Kingdom Righteousness
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So we have a little bit of a different service this week. In December of 2015, HFF was founded. And part of the goal of HFF was to be a family friendly church, but one that empowered people in the community. Kind of like Spider man empowers people through the cinema. And so today, for the first time in this city, we have ordained ministers in Jackson, Mississippi.
We have ordained ministers in Texas. We have ordained ministers in many different places. But today we are going to celebrate and ordain Cam and Sarah Wallace. I almost said Cameron, and I was told how much he does not want to be called by his regular name. So today I thank God that he gave me Cam and not Cam run or camera on depends upon which social media you follow him on.
I'm gonna go ahead and ask Cam and Sarah to come out. I have known them, Sarah, since 2008. If there is anybody in this city that there is proof that the Holy Spirit can change a life, it is Sarah Wallace. Just saying.
Not exactly. I haven't always been the holiest of people myself, but Sarah, man, you gave me a run for my money. All this gray hair is from Sarah Wallace alone. So it's not entirely true. I repent.
But I've known Cam. Cam worked for me for many, many years in international ministry, and he's still here, you know. So today we're going to shorten down this service. Whether you operate in a Catholic church or a Protestant church or Messianic, Jewish, whatever the denomination is, there's a lot of different ways to do this. But there is a couple of key elements that I believe are important.
One is the charge. What is the charge of the pastoral shepherding office? One, not only that they would receive that, but that you would be here to witness that and to hear that as well. Then two, it is the laying on of hands from the elders of the congregation. And so I have the distinct honor of doing the charge today.
The Bible calls the pastoral office a noble thing, but we know that the office of the pastor comes with a tremendous weight. We're not talking about the weight gain around the midsection. We're talking about the one that's on the shoulders that causes you to bear the burdens of other. So today we celebrate with both of you. And while this is a joyous occasion full of joy and hope and family, I also want to humbly acknowledge that the weight that you both are willing and stepping into, there are going to be days of great joy, and there's going to be many, many days of great sorrow, if any of you have done any counseling with me.
My goal is to. This is the last chance I have to get them to back out of it. And so I'm going to do my best to do that. You will be judged more strictly by the Lord, your church and the outside world. You will be looked on as examples to cast vision, correction, comfort and stability.
And while you both do your best to war and protect God's people, you will both come under friendly fire. Yet the Bible tells us that he gives gifts and offices and the strength to endure till the end. I have seen the fruit in both of your life, Emmett and Shepherd. I've seen the fruit in both of your life as well. See that smile?
Barely. I can only see the front row, but I can see it. Seen the fruit in your life. I'm proud of both of you. Not only for who you are, but what you have become.
And I look forward to what God will do in both of your lives. Not only in this community, but wherever he takes you. I look forward to watching Emmett and Shepherd raise up into their gifts and their talents as well. So today, before God, I'll call the elders. You can go ahead and start coming up and meeting Brent over here.
Before God, the elders in the church, I charge you to preach the word of God. Be unashamed to do so when others want you to preach something different. Always go back to the word of God. Lead with boldness, yet through humility, grace and patience. Be sober minded about your life and the ministry of the pastoral office.
And lastly, but most importantly, I charge you to resolve knowing and preaching nothing other than Christ. And Christ crucified by the power invested in me in the state of Oklahoma. I now pronounce.
We had some friends over for dinner. I didn't check my notes. Sorry, wrong service.
Cameron and Sarah. God will never, ever, ever, ever give up on you. He will never give up on you. Others will quit you. There will be times where you feel like there's literally nobody else.
There will be times as your boys grow older, you even feel like they're not with you on the same mission. But I can promise you, as one who has been in the highest of hills and the lowest of valleys, God will never quit you. And today I can stand before you. Dang, I said one good cry.
Stupid emotions.
I hate emotion. I'm still a work in progress. See, I can promise you that April and I will never quit you either. You will quit us before we will ever quit you. So today I can't give you an office and I can't give you a gift.
I don't have that talent. I don't have that calling. Only God gives the gifts in the offices. But today, in front of all of the church, all of the people online, in front of all the elders, we acknowledge that we have seen not only the gifts of God, but the office of pastor and shepherd in both of your life. Before I call the elders to pray and lay hands today, we have Cam's mom here with us.
We have his siblings here with us. But not everybody was able to be here. So I read this from your mom and dad.
