How Jesus Completes Us

Matthew 5, verse 17 through 20. Let us be careful of here, for these are the words of God. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Amen. Let’s end this reading of God’s inspired and inerrant word.

We look to him in faith, as his word says we will do, to add his blessing to it. Please be seated. God is not surprised by antinomianism. It’s a big, long word. It basically means those in the churches who are who are against doing the commandments of his moral law.

The Lord will spend the rest of the chapter teaching us very carefully, very intensely to do the commandments. those who are against doing the commandments and those who are against teaching the commandments. God is not surprised by antinomianism, not just because he knows the end from the beginning and everything in between, but because it comes from our flesh. The law is Christ’s own law. The commandments are Christ’s own commandments.

In God’s marvelous providence to us, we start into this second section, the longer section of Matthew chapter 5, on the same day that he brings us to the second half, or sorry, the first half of James chapter 2. in which he refers to this same law, the one that is summarized, as we heard in our Leviticus preaching not too many weeks ago, the second table of which is summarized, love your neighbor as yourself. And from the hands of Jesus and from the lips of Jesus, we recognize the commandments of God as the royal law, the law of the king, the law of his kingdom, both telling us what he expects from us and accusing us. If we don’t follow his commandments, then we become judges with evil thoughts. We put ourselves in the place of what is right and what is wrong.

And when we do that, we put ourselves against God’s law. Antinomianism, or being against God’s law, is wanting to be a law unto ourselves. We are going to be ruled by something. We must be ruled by the commandments of the king, but it is also the royal law because it describes the king. Jesus is not just obedient to the commandments so that his obedience can be counted for us.

Jesus is obedient to the commandments because he is the perfect and full revelation of the character of God in one who has the full nature of a man. And so the royal law describes our king and tells us the requirements, the law of his kingdom, and even is for us, isn’t it, a description of what our great king is making us, which is why it’s not only called the royal law in what we just read from James, but it’s also called the law of liberty, the law that describes what Christ is making us, having freed us from our sin, the law that describes what God has freed us to do and to keep and to be like. What a wonderful thing are the commandments of the Lord Jesus in the hands of the Lord Jesus, from the mouth of the Lord Jesus to the subjects of the Lord Jesus who are being made like the Lord Jesus. But there might have been a question after he had given them, spoken to them the blessedness of those who belong to the kingdom, and then turned, you remember, in the last couple of weeks from speaking in the third person about the blessed as a, not hypothetical group, but a group about which he was speaking to the second person. letting those disciples who had come up to him on the mountain know, pronouncing upon them personally, directly, that he was not speaking about the blessed only, he was speaking also to the blessed, to those who had him, to those who he had given his spirit to give light to their minds and life to their hearts, that they would choose him over all of the rest of the world and that the world would not be too pleased with that, even the world that uses his name, even the world that has great festivals for his fame, even that part of the world that was on the bottom of the hill, and would persecute them for righteousness’ sake, would persecute them for his sake.

Now you take those two things that are put together, And you can see why he comes now to say, do not think that I came to destroy the law of the prophets. Because if righteousness is Jesus’ sake, and those who claim to know the law, and claim to do the law, even claim, we dare say, to love the law, if they are the ones who are going to be persecuting Jesus, which they are, for the next three years. And if they are the ones who are gonna be persecuting the followers of Jesus, does that mean that Jesus is safe and the righteousness is safe, that is Jesus is safe, is something other than or opposed to the righteousness that their Hebrew Bibles, the righteousness that the Holy Scriptures that they had up until that point described. Is Jesus starting a new religion? And the answer is no.

The religion of God has always been the religion that is in His Son. And now God has declared Himself fully in His Son. And that which was in the Law and the Prophets and the Writings was always about Jesus. And so, using that language, law and prophets and writings, you’ll notice that you have law or prophets, or law and prophets, in verse 17. The law and prophets and the writings are the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible.

