I am an HGTV channel junkie.   I really enjoy watching the design teams do their thing.  Whenever the teams go in for any sort of makeover, they gut or demolish the room and sometimes the house.  They get rid of everything and begin again from scratch.  Literally out with the old and in with the new.  I know that recently many of you have experience working with companies when new management comes in – and cleans house!  All upper staff and many others are just let go.  All standard ways of making decisions are out.  Seemingly overnight, it is out with the old, in with the new.

During Jesus’ ministry there were many people who expected the same from Him.  Out with the old Law, in with the new!  But listen to what Jesus Himself says: Read Matthew 5:17-20.

            Jesus continues with His sermon on the mount on the hillside of Galilee (one of the places Dave and Carol and the tour group visited while in the Holy Land).  Jesus has concluded the Beatitudes or blessings of right living.  He will soon be teaching the teaching detail of what living out those blessings looks like in everyday life.  Before He goes forward in His sermon Jesus wants people to be sure that their right living is not “doing for doing sake” – but comes from the heart.   This is what Jesus refers to as new covenant living.

Now , the people are familiar with the Exodus stories of ancient days at Mount Sinai.   They even their own place and connection in those stories.  Because they know they are children of Abraham, they are confident they already live in a covenant-relationship with God.   Time and again, they heard that God said to Moses:  “I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”   We know that covenant has been preserved in the Ten Commandments and other parts of Scripture.  Through the centuries, when the Israelites sinned, it was the prophets called the people back to faithfulness to that covenant.  Many also remembered that the great prophet Jeremiah had prophesied that a new covenant was yet to come:  a covenant “NOT written on tablets of stone but on the hearts of the people.”   So it is from the heart this New Covenant begins to go beyond - doing for doing sake, and living out a reverence for God.

As you know, there were two groups of religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the scribes and the Pharisees, who did the “doing for doing sake.”  They worked over time to keep the law known and interpreted and enforced.  When I was a residential loan manager in my life before MPC, one of my tasks was to interpret loan laws and write regulations and rules for doing loans.   We had volumes of the things.   The scribes - the ones who interpret the Law to the minutest detail into rules and regulations - have my manuals beat, literally by miles.  They would spend hours detailing what was meant by a law.  For instance, to wear your wooden leg on the Sabbath was a sin – anyone here needing to be stoned for that infraction?  No?  Well, it was also a sin to wear your false teeth on the Sabbath.   No need to raise your hands on that one!  The Pharisees were the ones who prided themselves on keeping every detail of those rules and regulations.   The Pharisees and scribes had a high degree of thought and right action, according to the Law. But that is not everything. 

Jesus confronts those sacred traditions.  He places Himself squarely at the center of the exact meaning and fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecies…which include for Jesus, the law, prophets, and psalms…what we know as the entire Old Testament canon.  Jesus says again and again things like:  “You have heard that it was said. . . but I say . . . .”  He speaks with authority! 

And Jesus goes beyond the verbal challenge.  Jesus heals the sick - on the Sabbath.   It also appears that He abolishes the food laws from Moses.  He eats with sinners!  To the eye of the religious leaders, Jesus does not observe any of the rules and regulations.  He and His disciples appear to be deliberately breaking the rules, the Law.     All of this is way more than any self-respecting religious leader of the day could stand.  Jesus is perceived, and accused of being a destructionist, a revolutionist, an imposter and a blasphemer…a threat to their status quo.    

So Jesus asks, “Do you think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets? NO!  But I have come to clean up your idea of them.”  We see Jesus establish His new covenant of living. 

            Some Christians of the first centuries wanted to do away with the Old Testament altogether - reject the God of the Jews.   Some Christians still want to do just that.  However, Jesus was not doing away with the old covenant and Law.  Jesus can’t…a covenant is irrevocable…by the King.    The Law and the Prophets all point toward Jesus.  Why wouldn’t He come to fulfill them?  He would hardly destroy that which tells of His own coming.  Jesus evens states that anyone who breaks those old laws and also teaches others to break them – will suffer eternal consequences.  He says  nothing of that Law changes, not one iota, the smallest letter, and not one stroke of a letter, is changed or lost in His teaching.  Jesus puts His seal of authority upon the whole of the Old Testament.  He believes it all.  Throughout His ministry Jesus quotes almost every part of it.  This is the Word of God.   So, Jesus affirms that everything He would teach – in the remainder of His sermon – indeed in all that He will ever teach and live - is in absolute harmony with the true teaching of the Scriptures.  Yet, it is in complete contradiction of the teaching of the Pharisees and scribes.

Jesus’ central message is the gospel of the Kingdom of God.  Jesus takes our deepest yearnings and makes them deeper yet, before He satisfies them. He makes it possible for us to “become new.”  You see, God demands more than a performance of   particular commandments by us.  God demands we become a new being, living under the eyes of God and in the consciousness of His will.  So Jesus has brought with Him not a new law but the living message of His kingdom.  The purpose of that message, of His Kingdom, is to transform our hearts, and therefore our attitudes, and therefore the way we live.  And transformed people will always be able to do more than people ever would under the government of the old Law. 

