Justice, Mercy and Faith

A couple weeks ago I gave a sermon where I went through Matthew 23 and I talked about the Pharisees. Where they came from, how they formed as a group, why they were so vehement on what they did. The Pharisees formed because they said, never again will we let Israel go into captivity. They'd come out of the Babbin-Lodia captivity and they were never going to let that happen again. They were going to make sure everyone kept the laws of God.

Even though they were never a majority, they were always a small minority, they were very powerful in Judea. In fact, the entire religion of Judaism throughout the world at the time. I gave that sermon and went through Matthew 23. I've had a number of questions and comments and discussions with people over the last couple of weeks, both here and in Nashville. We see that extreme that we have to be careful we don't become.

The Pharisees. But then there's the other extreme that just doesn't even pay attention to the law of God. So how do we...we're trying to live in between this. We are told to keep the law of God. We're commanded to. Yet they were seemingly obeying the law of God. In many ways, in the letter to the law, they would have appeared to be doing it.

But we went through and showed how Jesus Christ kept saying, you're not keeping the law of God. Because they didn't understand the intent of it. So how do we find that middle ground where we're obeying the law of God, but we're not misusing the law of God? Well, He actually gives us the key in Matthew 23. Since I had so many interesting conversations and questions, I thought, I'll just give a whole other sermon where we'll talk about that issue that they have.

That we have to be sure not to go there, but we have to make sure that we don't go the other direction. That we actually compromise with the law of God. So let's go to Matthew 23. So we're picking up here sort of where we left off two weeks ago. Matthew 23, verse 23, He says, Woe to you.

Remember the whole sermon was about how many woes. What a powerful word that was then, and what a powerful word that was when they translated this into English. It doesn't mean much today. But it is a condemnation. You are doing something wrong and something terrible is going to happen.

There's going to be serious consequences to this. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you may tithe the mint and anise and come and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith. You ought to have done, these you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. In other words, yes, you should tithe. So He's not saying, okay, let's stop tithing. You are to obey the laws of tithing. But He says you're missing the weightier matters of the law. The things are actually more important.

Now, if they weren't tithing, He would have corrected them for not tithing. Woe to you, for you do not tithe. So He's not doing well with the law, but He's saying you're missing something in the way you apply the law. Justice, mercy and faith. What's interesting is that justice, mercy and faith, that phrase, is actually a quote from the Old Testament prophet, the Minor Prophet Micah. So He's quoting the Old Testament. He's using, you know, remember, they didn't have the New Testament at the time. He's using the Scripture to make His point. They all would have known what He was doing. Now, what He was saying is, let's go to the Scripture that shows us the weightier, what's heavy here.

And then He says, I'm not saying you don't do this other stuff. I'm saying there's something that is heavier, that is important in understanding the law. So let's go to Micah, chapter 6. I want to spend time in Micah because of the Hebrew words here are so powerful. And I want to look at the Hebrew words instead of the Greek words because the Hebrew words here are so powerful in the meaning that's in this.

Micah, chapter 6, verse 6. He has shown you, O man, what is good. So we say, okay, what is good? What must we do? We don't want to be the Pharisees, but we don't want to be lawbreakers. So where are we? How do we do this? And what does the Lord require of you? Here's what God requires of us. To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before your God. Judgment, mercy, and faith. Now it's a little different, you know, in Hebrew.

And that's why I want to go here. I want to look at these words. They mean the same, and yet there's a deeper meaning here when we look at the Hebrew words. To do justly, or what we have in Matthew 23 is judgment. So he's not saying that we don't make judgments. He's not telling the Pharisees, look, you should be making all these judgments.

What he's telling the Pharisees is you're making the wrong judgments. You're making the wrong decisions in your application of the law. And here's why. You need judgment, mercy, and faith. They would have known that from either Aramaic or Hebrew version of Bible. So they would have known that in the meaning of these words. What does it mean to do justly? Now, the first thing that you notice, if you really think about it, it says do. In Micah, we have an action you must take. In fact, when we look through this in the Hebrew, it's very active.

There's actions involved. You must do judgments. You must do them. You must actually make decisions. And justice here, or justly, has to do with law. Mishpat, which is the Hebrew word translated here justice, is used throughout the Old Testament. And it has to do with law, but it has to do with judicial decisions.