One of you was in, or a couple of you were in my study recently, and we were looking at Psalm 90, which is marvelously, the understanding of Psalm 90, marvelously informed by that first law, a psalm of Moses, the man of God, and thinking about Moses and his dwelling place at the beginning of the psalm, and the extraordinary amount of work that came to Moses’ hands every day. It wouldn’t take all the time to talk about that. But as I flipped, I was thinking, OK, the law, and we flipped through the, you know, put away the first five books. And the prophets, which includes the former prophets, which is roughly Joshua, the second king, except for Ruth. And the latter prophets, so Isaiah and Malachi, and flip past those to get to the writings.

And especially the Psalms. Ruth is in the writings, that’s why we skipped it. All of that just to help you get the feel for what he’s talking about here is their Bibles, is the Hebrew Scriptures. And the Law and the Prophets in the writings was often just abbreviated the Law and the Prophets. And you’ll notice this kind of narrowing through the passage from the Bible as a whole at the time, Law, Prophets, and Writings, to Law and the Prophets.

And sometimes they just abbreviated the Word of God and the Law of God, Torah. a word that means fatherly instruction, but generally corresponding to the first five books of the Old Testament, and sometimes just that word law was used for the whole of the Old Testament. But you have Law, Prophets, and Writings, Law and Prophets, Law, and then very specifically then the commandments of the law. Because even in Genesis through Deuteronomy, there’s a lot of narrative. There’s a lot of promising.

And, of course, there are also the commandments. And these are those that are most often directly attacked, man throwing off the rule of God and his Christ, as Psalm 2 describes. And you remember the apostles recognizing that the nations raging and kings and peoples plodding in vain didn’t just include the Gentiles. It included the Jews, represented by Herod, and the Gentiles, represented by Pilate, and so forth. So Jesus says, do not think that I came to undo, destroy, get rid of.

It’s the Bible, the Old Testament, what we would call the Old Testament in the least bit. Indeed, Jesus is the great fulfiller of scripture, which we’ll see in verse 17 and 18. And then we’ll come back and think about his fulfillment in our justification. And we’ll think a little bit out of verse 17, but more generally thinking about Jesus and his fulfillment of the scripture in our justification. Because what we have in verse 19 is really with respect to our sanctification.

It’s a consideration from the viewpoint of heaven of those who are subjects or disciples of the kingdom who are on earth and who are at different places in their maturity. The work of Christ in them is at different points of progress in what he is doing in them. Some are lesser and some are greater. Some are examples who we should follow and to whose teaching we should listen. And some, even if they get put in a pulpit by men, are exposed by their character and conduct and teaching as least, according to the eyes of heaven.

And he tells us how to recognize him. The Lord Jesus very practically, doesn’t he, helps us live in the church in this life. He’s going to make the same point in a couple chapters time when he comes to those who are sheep and those who are wolves, and not listening to wolves and knowing them by their works. And that there will be those who knew about justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and taught about that. Chapter 7, 21 and 22, who will say, Lord, Lord, in your name did we not.

In your name did we not. In your name did we not. And he will say, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Or depart from me, I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness. Or more literally translated there, you workers without.

The Law. You see, if you know King Jesus, you know that the Law is His. And you love it for His own sake because He has done that work in you. And you know that the commandments are His. He is the great fulfiller of Scripture.

He is the fulfiller in our justification. He is the fulfiller in our sanctification. Sorry, we’re just supposed to be giving you the headings and we preached a quarter of the third point. He is the fulfiller in our sanctification. And He is the fulfiller in our glorification, verse 20.

That yes, the moment we have been brought to faith in Christ, we are subject to the kingdom, we belong to the kingdom, we have the kingdom already on earth, but we have not yet entered the kingdom and we are not yet fit to enter the kingdom. Those whom he justified, he also glorified. Why? Well, in part, there in Romans 8, which we were just quoting, so that God’s purpose for them, that which his love has desired from before the foundation of the world. His love has desired not to give you everything that pleases you from Christ.

It’s to give you everything that pleases God in Christ. That you would be conformed to the image of his son. And every single one whom He justifies, He will glorify. Their righteousness will not only exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. Their righteousness will match the righteousness of Jesus the Son.

