Jesus Is by Judah Smith

Author:Judah Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Your Face Looks Funny

Jesus wanted them to know that if they intended to live by the law, they couldn’t just pick and choose the parts they liked in order to feel good about themselves. They had to follow all the law or they might as well not follow any of it.

Jesus wasn’t being mean. He was showing them their own inconsistencies. In their hurry to be good, they had redefined holiness so they could fulfill the law on their own. They had moved the goalposts. They had found ways to justify themselves in their own eyes. They had deluded themselves into thinking they could be perfect.

The biggest problem with that was not that they were still sinning. God was used to that. It was that they thought they were righteous. They thought they were good enough to get into heaven on their merit. (At least the “good” people thought this—the “sinners,” as we saw in the first chapter, had given up long ago.) Self-righteousness is one of the greatest hindrances to relationship with God.

Bottom line: they had missed the point of the law. They thought the point was being good and doing good. But it wasn’t.

The point was Jesus.

Deep inside, people knew they weren’t righteous anyway. They knew they needed another way. It was never possible to fulfill the law. Jesus wanted them to come to the end of themselves so they could discover the grace that God freely offered through Jesus.

God knew Israel could never keep the whole law. That’s why he instituted an elaborate system of sacrifices from the very beginning. The law was not meant to perfect people, just to lead them toward God.

As Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, people realized they needed a better righteousness than they had. Their holiness wasn’t good enough. Their attempts to be good were pathetic and full of holes. What, then, were they to do?

Remember, this is Matthew 5. If you read straight through to Matthew 11, you would see Jesus’s point. He was setting them up to understand a truth that would set them free.

“Come to me,” he says in Matthew 11:28. “Are you weary? Are you carrying a heavy burden?” That was everyone listening, you realize. “Come to me, and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy; my burden is light.”

This was music to their ears. They were tense and stressed, straining to live holy lives, and it wasn’t working.

Ever wonder why some Christians are so grumpy? Often it’s because they are so worried about their own sin—or about everybody else’s sin—that they can’t enjoy life.

“Dude,” people ask, “why are you so uptight? Your face looks funny.”

“I’m not uptight! What makes you think I’m uptight?” they snap back. “I just really want to sin, but I can’t, so my face looks like this because I’m trying so hard not to sin.”

“Wow, lighten up. A little sin might do you good.” And they make a mental note to never be a Christian.

If that’s you, do God a favor, and don’t advertise that you are a Christian.

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