What'€™s Changed?

What’s Changed?

Matthew 5:13-20

    This morning I want to begin by sharing a story about a very interesting well-educated Greek philosopher whose name is Dr. Alexander Popaderos. After World War II Papaderos became disturbed by the hatred his people still had for the Germans. So he built a meeting place where people could come to make peace, to talk, and try to understand one another. He built the center on a site where Nazi soldiers had brutally murdered thousands of Cretan civilians. For years, people had come there from all over the world to share in the love and grace of Dr. Papaderos and to learn a better way.  One particular summer, just as he was getting ready to close a class on ethics, in the last few minutes of the class, he said, “Now are there any questions before we go?” And just as he was getting ready to say, “OK then you’re dismissed,” a little man in the back of the room, a rather timid looking man, carefully raised his hand and said, “Dr. Popaderos,” “Yes” “I have a question” “Yes, what is it?” He said, “I’d like to know, what is the meaning of life?”

As you can imagine, people were ready to go home, and they were very irritated by this little fellow’s deep question!

Dr. Popaderos very quickly quieted the group, he said to the class, “You know, if you don’t mind I’d like to answer that question.” Then he reached into his back pocket, and took out his wallet. Out of the wallet he took a little mirror about the size of a fifty-cent piece, honed down on the edges, kind of sparkling. And then he told this tale, he said, “When I was a child, I began to realize that I could have so much fun with this mirror. I would simply catch the glint of the Sun, and shine the mirror into an otherwise darkened place. As I grew older I began to learn that this is no child’s toy. This is really a metaphor for my life. Now I am not the light—I am not the source of the light. I am simply a broken mirror fragment. But if I allow the sun to shine on my mirror fragment, it is amazing what the light I can bring into darkness.” Then he said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, that is the meaning of life.”

We are in the middle of a series on The Sermon on the Mount where Jesus has been expounding on the meaning of life.  We began two weeks ago by looking at how Jesus concluded His sermon by saying “don’t just listen to my words - Do what I say.  Dig deep and build your foundation on the Rock.”  So last week we began to hear what Jesus was saying.  We  examined Jesus’ fundamental teaching on what it means to be His disciple; who is truly blessed and already living in God’s kingdom.  

Today as we examine Matthew 5:13-20, we will hear what’s changed in God’s plan of world outreach now that Jesus has come.  We will be examining  ...

The mission, 

The message,   and

The measure

1. Body
1. The mission hasn’t changed (vv. 13-16)
1. God’s call to impact the world remains the same.
1. In God’s call to Abraham, he said that through him He would bless the nations. (Gen. 12:2). People were to be drawn to God through the nation of Israel.  (Deut. 31:12)  God’s blessings were to be a river flowing through them, and instead they dug a reservoir to keep them all for themselves.
2. How much needs to show?
1. Jesus uses two illustrations:  Salt and Light
2. Salt
1. Strictly speaking salt cannot lose its saltiness; sodium chloride is a stable compound. But most salt in the ancient world derived from salt marshes rather than by evaporation of salt water, and thus contained many impurities. The actual salt, being more soluble than the impurities, could be leached out, leaving a residue so dilute it was of little worth.
2. How can true salt stop being salt? When asked what to do with unsalty salt, a later rabbi advised, “Salt it with the afterbirth of a mule.” Mules are sterile and thus lack afterbirth; his point was that the question was stupid. If salt could lose its saltiness, what would it be useful for? Jesus compares a disciple who does not live out the values of the kingdom with unsalty salt — salt that cannot fulfill its purpose
3. Once you’ve lost your integrity (salt) how can you effectively impact the world?
4. Once at a meeting, some young people were discussing the text, “ye are the salt of the earth.” They were suggesting uses of salt, and the meaning. Salt gives flavor to food. It preserves food to keep it from decaying. Then one girl said, salt makes you thirsty. They all got quiet and thought have I ever made anyone thirsty for Jesus?

