In our second session, we are going to continue the exposition of Jesus' fidelity to the law, and specifically we're going to move on to another phase. The first thing, the first principle I was giving you was, that Jesus is concerned not simply that we do the right things, we do the right things for the right reasons. We have a coherence between our motives and our actions. I chose to use the teaching on murder for that. We could do the same thing with a teaching on adultery, and maybe I'll just very briefly suggest what Jesus has in mind there. He says, don't commit adultery. That's the teaching, that's the requirement. But then he goes on to say, it's not enough to refrain from the actual deed. One must also refrain from the thoughts. Now the way Jesus puts it, the way it's put in the Greek in Matthew 5.28 is interesting. He says, I tell you, NIV says, I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lostfully has already committed adultery in his heart. The Greek is anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her or in order to lust after her. Now what this is doing is distinguishing between then looking at somebody saying they're beautiful, or maybe in the case of a man, he's very handsome and attractive and so forth, and maybe having a temptation toward lust, that's one thing. But if you reject that you haven't sinned, what Jesus is saying is anyone who looks in order to lust, that's the intent, that's the purpose, to indulge the eye and so to indulge the heart, to indulge the desires in the direction of lustfulness, that is the sin. Now less we think that this is a white matter to have lustful thoughts thinking, well I'm not acting on it. Jesus uses extremely strong language, which so if your reading is discussed hyperbole, if your right eye causes you to sin, gouged you out and throw it away, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and so forth. Now this is not to be understood literally because a one-eyed man or woman can still commit a lot of sins with that one eye, and a one armed man, if you've seen the fugitive, you know that a one-armed man can do a lot of damage. So we aren't supposed to take this in a literalistic manner but rather to make it clear that God is very serious about this, it's not a trivial thing to only sin in your heart or only sin in your mind. The next set of be attitudes can be, sorry, the next set of teachings along this line, you've heard to this said that I said to you, can be understood a little bit differently and my overhead that I crafted doesn't quite fit. I'm calling it going beyond the tolerable to the ideal, that's the title I'm giving it, and then a little graph or a little image, when people are total pagans, they live in sin, maybe almost entirely given over to it only limited by the question, what will happen to me if I get caught or if I harm somebody who's powerful if I break a law and someone doesn't like that. Then to some extent the law of Moses lifts the people of God an enormous distance out of the paganism that they were in or near paganism when they lived in Egypt for a number of years when they fell away from covenant obedience and you have a number of standards that he gives and I'll explain this in a minute. Then Jesus takes some of these standards which are an enormous improvement over the ways of unbelief, the world paganism and he says those are good but we can do better yet. Now that's to some extent what is happening in the next four things that Jesus talks about under the category of divorce and Oaths, an eye for an eye and loving your enemies. Divorce here, and in Matthew chapter 19 verse 1 to 12, is where I'm getting the idea from because you see in the ancient world both in ancient Egypt and in the ancient Near East in general and in the Greco-Roman world for quite some time divorce was rampant. Now it wasn't the same in every place at every time but broadly speaking in Jesus' day people rarely got married in the formal sense. They rarely registered the state, they registered if they had enough property that they might need to divide it up among heirs or something like that. What people actually did was simply lived together and that was kind of like getting married and then if they got sick of each other they just left and that happened a lot. In Israel, in Moses' day and in Jesus' day so we might say the Jewish world men could divorce their wives for almost any reason. In fact that was, I think we briefly talked about it in our second session together. The debate was, can a man divorce his wife for absolutely any reason? Remember that little discussion? Any and every reason. In fact some actually taught that if a woman simply gets ugly that's enough or if she gets a little too mouthy that's enough. Or as I told you I think, if she burns a meal twice that's enough. Now Moses said to the people of Israel in Jesus' refers to it in Matthew chapter 19, Moses says, you can't get a divorce for any and every reason. What Moses said was that you can, in this 19-7 of Matthew, that you can give your wife a certificate of divorce and send her away. Now you can't just give her a certificate of divorce any time you want. Deuteronomy 24 says, Deuteronomy 24, one to four says, she has to have done something shameful. Now again some rabbis said, well getting ugly is pretty shameful