Jesus was. And so it was moving them away from God. So why did they sneer? Let's kind of think that through a little bit. First of all, Jesus was a poor rabbi, okay? They had money. He didn't have money. And so don't we typically find it easy to sort of downplay someone who seems to be talking about something that they have no experience with? You know? I mean, that's sort of natural. It was easy for him to put down what he didn't have, and I think of it in this way in our own lives. You know, it's easier to see other people's faults and sins when they're not like ones that we really struggle with. Look at that person, I'm glad I don't deal with that. Boy. Haven't you got that together yet? And that's kind of some of what's going on, I think, here. You know, then so they do that. They're downplaying Jesus' authority to be able to speak in that area because he didn't have it. And so of course, why do we need to listen to him? And so they put that as a one way they just kind of discredited him. The other thing was the view of the day, and I have on there, riches and prosperity was seen by people in that day as equaling God's prosperity, His blessing, and His favor upon you. There's verses in the Bible, read through Proverbs, and that indicate God's favor in blessing sometimes materially. Well, the Pharisees took that to a T, and they said, huh. So if you've got money, you're in with God. If God's blessing your life materially, you're in good stead. And so if you want to prove to people, and this is sort of the thing with the Pharisees and wanting to make themselves look good in front of others, they wanted to make sure that they had enough stuff that they look good in front of everybody. And so they loved their money because of that. And so of course, it was easy for Jesus to criticize in their opinion because poor people can find it easy to criticize the wealthy for what they don't have, right? And then find the third thing, I think scoffing covers an uneasy conscience. I mentioned that because I kind of alluded to it earlier, a good way to ignore someone when your conscience is pricked is to discredit them. And I think of it this way, maybe as an example, and I'm not saying that all people do, but when I was a younger Christian, the evolution creation debates were in full fury, it seemed like. I don't know if it's as big as an issue now, but I think for some people, and I'm not going to deal with that whole issue today either, we have lunch is going to be coming up at noon. I'll mention this because I think a lot of people find it easy or desirable to believe in an evolutionary theory that doesn't allow for a creator because if somebody made us, and it doesn't even have to be a Christian view of God, if there's a supreme being out there, it begs the question, I might be responsible to them. They may expect something out of me. And so it brings in right away this moral and ethical requirement that you at least have to ask the question. And because people love something more than they love God, the evolutionary theory is very appealing, and so they scoff at anybody who brings up the idea that there could be a creator. Now I'm not saying that they all do that and think that through, but I think that's part of what happens, and I think that's what the Pharisees were doing here with Jesus. Well, let's look at how Jesus responds, it kind of gets to the heart of the matter here. In verse 15, when he says, you're the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts, what's highly valued among men is the testable in God's sight. The Pharisees were putting themselves above the law and many matters, and they wanted to justify themselves before the people and make themselves look good. And they put a lot of effort into doing that. And when we think of moral failures, I think we would probably tend to put the love of money down the list quite a ways, wouldn't we? I mean, I think of the big end to the Ten Commandments, murder, lying, stealing, things like that. And down there somewhere, yeah, you shouldn't love money, but it's not the same. And yet, this is the one when Jesus is addressing the Pharisees here that he says it's an appalling betrayal of our love for God that can put us squarely against the gospel of the kingdom and the salvation that Jesus is bringing. The Pharisees sought to justify themselves before men, okay? They wanted to look good in front of other people, not so much with their standing before God. And that's where the disconnect, their hearts were exposed. Jesus exposed them for who they were, and they would rather look good in front of men than in front of God. And that brings me the second takeaway. Oh, obedience does matter. And I put there as a little subnote there, serving Jesus brings a little bit of heaven. And what I mean by that is as we serve Jesus faithfully, we bring some of the kingdom life into this world, in the kingdom of God. People experience the love of God when we're doing what we ought to do. When Christians are loving others as they should, people experience unconditional love. When people are forgiven, even though they don't deserve it by Christians if they're be offended someone, they experience forgiveness even though they don't deserve it. And when we do that, we're bringing some of that kingdom life that Jesus talks about. We're going to look at it in just a minute into this world. The hard thing is the tendency for us is that we seek to justify ourselves like Pharisees sometimes, don't we? Think about it. All the way back to the garden, Adam and Eve, they did what God explicitly told them not to do. And so the first thing they did, they made coverings for themselves and they hid from God. And when God addressed Adam and he said, Adam, did you eat or the fruit I told you not to? What did Adam do?
