Hey my friends, it's Matt. This is a 10-minute Bible hour podcast, and we are working on the book of Galatians. We're in chapter three. We've been chipping away at it a little bit each day. And in this part of the book, Paul brings up a guy from the distant past, Abraham. I was saying yesterday that when Paul was bringing up Abraham, that was as far back in time as us bringing up Paul right now would be to us as we're having this conversation. The distant past. This was a guy with a huge reputation at this point. And Paul is using him, he's bringing up his name in a conversation about how it is that one achieves right standing, good standing before God. Now, there were people who had gone and talked to the recipients of this letter, the Galatian church. There were people who had gone and said, the way you get right standing with God is do stuff, lots of stuff. You impress God. You obey every single little detail of the Old Testament law. And then you even go beyond that and you obey even made-up bonus rules that we just thought of that'll keep you from ever getting too close to the actual rules and breaking those. And if you do all these things and you're perfectly good and you get it right, then God will be impressed and you'll have right standing before God. But yesterday we went and looked at Matthew 19, where Jesus went and had a conversation with the rich young ruler. And Jesus made it really clear that goodness isn't really something you can do, that only God is really good. But this can all be confusing, right? Because we use the word good differently than it's being used here in the Bible. When you and I say somebody's a good guy, oh, she's a great lady. When we say that, we're grading on a curve compared to other people. And we're being generous and gracious because we know they have flaws we see. And we also know that the hypothetical people in question that we're talking about here have flaws that we don't see because we know ourselves, and we know that we have very visible flaws, and we also have subtle flaws, but we hope people give us the benefit of the doubt and see that the balance of what we do and what we think is good, even if it's not perfect. But then good here in the Bible seems to be describing something very different. I mean, we're talking about like God's level of righteousness, not pretty good compared to other people, but like perfect, then nobody can do that, clearly. No one can get all of this stuff right. Anybody who was imagining when Christ was starting to teach and everything back in the early going of the gospels, anybody who was imagining, well, I could probably get it right. I could probably obey everything well enough that's written down in the law to make God happy and impress him enough to earn right standing before him. Anybody who was imagining that gets hit in the face with what Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount when he goes through all of his famous you've heard it said, but I tell you statements. I'm turning the page. We've got to get around the microphone. It's positioned stupid today. Why do I do that? Come on, get there there. In Matthew chapter 5, nobody knows what Jesus really thinks about things yet. He's a mystery figure, but people are intrigued by him. He's probably done some miracle stuff. He's got some followers, people are interested in him, and he takes them up on a hill to teach them about the kingdom. And one of the first questions people would have naturally had about the kingdom is how do I get into that? It sounds very good. Jesus describes the values of the kingdom, they sound super, but no doubt people are like, oh, but you know, we're all Jewish. We already kind of have a God and a religion, and in the past we've gotten in really big trouble for signing up for other religions and try to kind of mix it with the worship of the one true God. So what exactly is this, Jesus? People were no doubt wondering. So what exactly is this? And is it in competition with the law and the prophets, the Bible that we already have? Is this something new, novel? Is this a cult? Is this a split-off thing? Because it sounds great, but again, we already have a thing. So what do we have going on? Jesus says to that the following, Matthew 5.17. Don't think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I haven't come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Okay. Well, I mean, that probably would have put people's minds at ease here in the early going of Jesus' public ministry. He's like, no, the law, and the law in this context would have meant the rules as well as the whole story of the early going of the Old Testament. Jesus' like, he's totally affirming it, right? He's saying, no, that's real, that's from God, it's something that's to be taken seriously and honored, and God didn't screw up with it. A lot of paraphrasing there, but I don't think I'm saying anything crazy. And he says, You're not supposed to break the commands, and then he says, But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, this is where it really kicks in, this is where it relates to what we're talking about in Galatians and with Abraham and all this. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Oh. Well, see now that's really tricky, especially when you think of it in the original context, because the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were the keepers of the law. They were the interpreters of the law, and in some ways the enforcers of the law. They played a very robust role in the social, political, religious environment into which Jesus is speaking here around 30 AD in Roman-occupied Judea and Galilee. Really, you could say of them they got to write the rules. Now they didn't get to write the Old Testament, but they're like the Supreme Court of the Old Testament. They get to interpret it, and what they interpret it as meaning is what it means. And further, they're the ones who get to make declarations about what is and isn't public righteousness, and they get to make bonus rules based on those interpretations. I mean, really, a Pharisee, I suppose, could just write all the rules to fit whatever it is they already do, and to not really forbid things they're particularly tempted by, and to make very serious offenses, things that are no problem for them. I think the implicit intonation from Jesus here in Matthew 5 is even if you got to write the rules and interpret what all of the existing rules that predate you mean, you still couldn't do this. Your righteousness would have to surpass someone even in such a position of interpretive and legislative power. But dang. Well, it's from there that Jesus goes on to make a series of these statements. How many are there? