Jesus and the Torah (Sermon on the Mount) - Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)

amen I want to introduce our guest speaker he's been here before dr. Tim Mackey he's a good friend of mine met Tim I served 17 years at Blackhawk Church in Madison and Tim moved from Portland he grew up here came to crisis skatechurch went to Multnomah and then went all the way head to Madison they have a renowned program a PhD in Hebrew and Jewish Studies and so while he was there I met he and his wife Jessica Tim is a gifted communicator as you're about to see it we realized that at Blackhawk hired him to be our teaching pastor Styles on the same staff with him for number of years they followed God's call back to Portland which is awesome and Tim launched what's called the Bible project you'll get to see one of their videos this morning it's amazing and they're doing phenomenal work he's the creative force behind that and when we're coming to our third message in the Sermon on the Mount it's on Jesus and the tour and I was like who better to speak of this the Tim Mackey and I think you'll see that it was a wise decision so it's our goal to bring Tim back numerous times throughout the year so be nice to him laugh at all this jokes even if they're not funny just be like oh oh that's hilarious yeah that kind of deal so buttering him up today Tim and I go on a backpacking trip every year called boys in the wild so Tim knows a lot about me as a lot of stories but what's done in the wild stays in the wild so he's not going to tell you anything so give a warm New Hope welcome to dr. Tim Mackey [Applause] everybody how are you guys me too I'm good too thank you for asking alright you guys we are ground to cover you your pastoral leaders have decided to subject you to the Sermon on the Mount this winter and I think that's a really good idea for every church community to camp out in these words of Jesus and to work through them it's it's both a privilege and it's also one of the most disturbing things you could do as a human being because Jesus he just doesn't pull any punches in this collection of his his most famous teachings if you you know wherever you're at with Jesus if you've been following him for a long time if you're new to the whole Christianity thing or if you're not even quite on board yes it doesn't matter this is really important if if you want to understand who Jesus was and is and what it means to be one of his followers you can't go anywhere else except to start right here this collection of his most famous teachings called the Sermon on the Mount and it's one of these things his most famous teachings are in here you guys the Golden Rule love your enemy type of thing the Lord's Prayer is in here it's very familiar to at least some of us and that's actually the danger inherent in the Sermon on the Mount it's because these teachings of Jesus can become so familiar that they lose their their power not because of the word being deficient but because we grow insensitive to the shock that they actually deliver there's an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who wrote a short book on this rabbi geez rabbi Jesus is Sermon on the Mount and in the introduction he has this classic line where he says essentially the history of Christianity is a history of Christians trying to evade the Sermon on the Mount and avoid living according to its plain meaning that was his estimation and this there's a lot of truth to that we're going to see today Jesus just has this habit of exposing deep deep things inside of his followers and it put it puts followers of Jesus in a position where you can never truly be fully comfortable around Jesus the moment that Jesus doesn't bother you is the moment you know you stop listening to him really and that's the kind of effect that these words had on the people who heard Jesus I'm going to ask you to open up a Bible we're going to look at a passage in chapter 5 but just quickly I want to look at the last words of the last words of chapter 7 and how these first crowds responded to Jesus is very telling right telling so if you have a Bible open it turn it on whatever you do go to the end of Matthew chapter 7 and the last words of the chapter tell us how people felt they heard Jesus he's teaching in Chapter 7 verse 28 and we read when Jesus finished saying these things the crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had Authority and not like their teachers of the law now a couple things are illuminating here I'm reading from the New International Version wonderful translation so I have an amazed people were amazed when they heard Jesus finish giving this talk any other translations gonna be some not amazed but what astounded or astonished yes which is amazed this is not a problem with the NIV it's a problem with English amazed is becoming more and more of a weak word you know pizza is amazing you know pinball is amazing my wife's amazing God's me you know I'm saying what a useless word they can describe all of those things so astounded us we're more in the ballpark here astonished in the word that the math you use in Greek to describe this is to be out of mind Jesus blew people's minds they didn't have a category for the kinds of things that his teaching raised inside of them it both bothered them and impress them they learned and they were deeply challenged to blew their minds why well it was related to his authority and his authority in relationship to Israel's law now