The woman. It was the woman that you made. She gave me the fruit and I ate it. And so God said to Eve, what's this you've done? The serpent.
It's that serpent. So God then addresses the serpent, he cursed the serpent, the woman, and Adam. And here we are.
You know, in the counseling, this is called the blame shifting. And it started from the beginning and you know what, we still do it. And that's our tendency is to make ourselves look better. And my point in bringing that out is this, you don't look so bad when I can point out something bad in somebody else. It's what we do. We like to conceal our sin by making ourselves look better. That's what the Pharisees were trying to do. And money is a draw because money is an enabler. You know, I can have really nice clothes and come up in a really nice car. And what would you think of me? What's that pastor doing with that car? No, I mean, normally you see somebody in a nice car nice clothes and you think, wow, they must be successful. And if that were the case, people in Hollywood and the music industry ought to be the icons of our culture, oh wait a minute, they are. But I mean their lives should reflect, they should have everything together, right? And wouldn't they be the ones that God is obviously showering His blessings on them? You know, and yet you see, you know, not all them, but I mean, if you're looking anything yet, tabloids or news, you can't help but see it, their lives are a wreck, a lot of them. And so, and yet that money in our culture makes them successful, but their lives are not necessarily so. And to the Pharisees, their money confirmed their spiritual standing. And so it was easy to look at others and put themselves above others. Have you ever heard people say something like this? You know, I'm not perfect, but what are we doing there? We're trying to justify ourselves because usually you go on to point out somebody who's worse than you. And people do it all the time. And it's really the same kind of attitude about justifying ourselves that the Pharisees were doing. The important question isn't, what do others think of me? But what does God think of me? What's God's standard? God's standards, perfection. Be perfect. Be holy. And the only way that's going to happen is if we get right with God. Okay, now here we're getting into another vehicle. I was thinking about all these different verses. It's sort of like getting into a car and we take a little tour and see some things. And it's like, okay, we're going to stop here, get another car and see some different scenery. And okay, now we're getting out of that car and do another one. So it's another car and another view of the countryside. In verse 16, Jesus says, the law and the prophets were proclaimed until John. Okay, let me stop right there at least and talk about this first part of the verse. The law and the prophets until John. Okay, what was he looting to here? Well, I think at least in part the law and the prophets all spoke about the Messiah who was to come about a Savior that would come. And everyone from Adam and Eve to John the Baptist was looking forward and anticipating the people of God were looking forward to this Savior who would come. It took us, it was going to take a Savior to get us right with God. And so Jesus is pointing out the law and the prophets. Okay, we're proclaimed up until John. How it seems like it stopped. Okay, that's an epic. That's one period of human history he's talking about. Well, let's pick this apart just a little bit more. As he talks about getting into the kingdom here, he says, then since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached and everyone is forcing his way into it. Okay, this is one of those strange verses. Let's try to see what Jesus is doing here. Okay, it was proclaimed until John. The coming of Christ marked a major shift in human history. All the law and the prophets up through John the Baptist was one period as Jesus is teaching here. And now something else has happened, something else has changed. And it's because the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached. Jesus spoke of this earlier in Luke 443 that I put there where he said, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also because that is why I was sent. Jesus accomplished a lot of things here in his life, but one of the primary things he was here to do was preach the good news. And sometimes that gets lost. In fact, in this verse in Luke 4, he said this right after he had performed a miraculous healing and people were clamoring to him as this wonderful healer. And as they did so, he was kind of concerned and he said, no, I need to go to the other towns. I'm not just here to heal. They wanted to make him a full-time healer. That's not why he came. Jesus healed people and they were demonstrations of God's power in his life. They were attesting signs and miracles that validated his message and who he was, that he said, who he said he was, he really was, because nobody could pull these things off without God being behind him. But that's not why he came primarily. That was sort of like a side benefit because of who he was. One of his primary reasons for coming, obviously, dying on the cross. That's all part of it. That's part of the good news that he was proclaiming. But it was to preach. He was a preacher. And that's what he was doing as he went from town to town.