I try to read this. Sorry I said this was going to be quick.
Cameron and Sarah, you were called and equipped and you are anointed by the most high God to do his will on this day and beyond.
Be blessed as you go about serving him and serving others, knowing he is your boss. He has his plans and he orders your steps. Be full to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. Walk in his ways. Always disciple others to do so too.
And always remember as you go forward, be humble, be patient, respect your elders, and be kind to all. Abba, fill both of these two with your spirit, your word and your peace in every step. Mark and Donna Smith. At this time, I'm going to ask the elders to come forward. We're going to lay hands on you.
Brent's going to lead that while the elders are coming forward to prepare to lay hands. Let me also add these comments. Cam and Sarah. The word ordination has the word order in. Has to do with the fact that you are being set apart to bring the order of the gospel to the world.
When I was in, when Tanya and I were living in Israel, we learned a very essential Hebrew phrase, sim lev, which means pay attention. But the cool thing about that phrase is that lev means heart. It means pay attention to the order of. Of your heart. It made me think, oddly enough, of being in London and going to the subway where all the signs Mind the gap.
Mind the gap. And I would charge you to do the same. Mind the gap, Pay attention to your heart. And never let there be a distance between you each other. For that is the fastest way.
Satan will try to separate you from your calling and mind the gap between your heart and the heart of the Father. Don't let that distance ever separate you from that to which you are called and that for which you have been chosen. We lay hands on you today not because we have magical powers, but it is a symbol of our pouring part of our life and the spirit who dwells within us. Into you, calling you both forward to serve our Savior. Because of that, we ordain you to the service and the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ to bear the greatest title you will ever wear.
Bondservants of Jesus. Let's pray. Abba. Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah. Thankful that you set us apart for the gospel from the beginning of the world, that you chose us in Christ to be drawn to you, to bow our knee to you, to render our hearts to you.
And now, Father, even to be called into a lifetime of service for you. Father, today we place Kim and Sarah before you and we ask that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit that dwells within us will be imparted, even in greater abundance to them as they are called and anointed into the service of our King. Father, may they never crave after titles anything greater than just being a bondservant for you. Father, we set them apart for the gospel. We set them apart for a season to work with young people.
But Lord, their ordination is not just to be youth pastors. They are pastors in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, as they age and as they mature and you open new doors and new venues of ministry and mission, may they remain faithful to this ordination done before this congregation of the saints here today and before the angels that surround your throne. We sanctify them and set them apart. The powerful name of Jesus Christ to do all things for his glory, in whose name we pray.
Amen.
Now that they are officially pastors, you can now begin to send all complaints and issues to Cam and Sarah at Hebraic. I mean, let's give them a baptism of fire of what it means to be a pastor in a church. It is so good to see you this morning. It's good to see the building. The room is just filling up.
I know we have many who are here to celebrate with Cam and Sarah this very special moment. But make no mistake, this isn't just a special moment for them. It's a special moment for our congregation. Because a congregation that does not replicate leadership is a congregation doing nothing for the sake of the Kingdom. If we are not raising up young men and women who have the passion and heart to give their lives to the service of the King.
Something is wrong. And so it is a great honor for us to be able to have this moment to celebrate and to participate in their ordination with them. And I want to thank you on their behalf for being here today. Well, we are continuing our series on the Torah of the Kingdom. That more familiar, more familiar way to say it is the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Mountain.
And so if you have your Scriptures, you can turn to Matthew, chapter five. Now, preachers love to open with something that really grabs your attention. So this is the first thing I will say to grab your attention is, I am absolutely terrified of this message. The four verses that we are going to look at today in the Sermon on the Mount, in my opinion, are the most misinterpreted, misapplied passages in the history of the Bible. And I can stand here today and tell you confidently that I have been a part of the assembly of the stupid who have done everything that I'm going to caution you not to do today.
I say it from an uncomfortable place. Familiarity. Been there, done that. But there's something even more important about the message we're looking at today. As Jesus is beginning his Torah of the Kingdom, you cannot separate this sermon from his message that he is here to declare the Makut Hashemyim in Hebrew, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
This is what he began to preach and proclaim. John the Baptist prepared the way, prepared people's hearts to receive that with his baptism of repentance and humility. And now Jesus begins his ministry declaring that heaven has drawn close enough that you and I doesn't matter how rich or poor you are or what your gender ethnicity is, that God has drawn close and brought his kingdom to you. And he didn't just talk it, he walked it. As he began to manifest the power of the kingdom, every miracle was a demonstration of the truth of what he's saying.