And be a human perfect character and conduct that corresponds to their father’s perfect character and conduct, which is where the rest of the teaching in chapter 5 is going. You’ll notice that wonderful twist in verse 48, that wonderful twist on be Holy, for I am holy, which the Lord had commanded his people whom he had set apart when he brought them out of Egypt. But now not be holy, for I am holy, but you shall be perfect as your father, your father whom you know in the Son and have been adopted into the family by the Spirit of Sonship. the Spirit of the Son, applying the Son to you by faith, so that you are joined to Him. Now you can call God Father.

And what are Father, Son, and Spirit doing? They are conforming you to the only begotten Son, so that all of the adopted children will have the character of Christ, including the joy of Christ, that we will delight in our Father, and to show forth His character. And so that which the Antinomians fear, that the law will be this exceedingly great garden, and that it will be pride rather than pleasure in God, what they fear is a law without Christ, not the law itself, not the commandments themselves, not trying hard to do them, not talking much about them, those are not things Those are things that belong to our God, and particularly our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. For all of the Bible, then, in the first place, is about him, Jesus, the great fulfiller of scripture. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.

I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Now this fulfillment, this filling up, the word is actually one that has a very, to be redundant, pun intended, full meaning. Jesus fulfills much of the scripture by way of prediction. Whatever is in the Old Testament, he fulfills it in a manner that corresponds to the type of literature, what the Lord is doing there in the Old Testament. And so there are predictions, often what we would call prophecies in kind of a narrower way, that were predictions about Jesus.

Who He is, and He would reveal Himself to be. What He would do in His incarnation, and in His earthly ministry, and in His atoning death, and in His resurrection, and in His ascension, and in His sitting on the throne of glory at the right hand of majesty, and in His pouring out His Spirit, and in what He would continue to do by His Spirit in His church, and in His gathering in from all of the nations. that which is a remnant from the nations and a remnant from Israel, but which two remnants together are a multitude that no man can count, that which he will do in the last day when he has gathered, and not just gathered, but perfected everyone for whom he came and died and rose again. And then comes vengeance and judgment and anything that does not belong to the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells is cast into the lake of fire. Not just the devil and his angels and all those who have suppressed the knowledge of God in unrighteousness and a great multitude of him have suppressed the knowledge of Christ in unrighteousness.

Who even, not only having seen the creation, have despised the Creator, many will have heard of the Redeemer, but obeyed not the Gospel. They will be cast into the lake of fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels. And even death itself will be cast into the lake of fire, because that is the place where sin and sorrow and death and wrath will be forever and ever. But there is that new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells. And King Jesus, just as was looked forward to, just as gathered them to Himself by the work of His Spirit who gives faith, perfected them in Himself to be like Himself, and we will be with Him forever and ever.

And so there’s a fulfillment of prediction. This is where the Bible is always going. And there are predictions in so many different parts of that. There’s also the fulfillment of purpose. You see, from a humanity that was as hopeless and helpless after the flood as they were before the flood.

Before the flood, you remember, God says of the world, every intention of the thoughts of man’s heart were only evil and that continually. And after the flood, God says, never again will I do this. Noah, who found grace in the eyes of Yahweh in Genesis 6, 8, is so much better than what was before. He says, I will never do this again, for man’s heart is evil from his youth. And all of humanity at that point is Noah and his family.

It’s after the blood. And yet that which he displayed in Noah and was a purpose in Noah in a small way, in a slice of time, Jesus fulfills the purpose. All who are in him, all who are with him are carried through and protected from the wrath of God. God knows how to reserve the ungodly for the day of judgment while reserving those who he is saving for salvation. And so Noah prefigured Jesus, and Abram was an idolater in Ur of the Chaldees, and yet from among the the 70 nations into which the Lord split the peoples of the earth, scattered the peoples of the earth as their wickedness began ascending again towards Babel as it had increased in approaching the flood?

Don’t think of these as these ancient things from long ago. Oh dear congregation, we have been deceived, we have been beguiled by the laws of our day. Don’t you know that when we were praying for the churches under Muslim tyranny this past week in the prayer meeting, we came to that section again in our time of intercession. That tyranny has been for 1400 years. Islam has dominated the Middle East for the as from Abraham to Christ.