The good news had come because the Messiah was here. And because he was here, he was proclaiming a new message. You know, Jesus came and he lived the life that we should have lived and he died the death that we deserve so that we wouldn't have to. That's the good news. And he was proclaiming that. His life demonstrated it and his journey to the cross, the crucifixion and dying for our sins and raising it again. All of that was to that message. And the gospel is what saved us. Now, we have this interesting little phrase, though, at the end of the verse here.
Everyone is forcing his way into it. That seems to go counter against everything that I'm talking about in terms of Jesus coming to save us because it sounds like we have to do something to get there. I was talking to Mark about this a little bit and I said I noted a couple of the study Bibles and the NIV's footnote here says the meaning is disputed. In the English standard version, it says a puzzling and much debated statement. And Mark said the nice thing about that is you can pretty much say whatever you want and say, hey, it's disputed, you know. Well, there is some confusion. Matthew 1112 says something similar. Jesus says there from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advanced advancing and forceful men lay hold of it. Same kind of idea there. Why is it disputed? It's because it sounds like people get there by their works. And yet the good news is that's not how we get to heaven. We get there based on what Jesus did for us and all we need to do is receive his grace in our lives by faith and we're saved. And so there seems to be this conflict between entering by faith and forcing our way into it. Well, let's take that apart and this really brings me to the third takeaway. Do what it takes to enter into heaven. And what Jesus is teaching here is our things that you've kind of seen in different elements throughout Luke's gospel. We already mentioned that earlier this morning, Luke 1512, with the tax collectors and sinners, they were people who were the outcasts of society, but they were drawn to Jesus and they wanted to be in his presence. In Luke 5, you had the friends who brought the man who was paralyzed in a mat and they tore through the roof of a house to get their friend in front of Jesus. They did what it took to get his need met. I don't have it listed here, but Luke 8 is another one where the woman who was bleeding for years and couldn't be healed, pressed through the crowd to touch the hem of his garment. She did what it took. She pressed through and did what even shouldn't be done in their society at the time. Luke 13, Jesus tells people enter through the narrow door which indicates some effort on our parts and there were some other things to it. But these people were responding to Jesus' message and Jesus' person and they wanted to do and were willing to do whatever it took to get to him. Now, I think of something like this today, it'd be like, let's just fantasize for a moment and pretend the chargers went to the Super Bowl. And if you were a big chargers fan, the Super Bowl game is coming, you're not going to be dilly dallying outside the stadium. You're going to be pressing to get in to make sure you're there for opening kickoff. If that doesn't work for you, how about shopping? After Thanksgiving. Okay, I've never quite understood this. Special deal from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. and people will get up on one of their few days off during the year and line up to get into a store to get that special that's only good for two hours. I thought they were supposed to be customer oriented. You know, if it was customer oriented, it'd be like 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and they'll be coffee and donuts anytime you stop in. But people will press in for something they want. Anybody seen the movie, Twila? Any donut answer. People will lie outside movie theaters and camp out to see a movie to be the first ones in. You know, I kind of want to say, you know, it's going to be playing for like a month and you can just walk in in about three weeks and there won't be a line. The point is this, though, people will go to extraordinary efforts to get into a place that they really want to go. And that's what Jesus, I think, is talking about in these verses and about pressing into the kingdom. People had been waiting for the Messiah for centuries and now he'd come and people were practically breaking down the doors to get to him. Not all of them were obviously because the Pharisees weren't and there's the big contrast. They were concerned about how they looked in front of people. Not in front of God. And so when he came with a message that they'd been proclaiming and waiting for, they missed it. They missed the whole thing. And so it's good to ask ourselves, I think, what are we willing to do to make sure we're going to pass through the ancient gates of heaven into the presence of Christ? It'd be worth any effort and every expense to see the Lord in His majesty and glory in the kingdom that He oversees. And if necessary, would we be willing to force our way inside? The good news is we don't have to deal. We don't have to do it on our own. That's not what's required of us. But I think this might illustrate what we need to do. Do what it takes. Doesn't Paul say workout your own salivation with... I debated that one.