Oh, the kingdom's here. It's here. Well, where is it? It's that lame man you see running around in circles over there. It's in that blind person who's running up to everybody.
And instead of feeling their face, they're looking at them and seeing them with their eyes. It's the child who can hear and is singing and shouting for joy because they are finally hearing the song of the birds. That's the kingdom of heaven that is manifesting. And so when we come to this message, this sermon, we are coming to the message that Jesus is preaching. That is not just a declaration, but an invitation to participate in the kingdom of heaven.
And that begs the question that really should grab our attention today. Is he talking about me? When Jesus begins His message, he begins with 10 words similar to this. Mount Sinai. He begins with 10 prophetic blessings, the first of which is, blessed are the poor in spirit for Theirs is the kingdom of heaven, not someday will be.
It's theirs now. Jesus begins to say that this thing that I'm declaring is not just something I'm doing, it's something you can participate in. But the first step towards it, to receive it and be a part of it, is humility. In Hebrew, poor in spirit, you cannot understand the Torah of the kingdom he preaches if we do not understand the Torah that he gave to call us to righteousness. You can't separate the kingdom from righteousness because it is righteousness that paves the way into the kingdom.
And there cannot be any righteousness without humility.
Remove humility and you slam the door on yourself. Jesus doesn't have to do it, you do it to yourself.
Righteousness always includes some act of giving. You're going to get so sick of me saying this, but you're going to remember it in your sleep. The action of righteousness is giving. Giving up. Giving up being first, giving over forgiving, giving in general.
There is always some degree of grace giving with righteousness. The Torah that had been given by God to Moses, to Israel was to teach them how to live in righteousness. But it did it in the context of laws and statutes which they were supposed to obey. Now why did God need to teach Israel to live in righteousness by means of laws and commandments? Because our fallen flesh, the number one thing that our flesh craves is anything that satisfies me.
My fallen flesh, my appetite, in a word, is selfishness. And it is the exact opposite of righteousness. So you can begin to understand if there can be no righteousness without humility. Humility is willing to say, not me first. It gives up that place.
It gives up that facade of I'm perfect and you should be like me. It gives up the fakeness this selfishness brings on our fallen flesh. Has this built in appetite of selfishness? Yet God is calling us to a kingdom that is available for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. And that's not going to happen without humility.
So I return to my question.
Is that describing you? Is that describing me? Let's pray. Abba. Father, you know the landmines that these four sentences that we're going to look at that came from your son's mouth have created for 2000 years.
Father, I pray that today, in this place, maybe for the first time, we'll set aside what we've been told, what fits our paradigm, and just listen to you. Which means, Father, take them beyond my words to the words of your spirit. Deep in their heart and their mind. Apply only that which is from you, and let all else fall aside as chaff. But speak to our hearts today, Father.
I pray this in Yeshua's name. Amen.
The Torah was amazing.
But what we soon discover is that regulations of righteousness inflamed a rebellion in our flesh against it. In fact, Paul goes on in Romans 5 and says, God knew it was going to happen in the first place, because that doesn't make any sense. Well, not to our mind, but God's mind. It was made perfect sense because God knew what he was going to do. God knew that even though he was giving them statutes and laws and commandments to hem them in so that they could live in a community of righteousness, though that would inflame our flesh against it, he said, you know what?
Where sin increases, I've got a plan. Grace is going to increase all the more. You see, God could never justify doing what he did if he didn't have a greater solution to what was going to be provoked in our flesh. The law's only limitation was that it could regulate behavior, but it could not transform our minds or rehabilitate our appetite for sin, nor could it atone for our sin. Something greater was needed, a revelation of righteousness of God, not written in stone, but manifested in the flesh of the living incarnate Word of God, Jesus.
The Torah had been given to Israel to be the kingdom of God on earth, or at least to be a shadow of it. Jesus came declaring the kingdom of God had drawn near and the invitation to be a part of it was being offered. But the kingdom of heaven isn't for everyone.