The history of this world is short thus far. God sent his son quickly and soon, and he has been now applying the salvation of his son for 2,000 years, about as long as from Noah to Christ. So long has he been spreading the gospel of his son and gathering his church to himself. So Jesus here teaches us to read the Bible as a book that has always been about him, whether it’s by prediction or by purpose. He is the fulfillment of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

He is the fulfillment of Israel, a people gathered to God, represented to God in a priest who offers a sacrifice that consecrates by blood those who would meet with God those among whom God dwells in his glory. A kingdom, a nation, into which all of the other kingdoms of the earth were to stream and come under and be ruled by. And yet even David and Solomon at their height were what modern historians, because we use the word modern, especially now, to speak about those who live in an age that is unmindful of God. thinks of his world and thinks of history from the standpoint of earth rather than the standpoint of heaven, and they would say David and Solomon were insignificant. But David and Solomon were sitting on a throne that is a throne that would pass to Christ.

A throne that is not merely now on a hill in Palestine. but a throne that is in the heaven of heavens, what we would call, or what the Bible calls, what Paul called, visited there. He didn’t even know if he was in his body or not. The third heaven. And so you have fulfillment of prediction and fulfillment of purpose.

But you see here, the Lord Jesus says here, he’s not going to be done fulfilling when he ascends and takes his seat on the throne. because there’s a fulfillment of perfection. And so he said, do not think that I came to destroy the law and the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away.

You know, this heavens and earth is still here. One jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. The tiniest strokes of the pen in writing Hebrew. Remember, this is before the Masoretes adding the vowel pointings and all that stuff to the Hebrew. That’s hundreds of years after Jesus.

He’s describing here, at the time, what he’s describing is Hebrew in which there was only the main character letters. A yod is so tiny. I’ll show it to you sometime. If you wish, you can catch me in my study. the 4.

30 To 5.30 hour every week I receive anyone during those times, or make an appointment, or whatever. The Ode is so small. It can sure mess some things up, though, if you don’t know what it is. The Ode changes the tense of the verb from the perfect tense, completed, to the imperfect tense, ongoing, whether we’re talking about past, present, or future.

And then a tittle is that stroke that sticks out. It’s even half the size of a yod, which is the smallest letter by far. But it changes a resh into a dollot. And if you get your R’s and D’s mixed up in school kids, you are going to have some very interesting vocabulary in what you read and what you write. What Jesus is saying here is all of God’s word is important and necessary and useful.

This is 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. All of God’s word is important, useful, and necessary. Not the slightest stroke shall pass from it until all of it has been fulfilled. fulfilled and the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells has come because all of it is about Jesus. All of it is about Jesus.

And so you remember that wonderful conversation And I very much enjoy just taking a few minutes proclaiming that Jesus is the fulfiller of what’s predicted and what’s purposed and now in how he is going to bring everything to its final perfection, bring everyone whom he saves to his or to her final perfection. But how much better in that wonderful discussion on the road to a Mass in which those two dear disciples are perplexed by why Jesus isn’t sad. And they think it’s because Jesus doesn’t know what just happened. But it’s really because they don’t know what just happened. Because they haven’t read the Bible this way.

Read the Old Testament this way. Some of you have perhaps grown up in or were saved later into a part of the church in which sadly the understanding of Christ from all the scripture has become not a fated memory and you don’t even remember it anymore. Some even who call themselves reformed well, Reformed Baptist. But, you know, when I came up in a church that was called Presbyterian, didn’t really read the Old Testament this way or teach the Old Testament this way. And so as I came more and more into the Reformed faith, I had to discover the doctrines of grace somewhere other than in my Presbyterian church, isn’t that dreadful?

But suddenly, the whole. of those Reformed Baptist preachers that I valued very much, because they taught the doctrines of grace that I hadn’t heard. And in the beginning of that, I’d be wherever I was reading, and I would want to, and you could look up their sermons by Bible reference, right? And you’d want to hear a good sermon of it. No many more preachers than I could direct you to.

But I was always so discouraged whenever I was in the Old Testament. There’s almost nothing there. You know, they preached 11 times on every verse of the New Testament. Never, never these passages. Oh, my dear brothers and sisters, have you not discovered that the more you realize that the whole Bible is about Jesus, the more rich Genesis to Malachi has become to you.