Well, let me move on to actually the verse. Paul says, therefore my dear friends, as you've always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Now, he doesn't tell them to work for their salvation, but he tells them to work out their salvation, work it out, and it takes some effort at times. Salvation is not something we just receive, and then go, well, that's great. Now I can check that off my list and just kind of go on my merry way. There's implications. Paul was a Pharisee, and he knew it was like to think like one, because he was one, and he's telling people the Christians not to be like them by putting themselves above the law, seeking to justify ourselves. It's interesting because Paul the Pharisee thought he could see, and yet he was blind, and it took him on a road to Damascus that Jesus had to blind him so that he would be able to see. And so his eyes were open, and Paul the Pharisee became Paul the Apostle. Well, that brings me to the next car we're going to get into, and that's this. The law is still the law, okay? I think what's going on here, and let me
pick this up in verse 17, Jesus says, it's easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the law. Okay, that seems pretty random, but I think there is a point in what he's saying here, because in the verse previous, when he's talking about the law and the prophets were proclaimed up until John, some people might think, ah, it's over. The age of the law is done. I can do what I want. And Paul had to write to some of the churches to point out, no, you really can't just do what you want and send the way you want. They did that in the book of Romans, and they said, you know, they were asking, hey, can we send more? We get more grace. If I'm a really bad sinner, God has given me a lot of grace, and I just, the forgiveness of Christ has just all that much more powerful. So I'll send more. How convenient. That's not it at all. And so Jesus is giving a clarification that the law is still in effect. He speaks about the Matthew. I'm not going to take the time to read it, but they're about the least stroke of a pen not being taken from the law. And I put a word up there. I couldn't get it to print and be any bigger. I don't know. It's a Hebrew word up there. So I hope you can see it a little bit. Now they read right to left in Hebrew. Okay, so the word is Gamal. You want to repeat that Gamal. Gamal. Okay, and it means camel. Okay, so if nothing else this morning, you know what camel is in Hebrew. Okay, Gamal. All right, and it's interesting. One of only two words in the Hebrew Bible that linguistically sounds similar to the English word. The other Hebrew word is sac. You know what it means? Sac. Okay, so there's two words you've got now. But what I wanted to point out here, and like I said, sorry for you in the back, because it's hard to see, but you see these little lines and such. And Jesus' point is this, it would be easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for me to take the little tail off of that letter on the right. It'd be easier for heaven and earth to be removed. Because if I took that little tail off the letter on the right, the letter changes and it's a different word. And Jesus was saying, God's law is so specific that the very strokes are important. And he's doing it to emphasize that God's law is God's law. And he didn't want people to be confused and think that he was doing away with the law. So let's ask a question because I think it begs it. If the law is still an effect, which ones apply? If Jesus came and fulfilled the requirements of the law. And I'm not saved by keeping the law. That's what the Pharisees were trying to do. But Jesus tells me how important the law is. What am I supposed to do with all that? How's that all workout? Which ones apply? All of them are some of them. Well, let's make some distinctions, because not all laws are exactly the same. And they can be broken down into ceremonial laws, moral laws, political laws. The ceremonial laws in the Old Testament that you read, those were usually about worship or had something to do with the worship and the Old Testament. Those would be things like some of the dietary laws, keeping yourself pure. They talked a lot about that and anybody reading through the 90-day, reading through the Bible. And where are we supposed to be now? Psalms? Oh, good. Not that far behind yet. But, you know, if you read through the law ever, have you noticed how much detail there was about the sacrifices? Oh, my. I mean, everything from how they were to cut it, get it, what was to be burned, what was to be thrown out, what was supposed to be eaten when, what wasn't, who was supposed to eat it, how it was supposed to be washed. Those were part of the ceremonial laws. And they were important at the time. All of those things pointed to the coming of a Savior who would fulfill what they pointed towards, because you see the sacrificial