and mouthing off is shameful but that's not what Moses meant. The language he used was very strong language for a deeply shameful act. So Moses said, no more freelance divorces divorcing anybody any time you want. You've got to have a substantial cause. You've also got to give her a certificate of divorce so it's public that she can remarry. And furthermore, if you divorce her and she marries another, you may never have her as a wife again. So think twice because women got remarried rapidly in the ancient world if they possibly could since they needed the protection of a man. So those were three qualifications designed to sharply limit divorce and to get people far from the sloth of paganism. But Jesus says as good as a lot of Moses is and it certainly is good, we can do better yet. And instead of simply saying whatever happens, the only ground is something truly shameful. Jesus says actually only for unfaithfulness. So he specifies that's just something shameful but the most shameful thing that breaks the marriage bond most publicly and potently. That is the ground. Now divorce. Now I'm not going to give you a theology divorce here, I'm just pointing out that Jesus is raising standards. Maybe it's clearest to get away from that volatile issue of divorce just for a minute. It may be clearest what Jesus is up to in the second one in this category and that is Oles, a category of Oles. Now we don't talk about Oles as much and maybe that makes it easier for us to see what Jesus is talking about. In the sloth of paganism people tell lies whenever they can get away with it, right? The law of Moses and the law of various other lands tries to lift people up and get them to tell the truth by the custom or the institution, the social institution of the oath. And an oath has the form, classically speaking, if I am not telling the truth, may God judge me. May God strike me down. May God destroy me if my word is false. May I be slain. That's the classic ancient form of an oath. And so you're saying you can count on me telling the truth. Well now, counting on people telling the truth is far superior to rampant lies and in fact Oles are used in the law of Moses. Specifically, in the law of Moses, we have first of all God himself taking Oles, swearing to Abraham, to love a son, that he'll have heirs and so forth. And in various other places, I'll just give you some references. Genesis 22, 16 to 18, Psalm 132, verse 11, Psalm 119, verse 106, God makes promises to Abraham or to Israel or to his people. He takes Oles. He says, may God says, may I be destroyed if I don't do this? So God takes Oles. Furthermore, God regulates Oles in the Old Testament. He says, don't take Oles rashly, right? Don't take a vow rashly. And he says, if you do, be sure you pay what you vow and know that I am the judge and I will hold you to account. You can find out in a place like Deuteronomy 23, verses 21 to 23, but I think that would be familiar, a familiar idea to you. Now, if you want to make it a little bit more contemporary and see what Jesus is driving at, probably a better thing to do would be to get away from Oles, which most of us take a couple times in your life. When do we take Oles? Testifying court. When you get married. When you get ordained as an elder or a deacon. Okay, when else do you take Oles? Testifying a court. Enter the military or enter some civil office. How many of you have taken more than two Oles? And how many people? How many of you have made a lot of promises? A promise is today, like an oath, basically similar to what an oath was. Now, why do you make promises? To get somebody to believe you. Okay, in fact, that's the most common thing I do. When I'm telling jokes to my kids and they say, oh, daddy, that's not true. That's not a true story. And I say, oh, yes, absolutely, it's true. I'm telling you. Do you promise? Do you promise us true? And then that's the magic word. And if I don't promise us. Now, why would I do a thing like promise? I'm your father. You love me. You trust me. Daddy, do you promise? So now, honey, my word is good. Do you promise? I mean, I've got to tell the truth. Now, that's a funny one at home with you that is a game. Unfortunately, at home, kids sometimes learn to get their parents to promise other things. Honey, if you help me break the leaves, I'll take you out for ice cream. The wise child sometimes learns to say, do you promise? Not because parents are a liar so much as because, oh, I forgot. I got so busy. It's your bedtime. We'll go on Saturday. Saturday comes and goes. Still in the ice cream. Oh, I mean, you should have told me I meant to. Honestly, I did. Maybe I'll get you a donut on next Thursday. And so that wise child says, do you promise? Now, the phenomenon of do you promise is a testimony against us. If we have to promise to our kids, what it means is our kids have learned they can't quite trust us. That doesn't mean they're hostile. It just means we're not as careful as we should be. And if we have to, as the comment was made over here, if we have to promise to make people believe us, it may suggest that we're not quite believable by ourselves. Or it could suggest, of course, that they've been dealing with other people who aren't believable. And they don't know that you're different yet. We could always hope that's the case