1. Light
1. City on a hill - Isaiah 2:2-5
2. Isaiah 42:6 “I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness,
   And will hold Your hand;
   I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people,
   As a light to the Gentiles,
3. Isaiah 49:6 Indeed He says,
   ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant
   To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
   And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
   I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
   That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”
4. The most common oil lamps of this period were small enough to hold in the hand; placing such a lamp under a container would obscure and likely extinguish it. Invisible light was about as useful to ancient Galileans as was tasteless salt
5. Phil 2:15 — … you shine as lights in the world… in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation…
2. God in you — The inward change ( your changed heart) must show for all to see.
1. So the mission for God’s people in the world hasn’t changed.  What about the message?  Surely that’s changed in light of Jesus’ coming into the world.The message hasn’t changed (vv. 17-19)
1. Doesn’t His message change everything?
2. In these verses, Jesus reminds us that God’s Word abides forever. (Isa. 40:8; 1 Peter 1:23)
1. The phrase "the Law and the Prophets" is repeated in 7:12. The two occurrences of this phrase mark the beginning and end of the body of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and show that Jesus is taking pains to relate his teaching and place in the history of redemption to the OT Scriptures
3. Not abolished but fulfilled 
1. "I tell you the truth [amen]" signals that the statement to follow is of the utmost importance.
2. The law pointed forward to Jesus and his teaching; so it is properly obeyed by conforming to his word. As it points to him, so he, in fulfilling it, establishes the true direction to which it points and the way it is to be obeyed.
3. Gal. 3, especially v. 24 — “the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith”
4. From the book of Hebrews, we learn that (1) the ceremonial law and (2) the rules of separation have been fulfilled through Jesus.
5. Hebrews ch. 10, especially verse 10, By God’s will, “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”
4. The “Law of Love” remains.
1. Rom. 13:8-10 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
2. Gal. 5:14 — For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
5. Okay then, if the mission and message of God’s people hasn’t changed in Jesus, surely the measure of goodness has changed from OT to New?  Hasn’t it?The measure hasn’t changed (v. 20)
1. God is the standard of righteousness.
6. “The Pharisees belonged to a movement scrupulous in understanding and obeying the law according to the traditions of their predecessors (the “tradition of the elders”.)
7. Jesus’ words are again designed to shock his hearers, since Pharisees and teachers of the law would be among the people most respected for piety. But Jesus demands a deeper form of righteousness
8. We are to eclipse the righteousness of The Pharisees in both quality and quantity.
1. More righteous
2. Better righteousness
9. So, what then is the standard?  Same as it always was.
10. God says “Be holy as I am holy.” (Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7)
11. How?  In Christ…
1. 2 Cor. 5:21 — “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
2. Rom 1:17 — For in [the Gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
3. 1 Cor. 1:30-31 — “ But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.””

1. Conclusion 
1. An extremely nervous patient came to his dentist for root canal surgery. He was brought into the examining room and made comfortable in the reclining dental chair. The dentist then injected a numbing agent around the patient's tooth, and left the room for a few minutes while the medication took hold. When the dentist returned, the patient was standing next to a tray of dental equipment.
2. "What are you doing by the surgical instruments?" asked the surprised dentist.
3. Focused on his task, the patient replied, "I'm taking out the ones I don't like.”
4. When it comes to the teachings in the Bible, there are people who like to pick and choose the parts they can keep and the parts they can throw away.
5. Jesus tells us, in today’s text, to carry on with the ancient mission of God’s people.  The mission hasn’t changed.  Go out.  Be salt.  Be light.
6. Then He says keep to the message; The Word of God.  That hasn’t changed either.  God still desires to draw near to His people.  Now, through Jesus’ shed blood, a new and better way has opened up whereby we can draw near to Him, but the age old requirements remain; Love God.  Love others.  As Jesus, himself said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
7. The mission hasn’t changed.   The message hasn’t changed, and likewise, The measure of holiness and righteousness hasn’t changed.  It is God himself.  
1. “Be holy, as God is holy” says God’s Word.
2. But, that’s impossible, you say, to which Jesus says, “I’ve got you covered.”
3. What’s changed?  You’ve been changed!  Washed in His blood, forgiven, and now God’s Spirit lives in you.  That’s what’s changed.