Yeah. Good morning and welcome. Welcome to all. It is good to be in the Lord's house on the Lord's day. People have got a few announcements before we begin. First, we rejoice in the healthy birth of a baby girl in our church family. Octavia Faye Vandenberg was born this week, Monday, and a healthy girl. daughter of Joseph and Lindsay, little sister of Watson, and we rejoice with them and rejoice for a healthy delivery and Octavia Faye coming into this world. As we rejoice with the birth of our youngest member, it was also a week which saw the passing away of our oldest member. A couple days later, the Lord called Cal Wolvert home. And so we think of the youngest and the oldest. We rejoice with those who rejoice. We mourn with those who mourn. We do know that we mourn not as those who have no hope. Certainly, Cal was well into his 90s, ready to be with the Lord, and a precious, encouraging saint right up to the end. I'll just say, regarding his care and love and prayers for each one of us as a church body. One of the very last questions he asked me when his voice didn't make saying anything easy was, how is everybody? And that about sums up Cal as you would know from knowing him. There are sign-up sheets in the back for meals for the Vandenbergs with the baby. And there's also a sign-up sheet for making cookies or bars or some kind of dessert for the funeral for Cal, which is this coming Thursday at Warner Harmsen. It's going to be at the funeral home. Visitation, 9.30. The funeral starts at 11. One more announcement, and that is one more reminder that our service this evening is at 5.30. We have a 5.30 service this evening. People of God, we do not worship the God of wood, of stone, of human imagination. Let all the earth keep silent before him, and let us begin our worship with a moment of silent prayer. you. Amen. If you would stand, if able. Receiving our call to worship coming from Psalm 96. Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory. Do his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. Tremble before him, all the earth. And I direct your attention to the bulletin. I ask you, congregation, where does your help come from? Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. To those who have obtained faith by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Amen. Let us turn in song together our opening psalm of praise, 96, and we'll sing one, two, four, and five of 96. Sing to the Lord, sing his praise. Steam of His majesty, burst in forever, show His ovation from day to day. Tell of His wondrous works, tell of His glory, till through the nations His name is revered. Praise and exalt him, for he is almighty God over all, and the Lord be near. He is our glory and honor Come with your off-breeds and humbly adhere In holy beauty now worship Jehovah Tremble before Him with godly fear Make all the nations to God praise forever Perseverance he did decree, Righteous and just is the King of the Nations, Judging the people with equity. Amen. Let us hear from the reading of God's holy will, God's perfect law, Exodus chapter 20. And God spoke all these words saying I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not committed alchery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's. Summarizing the law, our Lord Jesus Christ quotes from Deuteronomy chapter 6, telling us that the first and greatest commandment is this, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second, which is like it, comes from Leviticus chapter 19. And so God is quoting the Old Testament again, and we'll read just two verses from Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19, verses 17 and 18. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. And if we were to look a few verses before that, we would see that the definition of neighbor, though the Lord is speaking of brother and your people in those verses as well, but neighbor would include more than that. And so verse 10 says, you shall not strip the vineyard bear, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. for the person who's not even an Israelite, for the stranger who is among you. I am the Lord your God. And then more words along those lines later in the same chapter. And perhaps our younger members and each one of us of any age can be listening for how this chapter is abused in the days of Jesus Christ and how he will restore the proper interpretation of these words in Matthew chapter five. People of God, let's come before the Lord, prayer of confession this morning. Lord, our Lord, We praise you for your perfect word. Your perfect word telling us what the law is, telling us what love is, telling us who we are to love. Lord, indeed, our neighbor includes all of those whom we know. And we know that we fall short of loving those closest to us, even as we fall short of loving those who we do not know as closely and everywhere in between. And so, O Lord, in regard to this command and summary of your law, in regard to your whole law, show us that on the surface and in our hearts, We stand in complete need of you. We stand in need of seeing your holiness and depending upon your righteousness. And so we say, Lord God, forgive us of our sins. In Jesus name, amen. Let us sing a psalm of confession, the psalms so rightly directing us how to come before God. 31B, let's sing stanzas 1 to 4. You may remain seated as we sing 31B, 1 to 4. Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's ♪ Dearly am I ♪ ♪ From old temptation birthed still be ♪ ♪ Thou that'st my strength of heart ♪ ♪ Truly my spirit hath died ♪ Surely we fall short, but as those who would be chosen by God, we know we are chosen to be his possession. and then to seek to be growing in holiness as his people. We hear that command and our assurance of pardon in 1 Peter chapter 2. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God in the day of visitation. We are sinners, but we are sinners who have been chosen, who have been saved and being saved, have been saved into light, have been saved into a life where by God's grace, we would grow in holiness slowly, but surely. People of God, this is who we are. This is who we are called to be. And as God's chosen people, we come before him in prayer. Let us pray together this morning. Our great God and heavenly Father, we rejoice in the truth of who you are. We rejoice that you are the mighty one. We rejoice that by your word you created the world, and by your word you continue to uphold the world from the rising of the sun to its setting. And so, O Lord, we know that as we would come before you in worship, that we would be called to see the perfection of your beauty, which is so much greater than any of the things that you have created. And there is beauty in the creation you have made, but you are the one who is perfect in beauty. You are the one who shines forth, not just lights upon the earth in the sun, which you have made in control, but you are the one who shines forth righteousness and holiness and justice and mercy. Lord, as we come before you, we come before the perfection of beauty for that is who you are. And so, oh Lord, we pray that your voice, your perfect voice would be known, that the earth would know your perfect judgment, that the earth would know your perfect and faithful promises, that indeed many would come to desire a covenant relationship with you becoming your people. Surely, Lord, your promises are great. Your salvation is given. You will forgive the sins of your people and you will have a people. These are sure promises. And so, Lord, we see your righteousness all around us. We see it when you make hearts new. We see it when you continue to work even as we would be in and among sinful generations. Lord God, you will always be at work and the just shall always live by faith in you. Lord, we know that all that you have made is yours. The cattle on the thousand hills are yours. And we know that in your abundance you provide so readily that, Lord, there is enough food in the abundance of this earth to feed the whole world. We know that the poor will always be with us, that wars and rumors of wars will lead to hunger. We know that the sinfulness of man will not end until you come again. And the oppression of man creating the poor will not end until you come again. But Lord, you have provided. There is enough abundance. And surely you have provided abundantly for us here this very day. And so Lord, we thank you for the food that we eat from day to day. We thank you for the blessings which might be easy to take for granted. We praise you for the blessings of your spiritual comfort as well, both what you provide for our body and our soul. And so, Lord, as we think of the needs of the soul, we pray that you would be with those who would mourn. We think of the passing of Calvin Walvert. We pray that you would be with his family. Yes, oh Lord, we know that Calvin is no longer in sorrow or pain. He's faced the last enemy, which is death. But those who are left behind will mourn, even as, O Lord, remind us that it is not a morning without hope. But we have a sure hope for those who trust in you as Calvin so readily declared his trust in you. And so we know that the dead in Christ will rise. And we pray, oh Lord, not only for the Walvert family, but for all those who would mourn with the loss of loved ones, with all those who are yet here below in this veil of tears. We pray that you would comfort and sustain. We pray, Lord God, that you would be with us as we also rejoice with those who rejoice, And here we think of new life and the healthy birth of a baby girl. We think of the healthy birth of Octavia Faye Vandenberg and we thank you for that day of healthy delivery. Also for Lindsey's health and we pray that you would continue to strengthen this little one and give her growth and strength, yes, in body and even that you would already be at work in the little heart of Octavia Faye Vandenberg. And Lord God, we pray that you would be at work in each one of our hearts, even with the preaching of your word this very morning, that you would show us the truths of your word, that you would show us the fullness of what you call us to, and that your spirit would be at work. In the precious name of Jesus Christ, we pray, amen. People of God, as we consider the good and eternal law of God, let us sing our psalm of preparation this morning, 119L. From that longest of the psalms, 119L, and we'll sing all the stanzas together, standing to sing. Eternal is your word, O Lord, in heav'n it stands forever sure. Your truth remains through every age. The earth you found, let it endures. this day I am yours. at their hands. But I, in spite of all their threats, will still consider your command. Perfection's limits I have found, but your commandments have no bound. Amen. Let us turn back to Matthew 5 as we were in Matthew 5 a couple weeks ago together. For those who are here, Matthew chapter 5. And we'll read verses 17 to 20 again. That's the key verses which introduce, which give the theme, we might say, for what follows. And then we're going to pick three of the six antitheses that Jesus Christ gives. He says six times, you have heard it said, but I say to you, and we're going to pick three of those six. They're roughly in pairs, and we're kind of taking one of each pair. So for example, 21 to 26, and 27 to 30 go closely together, and so we're taking one of those. And so we'll read 17 to 20, and then 27 to 32, and then we'll read the last verses of this section, 43 to 48. And so I'll let you know when we're jumping from one verse to another, but we're going to start with verses 17 to 20. Matthew 5, page 1029. In most of the pew Bibles, Matthew 5, starting with verse 17. 