Everyone is invited. But the kingdom of heaven isn't for everyone because there are some people who do not like the change that is required to walk in the kingdom. Jesus begins his ministry and mission by declaring that kingdom has drawn near and demonstrating that power. And people came to him on that mountain in the Galilee and he sat down and he opened his mouth as the word of God taught them about the kingdom. First, with prophetic blessings that not only revealed the destiny of righteous, but also that theirs was the kingdom.
And it all began, as I said, in humility. Now again, I don't know what should grab your attention more than this. If this message, this Torah of the kingdom in it that Jesus is laying out those who will and those who will not be in the kingdom. If your spiritual radar, if your spiritual ears aren't pricked and ready to hear something is seriously wrong, you know, I liken it to Going to how to defuse a bomb class, and you happen to miss the day where they say, cut the red one. That's pretty important information, isn't it?
That's a class you don't want to miss. This is a teaching we don't want to miss. He begins with 10 prophetic declarations. And then he follows that by saying, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.
And we took just. We briefly mentioned that. I just want to call to your remembrance Genesis, chapter 18. God appears to Abraham just before he goes down to Sodom and Gomorrah where he intends to destroy the cities because their wickedness. In Genesis 18:17, God says, Can I.
Can I go do this and not tell my servant Abraham? And in an act of righteousness, God chooses to tell Abraham. Why? Because God has literally promised Abraham the inheritance of the world. But when he gets done seeing what God's about to rain down from heaven, he might question that.
You know, there's a Jewish tradition that lot's daughters thought that the whole world had been destroyed. That's how horrific that judgment was. And God said, I'm not. I can't do this. I'm not going to go down there without telling him.
And so he tells him what's going to happen. And then Abraham, you know, the story, begins to negotiate with God. Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 within the city. Will you sweep them away?
And God says, no, I won't do it for 50 righteous people. I won't do it. And then, you know, the negotiation goes down. And it goes down because Abraham knows enough about those cities to know 50 righteous people in those two cities. That's gonna be a stretch.
And he eventually gets all the way down to 10 people. And God says, for 10 righteous people, I will preserve those cities. They could not find 10 righteous people. Jesus said, righteous people are the salt of the earth. Have you ever thought about the irony of this?
Because God could not find 10 righteous people in that place. No salt.
There was no preservation of righteousness, not even in 10 people. And so what did God do? I love. I love the irony. You know, we.
We send it. We sinned at the foot of a living tree with living fruit. And what do we get? We got death. So how does God fix it?
He brings us to a death tree and gives us life. Genius. God says there's no salt of righteousness in these cities. Fair enough. Give him some salt.
Come on. And he literally turns that place. When you go down the Arava Valley, and you're heading down to where we. The hotel area district, where we stay on the Dead Sea. You don't even have to be outside.
You can be in the bus with the air conditioning on and you can begin to lick your lips and taste the salt that is in that area. That is because of that judgment.
Jesus instructs those whose hearts are truly, who truly want to be part of his kingdom of righteousness that these are truly the salt and light of the world. But then Jesus sets up the rest of his Torah on the kingdom by saying something, as I said earlier, that has rattled, mystified the body of Christ in all of its expressions. So I'm going to read them and I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit to steal my soul. Because this is the first time in all the years that I have loved the Torah, loved the Gospel, that I have preached these four verses to a group of people like me who made a whole lot of mistakes with these four verses. And that's just awkward.
Jesus says, do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish the but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds or surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven. Heaven. Now, that last line should have just sent shivers up your spine, because if you want to talk about putting a price tag on something Yeshua has just said, listen, this, this thing that I'm declaring, this kingdom of heaven that's drawn near this righteousness, which is the economy of that kingdom. It is so important that if you don't get this, you're not going in. Now, that doesn't mean that this is some.
Oh, he's going to teach us some mystical, oh, now I thought I understood, but now I understand. This changes everything. No, this has always been the thing he wanted us to teach and learn.
So I realize, having said, that, these four verses have been misinterpreted and misapplied and misinterpreted. Misspoken, that here I am about to teach you what I think they actually mean. The awkwardness of that is not lost on me.
But let me give you a couple ways that I believe they have been misapplied through history. Let's start with Christianity in general. Sometime 3400 A.D. these verses began to be used by people in, in certain parts of Christianity to denigrate the value of the Torah or the law given by Moses. The instruction God gave has been treated, was treated as a burden.