How you apply the law. In fact, in 200 places in which this word is used in the Old Testament, it has to do with literally either a civil judgment or a religious judgment made in an act of court.

In other words, it's done by a court. It's done by you make this judgment. So he's telling them, remember when we went through Matthew 23, you're misapplying the law here, you're misapplying the law here, you're misapplying the law here. You don't understand what you're doing here. He's like, oh, well, I guess he, you know, let's just throw out the Pharisees. And what we end up with is people who say, oh, you keep the Sabbath.

That's Pharisaical. No, you're not to leave these undone, but you have to understand the context in which the law is applied. So the word here, justly, just like the word judgment, has to do with application of law. So when we start discussing Christ's answer to them, and to our question, how do we not be a Pharisee, but not give up the law, the first thing he says is you have to make legal judgments. You have to learn to make legal judgments about the law of God, and how it's supposed to be applied specifically in your life. It's easy to make judgments about other people.

But we're supposed to make, because remember, what are you supposed to do? You do justice. You do judgments so that you are accepted by God. This is what he requires. So you look at the law, and you make judgments. That means when you look at how that's used throughout the Old Testament, it is an understanding that when you look at the law, you must also understand the purpose and intent of the law. What is the purpose and intent of this law? We're going to go through that in a minute and show you how Jesus applied the law in its purpose and intent, where the problem with the Pharisees was they misunderstood the purpose of the law, so their application of it ended up being wrong.

They didn't understand the intent of the law. The intent of the law is to do what God says so he won't punish you. So what we must do is make everything more and more and more exact, everything more and more and more perfect, and God won't punish us. We'll never go into captivity again because the men and women don't even sit together in synagogue so that nobody can have an evil thought.

See? They're missing the intent. They're missing the purpose of the law. So you make it more and more strict, but you're actually not doing it. And we went through the Corvin vow, which Jesus used as a perfect example of how they had come up with a ritual that made sense. Right? Give all that you have to God. How much greater thing could a person do? I give all that I have to God, and when I die, my entire state goes to God.

Of course, between now and then, that means I can't help my poor parents because it belongs to God, it doesn't belong to me. I can only use it for what I need. So my parents, they have to live in poverty. And he said, you have used that law to actually do away with the law to honor your father and mother.

So once again, they said, no, we're honoring our father and mother, we're just loving God first. He said, you're missing the point. You're missing the point.

Now, there's a number of interesting principles. In fact, I had a whole list of them. I'm only going to use two of them. That when we look at this concept of justice in the Old Testament, remember in the Old Testament when they talk about justice once God made a covenant with Israel, it was a concept of law that was administered through the nation, through the priests and through the elders at the gate. So when we look at law, in the sense we're going to look at in the Old Testament, it's justice that is done through this legal system that he had created. But in it are remarkable concepts that are totally foreign to most of the history of humanity.

Deuteronomy 1. Deuteronomy 1.

You just want to look at a couple of these concepts of justice, in which if you study this and then you look at the Pharisees, you realize they didn't always apply this. And of course we have to look at ourselves. Justice, mercy and faith, as we apply those, we're now going to begin to live with not only just the letter of the law, but the purpose and intent of the law. Deuteronomy 1.16 Moses says, Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, Hear the cases between your brethren. So of course there was a system set up by which this law would be applied throughout the nation. And judge righteously between a man and his brother, or the stranger who was with him. And you shall not show partiality in judgment, Mishpat, you shall not show partiality in justice. You shall hear the small as well as the great. You shall not be afraid of any man's presence, for the judgment is God's. And if the case is too hard for you, bring it to me, and I will hear it, Moses says. Now, we've got a couple of very interesting things here. One, the concept that everybody is equal before the law, and it does matter how much power you have, it doesn't matter how much money you have, the small and the great are equal before the law. That is a remarkable concept. You will find that concept attempted in nations that have the Bible. It's part of the concept of the original concept of the law in the United States, although it's never really worked that well, is what the concept was. That you cannot, it doesn't matter. That it doesn't matter if you're the president, it doesn't matter who you are. You must live by the laws, or you can be judged by the laws. That's the law of the law. So, this idea, in ancient times, believe me, the kings of ancient civilizations were never judged by the law. They were judged by no one because they were the kings.