That in every part of it, it’s either predicting something that Jesus does or presenting something in a temporary way that Jesus fulfills in a permanent and final and full and glorious and heavenly way, or describing something that even now still needs to happen. and Jesus is still doing it. He’s still gathering the nations to himself. Or in your own personal case, he who begun the work is still working in you to will and to work according to his good pleasures. And so you are able to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, not just because it is he who works in you in your sanctification, but he who began the work will also be faithful to complete it in the day of Christ Jesus in your glorification.

You see how those things in Philippians 1 and 2 are tied together just like here they are tied together in verse 19 and in verse 20. Jesus, the great fulfiller of scripture, this new heavens and new earth where the hope even in the Old Testament, Psalm 102 verse 26, which we have been to recently, as well as Isaiah 34 and verse 4, but now coming into, starting next week, that section of Isaiah that is so full of gospel that those who are too ignorant to see the gospel in the first 39 chapters have for about 150 years renowned of Isaiah. But this hoping for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells and the nations have been gathered and King Jesus is on the throne and his salvation has been applied and his people are perfected in righteousness, this crescendoing anticipation for that, and Isaiah 51.6, 51.16, 65.

17, And very, very close now at the end, 66.22. It’s all about Jesus. Jesus is the great fulfiller of the scripture. He has succeeded in our justification.

You and I cannot be saved or cannot be made right with God at all by a single thing that we have done. Christ is the only righteousness before God, the only righteous standing before God that a sinner can ever have. Everything you and I do, even in our sanctification in this life, is still so mixed with sin is genuinely good because now it is from Christ. Before you come to Christ, nothing is even genuinely good. There is no heart’s motivation of genuine love to God or desire for His glory in what we do until we come to Christ.

But even in that which is genuinely good in the Christian’s life has right there with it that which comes also from our flesh. Our best works are damnable by God. Our best works in this life deserve hell for the sin that is mixed in with them. If that’s true of our best works, if even our righteousnesses, as he puts it in Isaiah, are like filthy rags, then what about those works that are pretty good but not our best? and there are works that are not that good at all, and there are works that are worse than usual, and there are worst works.

You see, the scribe specialized in how well he knew the law of God, and what he meant by knowing the law of God was how carefully, minutely he could interpret the boundaries to something that looked like a really high level of performance, but that was keepable. You see, the scribe and the pharisee are best friends. The scribe is proud of how well he knows the law of God. The Pharisee is proud of how well he keeps the law of God. But in order for the Pharisee to be able to do anything, he needs that scribe to interpret it in such a way that it can be kept.

And I can feel proud of myself by comparison to that other man, and I can give lip service to God. and be brazen and proud even before heaven. I thank you, God, that I’m not like these other men. But you see, the law is not there for us to examine it minutely, to show God and others and feel about ourselves how great we are. But the law examines us minutely.

It is exceedingly broad. It goes to the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. It goes to our motivations and our desires. It goes to what we enjoy and what we delight in. Isn’t that what Jesus is going to be doing to the particular commandments that he takes up in the rest of this chapter?

Showing how the law of God is not there for us to examine it minutely, but it examines us. And it slays us open, as it were. Use the image in Hebrews 4.12 of God’s Word being living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and describing a man as if he were merely physical, yet dividing between joints and marrow, soul and spirit, revealing what? The thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

Because we are already naked, exposed before God, to whom we will give an account in the last day. How could you or I think that anything we have ever thought or desired or done, any sincerity of worship, any performance of obedience, could ever arise to merit in earning being righteous before God, we would be hopeless, we would be undone. We would be like Luther, not understanding that the gospel announcing the righteousness of God was announcing a righteousness that was for us. But in every part of all that the law requires, of intention and motivation and heart and thought, let alone word and deed, Jesus has perfectly obeyed. On my knees next to a child who has just told tales about her sister or who has his mother.