when you see the word law there think Jewish history Israelite history don't think law or lawyers in modern Western culture so that word law underneath it's a Hebrew word Torah which can refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible what Christians call the Old Testament in Jewish tradition is called the Torah and the Torah is a story the first five books but it also the word Torah can refer to the laws there's a bunch of commands that God gives to Israel in these books you are very familiar I'm sure with the first ten whether you're a Christian or not you've heard of the Ten Commandments you know what I mean you guys know I'm Ten Commandments we won't do the list but you know don't steal lies that kind of thing the Ten Commandments and that's just the first ten there's six hundred and three more in those first five books the Bible a lot of commands and in GSS day and for hundreds of years among his people these were the definitive statement of God to his people about how they were to live and be humans together in the community of Israel and then here's Jesus enters the scene announcing that God's kingdom is here that he's bringing it and Jesus walks around Israel like he owns the place and just telling people that here's what the Torah says and here's what I say like when Jesus gave these words he just sat his words alongside the Torah and the commands of the Torah and I don't know what effect that has on you but in Jesus's day it blew people's minds they didn't have categories for it so it was mind blowing because of this issue of authority that Jesus spoke with but also is we're going to see we can turn back to chapter five once you go back there with me we're going to start in verse 17 it's not just about Authority it's about the kinds of things Jesus addressed and let me just get an image and in our minds in our imaginations that I think will help us I have a framework for what Jesus is getting at in the section we're going to look at in chapter 5 and it's all about think icebergs it's all about icebergs I was sitting in the doctor's office a couple years ago when our church community I go to door hope was going through the Sermon on the mountain I was helping teach through the Sermon on the Mount and I was really disturbed as we were doing so and I was in the doctor's office and there was a National Geographic and you guys know national Geographics like a staple in dentists offices and doctors offices that kind of thing so there's this really interesting photo essay about the Arctic Ocean and the creatures that live there and all that all that kind of things would inhabit these almost freezing waters and what struck me was the iceberg photographs these gigantic huge icebergs and you guys seen these photos before they're clear the kind of there's quite a few out there now in the interweb world and so there there you go they're just they're remarkable for these gigantic ice mountains floating in the Arctic Ocean they're just they're huge thousands of metric tons and what grabbed my attention and I think what makes us interested in these photographs that are both above and below water it's this this relationship a strange relationship between what you can see above and then what in reality is below because if you're just in a boat I guess you wouldn't go recreational boating in the Arctic Ocean about whatever if you're an ice breakers a big freighter or something like that and you're going and you're the above water it's my point here if you're above water you see this thing above what's above I can can see it out of the water could be thirty feet out of the water but what you have if you're above water only you just have no clue no perception of what in reality is underneath the way in the mass of the thing that's keeping what's on the surface of float and there's no clear proportional relationship like the size of the thing above means that there's this much like this just no it's a look at that massive thing on the riot you know and you would just have no clue if you're just above the water on the surface and I think this is what fascinates us about these icebergs photographs this disparity is contrast between what you can see and then what in reality is under the surface and it seems to me that this captures exactly jesus's view of human nature and and his view of human behavior and when jesus exposed the things that he exposed inside of people if they were amazed it blew their mind not just because of his authority but because of what Jesus was able to discern is really underneath people's behavior what Jesus I mean just think like an average day you're at work you're in your home with your family or your roommates whatever you're in your community and what we observe is just behavior right so she's an extrovert he's an introvert you know she's kind of stingy he's really generous he's really nice she's kind he's not kind you know we have we observe and bumped off of each other all day long with our surface behaviors and that's all we can see and what we just have no clue about are like the deep level stories and motivations and values that are under there right you're the story of your family the story of your most formative memories and experiences as you were growing up the experiences that you have as you come into adulthood if you are an adult not everybody in the room is but so you're having these experiences right now if your kiddo and so all of these and then the way our culture