Matthew 6:1

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

In Matthew 6, Jesus continues his comparison of outward righteousness and inward righteousness, and verse 1 is very clear. “Beware…” Don’t practice the outward righteousness so that others can see it. Again, this is good advice. It’s not a command for to follow.

But, what about rewards in heaven? Will we lose those them if we do our righteous acts for others to see?

I’ll dig into this later, but for now, I believe that “in Christ”, we have every reward available to us today and in heaven. These instructions from Christ to those under the Law were because under the Old Covenant, there was no other way for God to reward and bless people. It required people’s obedience. But, everything changes under the New Covenant. God doesn’t require our obedience–he requires Christ’s obedience.

The rest of Matthew 6, Jesus continues with the “good advice”:

• Giving. v2
• Praying. v5-8
• Fasting. v16-18
• Finances. v19-24.
• Provision. v25-34.

Matthew 6:14-15

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Is God’s forgiveness conditional or unconditional? If you fail to forgive anyone, will God reject you and cast you into hell?

I’ve really been pondering this question in depth the past few weeks. There are lots of stories and parables and commands in the Gospels about this issue of forgiveness. I have a lot to say on it, but I’ll make two points here.

First, this command is to those who are living under the Law that time. Jesus was again setting this unreachable standard (that would later be fulfilled in him). He was showing them that forgiveness is impossible without him. Again, he’s giving us good advice. And later, in the parable of the unforgiving servant, he shows us how unforgiveness will torment us in this life.

Secondly, this feels like it would be a double standard. Why would God hold us to a higher standard than himself? Why would God require unconditional forgiveness from us, and yet he himself have conditional forgiveness? It’s a double standard. So, something else is going on here.

I have concluded after studying scripture and seeing forgiveness in the light of grace, that God’s forgiveness is unconditional, just like his love. It’s still very good advice for us to forgive others. It will torment us until we do. But, will God keep us from heaven should we fail to forgive someone? I don’t think so.

Matthew 6:33

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

When Jesus was explaining to them about how to avoid the anxiousness of life, he encouraged them to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness”.

Here’s how I’ve interpreted this scripture for years. If you need things in life–food, drink, clothing, provision–then spend time with God in prayer, Bible reading and seeking him, then God will give you what you need. Do you see where the burden lies? It’s on me to perform. It’s on me to do something so that God will provide.

This is how I see this scripture now. Seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness. What is “his righteousness”? It’s the righteousness of Christ. He fulfilled the law. He is God’s righteousness. To alleviate any anxiousness of life and receive those things that we need in life, we are to live our life in Christ, in his righteousness, not our righteousness. We are to seek Christ and put our trust in him for everything we need in this life. When we do that, we’ll have everything we need.

It’s not about praying, fasting and reading the Bible more. It’s about completely and wholly trusting in Christ to be my righteousness. I am made right with God not by what I do, but by what Jesus has already done.

Matthew 5:6

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Reading through the beatitudes, it’s interesting reading them in light of “grace”. They no longer feel like commands, but rather, they feel more like declarations of truth, truths for us to believe, experience and walk in. We are blessed when we are poor in spirit. We are blessed when we mourn, when we are weak, when we are merciful, when we are poor in spirit.

We are blessed because of Christ. Not, we will be blessed if…

This one beatitude about “hungering and thirsting after righteousness,” we will be filled. We will be satisfied. We should hunger and thirst for righteousness, not for doing “right” things, but for being “right” in Christ, for truly understanding that in Christ, we are perfectly “right” in God’s eyes. Not from what we do, but for who we are in Christ.. We should hunger and thirst for arriving at this belief that we are righteous in Christ. If you hunger and thirst, if you crave this desire to be in right-standing with God, you will be filled. You will be made right through you faith in Christ.

Matthew 5:8

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Even in this declaration from Christ, we see it as a command. “When you are pure in heart, then you will see God.” That’s inaccurate.

What it’s saying is, “When you truly understand that you are pure in heart through Christ, you shall see God like you’ve never seen him before.”

Matthew 5:13, 14

You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.

These are declarations of who you are in Christ. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are! It’s a clear declaration of who we are in Christ, not what we can become, nor what we must strive for. It’s about your identity. We must come to believe that we are salt and we are light.

Matthew 5:16

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

I love this: “let your light shine…” Notice it did not say “shine your light”. It said “let…” Let is all about resting. When you put your focus on Christ, then you don’t have to strive to shine. You just shine. It reminds me of Moses. When he came down the mountain, his face shone brightly. It wans’t something he was trying to do. It was simply a result of spending time in the presence of God.

Matthew 5:17

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

I think these are the first key words in the New Testament about grace. What did Jesus come to do? From earlier verses, we know he came to “save his people from their sins”. How did he do that? By fulfilling all of God’s requirements from the Law and the Prophets. Man could not do this, but Jesus did.

Matthew 5:18

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Wow, this scripture now takes on a different meaning to me. This is how I originally understood it: the Law would be in effect until “heaven and earth pass away” and that it was my duty, my job to make sure we walk in the Law till heaven and earth pass away.

That’s not what Jesus is saying here.

One key point about grace that we have to understand is that the New Covenant did not start with the gospel of Matthew. Yes, it may be the New Testament, but it’s not the New Covenant. Odd as it may sound, Jesus lived his life under the Old Covenant. Everything he did was under the Law so that he could fulfill the Law.