Some people looked at it as an unrealistic expectation that God imposed on his children. Christianity has not celebrated that Jesus Christianity has celebrated not that Jesus saved us from the law, but that Jesus saved us from our sin, which is a violation of the law. Let me restate that. Christianity made it out that Jesus saved us from the law. And when I got in the Messianic movement, pretty soon I heard people pushing back on that.
Now that is partly true and partly not true. Jesus died to save you from your sin. Amen. And the only way he could do that was to save you from the thing that had a judgment against you, which was the law. So there is in fact a context in which Yeshua did save you from the law because the law had the condemnation against you for your sin.
But when the movement, the Hebraic Roots movement, got a hold of that, no, no, no, he didn't save us from the law. Well, yeah he did. And he knew he was going to do it from the very beginning. Then in the late 60s and 70s, along came the Messianic Jewish revival beginning with Jewish young people beginning to accept Yeshua as the Messiah in numbers we hadn't seen since Pentecost. Soon Gentiles, non Jewish believers took note of what was going on and they started wanting to be a part of it.
And as they began to interact with these new Jewish believers, they began to learn some things from the Gospel and from the Torah from a Jewish perspective that they had never heard.
I mean, surprise, surprise, a bunch of white Gentiles missed a few things.
You know, one of the Jewish aspects was how the Torah spoke to the Gospel they now believed. Soon a Torah loving Gentile movement was born and it quickly went off the rails as fast as it possibly could. Now I've already confessed, I was in that boat.
I made some of those mistakes. So if you're getting all sensitive, let me give you a little south side wisdom. Suck it up buttercup. We're all in this boat trying to understand what the Messiah wants. I started listening to men instead of the Messiah and my emphasis, I got distracted quickly.
They began to abuse and misapply these Four verses, using them as a proof text for positions that Jesus wasn't even talking about.
So again, I come with a humble heart trying to tell you. All I want to show you is the context and the words of what he said. So let's look at them. Jesus said, do not think that I came to abolish the law of the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.
How many of you have ever seen a meme? I'm not going to ask you how many of you have reposted them because I know some of you who did. And that verse is on there and it's treated like a mic drop moment. Boom. Therefore, all Gentiles must keep every aspect of the law.
Is that what Jesus just said? Not even close.
How did it suddenly become about you?
That's the first mistake. One of the fastest ways to know if someone is giving you a false interpretation is if the emphasis of their interpretation is about them. When of the sentence is about Yeshua, do not think that I came. He's telling you what he's doing. Jesus is telling the masses filled with people from every sect of Judaism, the largest of which was the Pharisees.
The purpose for why he came. The kingdom of heaven would not have drawn near if it hadn't drawn near through him. He is the kingdom. Jesus gives two critical explanations that he wants them and us to understand. And folks, this matters.
He did not come to abolish the law of the prophets. What does that mean? Well, the word. Let me just simplify. Like the Word of God did not come to nullify the Word of God, right?
It didn't happen. Jesus did not come to say the previous instruction in righteousness given as an act of God's grace by God to Moses to Israel was irrelevant and need not be taught or valued or obeyed. He also did not come to say or teach that things that the prophets had foretold were going to be changed and that any expectation of God fulfilling them could now be set aside. Have you ever heard someone do that to a prophecy? Well, I know he said it like this, but that's not how it's going to be.
You know, both Jews and Christians do this as well as Hebrew roots people. Jews do it by making messianic prophecies conditioned on their behavior. The Genesis 49:10 prophecy about until Shiloh comes is a clear example that the Messiah should have been here 2,000 years ago. But when you decide to reject that Yeshua is the Messiah, you've got to then go back to the Prophecy that previously you would have said, oh, this is when he's coming. And then when he doesn't come, then you got to change it.
And they change the interpretation of the prophecy to fit them.
Christians do the same thing. We do it every time. We hijack a prophecy about God's faithfulness to the physical descendants of Abraham and claim that God no longer cares about the Jewish people. All those lovely blessings and statements of his, you know, faithfulness to the Jewish people because of his promise made to Abraham. We just say, we'll take that, thank you.
That's not about you anymore. But my point is, and both of those need a lot more discussion. But my point is, Jews, Christians, Messianics, Hebrew roots, Hebrew nuts, it doesn't matter. We all do it.
Why? Because our fallen flesh loves to make it about. Who? Me? You.
You understand?