anyway. The idea then is this, if we could move out of line, good, we move to taking all's and promises to make sure we tell the word, but isn't it, we're telling the truth, wouldn't it be vastly superior if our yes was yes and our no was no? If when we said yes, it meant yes. And there was no need for a follow-up because then we would be totally honest, we might say, all the time. And if we said no, then it would be no. In fact, some of you here are pastors and organizers, things in your church. I've actually got a rule for this. It goes like this. If you're organizing a church activity, you want to know who's going to be there. And you ask somebody to say, I will definitely be there. It's 75%. And if they say, I'll probably be there, it's 50-50. And if they say, it's 50-50, it's a 10% chance. And if they say, I will not be there. Then it's back up at 25. Because they feel guilty or sad, or maybe they're a truth teller or something like that. And they never want to discipline anybody. What Jesus is up to is this, that we should press beyond simply a standard that gets us by in the world and move up to something where our words and our actions are identical. Now, very briefly, this is also a test case of how you interpret the Bible. No oaths. Remember, we talked about how you should take the sermon amount. I want to just do that with you a little bit. A Roman Catholic would say, this is wonderful for super Christians. The two-tiered ethic, truly noble people, should live their lives that way. And then about this, a literalist would say, if it means I have to withdraw from society, then I will. Maybe by not taking oaths, I can't serve in the military, I can't testify in a court, and if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is, I won't do it. I must literally obey the law of God. A Lutheran would say, the early Lutheran actually Calvin Swingley made some remarks, kind of liked it, that this business about no oaths applies to your private life, but it doesn't apply to your public life. Your public life is one in which you live in and buy the standards of the world and the world requires us to give oaths and so we should sometimes give oaths, but privately try to live that way. What I would like to do, instead of running through every last, well, the later Lutherans would say, this command, no oaths, just shows you exactly how sinful you are. Try to live without oaths, try to live without promises. It'll bring you face to face with your failure and drive you to Christ. There's some truth in that. I think the thing that would be best in the outlook that we would espouse here, which is a reformed school, a reformed theology, is described through a term, the analogy of scripture. The analogy of scripture means drawing all scripture to bear, bringing all other scriptures around to bear on the question. So, should we never, ever take an oath in our whole life? I think the best answer is this. We should absolutely aspire to that. We should seek to live our lives that way. If we say we'll do a thing, we'll do a thing, but we may meet people who don't know us, and they've met a lot of liars over the years. And there may be a situation where the pressure to, maybe say something you know what quite means, is very high, like in a courtroom situation. In that case, since there are other scriptures that say it is permissible on occasion, from the Old Testament and God Himself, to people who may not quite believe Him, since God does it, then maybe in a situation where people don't know us, we can take an oath. Not because we need to, but because they need to hear it, since they don't know we're liable. That's bringing all the scripture to bear on that question. I feel like pausing for a question on that, if anybody wants to ask or comment, Greg. You know, actually now you're going to make me be picky, because I asked the question, if you take a note, really I think there is a difference between a marriage, vow and an oath, because an oath really does have the form of may God punish me if I don't. Now it's true that we take a vow, the presence of God in these witnesses, and God is the one who seals a marriage. Certainly at least a Christian marriage, we would say that is the case. But the real purpose of the marriage vows is toward each other. It's really an expression of love and faithfulness and the threat that is technically implicit in an oath. I don't think it's there. You know, we don't say in the marriage vows, I will love and cherish you, and if I don't make God tell me. So, I mean, they're very close, but I don't think they're quite identical. Yes. Do some aspects of the Old Testament law become passe? Are they, sorry, can't think of another word, superannuated, no longer necessary, because something higher has come. That's a complex question I hope I can give. I wish I could give it a wonderful answer, I'm not sure I'll be able to do that. Let me say first of all, that this little diagram does cover a lot about. There are a lot of Old Testament laws that took us a huge step towards God's ideal, but they weren't quite there yet. One is slightly more loose divorce in the Old Testament than in the New Testament. Another one is O's, changing here. Another would be something like accidental death, maybe cities of refuge. Well, that means that's because of the prevalence