system pointed to the need for a sacrifice. And ultimately, God would give that sacrifice in Christ. And so, when you read the book of Hebrews, Hebrews talks about how Christ sacrifices so much better and how it canceled out the laws. It's the ceremonial laws that all had to do with a worship. Well, there's also moral laws, okay? The moral laws have a lot to do with our personal and community behavior. These are things the most obvious to be the Ten Commandments, okay? Just because I'm saved doesn't mean I can go out now and whack somebody and not expect to be held accountable for it. I can't go out and steal because it's still wrong. And those laws, Jesus never dismiss them as far as whether that we should obey them. And finally, when I'm calling political laws, and those were principles a lot of times of the moral law as they applied to Israel, and I know they weren't a church, I said church state, but when they were a nation literally under God, they were a theocracy. God was at the head. The modern church of Israel is not a theocracy. There are secular government like others, but they are, they have that history, but it's kind of important to keep in mind. And those are the laws, so that when it said if you violate the Sabbath, it was worthy of being stone to death. Adultery was also something that brought the death penalty, and that's why when you see in the gospel of John, when the woman that's caught in adultery is brought to Jesus, and the Pharisees are like, okay, first of all they're trying to trick him, that was obvious, but they were doing it and saying, what do you do, Jesus, are you going to fulfill the law? Do we stone her? And he laid that aside. No, first of all, you're a bunch of sinners anyway, and you all deserve it, and that's what he was writing in the sand, I think. No, but if you only knew. No, but he wanted to point out that that those laws didn't apply because they were no longer that nation. They were under Roman authority. And what happens sometimes, the reason I bring this out is because I think we get confused as believers sometimes, when we see all these different laws and we might see the incident where Jesus told them not to stone the woman and we think, well, then the law doesn't apply like it did. And the more laws of God don't go away, they're based on who he is, they're based on his character, and God doesn't change. So let me get to the fourth takeaway here and that is living ethically or holy matters. I put some verses there, Leviticus 192, be holy because I, the larger God, I'm holy, okay, that's the Old Testament law. First Peter says the same thing, be holy because I'm holy. He quotes that and applies it to us as Christians. Jesus in the sermon on the mount, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. God's will for his people is that we be like he is. And that's really why we're to keep the law. And how we do that, let me talk about the threefold use of the law. Anybody heard this? Oh, good. Well, I know when Pastor Ken was teaching, he talked about a guy named John Calvin and he did the little tulip thing if you were here for that. And I'm not here to talk about that part of his teaching. And regardless of what you might or might not think about Calvinism as a system of theology, John Calvin was a rather remarkable man. He wrote two volumes that are huge, extensive, called the Institutes of the Christian Religion. And they've been studied and evaluated per centuries. And he wrote those when he was about 26 years old. And they've stood the test of time. But anyway, Calvin was, whether you like his system of theology or not, he was very, he tried to think biblically, he used the scriptures and tried to systematize and understand the Bible. And he came up with this threefold use of the law. He said, you know, when you look at the law, there's certain things that we can see as far as how it's to relate to our lives. First of all, the law is a mirror. And I have got a number of scriptures and instead of trying to flip through my Bible, I printed them out to make it easier for myself and for time. Romans 3.20, therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law, rather through the law we become conscious of sin. And so when I look at the law, the laws of God, I see the character of God reflected in his perfection and then I see my failure. And so it reveals to me my shortcomings. Romans 4.15, where there is no law, there is no transgression. They're Paul saying, you know, if there was no law telling us this was wrong, we wouldn't, it wouldn't necessarily be wrong, we wouldn't know. In Romans 7, I won't read all these, but he says, what should we say then, is the law sin? Certainly not. Indeed, I would not have known what sin was except through the law, for I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, do not covet. And so the law serves as a mirror in that sense. And John Calvin said, the law acts as a