I can come to God, or I can come to the child first, explain to him from the law of God all those things. I can come to God with that child. I can say, here God am I with my son, who I know deserves wrath. I thank you that you have given your son who never once spoke out of turn about a sibling, who never once dragged his feet to disobey his mom, never once disarmed. Please give your spirit, the work of your spirit, to convince my son of these things, that he might trust in Jesus, and Jesus’s obeying would be counted for him.

Christ’s obedience, Christ’s righteousness are the only hope of the sinner for a right standing before God. Jesus, the fulfiller in our justification. Jesus, the one who saved us. Adam couldn’t save you. He fell and hit Abraham.

Couldn’t save you. He needed to believe in Jesus. Moses and his ceremonies couldn’t save the Israelites. They had to be repeated year after year, you remember. Hebrews tells us they were supposed to take from that, they were supposed to learn from that, that those bulls and those goats were not saving them.

Remember Moses said in Deuteronomy 18 that the Lord was going to raise up another prophet from among them and that they should listen to him when he comes. Jesus does not come telling you to draw near to God through the blood of bulls and goats. And he does not come telling you to keep a feast of unleavened bread and a feast of Pentecost and a feast of tabernacles. No, he comes and he And He fulfills all of those things. Instead of bulls and goats, you have Jesus’ blood.

Instead of Aaron and his sons, you have Jesus Himself. Instead of a tabernacle or a temple or an altar, you have Jesus Himself. And He, the Great High Priest, offers Himself once for all and takes His blood through the Holy of Holies, the actual one, of which the other was a copy. And he ministers there through his once-for-all sacrifice. And he doesn’t have an annual calendar.

We’ll get to that in God’s great providence. That’s the whole evening text. So we’ll stop there. If you want to hear more about that, come back at least at 345. Come for Samuel 2 at 3.

But there’s a change of priesthood. Hebrews 7 verse 12 says when there’s a change of priesthood, there’s a change of law. It’s talking about the law that connected to the priesthood. And now there is a law that connects to Christ’s priesthood. There’s also a change of prophet.

Deuteronomy 18 verse 15 through 19. Israel as a nation could not be the blessed kingdom. They failed continually. Jesus is the fulfillment. King David died and his corpse rotted.

And Peter, in the first great sermon in the Christian church on the day of Pentecost, preaches, Jesus is the king that you’re looking for, not David. Jesus is the one whose flesh saw no corruption. Jesus is the one whom the Lord calls Lord, and whom David called Lord. And so just as he has succeeded where church and kingdom failed, more importantly for each one of us, he has succeeded where we have continually failed. Your right standing with God can only be by who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.

But in addition to your right standing before God, there is your right walking with God You see, Jesus is a complete Savior. He does not justify without sanctifying. And He is a complete fulfiller. He does not simply secure. He does not simply accomplish the redemption of His people.

He applies it. And so consider now verse 19. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. You see, the kingdom of heaven has its own assessment of what is happening on earth.

And in particular, in this case, among the church that is on earth. These are men among the church. These are men under the kingdom, but they’re not yet in the kingdom. There will not be, verse 20, in the kingdom when we enter it at last, that kingdom which we already possess. Don’t forget the present tense in verse 3 and verse 10.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They already have it. They already possess it. All of these shall be’s that are future.

They shall be comforted. They shall inherit the earth. They shall be filled. They shall obtain mercy, especially thinking of the last day. They shall see God.

They shall be called sons of God and the display of the sons of God toward which the creation is groaning. All those future tenses. But if you believe in Jesus Christ and your justification, there already is no condemnation for you. who are in Christ Jesus, more happy but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heaven. You are as justified now as you will be when you pass from this life, if you are a Christian.

And there is the positional sanctification declared called saints. You’re called subjects of the kingdom. The kingdom is yours already. But then there is the progressive sanctification, in which you are hopefully moving from lesser to greater. Otherwise, how can you know?

Yes, there are weeds that are indistinguishable from tares. But that means that there are tares. who think that they are wheat. There are in the church those who are so immature and ungodly and theologically confused that they are indistinguishable from unbelievers. But Jesus says, don’t go on a weed-finding mission.

Don’t go on a tare-finding mission to root them all out. because you’ll root them out with them. That means that in his church, there are people who are not saved. They’re not saved because in this visible church, there are people who are not saved because they are not described by those Beatitudes. Christ isn’t everything to them.