shapes us and informs us and shapes what we love the things that we love and the things that we value the most the things that we fear the things that we hate these are the real things under the surface that drive us to do what we do that we can see on the surface and Jesus knows this just like any good therapist knows about how humans work and what Jesus is not satisfied with doing is forming yet another community of people who are just about behavior modification Jesus is here to address the real issues and the problems with the human condition to expose them which is why reading the Sermon on the Mount is painful and then also to move towards a solution and you're going to see all these dynamics at work in the passage we read today that was all the surgeon general's warning for the Sermon on the Mount okay so chapter 5 verse 17 here's what Jesus says he says don't think that I've come to abolish the law begin Hebrew word Torah or the prophets and that's a Jewish shorthand for the scriptures of which Christians call the Old Testament in their day it's just called the Bible or the Torah and the prophets I I haven't come to abolish them or set them aside rather I've come to fulfill them for truly I tell you until heaven and earth disappear not the smallest letter not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the Torah until everything is accomplished therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven and whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven for I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law unless you're unless the quality of your relationships and the integrity with which you follow God and behave in your relationship unless that surpasses the most religious people you could possibly imagine there's no way you're entering the kingdom of heaven so tell us what you really think Jesus okay so what's he saying he's saying he's when he walked around acting like he owns the place and when he says yeah here's a command from the Torah and here's what I say to you he claims that kind of authority what he's not doing he says is saying I'm here just listen to what I say like trash the script crash the Old Testament you don't need it anymore you can just scrap it now that's not what I'm doing his goal isn't to come and to say don't listen to that statement of God's will anymore what what is he here to do with all the commands of the Torah what does he say to fulfill them fulfills what doesn't what does that mean I'm here to sill the Torah and this isn't just about predictive prophecy this is much much deeper this is woven into the story that Jesus sees himself a part of the story he believes he's bringing to its culmination and it's listed as Old Testament stories the story of his people and specifically it begins with the moment that God freed his people out of slavery in Egypt you've either read the story or seen the movie I hope it's not go to at least one of those so he frees his people from slavery in Egypt he brings them to the foot of a mountain what's the name of this mountain Mount Sinai and he invites these slaves that he's freed into a covenant relationship a formal relationship and he begins to give them the laws of this the terms of this covenant we call them laws they called them the divine words and you know the first 10 right first 10 the famous 10 commandments and then 603 follow in the books of the Torah and while all of these commands are doing is they're designed to shape these Israelites as a contrast community in contrast to the neighboring cultures around them Babylon and Egypt and there to become a nation with a different standard of generosity and justice and care for the vulnerable in their midst and as they do so God says they'll become a kingdom of priests but become these mediators of God's character to the nation's and they'll show what God is really ideally pulling humans towards towards his will and becoming all the god made them to be so that's at least the setup with all of these laws and what they're about and then the story goes on to show how Israel does in this covenant relationship and how do they do they do horribly right as the fail epic fail 600 year long epic fail and that all the nation's leaders crash Israel into the grounds they end up getting conquered by all these different powers and carried away into exile epic fail and this is where Israel's profits because it's the law and the profits that Jesus came to fulfill and the profits come onto the scene after Israel's failure and they look back and they lament how terrible this whole thing has been but then they look forward with hope and there's many passages that we could look to in the prophets I just want to show you one because this is certainly one of the passages that's on Gia's mind when he says this what he said is here that he's here to fulfill the Torah and the prophets it's from the Prophet Jeremiah chapter 31 and here's what he has to say he says the days are coming declares the Lord will not make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah it won't be like the Covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt yeah they broke that covenant epicfail six hundred years long even though I was a husband to them constantly faithful I stuck by them I didn't bail on them they bailed on me so it's not going to be that way here's this new kind of covenant that I'm going to make with the people of Israel after that time declares the Lord I'm going to put my