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. 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. 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. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." And then moving down to verse 27 and reading to verse 32. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. And then moving down to verse 43. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. For he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you agreed only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. So far the reading, the grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we considered a couple of weeks ago, Christ is the one who fulfilled the law. And as the perfect fulfillment of the law, Christ is concerned that a proper interpretation of the law will be taught and will be heard. It is easy to fall into many patterns of self-righteousness. We don't give an exhaustive list here this morning. We just work through three of the patterns of self-righteousness. There are more. But one of the traps of self-righteousness is to reinterpret the laws of God so that what might make us uncomfortable by showing us our sin would lose its power. By nature, we all want the law to be nice and out there and not really condemning us. We want the law to be something which says how nice we are instead of how sinful we are. But Christ brings the law near, even into our hearts. Now, we're not going to be able to detail everything before us in the verses before us this morning, but we will at least see this principle, and this is going to be our focus, even as we'll touch on some of the other things in these verses as we move through the text, but this is going to be the principle that to follow the Christ, that to follow the Christ, the anointed one, Jesus of Nazareth, is to follow all of what the law really demands. and that there are patterns of self-righteous interpretations, reinterpretations, we should say, of the law which we must avoid. And so this is our theme this morning, follow Christ, putting away patterns of self-righteousness. And we're gonna look first at the self-righteous pattern of the law broken. verses 27 to 30, and then we'll look at the self-righteous pattern of the law relaxed, and then the self-righteous pattern of the law altered. So first, the law broken. The first pattern of self-righteousness is to reinterpret the law to make it smaller than what it really is so that someone can claim to have kept the law. And so Jesus works through two examples that touch directly on this. The first example is 21 to 26, that there would be those who would pretend that the command to not murder would not include the heart and would not include the fact that we are also commanded not to be angry. And then the second example, the one we're going to focus on a little more, is from verses 27 to 30. And this is where someone would pretend that the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery, speaks only to that one specific sinful act. And it misses the point that the spirit of that law, even as the spirit of each law, is only summarizing a truth. and indeed that it's even explicitly spelled out in the 10th commandment that you shall not covet your neighbor's wife nor his maidservant. So we are to seek to put away all sin, including all sinful desires, including the sinful desire of lust. Now, as soon as we see the full scope of the commands of God, and as soon as we see the full scope of this, just this one commandment, we ask, well, how can we be saved? And so, I'll direct our attention already now, even as we'll come back to this shortly, to verse 48. You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. In other words, this whole section must be directing us to see our own unholiness and the holiness of God. This whole section is directing us to see that we are not holy, God is holy. Now we will come back to this, but now let's return to verses 27 to 30, as it were, And now let's ask another question. Because seeing that we are unholy does not mean, well, I'm unholy, so I just don't fight against my sins. No, not at all. On the contrary, we must fight against our sins, including the sin of lustful desire. And so now we say, well, how can this be done? And Jesus gives the answer. Only with radical action. Verse 29, Jesus speaks hyperbolically about cutting off the eye, cutting off the hand. He does this to make the point, not that we should literally do these things. We know that from many other texts in scripture that Jesus is using an image to grab our attention here, but he is making this point. We must be prepared to be able to do something that hurts in order to put away our sins. William Hendrickson, the great commentator of the 60s and 70s, and you're going to hear one word in this quote, which perhaps gives away that it's from the 70s. He said it this way at that time, quote, temptation should be flung aside immediately and decisively. Dilly-dallying is deadly. Halfway measures work have it. The surgery, the surgery, the cutting work of removing sins from our lives, the surgery must be radical right at this very moment. And without any vacillation, the obscene book should be burned. The scandalous picture destroyed the soul destroying film condemned. the sinister yet very intimate social tie broken and the baneful habit discarded. In the struggle against sin, the believer must fight hard if these things are leading us into sin. And it is, there is that condition. We don't want to overstate that or understate that. If these things are leading us into sin, They must be cut out. Is there a friend of yours who tempts you into sin and indeed leads you into sin? A friend who leads you into drunkenness, a friend of the opposite sex who's enticing you, a