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Oh, of course it's seven. Come on, Whitman. It's your first day with the Bible. Should have just guessed that. It's seven. He makes seven statements that basically follow this formula. You've heard it said that, however, I tell you, so for example, you've heard it said to the people long ago, do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, and he goes on to say effectively, anyone who inflicts hate or says fool in a given context of somebody else, that's you know, it's murder in your heart. Here's another example. You've heard it said, eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I mean, that's from the law. But I tell you, don't resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him also the other cheek. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. What is he talking about? So he's saying that to have right standing before God by your own effort, by adhering closely to the law, that you would have to never think or say mean or hateful things to anyone? I can't do that. I might be able to not murder somebody. I'm doing great at that so far, but I can't not think horrible things about people. Sometimes I just do. I'm not proud of it, but it happens. You've heard it said, don't commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Well, that's hard. I don't know. People are sexual beings and they look at other people and stuff comes into your head. It's not great, but anybody who is a person can relate to that on some level. Like if you were a human, you've probably thought something about somebody else or in some way sexually where you were like, that was not a good thought. I'm glad that my thoughts are not broadcast out to the entire world. And Jesus is telling me that I would need to have that completely on a leash mentally and invisibly in order for me to properly meet the standards of the law. I can't do that. I can't in my heart love my enemies to the level that this stuff is talking about. I mean, what we're getting from Jesus here are one, ideals that are real. Ideally, these would be the values of the kingdom, obedience not just at the outward external level, but also at the internal heart level, the level of desires. But we're also getting a takedown on the idea of self-built righteousness, that the law is just simply a measurable external thing, and as long as you jump through the hoops properly and set up enough accountability, you could possibly feasibly be righteous enough to impress God and earn right standing with God by perfect adherence to the law. I mean, we're I mean, it's even one page. We're one page, not even a full page, of Jesus' teaching into the New Testament. And already he is doing what Paul is repeating in the book of Galatians. He's saying this imagined goodness that some of you imagine you can conjure out of carefully adhering to the rules or maybe even writing the rules, you can't. That isn't how it works. He's setting it up to say there's a righteousness apart from the law, and this righteousness is it's clearly the gift of God through Christ. Now, it's totally understandable that in Matthew chapter five, at the very beginning of Jesus teaching things, it's totally understandable that people wouldn't get that at every level. I've read this a bajillion times. You and I did, if you were here with me for that season, we did a whole, I don't know what 40 episodes on the Sermon on the Mount and the stuff that I'm reading right now. It's hard, it's confusing, it's difficult, it goes against my corrupt human nature. So obviously, Jesus was still fleshing out these ideas. There was a lot more yet to come. But clearly, even after Jesus himself laid this stuff out, there was still confusion about it a couple decades later when the Galatian church received the message and then kind of fumbled the message shortly thereafter. Why is that? Well, because for the 110 billionth time in this conversation about Galatians, I am prepared to say about myself and about other people I know well, that as humans we are very used to the idea that we do something and then we get something. It's very transactional. It makes us uncomfortable and it feels weird that we would do nothing and get something, let alone do nothing and get something of unbelievable worth and value that we desperately need but cannot earn for ourselves. It puts us in such a position of dependence in such a way that we just naturally rebel against it and chafe against it and champ at the bit and pull and tug at the leash. I'm trying to think of like six or eight more metaphors because I feel like I'm on a roll right there. But you get what I'm saying. This just isn't how we're wired. And yet, this posture of a little child who just open-handedly receives a gift is the one that is celebrated in the teachings of Christ in the New Testament and really throughout the Old Testament as well. It's not that the law was worthless and bad and dumb and God screwed up or something, and I was like, oh no, I was I shouldn't have gone with the law. That was a terrible strategy. Let's try again, but this time we'll do the Jesus thing and the incarnation, and we'll just have it be like through Jesus and forgiveness and stuff. No, no, no, no, no, there's nothing wrong with the law. The book of Hebrews makes that really clear as well for anybody who has the question. Good things come out of obedience to God through the law, but right standing with God, that level of goodness, of righteousness, as Jesus says here in Matthew chapter 5, it has to come from beyond. It has to be the gift of God. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the people who write the rules, the Pharisees and teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. I keep trying to get back to the story of Abraham and I keep getting stuck on Jesus, but I'm a Christian and I think God is behind the Bible and I like the Bible. So I I mean, just the fact that Jesus sits right in between Galatians and going backwards to Abraham, and I just kind of notice it on the way by. So tomorrow, for a third straight day, I'm going to try to go leapfrogging over the Jesus stuff in the New Testament, all the way back to Abraham, to look at a couple of details that uh Paul would seem to be alluding to and drawing on in what he's saying here in Galatians chapter 3 about this idea that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. The thing that is celebrated about Abraham is not that he was the best obeyer of the things and that he never made a mistake. So God had to like him. The thing that is celebrated about Abraham is that he is the man of faith. That is a huge idea, and we cannot talk about it too much. And I'm going to put that theory to the test by talking about it more tomorrow. I'm Matt, this is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do this again soon.