Torah in their minds I'm going to write the Torah on their heart I'm going to be their God and they will become my people and no longer will they need anybody to teach their neighbor and say hey you should know the Lord because they'll all know me from the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord because here's what I'm going to do I'm going to forgive their wickedness and I'm going to remember their sins no more so at the end of a 600 year epic fail here's what the God of Israel could do he could just walk away from this covenant relationship and the prophets discern that's exactly the opposite of what the God of Israel is going to do instead he's going to keep moving towards these failed people he's failed human beings he's going to move towards them again and here's what he's going to do this time he's actually going to do something he's going to not just inscribe the commands on stone and deliver them to modify their behavior whatever God's going to do he's going to he's going to fundamentally heal and transform the human condition he's not just going to say don't do this or do this like the Ten Commandments do he's going to move under the water and he's going to address those deep issues of heart and of the mind and he's going to get him he's gonna do something you don't know what it is you have to keep reading I use the prophets you going to do it how is he gonna do it he's going to so fundamentally transform the human heart that you just by nature discern God's will and know how to be human and how to relate to others the way God wants you to and Jesus says yeah that's what I'm here to do I'm here to bring that promise into reality well how we got keep reading the Gospel of Matthew alright but watch what he does here he's going to address six areas and we're not going to look at all six in equal depth look at a few he's going to address six there is where the law was inscribed on the Ten Commandments and then what he's going to do is going to take a deep dive beneath the surface and expose the mountain underneath a massive iceberg of human brokenness and selfishness and say that the real issue that's the issue that he's here to to address watch how he does this brilliant is verse 21 he says you've heard that it was said to the people long ago you shall not murder you've heard that one before well the famous Ten Commandments there we go don't murder and Jesus affirms it he's not here to abolish or set aside the Torah he offends that he says yes anyone who murders will be subject to judgment but I tell you he now says on his own authority that anyone who's angry with his brother or sister is subject to judgment what yeah anyone who says to a brother or sister I'm reading the new assets of New International Version which is chosen not to translate the next weird rock ah that's what I have in my translation here anybody else look in your translation you can say it so catching up for permission to speak right idiot yeah idiot or fool yeah so of course you did you say Rock ha yesterday no you didn't it's an ancient Aramaic word you just you don't speak Aramaic so guess it means it's empty and whether it's empty head or empty heart the point you're saying this person doesn't nothing you're nothing whoever says to another person you're nothing they're answerable to the court anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fire of hell hold the cow Jesus turns up the volume here so for murdering someone you face justice for calling someone an idiot your eternal destinies at stake Jesus meek and mild so let's say you know you're in worship and you're offering your gift at the altar and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you some relational conflict and you're there to worship God and you think everything's fine between you and God and then you remember like oh no I like wrong to that person and oh I haven't made it right yet and then Jesus says well then you're not right with God if you're not right with another human so stop your worship right there in front of the altar first go be reconciled to them then come and give your honor and worship to God settle matters quickly with your adversary who's taking you to court do it you des will parallel do it while you're still together on the way or your adversary may hand you over to the judge and the judge will hand you over to the officer and you'll be thrown into prison and I tell you you won't get out so you've paid the last penny I guess doing yeah yeah and you're like oh I thought I was doing pretty good I've never killed anybody and Jesus is like what what a joke you've never congratulations you've never murdered anybody right you're a good human because of this what are you kidding me would you for Jesus what's what he's comparing what's above and what's beneath the surface so when someone murders another they they have a view of themselves as having some kind of right or authority or elevated status over the existence or life of another human that they can erase it or snuff them out but then Jesus says you know think about what happens when when you call someone on nothing when you in jesus's mind this is about it's about pride and it's about contempt it's about the self elevation of myself and my honor and my dignity and I am worthy of such honor and dignity that this person who's different written to me than other than me is clearly not and when I've elevated myself I can justify all kinds of words that I can say about this