There was nobody to judge them. In ancient Israel, before you became king, you were supposed to read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Read the whole thing because those were the principles by which you were supposed to govern. And if you didn't meet those principles, you weren't supposed to be king anymore. Now, God had to remove the king. There was never a... Israel never had a system by which removing a king, which caused them problems over time. That system was never developed. So, it usually happened by violence. But you see this concept. Everybody is equal before the law. The Pharisees didn't believe that. Remember? You put burdens on other people that you yourself won't do. You're above that. So, this is a very important concept. These are concepts we must have. If we are going to understand Jesus' statement, the weightier matters of the law, because these are all aspects of the law. Exodus 23. Exodus 23.

Another statement here about the principle of the law.

Exodus 23 verse 1.

One of the most terrible things you could do in terms of justice, mishpaw, is to bear false witness. That's why it's one of the Ten Commandments. It's interesting. It does not say lie. Now, lying is part of bearing false witness. But the word there isn't what we would use the word lie. It literally is give a false witness. It's a legal term. How dare you go to court and tell a lie, because it perverts justice. So, lying in any sense is wrong, according to that commandment. But the specific application of that commandment is legal. In other words, the law is binding, and to lie before the court is a death penalty issue. It's a serious issue. So, he says, you shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. See? Witness. Hey, I'm telling you that I witnessed something. Now, when you think about all lying, this applies to this. But think of this in terms of, these are legal terms. To actually, you know, oh yes, my neighbors stole from me when they didn't, so that you can get their land. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. That's an interesting point, too. The law says, the law is the law. It doesn't matter what the majority say. We're talking about the law of God here, right? I'm not talking about legal system in the United States or any other legal system. I'm talking about the law of God. Because this is what this is about. And that is, the law of God is the law of God. So, you cannot, you know, you can't have a lynch mob, even if the person committed a murder. I mean, how many old Western movies? You know, the lynch mobs coming up and the sheriff is standing them down. And it's, why? The guy is guilty! The sheriff says, because we live under the rule of law. Okay, that's where this comes from. That is not common throughout human history. The idea of rule of law.

So he goes on, he says, do not follow a crowd to do evil. Nor shall you, nor shall you testify in a dispute, so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute. So he says, you know, you can't, just because everybody agrees, lie, because you don't like somebody. Or because, you know, here's what's interesting. This person does something bad. So it's okay to lie about him, even though he didn't do this, because we need to get him off the street anyways, right? No!

But that means we leave him on the street! And according to this, no, you can't commit a crime in order to get somebody convicted of a crime. They have to be convicted of that crime.

You can't convict somebody in the law of God because they may commit a crime. They have to commit the crime before you can commit them. I mean, convict them.

These are all concepts of the law. Judgment, mercy, and faith. And it's interesting, too, he says, you shall not show partiality to a poor man. Many times throughout the Torah, there's instructions not to show partiality to the strong or the rich or the powerful. Here it says, wait a minute, that also means you don't show partiality to the poor man. Oh, well, he's poor, so therefore, you know, let's cut him some slack and go ahead and rule in his favor, even though he's not. Right. No, the law does allow that either.

Verse 6, you shall not pervert the judgment of your poor and his dispute.

Keep yourself far from a false manner. Do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not justify the wicked. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the word of the righteous. Also, you shall not oppress a stranger. You know, someone comes into the land of Israel, maybe a traveler, someone passing through. They could oppress that person. Oh, you're not a citizen, so I'm going to arrest you and I'm going to do this to you. But I'm just passing through. Nope, nope, we're going to oppress you. He says you can't do that. For you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Now, this is all part of the principles of the law. There's many, many passages about the principles of the law. Those principles still apply. In fact, the problem with the Pharisees is they weren't applying those principles to how they used the law.