of blood feuds and family, families taking revenge. Wouldn't it be better if people investigated and forgave so you could live and not have to move to a city of refuge? So there are a lot, I won't say a lot, but there are a number of Old Testament laws that are a great improvement, but they're not perfect justice. And there are other Old Testament laws that somehow point us to Christ, like this temple ritual, the tabernacle and temple ritual. There are others that had to do with the particularities of life in that country, like how you go to war and don't destroy fruit trees. Now all I have to say, what we need to do is always believe that any law from the Old Testament has a vital truth and a vital principle and is embodying some part of God's truth. But cultures do change, and the embodiment of the truth may change as we live in a different situation or as we have more light. We're never saying something is false, but we sometimes go farther as we get a new commander, a new law. That's not a complete answer. The short answer to your question is, how do we know, how do we treat the Old Testament law? The answer is basically case by case, pain, staking, exegesis, always trying to find out what's the issue here, what's being addressed, or maybe some law looks very strange to us about bulls or about. Rooms on houses and things, never just say, oh that's some old law, we don't do that. What's the principle? Rooted out, ask how it would apply today, in what situation there's a similarity today. We're not here to say one more thing, but we're not doing here simply throwing out oaths, we're saying let's understand what's going on and let's understand how Jesus is taking us deeper with your yes being yes and your no being though. While the show in the mouth continues, and it keeps on getting harder, and especially verses 31 to 48, things keep getting tougher and tougher. Do you notice that Jesus takes us to the ideal first of all, in 31 and 32 with your wife, person nearest to you, and then 33 to 37 with oles that's in your society, so people not quite as close as your wife or your husband. Then next in verses 38 to 42, it's the teaching on an eye for an eye, and what it's saying is have this ideal toward those who harm you, so from your wife, to your neighbor, to those who harm you. Toward them, turn the other cheek, and don't resist, that used to be that people would do an eye for an eye to tooth for tooth, so you smack me, knock out one tooth. The pagan way was, I'll knock out all your teeth. Moses said, no, no, no, tooth for tooth. You knock out a tooth, he knocks out a tooth, restrain vengefulness. Jesus says, there's actually something even better. The thing that's even better is to turn the other cheek to your enemy, toward those who harm you. Then just a little step further beyond those who simply harm you, we have those who mean to harm you, those who plan to harm you, your enemies. Then this one is truly daunting, not just faithful to your wife, faithful to your word, forgiving. You must now, he says, love your enemies. It just keeps getting harder and harder. And of course, then in verse 48 is the hardest of them all. You shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Now some people say the word here, perfect, does not really mean perfect, the Greek word means mature. In which case we have good news, we don't have to be as perfect as God, we only have to be as mature as God. It's a vastly easier thing. What he's saying is meant to drive us to the realization that indeed everything is required. It is true that we come around more than once for the theme, blessed are the poor. You ought to know your spiritual poverty by the time you get done with this list of demands that Jesus is giving as he goes deeper and deeper into your obligations beforehand. But I also need to tell you, there's a twist to this. Most of your translations say, I would imagine, be perfect therefore as your Father and Him is perfect, right? But you might, if you were listening carefully, you might have heard the way I said it. I did not say, be perfect therefore. Did you hear what I said? Did anybody notice? I said, you shall be perfect and that is indeed a literal translation of what Jesus said. He said, you shall be perfect. Now that little statement, you shall be perfect, is a demand but it's also a promise. It's a little bit like a teacher saying to the student, bring that note up to me and the student doesn't want to bring the note up. I said, bring that note up to me. Or he might start off mildly. Johnny, would you please bring that note up to me? I don't want to. Johnny, I need you to bring that note up to me. I don't want to. Johnny, bring a note to me. I'm not going to. Johnny, you will bring that note to me. Now in one sense, that's the stiffest command possible. Not only my commanding, but I'm telling you you're going to do it. But there's also in there a promise. You will do it. You shall be perfect is the highest demand, but it's also a prediction. You will be perfect.