person and in Jesus is mine there's absolutely nothing different between murder and slander between murder and making fun of somebody that you don't like because you think you're better than them and Jesus is mine it's the same ideal of what God intends for human beings is broken and so he says that the real issue it's about self elevation and pride and contempt that's what my disciples are going to work on addressing and exposing how're you guys doing here's another one let's talk about sex even though I know it's family Sunday John invited me here I don't know verse 27 you've heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery I've never commit adultery congratulations you are a wonderful human being Jesus addresses the men in the crowd he says but I tell you anyone who looks at a woman lustfully he's already committed adultery with her in his heart the stakes are so high here if your right eye causes you to stumble get rid of that thing throw it away it'd be better for you to lose one part of your body than your whole body to be thrown into hell and if your right hand causes you to stumble cut it off throw it away it'd be better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go to that eternal destiny so okay so so I've never violated someone else's marriage covenant sexual unfaithfulness congratulations Jesus says but that doesn't mean that you are a human living according to God's will all that law does is it points to a deeper issue that God is trying to expose there and it's the same issue is then murder and anger and contempt when when I view myself my appetite for physical pleasure whatever it is when I view me and my desires as more important than the well-being and the dignity of another human being then all of a sudden that justifies all kinds of behavior and that manifests itself and in sexual misbehavior and a manifests itself in the movies that we play about other human beings in our mind to entertain our fantasies and in Jesus mind there's no difference I'm dehumanizing another person and making them an object for my own pleasure it's the same exact thing you get into bed with them you don't get into bed with them Jesus doesn't care he's here to expose what's underneath the surface how you guys doing so he goes on goes on eat he talks about divorce it's actually really really complicated in Jesus day only in Jewish culture of Jesus day only men could initiate divorces and they could do so for any reason by the majority opinion we just pop and repeat that in Jesus day only men could initiate divorces and they could do it for any reason according to a majority opinion of the rabbi's is this a recipe for abuse an extreme oppression of women is this recipe absolutely and so what Jesus he takes what in our day looks like the conservative line in his day it was a radical position staked out to elevate the dignity of Jewish women which is to say Jewish men can't simply treat women according to their own desires and and cut them off from a marriage covenant for whatever reason did they watch that's not what it means to live as a true human being it's but it's the same issue underneath he talks about oaths it talks about you swearing by the God of Israel swearing by your grandmother's grave oh he doesn't care so so here's what I'm going to do I'm going to I'm going to borrow from someone else's integrity to prop up the holes in my character when I make a promise to you I promise I'll be there I swear on my grandmother's grave and Jesus like what are you doing what are you so ridiculous right you with me Jesus he just doesn't pull any punches he talks about revenge look at the last one this last one is very powerful verse 43 you've heard that it was said love your neighbor now that's not one of the Ten Commandments but it is one of the commands in the Torah from your favorite book of the Bible Leviticus miss Glenda Crump's lytic is 19 verse 18 he said so you've heard it says in the Torah love your neighbor many says this you've also heard hate your enemy so here he's quoting a debate going on in his day among Jewish teachers about well who constitutes your neighbor and the majority opinion was essentially your neighbor is other Israelites of equal social statuses views so you love your neighbor but there's a whole bunch of people out there that God's not asking you to love that would just be too much and Jesus just says class such a joke he says I tell you love your enemies pray for those who persecute you so that you can become children of your father who's in heaven listen he causes the Sun to rise on the evil and the good does God discriminate good people from bad people by the rainfall or sunrise I just look at the weather patterns and you'll learn something about God's character if you love those only those who love you what reward will you congratulations aren't the tax collectors doing that and if you greet only your own people what are you doing more than anyone else don't the Romans and the Greeks do that gonna be perfect too therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect that's the end of the chapter she save us what on earth so so in Jesus might notice that this is all about relationships in Jesus's mind following him means having the darkest deepest flaws in our character exposed when it comes to the health of our everyday relationships in gs is mine to truly know and follow him means going to that level and addressing issues of that of that depth which is very