We are to do justice. So how do we understand? You know, Mr. Peridman talked about how Christ started His church. And so there is something different in the New Covenant that's different than the Old Covenant. So if it's all good, we're under the New Covenant. Let's just throw out all the laws. That's not what it means either. But it is different. It's new. How do we apply that? How do you know how to do justly? We'll just use the Ten Commandments. There's other commandments. There's other things we could use out of the 613 laws that are in the Old Testament. Let's just take the Ten Commandments. How do I apply them today? Nobody here is going to say, oh yeah, we should all go murder.

We know that's wrong. But how do we apply them today? Well, you start with, if you want to know how to apply them today, with the person who is administrating the law. In ancient Israel, it was the Levites and the elders in the gate. Who administrates the law of God today? Anybody.

It's Jesus Christ. In fact, there's Old Testament prophecies about how the Messiah would administrate the law. When he comes the second time, what happens? Isaiah says all the peoples come to Jerusalem, or what? He gives them the law. He shows them how it works. So let's go to Matthew 5. You want to really start learning how to administrate the law? Do a very in-depth study of the Sermon on the Mount. Of course, this is just part of the Sermon on the Mount. This is a passage that you've all read many times. How do I administrate the law? Matthew 5.

Verse 27. Now, I'm just pulling one verse out of a whole part of this Sermon on the Mount that deals with the law. In fact, much of the Sermon on the Mount deals with the law. You have heard that it is said that to those of old, you shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you, in other words, I'm administrating this, yes, you heard it. The law of God says, do not commit adultery. But Jesus is now establishing Himself as the administrator of the law. He's the judge. So he says that the chief judge of the kingdom of God, and the reason I say that is because everyone must stand before the judge and the seed of Jesus Christ. God the Father says, He's the one who died for you, He's the one who judges you. All of us have to stand before the judge and the seed of Jesus Christ. So He's the judge. And He says, I'm saying to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

He says, I'm telling you, not committing adultery isn't enough. You must not lust after somebody. That's not your husband or wife. Dennis not lust.

That that is breaking the law. Now this we're getting into, the Hebrew concept of michpat in the New Testament. We're beginning to understand why He said to them, you really don't keep it. You think you are, but you're not. Because He takes this to a whole new level. That we're not just defining human behavior.

We're defining the intent and purpose of our behavior. So we're not just defining the law, thou shalt not commit adultery. It's pretty simple.

But the judge says the intent and purpose of that is to have purity in marriage. That's the intent and purpose. Therefore anything, anything that breaks that purity in marriage, pornography breaks the purity of marriage, is sin. It's breaking of the law. That's what the judge says. Because he interprets the law because he's the law giver. So he interprets the law. Look at Matthew 22. Let's look at another place here. Start to look at how He does this practically.

You can't read the Gospels and believe that Jesus Christ did away with the Ten Commandments. You can't. I had a discussion one time with a Baptist lay minister about that. And he told me, I know that. That's why anything done before His death was done away with. What? Everything He did before His death was done away with? Yeah, that's all part of the Old Testament. Once Jesus died and was resurrected, the rest of it's the New Covenant. So we don't have to do anything, he said. So then you're not a follower of Jesus Christ. I didn't even know what to say. I said, well, obviously we have no middle ground to come to. I was maybe 21 or 22 at the time, but I was looking at Him.

So Christ means nothing to you. He's my Savior. But His life means nothing to you. What He taught means nothing. Matthew 22, verse 34.

Well, the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees. So a bunch of Sadducees which were... The Sadducees were mainly either priests or, you know, sort of the aristocracy of society. So the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, which they were probably very proud that He did that because, you know, they didn't like the Sadducees. They gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him. Okay, we'll get Him here. We'll get Him with a question about the law. And, you know, He'll mess up. Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Now, I've mentioned before why that's an important question. Out of the 613 laws, once you determine this is the most important, what does that do? That establishes the priorities for all the rest of them. That's why one group of, I don't know if there were Pharisees or Essenes, because remember the Pharisees weren't just one group. They argued one of themselves. They said that the most important commandment of the law was to wear tassels on the bottom of your clothes. And you know why? If you wear the tassels, you'll never forget the law. So wearing the tassels made you never forget the law.