Jesus says his purpose was not to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Both the Torah, the laws and the statutes and the prophecies. So very quickly, what does it mean to fulfill a prophecy? The Jewish people give a great answer in Numbers 13, where Joshua and Caleb returned from spying out the land with the other 10 spies that were sent into Canaan. Just understand, this was a sin of interpretation.
They go, in all 12 saw the exact same thing. 10 came back and said, yep, exactly as God said, it is no way we can take it. Two who had a different spirit, Joshua and Caleb, said, it's exactly the way God says it. Let's go get it.
Later, Moses will say that Joshua and Caleb fulfilled the word of the Lord. And the Jewish people will look to that as the definition of what it means to fulfill. It means to give the correct interpretation and be willing to live out what God has said. And Jesus says, don't think I've come to abolish. I have come to fulfill.
I have come to do two things. I am going to live it out, but I'm also going to teach you the correct interpretation. Now again, if I'm getting up in your business, I'm getting up in mine. How in heaven's name did Jesus ever end up in the backseat of a movement that claimed to love the Torah?
Somebody is giving a different interpretation. The giving of and the willingness to live out the correct interpretation of a Bible instruction or prophecy is considered in Judaism, the fulfilling of that prophecy. Abolishing is the accusation made against anyone giving an incorrect interpretation. Even in Jewish yeshivas to this day, you're sitting around Jewish young men sitting there arguing, debating about the meaning of a passage. And if you happen to one happens to think the other is giving a false interpretation.
Guess what they accuse them of? You're nullifying the Torah.
They use this terminology to this day. Jesus said, I didn't come to do that. I came to fulfill it. Now here's the crazy thing. In fulfilling it, Jesus is going to expose those who are nullifying it.
The minute he opens his mouth on that mountain and begins to give the correct interpretation and fulfillment of the prophecies or the laws, he is exposing those who are giving false interpretation and nullifying the Torah.
Jesus says, I didn't come to nullify, I came to fulfill.
He's setting up a juxtaposition that is going to compare his interpretation versus that of the Scribes and Pharisees who use their interpretation to determine if you were in the right group.
Anybody here ever been a part of a group that got more focused on who was in our group?
No. Spent more time talking about how everybody else outside of our group was wrong. Congratulations. We just ran a play straight out of the pages of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Please hear this. Beware when someone's interpretation is more about themselves and justifying their group than it is about the one who the verse is actually talking about. And that should make us uncomfortable.
Now please notice what this verse is not talking about. It is not talking about the gentile non Jewish believers relationship or obligation to the statutory regulations of the Torah that was given to the sons of Israel. That's not what it's talking about. You can't simply co opt this verse and drop it into a meme to justify your group identity position. This isn't about you, it's about Him.
Another clue to misinterpretation is when a significant part of the passage is ignored. Jesus does not just say he didn't come to abolish the Torah. You know, I have yet to see a meme that even begins to deal with the issue of him not coming to abolish the prophets. I haven't seen one. But Jesus didn't come and say, I didn't come to abolish just the law.
He said, I didn't come to abolish the law or the prophets. Now I want to ask you a question. How many of you believe Jesus is coming again? Some of you are a little iffy there. How many of you believe that when Jesus comes, he's going to be born of a virgin again, live for 33 years, die on the cross, and then resurrect again?
Why not? Because that Devar Hashem that Word of the Lord has been fulfilled.
He did it. He's not coming back as the lamb, he's coming back as the lion. Prophecy is devar hashem. It's the word of the Lord. When God speaks, it is always with a purpose to bring something to fulfillment in this.
In this world where things are not functioning in the context of his righteousness. Fulfillment always means that the Word of God has brought about the purpose of God. That's the correct interpretation, that the Word of God brings about the purpose of God. And when it has brought about the purpose of God, it is then fulfilled. The apostle Paul was chosen literally by Jesus himself to help us understand this.
And in Romans 10:4, he said, Christ is the end of the law. And a bunch of very lazy American English speakers said, see, there it is. Laws, done. That's not what that word means. The Greek word for in just happens to be Brent's favorite Greek word.
Ah, I owe you a Coke or something. You're allowed to eat anyway.
Telos, the Greek word that means the goal, the end, the purpose for the reason the thing was created in the first place, that it was created to accomplish. That's the telos.
And everything Jesus, everything God ever said and everything Jesus ever did was to bring it. Whether it was a statute, a law, or a prophecy to tell us. But now hear this.