friend who refuses to think about things that are holy and honoring to God and instead loves to talk about trash and you get dragged in and you talk about trash with him or with her. Whether these are close friendships or just acquaintances, the friendship must end. As the psalmist says it, you should not stand in the way with sinners. Especially this is true if we are being led into sin in these relationships. Is there a book, a picture, a film, a computer screen, an app, which is tempting you in ways that lead you into sin? Destroy it. delete it. Now, when we would do things like this for the purpose of following Christ and putting away sins, these are not some self-righteous goody-goody actions. On the contrary, they are exactly the things which Christ would command us to do in order to put away patterns of self-righteousness. Patterns of self-righteousness which say, well, the law doesn't really demand that, does it? The law just gives us these four words, and so it's really just telling me not to commit adultery. I'm not going to allow the law to touch my heart, but people of God, the law does touch our hearts. And God does require of us that we would seek righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, that we would seek righteousness to the level of the bottom of our hearts. We must fight the self-righteous tendency to say, well, I can do that without sinning. After all, I only did this or I only did that and only pick out the four words of the seventh commandment that we want to hear and ignoring all of what that command includes. We cannot do this with this commandment. We cannot do this with any commandment. If We are not seeking to kill all of our sins. And Jesus tells us in verses 29, the end of 29 into 30, that the punishment for not putting away sin is hell. The punishment is burning in hell. The word for hell that Jesus uses here is Gehenna. It's the word that emphasizes the punishment of continued burning. This is the seriousness of sin. There is a reason of eternal punishment which must make us cautious of the self-righteous patterns of breaking the law by pretending that the demands of the law are less than they really are by pretending that the demands of the law do not reach the level of our hearts. So that's the first pattern we consider today. The second pattern is the law relaxed. Now verses 31 and 32, these are two verses among a handful of passages that address divorce in the New Testament. It's a short passage. It's not an exhaustive passage. We're not going to come close to considering the whole teaching of scripture on this subject today. So, but while we're not going to consider the full teaching of scripture on divorce and remarriage, the truth that Jesus clearly demonstrates in these two verses is that we cannot pretend that the permissions of the law allow for more than they actually permit. That's the pattern of self-righteousness. The pattern of self-righteousness is to take a permission, a conditional permission of the law and the text being debated at this day and is made clear in Matthew 19 is a text from Deuteronomy chapter 24, and it's a conditional law. It literally says, if, if, if, then. We cannot take some conditional permission of the law and pretend that it actually permits all kinds of things. That is a pattern of self-righteousness. We're not going to consider again all of what Christ teaches, but we will turn to one other passage, Matthew chapter 19. Matthew, if you would turn the pages over to Matthew chapter 19. And this is one of the places where it's very clear that Christ is opposing the Pharisees. And so in Matthew 5, when he says, it was also said, well, in Matthew 19, we see who's saying this. The Pharisees are saying this, Matthew 19, verse 3. And we're going to read just verses 7 to 9, again, just to give us a little bit more of the context. They, that is the Pharisees of verse three, so this is Matthew 19, verse seven to nine. They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? And he said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning, it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery. Again, the passage, the mention of a certificate of divorce, the law from Moses that's being referenced here, Deuteronomy chapter 24, verses 1 to 4. And it's this conditional statement, one which many commentators have pointed out was almost certainly a mosaic law put into place to protect the women of Israel from further abuse. In other words, if a woman was divorced, at least she had some protection from the certificate of divorce and couldn't be further mistreated. The Pharisees have taken this conditional statement from the Law of Moses and they've turned it into a blank check, which permits divorce for almost any reason. The ancient Jewish tradition, which as far as we can tell is exactly what the Pharisees were embracing, said, you can divorce the wife for whatever you want. And it took a particular phrase from Deuteronomy 24 and reinterpreted it that way. And it basically boiled down to this. You don't like the way she looks, you can divorce her. You don't like the way she cooks, you can divorce her. We don't have exact statistics. As far as we can tell, the divorce rates were high in Jerusalem among the Jews in the days of Jesus. And Jesus comes and he says, but I say to you, where you think there's no sin, where you've taken these conditional permissions of the law, which God gave because of the hardness of your hearts, by the way, Matthew 19, you think that because of those conditional permissions, you can divorce for whatever you want? And so you're going to, by that pattern of self-righteousness, say, well, look, we did this and it's not a sin. That's where the self-righteousness comes in. And Jesus says, no, no, no. Where you're saying there's no sin at all, I