schoolmaster then to drive us to Christ. Because when I see God's perfection reflected and I see myself, I realize I need fixing and I can't do it. So I need to go where I can get it fixed and that's Christ. The law also restrains evil. There are some verses there in Deuteronomy. Let me just read the last part of Deuteronomy 13 here, if the context is if anybody is trying to lead the people of Israel to serve other gods, it says, stone them to death because he tried to turn you away from the larger god who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery, then all Israel will hear and be afraid and no one among you will do such an evil thing again. So the laws were given and the penalties were given to restrain evil. And the law can't change our hearts but it can inhibit evil. Years ago when I was a young man, he heard a Jerry Falwell, you remember him, and there was a big organization called the moral majority. That whole thing was kind of going on when I was a younger man. And I remember seeing some bumper stickers. I remember one that said the moral majority is neither. I had to think about it. And then I remember this phrase being used that you can't legislate morality. And people were using that to say, hey, you can't put on me and tell me what to do based on your beliefs. That's kind of what it was going around. And while it's true that the law can't change our hearts, it can inhibit evil. When you see this and you're driving down the road, how many of you don't automatically look at your speedometer? And I would venture to say that some of you automatically hit your brakes because you don't need to look at your speedometer. You know. And the trick is being able to slow down rapidly without making it look too obvious. When the smoke comes from the tires and your fish tail, you're giving yourself away. No, but the point is, what does this do? It restrains action because there's a penalty involved. And so there are speed limits because they're set up actually for our benefit, though sometimes I wonder, too, where they're placed. But driving too fast can be dangerous to other people. And so there are laws. And when you see the enforcer, it tends to bring you back in line. And I usually think, how fast can I do this and still be? And don't we do that with the law, too? What can I do and still be? Well, finally, the third use there. The law guides us to good works. John 14, 15, Jesus said this, if you love me, you will obey when I command. And so one of the things that the law does there as well at Calvin pointed out is it tells us how we can please God. You want to know how to please God in your life? Put those commands in your life and blend them and get them into your lifestyle. So the law guides us to good works. Okay. As a summary, then, the Christian is, I think, is John Calvin saying here, one, we're free from the law as a system of salvation. I have a whole bunch of scriptures there. And again, I'm not going to take the time to go through them all. I'm watching the clock a little bit. But you can see them there. Roman 6.14, I'll read that. It says, for sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Galatians 3.25, now that faith has come, we're no longer under the supervision of the law. If you take those verses by themselves, and that's why Calvin had these threefold purposes, you can go to the extreme and say, I'm free from the, I don't need the law. We don't need the law to get saved. That's not how we get right with God. We do use the law, instead, for the believer, the Christian is under Christ's law as a rule of life. Galatians 6.2, I like using this in my ministry and pastoral care with people, carry each other's burdens. And in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. Paul makes reference to that law of Christ that's at work in us. There's obligations, but it's not to work our salvation, like Paul said, it's how we work out our salvation. And keeping those distinctions, I think, is really important. Two theological words that you may have heard there, justification and sanctification, because I think if we get the law mixed up, if we are understanding about it, it gets confusing as a believer. And we can either ignore some things that we should be paying attention to, or paying too much attention to things that we don't need to. Justification, that has to do with God pardoning sinners. It's based on our personal faith in Jesus Christ. It's His works and not our works. When God justifies us in Christ, it's a one time for all time act that God does in our benefit. Sanctification is growth in holiness. It's growing as a believer. You know, if you hadn't noticed, once you're saved, and you had maybe an area that you struggled with in life, did that just disappear like a puff of smoke? No, you still deal with it. And some of us find, after many, many, many years of being a Christian, we're still dealing with it. That's what