God is demanding everything. Perfection. He's also saying it will come the past and even notice the way he says it. Be perfect as you are father and heaven is perfect. There's that beautiful balance between the two sides of our relationship with God. He is our father. The highest demand that God gives us is that we be like our father. And in one sense, that's the easiest thing in the world to do. I mean, if you ever see a father and his son walking, you ever notice how similarly a father and their son walk or their accent, they may not look the same, but they just kind of say words and they have similar gestures and so forth. It's natural for a father to be like the son, son like the father is your father. All he's saying is be like your dad. On the other hand, he is your dad in heaven, so it's not that easy, I guess, after all. It is hard, but it is a prediction. You will be perfect as your father is perfect. So God commands, but he also promises. I want to press on to Matthew 6 because it is closely related to what we've been talking about up to this point. The theme verse for the body of Matthew is 5.20. You can divide up the serving amount, the body, following the introduction, the introduction describes the character of a Christian, the attitudes and the results of that character. Then the great body of the thing is 5.17 through probably 6.33. Maybe 7.12 depending on how you think about a couple of things. 5.20 says your righteousness must succeed that it describes in the Pharisees. What we've just been doing for the last hour is talking about how your righteousness can exceed that of the scribes. Because the scribes knew the letter of the law and knew what you were supposed to do, and Jesus said you've got to go beyond that. You've got to do it from the heart. Now how are you going to beat the Pharisees? How are you going to have a greater righteousness than they do? Well I believe that's described in chapter 6 verses 1 to 18. Now it never says in so many words, now I'm talking about the Pharisees. But what it does do is return to the question of motives again, and when you look at the question of motives it's not hard to see that the Pharisees had some difficulties with motives, and some of the difficulties the Pharisees had fit very well with the description here. You read, what are some traits of the Pharisees? What were the problems the Pharisees had? Not their flaws, what was wrong with them? Yes, Dwayne. They did not associate with people who were below them spiritually or morally, what else? Problems the Pharisees had, yes. They were outwardly clean but inwardly like white wash tunes. They were what's the one word? The one word that Jesus used pretty frequently is that they were hypocrites. Now here we have Jesus interacting with the problem of hypocrisy furthermore, so this fits the idea that they were hypocrites. Secondly, it fits the most pointed or the focal point of the Pharisees' quest for righteousness. There was a saying in the book of Tobit, chapter 12 verse 8, it's part of the Jewish writings in the period between the close of the Old Testament and the open of the New Testament known as the Apocrypha. Tobit 12-8, which is very popular with them, says, prayer is good when it is accompanied by fasting, almsgiving, and righteousness. The way the Pharisees took it was, the way you should be righteous is by these three things, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Now what do you have in front of us in chapter 6 verses 118? You have almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, so it's a very close fit for the Pharisees here. And yet, as soon as I say that, I want to be careful, lest I give you the impression, okay, class, let's have fun ripping on the Pharisees. We'll just sit back and talk about how bad they are and want to be fun to point the finger at somebody else. DA Carson, who is one of the great Christian writers of our day, said this about hypocrisy as it can creep into the life of a disciple, after all this is a sermon for disciples. He said, we humans are a strange lot. We hear high, moral injunctions, and glimpse just a little of the genuine beauty of perfect holiness. And then prostitute that vision by dreaming about the way others would hold us in high esteem if we were like that. The demand for genuine perfection loses itself in the external goal, the lesser goal of external piety. The goal of pleasing the Father is traded for its pygmy cousin pleasing men. And I think well stated, I mean, how many times have you and I set out to do something good and then said, man, it would be nice if somebody would notice. Boy, it would be nice if somebody realized how much I am sacrificing here. And then of course, it's not that big of a step from hoping somebody notices to doing something or saying, just dropping a little something somewhere and some conversation so somebody knows what you did. What Jesus says is, He says it over and over again, if you are bent on having others observe your righteousness, you can succeed at it and you will be rewarded. But you might say, His principle is, every good deed is rewarded exactly once. If you want it to be rewarded in the court of mankind, if you want to be praised and get your reward on this earth, then you will get it. But that's your one reward and you will then not be rewarded for it in heaven. But if you bypass and do not seek reward on this earth, then you will get your reward another time and that is in heaven. Do you notice the echo? It's said, over and over again here. Jesus says three times, six, one starts it and then again, a couple more times. Be