am telling you there is sin on top of sin. There is sin on top of sin, such that for those who are unlawfully divorced, Their next marriage and whoever marries them is itself sin on top of sin. It's a marriage of adultery. It's not a true marriage at all. Self-righteousness says, well, since the law permits this, it must permit all kinds of things. See, there's no sin here. Christ comes and he says, there is sin. There's not just sin. There's sin on top of sin. Now I'll say it one more time. We're not covering everything the Bible says about marriage. divorce and remarriage with these two verses. But that's the pattern. It is a pattern of self-righteousness, pharisaical self-righteousness to say, what sin is here? The law permits this, doesn't it? To take what the law might permit because of the hardness of heart and to say that we can really do whatever we want. That is self-righteousness. Because after all, if the law doesn't demand much, our first point, if the law actually permits all kinds of things, as the Pharisees were trying to say in our second point, then I can pretend to be righteous. Because if the law doesn't demand much and if the law permits all kinds of things, then I can sit back and I can say, Look here, look here, see, I'm following it, I'm righteous. That is pharisaical self-righteousness. People of God, what areas of sin might we try to relax and relabel as permissible? What laws might we be in this way ignoring? As divorce rates have skyrocketed around us over the last decades, are we not tempted even in this very same area to fall into self-righteousness as the Pharisees did? And in what other areas are we tempted to relax the law and say, see, there's no sin here. when, if we follow the pattern of Jesus, we would point out, not only is there sin here, there's sin on top of sin here. To follow Jesus is to recognize the full teaching of the law and to call every form of sin, sin. So there were times when the Pharisees and those who followed them would break the law, pretending that the law said less than it did. There were times when the Pharisees would relax the law, pretending that the law allowed more than it did. There were also times when the Pharisees would simply add something new or alter the law completely. This takes us to our third point. Again, we're just looking at three patterns of self-righteousness. The Pharisees had more patterns than this, more ways that they did this. we can have more ways of falling into this as well. But these are the three patterns we're looking at this morning. And so here it's the law altered. Well, we read for the summary of the law from Leviticus 19, and that's what the law actually says. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The Pharisees have dropped the words as yourself, and they have added hate your enemies. They have altered the law. They have rewritten it. This is against the Word of God. Now, the Old Testament didn't have chapter and verse divisions. But those have been added, and so now it's easier for us to reference where things are close to each other. So now that we have chapter and verse divisions, we can say this, you don't even have to leave Leviticus chapter 19 to see how wrong this was. It's right in the same chapter, or if you were to say it to the Pharisees, it's just a few sentences later. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18 is the misquoted command. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 34 says this, you shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you and you shall love him as yourself. There it is. You shall love him as yourself. We're not just talking about our brother. We're not just talking about the fellow man in our land. Yes, we talk about that. It starts there. Those are the people closest to us. But read on just a few verses. There it is in verse 34. The sojourner, the stranger who is among you, you shall love him as yourself. For you are strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Now that's just in Leviticus 19. There are many other chapters, many other places we could turn to in the Old Testament for showing the wrong thinking of the addition that the Pharisees made to the law. Now it is true that the psalmist on rare occasions will speak about hating enemies, but there is something very important to note about this. Psalm 139, we're not gonna turn there and read it, but if you write down Psalm 139 verses 20 to 22, this is the pattern. The psalmist is speaking about the enemies of God and about those who would take God's name in vain. And then the psalmist says, your enemies become as though they are my enemies. So how do we summarize this? John Stott said it very helpfully this way, quote, so there is such a thing as perfect hatred, just as there is such a thing as righteous anger, but it is hatred for God's enemies, not our own enemies. It is entirely free of all spite, rancor, and vindictiveness, and it is fired only by love for God's honor and glory." End of quote. We cannot take the handful of what we sometimes call imprecatory Psalms and take what they say about how we view God's enemies and pretend that we can then say, oh look, I hate my enemies. This is a complete twisting of the law Forget about relaxing it. Forget about ignoring it. This is altering, rewriting the law of God. No, instead of hating our enemies, as the Pharisees would try to rewrite the law, we are called to be merciful to all, even as God is merciful to all, and he gives gifts to both the righteous and the unrighteous. Verse 45. We are called to have a loving and merciful attitude toward all people. Indeed, we are no different from the world, Jesus says, if we only love those who love us. We are to love our enemies, verse 44, even to the point that we would pray for them as they persecute us. People of God, let's