So that was the most important because you'd remember all the law. So the argument of which one's most important, how do we answer that? Easily, the most important would be, don't not kill. That would be the most important. Someone said, no, the most important is remember the Sabbath day, because if you remember the Sabbath day, you're going to be worshipping God. I mean, you come up with all kinds of commandments throughout the Old Testament. He said, that's the most important. So what they're asking him is a debated question at the time. And of course, we know his answer because he actually quotes from the Old Testament. And Jesus said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your man. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbors yourself. These two commandments hang all the law of the prophets, and if you go to Leviticus, you will find that both of these are commands.

The answer was easy. Okay, what's the most important of all the commandments? Wearing tassels? Maybe it's not eating pork, because if I don't eat pork, what does that do? That reminds me I'm a clean person and I avoid the unclean. And he says, no. The priority of the law is you love God with everything you are and everything you have. And you love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else, he says, comes out of that. Every other commandment is based on those two things.

And this is what the Pharisees did not understand.

That's why I find it interesting when they built the temple, when Solomon built the temple, in his speech where he gets up and dedicates it to God, he says, this temple is here so that people come from all over the world can come here and worship God. By the time of the Pharisees, there were plaques, they've actually found a couple of them, outside the temple, that if you weren't a Jew, you couldn't go past that plaque or you would be killed.

No, no, people from all over the world can't come here and worship our God. Well, they can, but you've got to stay behind those barriers. And they actually say, you forfeit your life if you pass this barrier, if you're not a Jew.

See the difference? I build this so that all people can come and worship God. And it was the God of Israel, which meant something back then because every tribe, every nation, every people had their own gods. So if you were the God of Israel, that means this is your God. And if you, if you believed in the God of Israel, you'd have to go to Israel to worship Him. You know, you try to get there at least once in your life to that temple. But at the time of Jesus, if you weren't a Jew, you couldn't go past that barrier at the temple. Pharisees. He's our God. You can worship Him, but you're not as good as us. Because look, we keep all of His laws, plus a couple hundred more we've made up.

Like I said before, I would have been a Pharisee if I would have lived back then. God would have had a hard time converting me. He's a hard time converting me now. I'd have been a Pharisee. That makes sense. We just make more and more rules, more and more laws, and I have an answer for every question. What should I do? Here's the answer. What should I do? Here's the answer. Right?

But that's not life, is it? Judgment means we have to make decisions. That's why sometimes someone will come up to me and I'll give them, you know, here's the questions you must ask. But what should I do? Here's the questions you must ask. And then you come to a conclusion. But what's my answer? Here's the questions you must ask. Here's the biblical questions.

Where? Part of it says, oh, just tell them. But no, that's not, you know. We all have to learn to make judgments. That's what do justly means.

Let me give you an example of something here. Let's show how prioritizing these laws, what that means.

In Exodus, in the Ten Commandments there in Exodus 20, verse 8, we're told that on the Sabbath day we ought to do any work, any work at all. And we're not to have our animals do any work.

Now, in Exodus 23, there are laws that say you're supposed to take care of your animals. Now, when it says that, it's not having to do with the Sabbath. It just says you're responsible for your animals. In fact, in the Proverbs, Solomon said, you know, it is an unrighteous man who abuses or doesn't take care of his animals. So, here's a law about the Sabbath. Don't work on the Sabbath and don't have your animals work on the Sabbath. And here's a law that says, take care of your animals. The question is, how do we prioritize that? Not in having your animals work, but feeding your animals. Do you feed your animals on the Sabbath? I mean, if you have...it's in the wintertime and you have six cows, you have to go give them hay, right? What do you do? Now, look how Jesus handles this. Luke 13.

He's making one point, but it's his argument I want to look at, because this is exactly what he's doing. He's making judgments based on loving God, loving your neighbor, and doing the intent of the law, the purpose and intent of the law. Luke 13, verse 14.

But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. And he said to the crowd, there are six days in which men ought to work, therefore come and be healed on them and not on the Sabbath day. They were greatly offended by the fact that he would do healings on the Sabbath day. And I find that amazing, because the power had to be coming from God.

And they can't see that. You know, I mean, Jesus isn't healing people on Sabbath day. The power is coming from God. Paul didn't heal people, and the power came from God.