careful not to practice righteousness so as to be seen by men. When you do X, whether it's fasting or almsgiving or praying, do not do X fasting or almsgiving or praying, as the hypocrites do to be noticed by men, they have the reward in full. Rather, when you do X, almsgiving or fasting or prayer, do it in secret, conceal it, do it in a room so no one notices and then God will see and reward. If you do your work for man's praise, you will receive it and you will receive nothing else. You can put it this way. Jesus says that we should be righteous. We should have a hunger and thirst for righteousness and that should manifest itself so the world sees it 5-16. We should be holier than vow with regard to the world. But we should not have a holier than vow attitude. Be holier but hide it. Don't wear it on your sleeve. That's what he's saying. Let's take a look at these very briefly, it's the basic principle. Very briefly, first of all, the assumption is that we're going to give the meaty and I think I'll just leave it at that. He assumes that we give the meaty. He also assumes the third of the three traits he describes here. He assumes that we fast and he assumes that we pray. I'd like to just say a couple words about Jesus commentary on prayer. Let's take a look. I know you've studied it so many times but let's take a look for a minute at the Lord's prayer as a test of true righteousness. First of all, notice that when you pray verse 5, you should pray in secret. Now it says in verse 6, some translations say in your closet. I think that's the King James. They may have King James here. Old King James. Does it say closet? It says closet. That does not mean you have to get in with your coats. What it means is a room that doesn't have windows, an inner room so that not only are you not praying on the street corners but you aren't praying where even you could stand by your window and people could admire how you're praying. It's so wonderful how you're praying. Your prayer should be a secret event. It's not that public prayer is a sin because there are lots of public prayers in the Bible, Book of Acts and so forth. Rather the idea is the essence of prayer is private. The essence of prayer is conversing with God. And while you can conversely God in public, it's harder. Another test of your prayer life would be, do you do most of your prayer? Do you do your most thoughtful prayer in public if you do and something's a miss? Private prayer is the essence so Jesus says. And when you do, your method must not be manipulative. Jesus says in verse 7, when you pray don't keep babbling like the pagans for they think they'll be heard because of their many words. Now, to be candid with you, I forgot. I think I'm just going to run down over break and get a prayer, a pagan prayer. In pagan prayers, what they sometimes did was list every single God they could think of. Maybe list 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 Gods from all kinds of religions. Then they have a simple request, give me health. Give me a safe journey. Give me profit on my trading venture. And then they would ask them to promise something to the Gods. And what they thought was that by calling on every God in sight, that some God who might be interested to pay attention and give them what they wanted. And others sometimes thought if you just said it over and over and over again, that if the Gods are asleep or looking the other way, they might wake up and notice that the request is coming again again. That's manipulative. And it also flows from a defective concept of who God is. What he says is, he'll hear, even before you ask, you don't need to shout and get his attention or say it over and over. And not only should you have a high view of God, but your petition should be theocentric. Do you notice? You've noticed that the first three of the petitions in the Lord's Prayer are theocentric. The first one is, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Second, die kingdom come, and then explaining that, may your will be done. I simply want to suggest you that no matter how long you've studied, there's always more room to press. Let's give you one example of that in terms of understanding the Lord's Prayer. hallowed be your name is the first request. May your name be revered. May your name be honored. A lot of ways of doing that. One way is that we should always sanctify every use of God's word, God's name. So maybe like the third commandment, don't take the name of the Lord in the name. hallowed God's name by praying sincerely, God as your father and so forth. hallowed God's name, revered his name by lifting it up sincerely every time you take it up. Now you know that. You know that when you pray, you should mean it, when you sing, you should mean it, when you say the apostles creed, you should mean it and so forth. But do you know that you also carry God's name with you in another way? You take up your name of God, but do it another way. And that is you bear the name of God on you. You're baptized into the name of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost. And what we are most commonly called is Christians, which could be slightly repornounced Christians. So when somebody sees a Christian driving around town and there's a praise the Lord bumper sticker and you go roaring through a deep