When it is fulfilled and that which was given has been accomplished, there is a change that takes place.
The Torah that brought us to him does not vanish as irrelevant, but it is eclipsed by a greater righteousness found in the Messiah. This is why Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel. Why would I, as a rabbi, be ashamed of the Gospel? For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first, and then to the Greek, for in it the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith to, as it is written, but the righteous shall live by faith.
What did Jesus say? Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees, where are you not going? You're not going into the kingdom of heaven. And he says, I came so that the gospel of what I've taught, what I've done is the righteousness. In that there is a greater revelation of righteousness.
And if you miss that righteousness, if you're. If you're so busy trying to figure out how many words descend from this three letter root. Yeah, I'll get you. Hold on, hold on, Jesus. I'll be right there.
That's Kabbalah. If I can Just figure out the meaning of the individual letters and how. Oh, that used to be an ox.
Hallelujah. I hope that helps. When you're out there in the world and you're struggling to pay your bills and you're feeling bad about yourself. Olive used to look like an ox.
Come, spirit of the ox.
Forgive me for being mocking, but this is what we do. We're too busy trying to figure out the regulations of righteousness when the living word of righteousness. I've said this so many times. I've told you before. Lord spoke to me in Michigan one time.
I was complaining, lord, take this sin away from me. Take this temptation away from me. And he said, brent, why are you always asking me to take something away from you when I've already done everything for you? Just walk in it. Just walk in it.
I have accomplished the righteousness you need. Walk in it.
Jesus tells him he came to fulfill verse 18. For I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished, until all is brought to the purpose. I say again, remember Genesis 49:10. Kingship will reside in the tribe of Judah until Shiloh comes. That word until means something.
It means that when he comes, something changes. Successive Jewish kings stop. But. But the. But the prophecy says that the kings will come from Judah.
That's right. Until Shiloh comes. New start. What's my point? Jesus didn't come to nullify the law, but he did come to fulfill it and be its ultimate accomplishment.
And if you don't understand that when he does that something's going to change, you don't understand fulfillment. The Hebrew roots movement used to scream as loud as they could about. He didn't come to abolish the commandment and never really understood what it meant to fulfill it. Because when it's fulfilled, something changes. You can have all the parts of a bicycle in a box and you can pull them out and you can study them individually, measure them, you know, pronounce them.
But until they're all put together, and when they all get put together, something changed. You can now ride a bike instead of looking in a box. Something changes. The Pharisees weren't willing to accept change.
The Bible says that they rejected the baptism of John. Why? Because the baptism of John was based on humility leading to repentance. If they to go to the waters of baptism with John would to say to all those people that they've been telling, we're righteous, you need to be like us. And now they're going to go and they're going to show everybody, hey, you know what?
We're sinners too. That was a change they would not accept. But when the Messiah comes, things change.
Beware of those whose interpretation of the Torah demands that everything remain as it always has been. If Jesus uses transition and moments of change terminology, we can't ignore that there is a moment when all is accomplished and things change. Verse 19. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
This is not talking about how big your mansion's going to be.
Jesus isn't talking about an eschatological piece of property the by and by throughout his ministry. He's talking about the kingdom of heaven and its presence and its nearness and its activity right here and now. And there's a lot of people, a lot of people in the body of Christ. Why does this do this? Go away, Go away, including myself, who deserve to be called least in the kingdom.
Because when you go through your life making it all about you, do you know who's great in the kingdom of heaven? You know who they are? They are people that walk that spiritual walk, that one that you wish you were. They are the people that when they pray, God just enters the room. They're those people who just seem to have a connection with the Almighty that we like.
Let's be honest. They're the irritating people. They're irritating people who set that standard of spirituality and righteousness. Now, there are some fakers, you know, the ones who never have a bad day. How's it going?
Oh, I'm just blessed. I'm coming in, I'm going out. I'm just. Oh, stop it.
Don't. There's a saying in the Talmud somewhere. Don't be more righteous than God, okay? Don't be irritatingly righteous. I literally cannot make this thing go away.
So. That's all right. I didn't bring my.
Well, let's try again. See, this is what I'm talking about that old fashioned way where you have a notebook and you flip the page. Nothing ever disappeared.
One page didn't jump up and go, I'm not leaving. Hit me as many times as you want.