And here's what Jesus says, The Lord then answered in him and said, Hippocrite, does not each one of you on the Sabbath day lose his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it away to water it? He said, well, I bet you're not supposed to work on the Sabbath, but come on. Don't you at least get a bucket from the well and take over and give some water to your donkey? And you know, the argument was you could do that. The Pharisees actually agreed with that. He nails the Pharisees with a Pharisaical argument. If your animal falls in the ditch, you can get it out on the Sabbath. Jesus didn't make that one up either. That's a Pharisaical argument. The Essenes said you couldn't.

The Essenes said, only if a person fell in the ditch, but if an animal fell in the ditch, you just let him lay there and die.

And the Pharisees were the liberal ones in this case, who said, Oh, no, no, you can save your animal on the Sabbath day. That means you've got to maybe tie a rope around him and drag him out of that ditch. That's work! Yeah, but an animal is a gift from God. So Jesus uses their own arguments against them.

He says, come on. You can feed and walk through your animal on the Sabbath. It would be expected not, it would be unrighteous not to do so. So what? Not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound. Think of it. Just think of this. He's telling him, can't you see this? Think of this. Make a righteous judgment here. Have some mishpot.

Think of it. For eighteen years, we loosed from this bond on the Sabbath. And it says they were all put to shame. They were all embarrassed by that argument. God chooses to heal somebody on the Sabbath. How's that wrong? So he looks at that Old Testament. He looks at that, don't work your animals on the Sabbath. Take care of your animals. So therefore it's okay to feed your animals on the Sabbath. You don't go build the barn on the Sabbath. You don't do all these other things, but you feed and water your animals on the Sabbath. You had no problem with that. Actually, neither did the Pharisees. So Jesus teaches about doing justly. The second thing we find in Mikey is to love mercy.

The Hebrew word mercy, which you will find is translated mercy. There are a couple of words that are translated mercy. This one is translated mercy a lot. If you have an Old King James, how many have an Old King James? Many times you'll find this word translated loving kindness. There's a reason. It's active. Mercy can be very passive. Oh, okay. I'll forget it. I'll forgive you. This word was active. Loving kindness captures the meaning of the word more than anything else. In other words, you are giving people kindness in your mercy. You are forgiving them and being kind to them. It's not just a matter I forgive you because I'm better than you. You're forgiving people and showing mercy because you love them and you're doing an act of kindness. That's a big difference between a Pharisaical, well, of course I forgive you. Righteous people are supposed to.

Loving kindness means it comes from within you. Remember, we're not in the New Testament. We're in the Old Testament. What does God expect of us? To figure out the intent and purpose of the law and apply it. Secondly, to show loving kindness to others. How Jesus expands this, of course, in Matthew 5, we'll go back to the Sermon on the Mount. This is a whole other subject. I want to spend the majority of the sermon on that first. We're going to briefly go through these other two points here. Matthew 5, 43. Because this is part of the law. Mercy is actually part of the law. There's a time to show mercy and there's a time not to show mercy. Jesus says, okay, when do you show mercy? You have heard it said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

Actually, it doesn't exactly say that in the scripture, but obviously that's what was being taught. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

Wow!

Pray for those who persecute you. Nope. Someone come to my door and he's going to persecute me? I'm going to shoot him.

That wasn't meant to be a southern accent. I don't know where that came from. Because believe me, there's lots of people up north that think that way, too.

We're going to shoot this guy who comes to persecute me. You going to pray for him while you're shooting?

See, he says we can't do that. The application of the law is that we can't pass judgment. We can only say something's wrong. We can tell someone you're wrong.

Even in the United States, in our carnal country, someone has to go to trial for judgment to be passed, doesn't he? You have to take him to trial for judgment to be passed. We can say that's wrong, it's a sin, but then we are to show mercy and that we are to say, Now remember, this is sin against you. This isn't sin against the side. You're the breaking of God's law. And by the way, if someone sins against you, we are to show them love and kindness. Realize that if they've also sinned against God and they don't repent, God's going to punish him.

I mean, next time someone does something bad to you and you go ask God, please punish that person. I want you to think something, because I've had to do this myself. God, just...you know, I want to be loving and kindness and show mercy, but would you just smash that person for me?

