4 ≠ Let Your Righteousness be More than that of the Scribes and Pharisees

 

Chapter 5 -- Pt 1

 

There is a peculiar quality to the life ≥in the kingdom of God≤ as viewed from our customary perspective. It requires the initiative of both God and us. The life is neither one passively received, nor one lived by our own force of will. It is realized in us today only by some sort of ongoing dependency on Christ. There is no formulaic prescription that we must uncover and then force ourselves to follow. It is inherently ≥alive≤ and has an inherent quality of love in it.

 

Jesusπ picture of moral fulfillment and beauty in the kingdom of the heavens is one of heartfelt love toward all, including those who would be happy if we dropped dead. This love does not consist of acts and projects but is a pervasive condition of vision, joy, and love in which we habitually reside.

 

• See the Sermon on the Mount as a carefully crafted, progressive set of teaching aimed to lead us to living life in the kingdom of the heavens now.
• Donπt see it as a loose collection of isolated profound moral directions that are either misguided idealism or tragically impossible targets for living.
• It is important to understand it as one discourse, purposively organized by its highly competent speaker so that the particular statements made are not left to the mercy of whatever whims may strike readers as they contemplate each pearl of wisdom.
• The purpose of the sermon is to help people come to hopeful and realistic terms with their lives here on earth by clarifying, in concrete terms, the nature of the kingdom into which they are now invited by Jesusπ call: ≥Repent, for life in the kingdom of the heavens is now one of your options.≤

 

Jesus is smart, real smart.

• For all the vast influence he has exercised on human history, we have to say that Jesus is today usually seen as a frankly pathetic individual who lived and still lives on the margins of ≥real life.≤ What lies at the heart of the astonishing disregard of Jesus found in the moment-to-moment existence of multitudes of professing Christians is a simple lack of respect for him.
• He was no backwater incompetent hic.
• In the context of a vibrant, cosmopolitan, multi-cultural crossroads, Jesus was respected and admired even as a youth of twelve.
• Jesus can be expected to be worth listening to carefully.

 

Previously, the gift of the law was all that was available. The law, in itself could only set a standard to guide the way to life. It did not in itself enable its own fulfillment. Fulfillment of Godπs law is important because it is good. To be sure, the law is not the source of righteousness, but it is forever the course of righteousness.

 

The various scenes and situations that Jesus discusses in his Discourse on the Hill are actually stages in a progression toward a life of agape love. They progressively presuppose that we know where our well-being really lies, that we have laid aside anger and obsessive desire, that we do not try to mislead people to get our way, and so on. Then loving and helping those who hurt us and hate us, for example, will come as a natural progression. Doing so will seem quite right, and we will be able to do so. Transform the inner life of the soul by apprenticeship to Jesus, and the behavior that flows forth will automatically fulfill Godπs law.

 

It is the person of Jesus and his death for us that makes clear what it is about God that makes him ≥really good.≤

 

Anger

Jesus presents the elimination of anger and contempt as the first and fundamental step toward the rightness of the kingdom heart.

 

• Anger springs naturally as a flag to get our attention that someone or something has presented an impediment to what we will to be.
• Anger as a response to those whoπve crossed us inherently includes some degree of malice against them. The relationship is thus wounded in some way.
• Anger indulged, instead of simply waved off, always has in it an element of self-righteousness and vanity. Find a person who has embraced anger, and you find a person with a wounded ego.
• Anger embraced is inherently disintegrative of human personality and life.

 

Anger ≠ contempt ≠ condemnation

      Increasingly wounding to the soul. It is not possible for people with such attitudes toward others to live in the movements of Godπs kingdom, for they are totally out of harmony with it.

 

What is Jesusπ point?

      That human beings are precious.

 

When I treasure those around me and see them as Godπs creatures designed for his eternal purposes, I do not make an additional point of not hating them or calling them twerps or fools. Not doing those things is simply a part of the package. ≥He that loves has fulfilled the law,≤ Paul said (Rom. 13:8) Really.

 

Right personal relationships have priority over everything for Jesus.

 

By truly loving our adversary, we stand within the reality of Godπs kingdom and resources, and it is very likely we will draw our adversary into it also. Things are really different there, and a resolution manifesting the divine presence becomes possible. See what will happen. Venture on the kingdom. That is how we ≥seek≤ it.

 

Jesus does not tell us what to do, but how to do it.

 

Standing in the kingdom, we make responsible decisions in love, with assurance that how things turn out for us does not really matter that much because, in any case, we are in the kingdom of the heavens. In that kingdom nothing that can happen to us is ≥the end of the world.≤