uncomfortable for both of us and Jesus says you actually you can tell the litmus test for what kind of human I am is how I treat people I don't like and who don't like me if you want to know what kind of person you are Jesus says don't look at how you treat your friends it's interesting it's really disturbing don't look at how you treat your friends because your friends will help you and you help them and you're nice to them and they're nice to you if you really want to know what kind of human you are look at the people that you don't like look at the people that you gain no benefit from look at the people who actually have a negative effect on you and how you respond to those people Jesus says we'll tell you who you really are under the surface and then he says so be perfect so okay this is only chapter 5 you guys a 28 chapter book right so you have to keep reading but he's exposed what's underneath he's exposed what it's what it means he's not here to set the tour aside rather the laws of the Torah we're calling Israel and now he's calling his disciples to be new and different kinds of human beings who have a fundamental change in how I view myself and how I view God and how I view other people with this powerful metaphor of writing of the commands of the Torah on the heart so here's what I could talk for way much longer to land the plane but instead I'd rather show you a Bible project videos that we made about this very topic that will land the plane for me and do it in a more succinct way but I would just ask yourself is anybody in the room feeling uncomfortable about what Jesus is exposing and what why did why did Jesus force the issue why did he go through it six times to make sure every one of us start squirming at some point as you read the Sermon on the Mount there's a reason why it's because of what he came to do and so with that I think the video will come tie the pieces together and then we'll conclude and move towards worship sound good cool you're most likely familiar with the Ten Commandments in the Bible stuff we generally take as good advice don't murder don't steal honor your parents the list goes on and those are just the first 10 they're actually a total of six under 13 commands all given to ancient Israel found in the first five books of the Bible which in Hebrew are called the Torah now the word Torah is usually translated in English as the law because it has all of these laws in it and as you read through them you wonder am I supposed to obey some of these all of these I mean what's the purpose of the law well that translation is kind of confusing because while the Torah has laws in it the book itself is fundamentally a story about how God is creating new kinds of people who are fully able to love God and love us and when Jesus taught about the Torah he said that he was bringing that story to its fulfillment so walk me through the story and how its fulfilled so the story begins with God creating humanity who rebelled and God chooses Abraham to bless all of the nations through his family who end up in slavery down in Egypt and so God rescues them then at Mount Sinai God makes a covenant with Israel like an agreement and all of the laws that Moses gives to Israel are the terms of that agreement there like a constitution so some of the laws are about rituals and customs that set Israel apart from the nations other laws are about social justice or morality and by following these Israel would show the other nations what God is like okay so the rest of the Torah is just a complete list of laws that Moses gives Israel know the rest of the Torah just continues the story and the 613 commands are only a selection from that original Constitution and even these have been broken up and placed at strategic points within the store now pay attention because you'll see a really clear pattern Moses gives the first laws to Israel don't worship other gods don't make idols and then right after that there's a story of Israel breaking those very laws they worship the golden calf and so Moses gives some more laws and then you get more stories of rebellion more laws rebellion against more laws more rebellion and you start to see the point right no matter how many laws they're just going to continue to repeal so it's the conclusion of the tourist story Moses gives this final speech to Israel as they prepare to go into their new home and he tells them you guys I know that you're not going to follow all of God's you've proven to me that you're incapable and Moses says the problem is that their hearts are hard and that they're going to need new transformed hearts if they're ever going to truly follow God's law and he was right I mean the story goes on to recount Israel's total failure to go into the land they break all the laws right now the next section of books in the Jewish tradition are the 15 books of the Prophet and they reflect back on the story for example Ezekiel he said that if Israel was ever going to obey the law God's Spirit would have to transform their hard hearts into soft hearts and Jeremiah said that's when obedience to God's command wouldn't feel like a duty but they would be written deep in their hearts in Isaiah he promised a future leader Israel's Messiah who will lead all of the people in obedience to the law now in Jewish tradition all of these books together are called the prophets even the historical books because they're continuing the story told from the perspective of the prophets okay so we have