orange light, we will call it red, we'll call it deep orange. You're going through that light and then they say, oh, so that's the way Christians drive. You are lifting up the name of Christ in your driving or when you work, the name of Christ rests upon you and may we live our lives and we should pray that we would live our lives in such a way that the name of Christ which we bear is hallowed is revered by all who know us. Because of what we do in the way we live. Not just a sample and you know, there's lots of other things we could talk about that maybe you know, there's a lot of room to continue to ponder the Lord's prayer. So it's a theological prayer, but it's also frankly, candidly a realistic prayer. We are free to pray for the things that we need such as our bread, such as forgiveness, such as release from temptation. Chapter 5 verse 20, your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. If I'm right and I don't stand alone in my analysis, we've talked about the scribes, just given some highlights, we talked about the Pharisees, we're different from the Pharisees in that we do the right things for the right motives not to be seen by men. And now what about the standard of a disciple? Well, first of all, a disciple is one who is loyal to God. And in a sense, we've already been talking about that in Chapter 6 verses 118, haven't we? Because one of the false gods, one of the ways in which we can betray or pollute are committed to Christ is by being committed to Christ for the sake of reputation. And that was 6-1-18. One of the false gods that can ween us away or draw us away from Christ if we've committed ourselves to Him is the God of reputation, the God of position and prestige. And that is what's behind 6-1-18. Second God that can lead Christians astray is the God of money and what it can buy. And that's what's at issue in Chapter 6 verses 19 through 24. Now I gave you this as another passage you could work on as a discussion topic. Let me simply ask, how many of you did a reflection paper on Chapter 6 verses 19 and 24? Raise your hand so I know. Maybe a little bit less than half of the class. So we may conduct it just a little bit differently. Talking about the righteousness of a disciple, let's read verses 19 to 24. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? No one can serve two masters, either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money, says the NIV, but if you have an NIV Bible, do you notice something funny about the word money? Capital M. What's the translation that a lot of you know? You cannot serve both God and Maman. Let me just tell you about that word Maman a little bit, and the reason why you might have money capitalized even in the NIV. There are lots of words for money in the ancient world. You have the most common is the word just for silver, and there are a couple of other words too, because most coins are silver. Jesus does not use the common word for money. The word he uses for money is Maman. A Maman is a funny word, and you can help me take it apart, probably, just a little bit here. If we ask, let's tell you one thing, that it comes from Aramaic and or Hebrew, and in those languages, an M sound, function like T-A-I-O-N, so communicate communication. So if you communicate the thing that you communicate could be called a communication, or if you present something, it could be called a presentation. The thing that you present is a presentation. You make a verb into a noun by adding A-T-I-O-N in English. In those biblical languages, Hebrew and Aramaic, you add that you made something into a noun by adding M on the front. That's just a fact. Trust me. Now take this, and does that look like anything to you? What does it look like? What word that we use in churches that kind of look like? It looks kind of like A-Man, and in fact it is related to A-Man. What does the word A-Man mean? It means so be it. What does that mean? What do you mean you learned that somewhere? What do you mean so be it? Jesus name A-Man, Jesus name so be it. What do you really mean when you say so be it? It's true. I agree. I really want this. When you say A-Man at the end of prayer, what you're saying is I really mean what I just said. If I ask for something, if I praise God, I meant it. I don't know if you mean it when you say it's another question, but that's what A-Man means. It means you can trust my words, I really mean it. And that's the root idea of A-Man. Trust. The word A-Man, A-Man in Hebrew means trust. It's a verb that means trust. So what does Ma-Man, Ma-Man mean? It means now related to verb. It means trusted thing. A thing that is trusted, a thing that is the result of trust, maybe even that in which we trust, and isn't that true about money. It is a thing in which people put their trust. It is a false God. In fact, we use some of the words for deity with regard to money. What do we call money sometimes? One of the words for deity. The Almighty God and the Almighty Dollar. And there are others as well. We trust in money, so security. Securities are things that you can buy, and you can have trust funds and things like that, security and trust, language that we use. That's what's going on in verse 24, but we need to get to verse 24 and ask the question, what exactly is Jesus presenting here about money as a false God?