July 7, 2013
What God demands He gives. He demands more than you can accomplish but
gives in abundance.
There are many things we could say about God. We could talk about how
He is almighty. He can do anything. We can marvel at His work of creation,
bringing everything into existence. And doing so by the simple speaking of His
word. We could talk about His love, His abounding mercy and grace. We could
talk about His eternal nature, that He is without beginning and without end.
And as Christians, we do in fact spend a good amount of time talking
about these things. We marvel at them, rejoice in them, confess them, and praise
Him for them. As Christians we should in fact do this. There is indeed much to
say about God and we should continue to say it.
But at the end of the day, there really is one thing to say about God,
about which if we do not say it, none of the rest of it matters. The one thing
we must say above all others about God is that He has given us His Son. His
primary way He has revealed Himself to us—that is, everyone—is in the person of
Jesus. To understand the one true God who demands much apart from Christ is to
not understand God at all. To try to praise God apart from the salvation given
and accomplished in the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, is to give
praise to a false god. To try to come to terms with the true God who is holy
and who condemns sinners for their sin apart from God’s answer to our sin and
our condemnation is to remain in our sin and end in condemnation. His answer is
His Son.
It is not working it out. It is not trying harder. It is not in
feelings or emotions. It is not in philosophy, or psychology, or spirituality,
or morality, or any other attempt at goodness. It is solely in salvation from
God. His salvation is solely in His Son.
God demands perfection of you. He demands perfect righteousness. He
holds a place for you in heaven only if you have satisfied the requirements of His
holy Law. His Law is laid down nicely in the Old Testament reading, which we
are very familiar with. The Old Testament reading relates to us the Ten
Commandments. The well-known demands of God. You shall not do this and you
shall not do that. If you do what you shall not do then you will forever be separated
from God because your righteousness, your holiness, your goodness, is anything
but that. With God, His demand is perfection, not just ‘good enough’.
And so any attempt at knowing God, believing in Him, following Him,
that rests in any notion that you are good enough, or that at least you’re
trying, is an attempt that damns you. People across the ages have tried this.
They still do. It’s very appealing. Don’t we all want others to live in such a
way that they’re trying to be good people, that they are wanting to be better
and better people? Yes, of course we do. To a certain extent, it enables living
a better existence in this life.
The problem with it is that it robs God of His glory. His primary way
of making Himself known to us is His Son. Any attempt on our part to be right
with God takes away what Christ has already accomplished for us. He alone gets
the glory, not us. Should we try to be better people? Of course! Should we seek
to do what is right? No doubt. But the reason is because of Christ. The reason
is that whatever good we do is brought about by Christ. The righteousness we
have is the righteousness of Christ.
The way we view God is skewed. It is skewed because of our sin and our
fallen nature. We look at Him through our sinful eyes and we think that the
good we do should count for something. If we step back though, and view Him the
way He ought to be viewed, we can see that He is by nature not a God who
demands but who gives. His creation was perfect. His love and gifts upon His
people were in abundance. There were no constant demands on Adam and Eve
because there was no need for it. It wasn’t only until sin entered the world that
the need for demands came in.
But though He was now making demands, He was still by nature the God
who gives; and who gives in abundance. Knowing the demand of perfect
righteousness could never be met by us, He gave once again. He gave the
promise. It was the promise of the Savior. And when the time had fully come He
gave that Savior. He gave His Son. Here was His gift, perfect righteousness,
for that is what Christ is. He is righteousness in the flesh. God alone is
holy. He alone is without sin. He alone is perfect in righteousness. And so His
gift was Himself, God in the flesh. Righteousness, in the flesh.
God demanded righteousness, He gave righteousness. He required we be
like God, He gave us God—giving us Himself in the person of Jesus. God demands,
yes. But God gives. What He demands, He gives. That is why He gave His Son.
Jesus didn’t just pay for our sins. He didn’t just pay the penalty for our
sins. He didn’t just receive the punishment for our sins that we rightly
deserve. He accomplished what God demands. Perfect righteousness. Look at the
Ten Commandments. Christ alone has kept them all. Perfectly. Look at the
demands of God. Christ alone did what was demanded. And He did it freely. He
did it joyfully. He did it out of love. Out of love for you and me and the
whole world.
Jesus said our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and
Pharisees. You’d be hard put to find others who were more righteous than they
were. They were upstanding people, good people, taking God’s Law very
seriously. Exceeding their righteousness would be exceedingly difficult. In
fact, there is only one way it can be done. It cannot be done in the way they
sought to be righteous. For them, they saw righteousness as abiding by the letter
of the Law. You shall not murder? Got it. Haven’t taken the life of anyone
unjustly. You shall not commit adultery? Good to go. Have not had an affair
with anyone. You shall not steal? No problem. Haven’t taken anything that is
not mine. And they would just go right down the list, confirming themselves in
their righteousness.
Many people do this same kind of thing, but we must remember that most
of us don’t take it nearly as seriously and nearly to the extreme that the
scribes and Pharisees did. They were righteous! And everybody knew it. So how
in the world can our righteousness exceed that of theirs?
There is only one way. When it comes to adultery, Jesus ups the ante.
We’re not just talking about having an affair here, but what is in your heart.
The lust that consumes you. When God’s Law prohibits stealing, Jesus raises the
bar. We’re not just talking about physically taking someone else’s stuff, but
conniving and taking advantage of a person. And He goes on down the list,
showing that the Ten Commandments is not just a list of certain actions we
should and should not do, but a matter of the heart. It is out of the heart
that come our evil thoughts and desires.
The Gospel reading today addresses the Fifth Commandment, You shall not
murder. You haven’t unjustly taken the life of another person? That’s good. But
what about the vengeful thoughts in your heart? What about the grudge you are
holding onto? What about your refusal to reconcile with the person who has
sinned against you? The Ten Commandments show you that, in the final analysis,
your righteousness does not simply not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees,
it shows you that you are utterly unrighteous. They were too, by the way, but
were too full of their own righteousness to see it.
There is only thing you can say at this point. Only one hope and
solution when you have come to this realization. It is Christ. It is Christ
alone. He is perfect righteousness, and God declares you righteousness. You who
are unrighteous are given what He has demanded, the perfect righteousness of
His Son. While He took all of your unrighteousness on Himself, He has given you
His perfect righteousness. He who exceeded all righteousness suffered what
justly we ought to have for our unrighteousness and receiving the wrath of God
upon sinners. At the cross, it was Christ alone suffering, the righteous for
the unrighteous, His death for your life.
God demanded righteousness, holiness, perfection. He gave His Son. He
gave Him to you. He has given to you what He has demanded, perfect
righteousness. And in that is eternal life. Amen.
SDG
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