Ask yourself, do you want that person to go to the light of fire? No. The moment you say that, you begin backing off. You want justice. God's justice is absolute. There are people going to the light of fire. I hope nobody I know ever goes there. I don't care what they did to me. I don't want them to go to the light of fire. Sometimes a nice...I'm sorry would be nice. But if I never get that in this lifetime, it's okay. I don't still want them to go to the light of fire.

God's justice is going to send people there.

So, we look at them and say, okay, you're wrong. You hurt me. I may not be able to have a relationship with you, but I pray for you, because I don't want you to go there.

And so someone steals from you. Do you say, oh, no, don't put them in jail? No. Guess what? They may arrest them and put them in jail. That's justice of the law of the land. And you and I don't have the right to do away with that. Any more than we have the right to do away with God's judgment on them. We have to deal with our judgment, which is... I'm not going to be...because if you don't forgive somebody, just hate them. Okay. You did that. It was wrong.

You're going to have to live with it, and you're going to have to face God someday. And I will pray that you repent. That's a huge difference than praying. I hope you get yours. Totally different thing. Totally different thing. Why do we do this? Verse 45. Now we're going to get back into the intent of the law, loving God with all your heart and all your mind, and loving your neighbor as yourself.

That you may be the sons of your Father in heaven, and He makes the Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. God has a bigger plan here, and you and I just aren't to go around passing eternal judgments on people. In fact, we're simply to show loving kindness when we can, and let justice take its course.

Whether it's the law of the land or God's justice, it takes its course. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Showing loving kindness is what God has done to every one of us.

That doesn't do away with His law. It doesn't do away with guilt. In fact, you and I aren't guilty because we accepted His loving kindness in Jesus Christ, right? If we hadn't done that, you and I are still under the law, which means we're still under God's justice. And God will not compromise with justice. He will forgive it. He forgives Him through Christ. But it's through Him paying the penalty, right? It's through Him paying the penalty. That's how justice is taken care of. So God is perfect justice and perfect love.

The last point, he says, is to walk humbly with your God. It's interesting that in Matthew it talks about faith. In here it says to walk humbly with your God. And to walk humbly, this oncino, the Jewish commentary, says that the way this is worded, it means you must actually live life in humility before God. So to live life in humility before God, why is the Greek word faith used here? To really have faith, you must have humility before God.

You can't. You can't have real faith and have self-will. They're connected together. Faith in God is based entirely on a realization that I am nothing without God. It is based on a realization I do not have the strength or the power to change my life, to resurrect myself. I must submit to God. And faith is that I submit, Lord, what do you want me to do? God, what do you want me to do? I want you to be my father. How do I do that?

It's humble. Faith must have humility or it's not faith. And that's why the two phrases, even though they mean the same thing, are translated differently. One in the Old Testament, one in the New Testament. The only way we can have real faith is we understand our absolute poverty, spiritual poverty, without God. Absolute humility before God.

Then you can trust Him. Otherwise, we define faith as maybe a belief. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ. Our faith is our doctrines. You have to believe in God. You have to believe in Jesus Christ. You have to have doctrines. But this level, to walk humbly before God, and what Jesus is talking about when He's condemning the Pharisees, is you aren't humble before God. Think about over and over again in Matthew 23, what we read.

What's the problem with the Pharisees? You're so proud. You're so self-righteous. They had the truth as far as they knew it. They were waiting for the Messiah to come. They were proclaiming the Messiah is going to come and set up God's kingdom on this earth. They were keeping the Ten Commandments in the letter. That's who they were. He said, you're so proud and you're so arrogant that you don't understand you're missing the point.

So we have these three things that we're supposed to do. As Jesus called them, justice, mercy, and faith. To do justly, to have loving kindness, and to walk humbly before our God.

He said, wow, that's complicated. Yeah.

How do I not be a Pharisee or a lawbreaker? We just found out how. It's not easy, is it? To learn how to apply the law in God's intent and God's purpose. To show loving kindness even to those who may be mistreating us.

And to walk humbly before God in faith. And so we have in one little phrase in Matthew 23, a phrase that's often said, but often ignored. We have Jesus telling us, here is how not to be a Pharisee.