In the beginning, that law was given to help the people of Israel love God with all their hearts and minds.  When Jesus speaks about a new way to understand God’s law, He is actually trying to bring people back to its original purpose.   Jesus does not speak against the law itself.  He speaks against the abuses and excesses to which the scribes and Pharisees have taken them.

            So, if Jesus did not come to abolish the law –do the Old Testament Laws still apply to you and me?   Should we keep Kosher?  Should we still not mix meat and milk?  In the Old Testament there are three categories of law:  ceremonial, civil and moral.  

            The ceremonial law relates specifically to Israel’s worship by bringing animal sacrifices and other gifts to God.  Jesus was often accused by the Pharisees of violating ceremonial law.  Yet, the primary purpose of this law was to point forward to the Messiah…to Jesus Himself.  Jesus came as the one sacrifice for all.  So you see, these particular laws are no longer necessary after Jesus’ death and resurrection.  And while we are no longer bound by ceremonial law, the principles behind them, still do apply.  That is, to offer all that we have and ourselves in worship and love to God!        

The civil law applies to daily living in Israel.  In the desert climate with no refrigeration, many of the food laws were a direct protection for the people’s health. But also, if you borrow money pay it back.   Don’t withhold wages of those who work for you.  Pay fair wages.   Because modern society and culture are so radically different from that time and setting, all the particular guidelines set down cannot be followed specifically – like paying back the borrowed money or paying out the wages - before sunset.  Again, the principles behind the commands are timeless and should guide our conduct today.  Jesus demonstrated these principles by example….perfectly.  He is the one who said to pay Caesar – the government – what belong to Caesar.

            The moral law, such as the Ten Commandments, is the direct command of God.  It requires strict obedience. The moral law reveals the nature and heart of God.  And yes, it still applies today!  The commandments take our hearts and actions from the negative and “do not do’s” (where the Pharisees leaned) to the positive in a relationship with God – what “to do”.   Jesus obeyed the moral law completely.

            There were some in the crowd back then – and we know similar folk today – who are experts at telling others what to do.  But they miss the central point of God’s law.  Jesus makes it very clear.  Obeying God’s laws is more important than explaining and enforcing them. 

Mark Twain, encountered a ruthless businessman from Boston during his travels.  This businessman boasted that nobody ever got in his way once he determined to do something.  He said, “Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  I’m gonna climb Mount Sinai.  And when I’m up there I’m gonna read the Ten Commandments aloud at the top of my voice!”   Unimpressed, Twain responded, “I got a better idea.  Stay in Boston and keep ‘em.”

We cannot break the Law – the Commandments – and get away with it.  And we cannot keep them with our own strength.  The only way we can keep them is to come to Jesus Christ for power and strength and salvation.  We need to realize that the commandments are not a means of salvation (where the Pharisees were going), but a means to show us the Way to Jesus Christ Himself.

            Some people say that the Sermon on Mount supersedes the Ten Commandments, because, as we read in Romans 6:15, we are “Not under the law but under grace”.  They say that it does not matter whether we honor our fathers and mothers, whether we covet, or take the name of the Lord in vane; or there is no need nowadays to observe giving the tenth either of money or of time.   But you know what?   God’s standards have not changed.   And, if the old commandments were difficult,  Jesus’ principles are unfathomably more difficult.  Jesus says He goes behind and beyond the old law to the very nature of them.  Everything He teaches is impossible.  You and I will never meet those standards on our own strength.  We need help.  We need mercy.  We need a Savior.  It is through our accepting Jesus that He is able to make us new – changing our hearts and attitudes.

            It is in this new life that Jesus calls us to a greater righteousness and obedience than that of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees’ weakness was that they were content to obey the laws outwardly, without letting God change their hearts and attitudes.  They looked pious and righteous…but were so very far away from the heart of God.  When Jesus tells us that our way of living should be greater than that of the Pharisees’, He is going for our heart, as well as our deeds.  It is in our heart that our real allegiance lies.  In the allegiance God is going for a relationship.   A relationship with God is not a checklist of deeds done and commandments kept.   It’s a relationship.  And that relationship is centered on love.

            We hear that later when a scribe approaches Jesus, he asks: “Which commandment is the greatest of all?” Jesus answers:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And the second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”    The purpose of God’s creation is that our hearts be fully set to love the Lord God.  All of the law, all of the intent of the law, hangs on the purpose and intent of our heart – our soul and mind - loving God and loving our neighbor as our self. 

When that Spirit of love lives within us, we have Jesus’ interpretation written on our hearts.  It is out of that we have a new attitude of our hearts and our obedience will come from what God does in us, not what we can do by ourselves.  We will be God-centered, not self-centered.   Our actions will be based on reverence for God, not approval from people.  We will keep the commandments, sure, but we will go beyond keeping the law, to living by the principles behind the law – loving God and loving others.

            As I said, you and I will never be able to measure up to God’s standard.  However, as we read in Romans 13, Christ redeems us from the curse of the law, by becoming the curse for us.  This is what keeps us going back to the Cross.  The only way you and I can ever fulfill the Law is by accepting the only ONE Who could ever fulfill it – Jesus Christ.  It is through our accepting Him that Jesus fulfills the law and prophets and makes us part of His new covenant. It is in that new life that we live out the life for Jesus – with all our heart, with all our mind and with all our soul.