They haven’t abandoned all hope in themselves and hoped only in the Lord Jesus. And one of the telltale signs is they don’t see his law as the royal law. They don’t see his law as the law of liberty. They don’t say, praise Jesus, the fulfiller in my justification and praise Jesus, the fulfiller in my sanctification. They have a partial Christ.

Of course, a partial Christ. There’s no Christ at all. So believers who have the kingdom already, verse 3 and 10, in this life have not yet entered the kingdom, verse 20. And there is a least and a greatest along the way. The disciples didn’t get it.

We’re gonna have a couple of rebukes, and we get further on in the passage, aren’t we? In chapter 20, in verses 25 to 28, chapter 23, and verses 1 through 12, and he’s gonna talk about least in the kingdom and greatest in the kingdom, and who are the least? Those who think that they are something and lord it over others. And who are the greatest? Those who are everyone’s servants.

Those who love their neighbors as themselves. Those who prefer others to themselves. those who imitate the Son of Man. The Son of Man who doesn’t lord it over, but first he comes to seek and save that which is lost and sets himself as that example and that opening section of Philippians 2, you remember. The one who humbled himself for the sake of others.

And then he says, let have this mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus. Here’s an easy quiz, children. Which disciple of Jesus is greater? The one whose mind is more like Jesus’s or the one whose mind is less like Jesus’s? Of the one whose mind is more like Jesus’s, of course.

That’s the greater one in the kingdom of heaven. And so Jesus, the fulfiller in our sanctification, leads us more and more to obey his commandments. Leads us more and more to teach obedience to his commandments. These are the ones whom he gives us to be our elders, our preachers. You see that in 1 Timothy 3, Titus chapter 1, where not only has the Lord graciously worked in those men such as they become excellent husbands.

What’s an excellent husband? A husband who is more conformed to Christ. An excellent father. What’s an excellent father? A father who is more conformed to Christ.

And God works in particular men, and He makes excellent husbands and excellent fathers, and He makes them the elders who preach and teach, the shepherd in His church. And then He comes in Hebrews 13, verses 7 through 17. showing how Jesus was willing to be humiliated and to suffer. You know, sometimes I think we take Hebrews 13 and we pluck verse seven about the elders, and we pluck verse 17 about the elders, and we forget that there’s an entire section about the greatest elder, the Lord Jesus himself, and how we should be willing to be loathed if we may be with him. But you remember verse 7 at the beginning of that section says, remember your leaders who spoke the word to you, the outcome of whose faith you know and to follow them.

Well, what is the outcome of their faith? Well, part of their outcome of their faith is their obeying the commandments. First table of the law and second table of the law. They’re obeying the commandments and teaching others to do the same. Oh, for time’s sake, we’ll not fill out that first table and second table, except to say this.

If your understanding of does in conforming you to himself, doesn’t have the priority of the first four commandments over the last six commandments, then you do not see his commandments the way that Jesus does. Remember, at multiple points, at multiple points he teaches that the first four commandments, the first great commandment is greater. But let’s move then to the last. Jesus, the Fulfiller in our glorification. Jesus, the Fulfiller in our glorification.

For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Even in a believer’s sanctification, the righteousness of his character and conduct is exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, isn’t it? Because it’s a righteousness that is not men using the Bible to declare themselves righteous, but it is a righteousness of men hoping only in Jesus, because that’s how God declares us righteous. And so you’re hoping only in Jesus, and then Jesus begins working by His Spirit, His life out in you. He is taking that which had been stone and making what?

You remember back to John the Baptizer’s preaching, when the Pharisees and scribes came to Him? And they thought that they were pretty righteous, and his was a baptism of repentance. And he was surprised to see them, right? Because scribes and Pharisees didn’t think they needed repentance. They thought their great job in life was to get everybody else to be as good as they already were.

Wrath to come. You don’t actually think you deserve wrath. Why are you coming to a baptism of repentance? You remember what he said? That Jesus is able to form from stone children of Abraham.