Yes, I'm technologically challenged. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever keeps and teaches Them shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven. Those people who don't just teach them, but walk them and live them. Those people that you know when they speak, it's from a place of humility that it's a place of kindness.
It's a place of hungering for righteousness. The warning is not that they will get a smaller mansion. The warning is that they will get a smaller manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven in their life. We look around at the American church, I don't care what flavor it is. And let's face it, we're all asking the same question.
Where's the kingdom? Where's the power?
How come we live our lives as miserably as the people in the world? I'm going to step out and meddle. How come we live our lives as if what happened in the White House yesterday is just.
Let me quote my father. Knock it off.
Guess who's still on the throne.
Politicians fussing at each other and we fall apart. You know what's going to happen? The purpose of God will still come to fruition for the people in Ukraine, for the people in Russia, for the people in the United States, for the people in Israel. It doesn't matter how many terrorists or politicians.
You made that connection all by yourself.
Verse 20. We'll wrap this up. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of Heaven. And now the stage is set for Jesus to give the fulfilled interpretation of God's Word and expose those who, by their narcissism and arrogance, were doing exactly what Jesus came not to do. He is about to show how they nullify the Torah and how they stand in the way of other people coming into the kingdom.
I know this gets too close to home, but I'll never forget when I began hearing this phrase. There's nothing new in the New Covenant. I think it may have been one of the phrases that jolted me early on to make me realize something is rotten in Denmark.
Nothing changed after the Messiah came and died and gave his life and rose again. Everything just goes on the same. Everything is the same. When he pours the Ruach Hakodesh, the spirit of his holiness, within you to write his righteous commandments. Nothing changed.
Everything changed for the better worship team. You can come back, my friends. Jesus puts a huge price tag on this subject. And it all comes down to this juxtaposition to a Kingdom Torah that He is teaching that starts on the inside, just like Remember when we studied the tabernacle? It starts on the inside.
A kingdom that has its origin story within us and becomes a river that flows out of us. But it only happens.
Or the way he juxtaposes things. No river flows out of us until we have run to the river of humility and been baptized into him, declaring, I'm a sinner and I need Jesus. My righteousness worse than filthy rags. I need God. Remember when Yeshua was baptized?
Why did he do it? To fulfill all. Come on. To fulfill all. I'm not making this up.
This is the theme. Consider with me the irony of this moment. Those who claim to be the most righteous were the least. Those who claimed to have the right answers and interpretation for every commandment and how to keep them were the ones that turned the righteous instructions into a burden instead of a blessing. Made people give up instead of press in.
Here's the irony.
Since righteousness cannot exist without humility, and all false interpretation flows out of hubris and arrogance, where does that leave us today?
It leaves us like it left those people on that mountainside 2000 years ago. Not trying to figure out, well, what's the next commandment? I need to make sure I'm saying it right, doing it right. Got the right calendar, got the right pronoun. Jesus says, what's going on in your heart?
David messed up. I'm so thankful David messed up.
I'm so glad. He caught, chose a man named Saul who messed up, said, I'm still going to use you to reach the nations.
The righteousness of Christ changes everything or it changes nothing.
If we don't want there to be a change, if that's what our journey looks like, figuring out how to go back and do it the way it was always done, while missing the newness of what he has done, the righteousness that's revealed in him, by him, through him, for you, that's different.
Americans know that believers in Jesus live by a different morality.
They know we believe certain things are right and certain things are wrong.
But until they experience the love of Christ flowing from our heart, we will never have a chance to teach them anything about righteousness. Because the best example of righteousness, righteousness is not the commandment you keep, but the person you love. That moment when you get outside of yourself and do righteousness as Jesus called us to the mountain to do. As we enter this time of response, as we stand or as you sit, whatever you need to do, I'm asking you just to check your heart. Have I been caught up in my group?
Have I been caught up in my identity? In my group, have I been. Well, I'm in this group. I'm not in.
Jesus says, where's your heart? Are you hungering and thirsting after righteousness, or are you hungering and thirsting after recognition? That's where it begins, and that's where it changes. And I don't know about you, but I want to be called great in the kingdom of heaven. I don't mean as a prideful accolade for myself.
I mean, I want to be so humble before the Lord that when people think of me, they say, there's a man who's not perfect, but the Spirit of God rests on him and moves through him. And I see Jesus in him. Let's do some business with the Lord.