the law and the prophets and they're telling one connected story about God's desire to bless the whole world through a people Israel who it turns out needs a new heart yes and Jesus saw himself as continuing that story so he agreed with the law and the prophets when he taught that it's out of the human heart that come the most ugly parts of human nature it's like the default setting of our hearts is opposed to God's law but Jesus also said that he came to solve that problem and in his words to fulfill the law so what does he mean there to fulfill the law well first he said that the demand of all of the laws in the Torah could be fulfilled by what he called the great commits that we are to love God and to love so that seems pretty easy I mean we all want what we think we want but Jesus showed how love is far more demanding than we breathe so he quotes the law do not murder and he says yes not killing someone the very loving thing to do but then he also says that when you treat someone with disrespect or when you nurse resentment against them you're also violating God's moral ideal because you're not treating that person with love and so Jesus said true love ought to extent even to our own enemies so even though the command seems very simple Jesus showed how our hearts are not currently equipped to fulfill even basic command of God to love others and that's kind of a downer but where Israel's failed Jesus brought this story - it's a filament as Israel's Messiah he fully loved God and others and he showed all of the nations what God is truly like he did this through his acts of compassion and mercy and ultimately by loving his enemies even unto death and after his resurrection he told his followers that he would send God's Spirit to transform their hearts so that they could follow him and fulfill the purpose of the law to love God and to love their neighbor so this fulfills the story of the law and the prophets or in the words of the Apostle Paul the one who loves fulfills the law so Jesus man the Prophet Jeremiah said that the Torah would be written on the hearts of God's people when this great act of forgiveness would happen when I forgive their sins after 600 years of failure God hasn't given up on them he will forgive them and Jesus came to embody and to become God's forgiving love in and as a human he is God's forgiving love become human Jesus is the fulfillment of what this whole story has been pointing towards that you and I have perpetually failed to be the humans that God has made us to be and Jesus comes as that as the kind of human that were made to be and we fail to be and he actually he is the Torah embodied in human being he is loved as a human being and how did Jesus treat his enemies and the people that didn't like him he gave his life for them much less the people that he liked the people that he didn't like and he goes to his death in his own words as an act of love to take into himself all of the consequences of the evil and the pain and the screwed-up ways of being human that we have all introduced and we trashed God's good world and we trashed each other and he takes it into himself and he conquers it with his life and with his love this is good news amen and what he invites us to do is the followers this to be in this space called a church community and for this to be a place where we can be open about what's underneath the surface and we can allow Jesus's great act of love and forgiveness to do it slow deep work on us week after week and day after day as you try and learn how to follow Jesus together as a community Co is the only way there's a good news it's the GSS love meets us so in our moment of greatest failure and so perfect way to transition to what we're going to do is right now which is eat the story of Jesus is forgiving love for us as we take the bread and the cup together as we experience once again this this embodiment of Jesus forgiveness for us in his life and death in his resurrection and here's what I would challenge you to do and then I'll just I'll pray is to just get one person one relationship in your life that's been that's been fractured one relationship where there's some way that you've elevated yourself that you've wronged another person and it's like what Jesus said you're here to worship but actually you've got this thing hanging out there right this this broken thing that's not right with somebody who is that person for you and what's what's the deep issues underneath why you treat that person the way that you do and Jesus would say before you do anything else before you do anything else purpose to do something about that this is what it means to follow Jesus and it means that we're never comfortable that we're always growing into his love and grace amen amen let me close in a word of Prayer Jesus you are beautiful your words are compelling and even more your life your love your death is compelling thank you for meeting us precisely in our failures we confess them we bring them to you would you please write to your love on our hearts make us into the new and different kinds of people that we know you're calling us to be thank you for never giving up on us thank you for this symbol this concrete symbol that we can eat of your shed blood and of your broken body it was offered in love for us Jesus thank you we pray in your name amen

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Length: 44min 21sec (2661 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2017