sanctification's talking about. And in sanctification, it's a God-dependent effort. It's living out what Christ has done for me, and it takes me asking for strength from God's spirit to now live out what Christ calls me to. I can't love others like I'm supposed to. I need to ask God to put that in me. But if I don't really put the effort, if I don't really care, I've found that things don't happen. If I don't make the effort to live out what I am in Christ, I just kind of stay in the same place. Two important matters, hopefully, that kind of clarify how the law works together with it. The Pharisees, they sought to justify themselves through the law, and they totally missed its purpose. Well, let me jump then to the final verse there. Marriage, divorce, and adultery, a picture from one of my favorite films, The Princess Bride. And if you haven't seen it, watch it sometime because this guy is quite a character when he's conducting a marriage. So why do we have this here? Isn't this random? I mean, we're going through all this stuff, and now Jesus says, okay, anyone who divorces his wife, and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. This is a great way, I'm not going to leave much time for questions, Dan. Is that okay? All right, good. You can come up afterwards if you want to ask some. But let me just touch it and I'm real quick here. This is a good illustration of how we need to be careful when we take passages of scripture and begin to build a whole, basically, structure of theology or understanding around one particular passage. Because if you read this passage just as it is, we should probably have a time of prayer and repentance up here afterwards. This is not the sum teaching that Jesus gave on divorce and remarriage, okay? He's doing it for a very specific reason because the Pharisees didn't agree on it. They didn't agree on what were the requirements for marriage, divorce, and remarriage. There were two major schools of thought, the School of Rabbi Shammai. He took the conservative view that said it's adultery only. It came out of the book of Deuteronomy and there's a phrase there that says a man can divorce his wife if he finds some fault or some indecency in her, okay? And they took it that it was, well, if she's committing adultery, the School of Hillel was more of a liberal view and they said, well, that some fault, that could be a variety of things. If she's not a very good cook anymore, that's grounds for divorce, seriously. There was one of the rabbis in this school, what was it? Acaba. And he said, if you find someone prettier, you know, you've been married for a few years. The old hag doesn't look the same. And there's a young thing down the street, divorceer, okay? And that's what these two schools of thought were and here's the twist to it all. The Pharisees were justifying themselves. They thought they were keeping the law and above the law and that's how they got to God. They didn't agree when it came to marriage, divorce remarriage. So they couldn't both be right. Somebody's wrong and somebody's not keeping the law. And so they failed by their own, through their own traditions and discussions, they couldn't agree on what the view was and if the only way to get right with God was keeping the law and you don't agree with what that is, you're in trouble. Who's right and who's wrong? And so Jesus points out kind of weakness here in their own positions, that they don't even agree in how the law is to be kept.
Jesus in Mark 7 and 19 and I'll just wrap up with this, said this about the Pharisees. He said, they worship me in vain. Their teachings are but rules taught by men, thus you nullify the word of God by your own tradition that you may, that you've handed down and you do many things like that. And so just quick summary here are the four takeaways. We've gotten in and out of a lot of different vehicles and seen a lot of countryside. But I hope you kind of got the feel for what's going on in these really transitional verses between these two parables. I think there's connection. I think they're tied together. Jesus covers a lot of things that we could have taken a whole hour with on each one. But he wanted to show that the Pharisees were wrong and how they were trying to serve God. And he wanted to make sure that his followers knew and understood. Money matters, chose for our hearts at. Obedience matters. God cares about how we live and when we follow Jesus we can bring parts of the kingdom of God into people's lives. Do what it takes. We don't work for our salvation, but we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And how we live an application of the law. So with that, I think we're about done. Does anybody have a, okay, I could take one question.
If anybody has something that you want to, that just really hits you there,
otherwise I don't want to keep you if you're trying to get up to the service. There's things to purchase up there.