pause here. Again, we can't consider all the details, but we're gonna zoom in and look at this one. Pray for your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Almost 2,000 years ago, a great preacher of the early church, John Chrysostom, he called praying for our enemies, quote, the very highest summit of self-control, end of quote. and he looked at he took verses 21 to 44 and he said you can you can rearrange it as a series of challenges to our self-control and so climbing the mountain of self-control begins with controlling our anger and loving our brother. And then it moves to controlling our lust and not committing adultery in the heart. But then as we move up the mountain, we reach to the very summit, to the very highest point, and that is to pray for those who would persecute us, to pray for our enemies. People of God, are you seeking to follow Christ? Do you want to climb the mountain of self-control? You should. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, and this is the law of God rightly interpreted. You can begin to climb this mountain by controlling your anger, by controlling your lust, And you can take more steps by seeking to understand all that the law of God calls us to without doing more than the law of God would permit. And finally, you can reach the top of this mountain when you begin to earnestly, lovingly pray for your enemies. This is one of the climbs of the Christian faith. This is one of the ways that we must seek to follow Christ. Climbing the mountain of self-control is fighting against many of the patterns of self-righteousness. But of course we cannot leave the application here. If we just say, climb the mountain of self-control, we're gonna be completely hopeless. Because of course we can't climb the mountain of self-control. We are called to seek to do this. We're called as God's people to grow in righteousness and begin to do this, but we cannot do this. If there is any place in the word of God which so clearly shows us our sinfulness, it's right here. We can't climb this mountain. And so we need verse 48 and we need the rest of scripture telling us how verse 48 works. We need the holiness of God. We need the one who climbs this mountain perfectly. The same one who interprets it perfectly. The same one who is both our teacher and our savior, Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin. He had to be sin. To be our Savior. Because we can't climb the mountain. We are sinners. But he could be our Savior because he knew no sin. He is our perfect Savior. Finally, the call of the Christian life is to follow Christ. But this includes seeking to obey the full demands of the law. So we don't say, I can't climb it, so I shouldn't even try to climb it. No, the rest of 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 is this, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. We must, following Christ, first trust him and then say, I am going to seek to climb this mountain. I'm not going to say that it's impossible to control my anger. I'm not going to say that it's impossible to control my lust. I'm not going to pretend that those are not part of the commands of God. I'm not going to pretend that it's easy to pray for those who persecute me, but I'm also not going to pretend that I'm not actually called to do that. I am going to say, Christ, I follow you and I praise you that you climb this mountain perfectly. And then Christ, I'm going to ask that you teach me and shape me and lead me to stumble up this mountain a little bit better as I walk through this life. Lord God, I know that I'm not gonna climb it perfectly. If I even tried to, I would just be falling into some other pattern of self-righteousness, thinking that I could save myself. But no, help me up this mountain. and all the mountains of the Christian faith, all the mountains and struggles of sanctification, so that I might put away the patterns of self-righteousness, so that I might put away all the ways that I could pretend that you don't call me to complete holiness, even to the level of my heart. You are my teacher. You are my savior. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, Lord of lords and King of kings, show us the perfect obedience of Christ and teach us to love righteousness, to love all of the demands of your law. Teach us to cut off sins even in the ways that would be painful to us in our sinful nature. Teach us to see your holiness and then seek to be holy as you are holy. In the precious name of our only Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. People of God, let's stand together to sing number 533. Singing together all the stanzas of Have Thine Own Way, Lord. Am I your way, Lord? Am I your way? Oh, in the water, I am the clay. Oh, be an angel, Lord, I will. I will be an angel in the desert. ♪ And remind me as you do today, as you do tomorrow ♪ me. Hold on my being, absolute strength. Filled with Thy Spirit, till all shall see. Christ only, always, very near me. Amen. It's time now, our morning gifts and offerings. This morning, that's for the general fund. And then following this, our benediction and the doxology, 564. Yeah. You will stand and receive the parting blessing of our Lord. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Blessed be Jehovah God, the God of Israel. Who only do if wondrous works in glory that excel. ♪ Blessed be his glorious name to all eternity ♪ ♪ The whole earth let his glory fill ♪ ♪ Amen, so let it be ♪ ♪ The whole earth let his glory fill ♪ ♪ Amen, so let it be ♪ ♪ We've got to make a difference in the world ♪ ♪ We've got to change the world, we've got to change the world ♪ ♪ We've got to make a difference in the world ♪ ♪ We've got to make a difference in the world ♪ ♪ We've got to make a difference in the world ♪ ♪ We've got to make a difference in the world ♪