Posted on by rschut1945

On Prayer (Matt 6:5-15)

Now Jesus warns us not to pray like the hypocrites, but exactly what is a hypocrite?  The word has evolved in our language to mean someone who says one thing and does another, but that doesn’t seem to fit here.  It is interesting to note that the word hypocrite, ὑποκριτής in Greek, originally meant an actor who plays a role of another person.  It is not truly who he is, but merely an artificial person.  That definitely fits much better because Jesus goes on to say that these hypocrites would put on quite the performance by standing in synagogues and street-corners just so that they could be seen by others.  So again such people have already received their reward. 

Jesus tells us that the correct way to pray is to be quiet and alone where the focus can be on our heavenly Father.  When you pray in this manner you will be rewarded openly.  Here again, I take this to mean that such prayer transforms our character into a more humble person rather than into someone who has become proud and arrogant about their prayers where their focus is more on how impressive they sound to others.

He then tells us that our prayers are not heard because of their eloquence and length for if God is truly infinite he already knows our needs even before we ask.  So then one might ask, “Why then do we pray if God already knows what we need?”  The reason is not that God needs to hear our audible prayers before he answers them, but rather they are spoken so that we can be transformed by putting our needs into words.  Our words complete our ideas and thoughts and also complete the emotion behind them.  I think that we fail to understand just how important the spoken word is to our psyche.

So then when we pray incorrectly like the hypocrites we become the center of attention and importance.  But when we pray with correctly we become humbled in the presence of God as he becomes the true focus of our thoughts and needs.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Jesus gives us an example of how we ought to pray.  We address our prayers to God as our Heavenly Father.  We also proclaim the importance of his Name which is Yahweh (Jehovah).  The importance of this is to make the connection between the identity of Yahweh in the Old Testament with our Father in the New.  Many overlook this intimate connection that is extremely important in understanding the true nature of Christ.  

We must look forward to the coming of God’s kingdom rather than want to postpone it until we finish all our projects and the power of his kingdom will be just as wonderful on earth as it is in heaven.

We only need to ask for whatever is sufficient for this day.  In this way we are encouraged to live during this moment and not be so concerned for the future that we miss what’s happening right in front of us.

We ask for no more than what we are willing to do ourselves.  So when it comes to forgiveness we must be willing to forgive others because by doing that we pass God’s forgiveness on to others through the exercising of our forgiveness.

The next part of the prayer is very difficult for most people because sin is so attractive and its whole purpose is to lead us into evil.  But we are to ask God to take away temptation.  We are not to try to live on the edge of sin like many do.  We must remember that temptation is the beginning of sin.  If we could only repeat these words in this prayer with passionate sincerity we would be so much holier than we are.  Why should we want to be holy?  Because God is holy and so is his kingdom.

In verse 14 Jesus addresses forgiveness as being directly related to our forgiving of others.  This is not as though we are earning forgiveness by the act of forgiving others; it is rather our accepting the principle of forgiveness as being part of God’s character.  This fits nicely into our belief that the source of our transformation is not in anything that we do but is in God himself and that only by our love for him can we be transformed into the image of Christ.  If we do not forgive others, we are not letting our love for God work within us and by not forgiving others our faith becomes mere religious ritual. 

To better understand what Jesus is saying we first need to understand more about what forgiveness is.  According to the usage in this prayer forgiveness is not the same thing as when we forgive someone when they say they are sorry.  The forgiveness Jesus is speaking about is a response to a moral debt owed to us by another.  This is the general theme throughout this sermon: we must be prepared to show mercy to others if we expect God to show mercy to us.  By so doing we give others a chance to actually practice repentance by changing their behavior.  How do we forgive them and to what extent?  In the same manner that we want God to forgive us.  

When we consider forgiveness under these terms it eliminates the possibility that man can accomplish this by means of his own will. The source of our forgiveness than is not the human will, but the love of God.

Posted on by rschut1945

Fulfilling The Law Matt (5:17-20)

Matthew 5:17-20 (KJV) 
 17  Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 
 18  For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 
 19  Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 
 20  For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus said that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.  What does it mean to fulfill the law?  The word fulfill also means to complete with a purpose or design or to bring about its full meaning. All of these meanings are appropriate here.  Jesus fulfilled the law in that he not only lived out the law perfectly without sin, but that he himself was a perfect sacrifice required by the law to be a substitution for sin.  The law is not limited to only the moral code that was given to Moses as listed in the Ten Commandments, but is used of the entire Jewish system of worship including the temple system or worship and all the food and purity laws.  So Jesus’ fulfilling of the law extends beyond living a perfect moral life.  The entire structure of worship that was established by God with the Jews was done as a foreshadow of what was to come in the form of Christ.

But does verse 18 mean that we are still under the law?  The law is still in effect in that it continues to bring the sinner to repentance by making them aware of their sin.  Without the law man would not know what the moral will of God was.  Paul writes in Romans 7:7,

7What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

The law was the greatest expression of God’s morality until Christ.  So the law continues to be the law, but Christ has become an even better expression of God’s morality than the written law.   

What Paul taught us is so important to understand here: that if we try to keep the law, we are denying that Jesus fulfilled the law.  If we live as though we were under the law, we are no longer under the grace of God. 

The role of the law has caused a lot of confusion in Paul’s day and continues to today.  There is nothing wrong with the law and Jesus did not need to destroy it.  However, what Jesus did was to show us what it looks like when someone keeps the law perfectly.  Jesus expression of the law is the highest form of righteousness than could be expressed to mankind in that way Jesus is greater than the law (Matt 12:6-8).  So the law is still in effect, but it is now much better expressed through Christ.  We keep the law not by living it through our will to be righteous, but by the submission of our will to Jesus. If you truly want to be righteous than live by these sayings of Jesus in his Sermon and you will be obeying the law. 

Jesus told us that we must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees who were very religious and struggled to keep the law perfectly.  They fasted and prayed and offered sacrifices frequently as well as tenaciously kept the Sabbath.  How many of us could really be good Pharisees today?  The point that Jesus was making was that our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees not in that we are trying harder, but rather that we are loving the law of God more accurately as we love it as expressed by Christ.

If you still want to live by the law, then obey the Sermon on the Mount for by so doing you will live the law more perfectly.  There are some today that think they must keep the food laws given to Moses in order to keep their bodies clean. Paul taught very clearly here in Romans 7:1-6 that we died to the law through Christ (Baptism). 

4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.  

So we are now free from the law through our baptism into Christ. We did not earn salvation through our works or goodness.  It was gift given to us through the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus that we might die with him and receive the gift of eternal life. Let us be eternally grateful to him for our freedom rather than become bound to the law.