Because he is the one who’s not going to be baptizing with water. But he’s going to pour out his spirit. And his spirit is going to take hearts of stone and turn them into hearts of flesh. Now it hurts to have a heart of flesh. A heart of stone doesn’t really care that it’s disobeying God.

I mean, it cares when someone beats on it. It cares when it receives negative consequences. But if you’re a believer, one of your great griefs isn’t it? That your now flesh responsive heart to God, heart to Christ, is wounded by your not loving Him like you want to. Not loving Him like you should.

Not loving your neighbor like you should. Not loving your brother like you should. And it’s like so many wounds to your heart that has been given love by Christ’s Spirit to be a child of Abraham. trusting in Jesus and walking with God and yet in this life still doing so very imperfectly. Some of you have been here long enough that you remember preaching through the Abraham material and how imperfectly he obeyed, even after he had had that soft heart.

And so your righteousness is already exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. It’s not in the outward way of the letter, it’s in the inward way of the Spirit. It’s not out of an attempt to advance yourself, but in response and thankfulness and love unto God. But it must not just exceed them in this way, it must be perfect. As he’s going to say at the end of the chapter, you shall be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect.

Just as we saw in verse eight, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Well, without holiness, no one will see him. Hebrews 12, verse 14. Remember that wonderful section at the beginning of Hebrews chapter 12, where he’s talking about the Lord’s fatherly discipline of us and how part of coming into our sonship to our father is hating our remaining sin as much as he does. What is one of the great reasons that God hates the sin that remains in you, dear believer?

Because as long as that sin remains in you, you will not be permitted to see Him. And so He’s working in us to produce that peaceful fruit of righteousness. And He’s telling us to follow Him, to pursue peace with all men, and that holiness without which we won’t see the Lord. What is one of the great displays of God’s love to you now? You have the Romans 5, God demonstrates His own lovingness, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

But one of the great displays of His love to you now is the 1 John 3. Behold what matter of love the Father has shown unto us, that we, we should be called the children of God. We who are not yet pure. And so He says, what we will be has not yet appeared, but when He appears, we know that we will be like Him. Why?

Because we will see Him as He is. So He has called a believer His child, and His justification, and His position of sanctification, and He is working the family progressive, increasing in obedience to God’s law, God’s commandments, and increasing in teaching others to obey God’s commandments. And he will finish that work when he appears. We will be like him, and we will be see him. And the one who has this as his hope, What does 1st John 3 says?

Purifies himself even as he is pure. So don’t become scribing Pharisee squared. Don’t read verse 20 and say, well, need righteousness, it’s better than the scribes and the Pharisees, and just heard a whole sermon about how if you’re united to Christ and walking with him, your righteousness is already better than the scribes and Pharisees. Take that, scribes and Pharisees, I can enter the kingdom. No.

The one who hopes to see Jesus as he is, the one who hopes to be pure as he is pure, purifies himself as he is pure. Sanctification is the necessary consequence of hoping for glorification. Or to put it another way, those who hope to enter the kingdom, like verse 20 says, are pursuing greatness. Greatness of service, greatness of obedience, greatness of understanding and teaching and walking according to the royal law, the law of liberty, the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, These are rules of life for the Christian because Jesus is the life of the Christian. He’s a complete savior because he’s the complete fulfiller.

If you are his, if you belong to Christ, then his work in you includes sustaining you and growing you. in knowing and keeping and teaching His commandments. Amen. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, help us.

Help us by your Spirit, for it’s not just the age that we live in. the flesh which remains from our former nature, resists to be ruled and hates your commandments. And so we pray that by your Spirit you would help us and stir up in us that delight in your law and our inner being, that conformity to your mind which calls the commandment holy and righteous and good, We pray that you would help us to recognize the antinomian that remains in each of us and to put it to death. We pray that your spirit would make us to delight in you. We thank you for the whole of the Bible.

Help us, Lord Jesus, to understand every word on every page and its connection to you. glorify yourself by continuing and then completing that work that you are doing. Gather to yourself all those for whom you have accomplished redemption. Apply it to them, O Lord. Perfect all those whom you gather and bring that last and glorious day, we ask in your own precious name, Lord Jesus.

Amen.