The New Covenant started when he died and rose again. So, in Matthew 5:18 he was simply saying, “Until I die and come back to life, the entire Law will be accomplished in me.”

Even in verse 19, the following verse talks about how we must follow the law and make sure we teach others to follow the law. But, this is not a New Covenant command from Christ. It’s an Old Covenant command. While he was alive, the people he was speaking to must follow the Law.

Matthew 5:20

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

I love how Jesus is telling them about the new standard of righteousness that God requires. The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was an external righteousness–what they did, what they wore, how they followed the Law. But, the righteousness that Christ was talking about was an internal righteousness. He talks about this internal righteousness in the very next verse…

Matthew 5:21

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

I’ve heard messages taught that Jesus now holds us to a higher standard, a higher requirement because of this new “internal” motivation, not just external transgression. You’ve heard it said, “Don’t murder”, but I say, “Don’t even hate.” This new “requirement” is not a stricter command to follow. He’s simply giving them a comparison of this “righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees” he talked about in the previous verse. He was showing them what God’s standard of righteousness was really like.

These next few verses, that’s what Jesus expounds on. You’ve heard it said… But, I say to you…

• Don’t hate. v21
• Don’t lust. v27, 28
• Don’t divorce. v31
• Don’t take an oath. v33, 34
• Don’t retaliate. v38
• Love your enemies. v43

Again, we see these as commands or “ought to’s”, but the key thing Jesus was trying to show them was this juxtaposition of outward righteousness and inward righteousness. There was a higher standard of righteousness required by God for those who lived under the Law.

Everyone listening to him that day were “under the Law” and were required to walk in that higher standard of righteousness to be accepted by God.

Why did Jesus tell them these things? Was he expecting them to walk in those higher standards, higher requirements? First, he was speaking to those under the Law, so they needed to know what was expected of them.

But, more importantly, I believe he was trying to communicate to them that there is no way they could keep all of God’s requirements of the Law, both outwardly and inwardly. The standard was too high. The standard was perfection. In fact, it was so high and the punishment so great, that to prevent you from sinning, you should cut out your eye or cut off your hand to keep from doing it. He was communicating to them that it’s impossible for us to meet those requirements for righteousness.

So, should we disregard these “commands” that Jesus was telling them that day since we are now under grace?

Everything he shared was for our benefit. There is natural consequences in this world for those things.

• When you hate, it destroys you and those around you.
• Lust will destroy your life and your family.
• Divorce hurts and is a very painful experience.
• Oaths are hard to keep.
• Don’t respond to anger and give to those in need.
• Anyone can hate their enemies, but loving them changes everything.

Clark Whitten said it well: “There are only two things in the New Testament — good news and good advice.”

The things Jesus encourages us to do are good advice, for our benefit to have an “abundant life”. There are good reasons why we should do these things. We need to stop seeing them as commands and see them as “good advice” to improve our life.

Matthew 4:1

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

The only weapon Jesus had to defeat the devil was the Word of God. So, he quoted scripture. He had to defeat Satan while under the Law. He had use the Old Covenant tools (like scripture) to defeat the devil. But, it’s very different for us today. We have so much more than just scripture–we have the Living Word of God living in us who has already defeated the enemy.

We’ve often heard it preached that we must also use the Word of God as our weapons against the enemy. Quoting Bible scripture will not defeat the enemy. Christ, the living Word of God, defeats the enemy. He is the one who fights for us, not our ability to quote scripture or even memorize the Word of God.

Matthew 4:17

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Jesus’ key message is that a new era had come. He preached that the kingdom of heaven had arrived.

We had to change our thinking. Today, we need to change the way we think about this. We must metanoeo.

Matthew 3:6

…they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

It’s interesting that right before Christ appears on the scene, people felt a need to confess their sins and be baptized. John was “preparing the way” and there was this desire among people to confess their sins. Confession is a sign of a changed heart.

Matthew 3:8

John said, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.”

This word repentance is quite different than what most people think. This is from a blog post I wrote called Real Repentance:

Look at the original Greek word for “repent” – metanoeo. It comes from two root words, meta and noeo.

Meta means an over-arching change. There’s a difference between “morphing” and “meta-morphing”. Morphing is changing from within something similar. Meta-morphing, on the other hand, is changing from a caterpillar to a butterfly. It’s an over-arching change–a broader, more high-level change.

Noeo is where we get the word knowledge. It means to think, to perceive, to understand.

So, combine the two meta-noeo, and you have a word that means “an over-arching change in how you understand or perceive”.

What John was saying here was “bear fruit in keeping with a changed heart”. If the hearts of the Pharisees were truly changed, truly “metanoeo-ed”, then their actions would bear fruit of “repentance”. Their actions would bear fruit that they were now thinking differently.

Matthew 2:3

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Repent: meta-noeo. To change the way you think about something.

“Repent” is an instruction to stop thinking the old way and start thinking a new way. Change your old way of thinking because the “kingdom of God” is here now. It’s at hand. It’s present.

Our change in thinking is to fully understand that because of Christ, because the kingdom of heaven is here now, we must think differently. We must understand and grow in the knowledge of God to fully experience what we already have here on earth.

Here’s a much longer article I wrote on real “repentance”: Renewing the Mind: Changing the Way You Think