Now that we know this, did we ever see this? Of course we do, in the pages of the book, here, turn to Acts 10. What Peter does here in this little sermon he preaches to Cornelius' household, points us in the direction in how to do this. Jesus, Himself, showed us how to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
God's character and power was in Him, and what did He do? He did good, and relieved burdens, setting people free, helping in times of need. He gave, when most of us had no more to give. This is the major difference between the true Christian and the Pharisees.
Jesus, the model Christian, was just as law-keeping as they were, but He added good deeds, pure motive, concern, kind thoughts, earnest desire, and a loving attitude in His righteousness. He exceeded the law. He fulfilled the law. He achieved the aim of the law. He satisfied the law - by doing good, and being good. And being good means that His entire life was focused in not only conforming, but going beyond conformity to help - outgoing concern.
When we are doing these things, it is almost impossible to sin. The times to sin are almost entirely cut out and filled up by goodness. When you had time in times past to do sin, if we are living beyond the law, we are busy doing good - sin never enters the equation. And do you know what? Law never enters the equation, because we are under grace living in the spirit. We have gone beyond law, and now we are fulfilling the law. We are being loving, good, kind, bringing joy to others, being longsuffering, being faithful - we are doing all those things of the fruits of the Spirit. So the law never enters the picture.
We have gone beyond the guidance of the law, and now we are living entirely in a world made up of love. I know that sounds kind of sappy, but I will leave for another sermon what love really is. And, you will probably learn more about that this afternoon.
But, that is where the true righteousness of a true Christian exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. On the other hand, the Pharisees were rigid and entirely selfish. How many times did Jesus give us examples of the Pharisees doing something just to gain merit before God? Or doing a good deed only to be seen by other people? Or, doing something to line their own pockets, or the pockets of the treasury when they were taking money from their own parents in order to make the church look good. Talk about a bad attitude. They would not even honor their own parents. They would break the 5th commandment in order to make themselves look good, something like getting the plaque up on the wall for all to see how much he had contributed to the church.
I think of this in relation to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but primarily the Pharisees in relation to Christ. Matthew 5 makes it very clear that Christ had some respect for the Pharisees - that they were righteous. He did not say to what degree they were righteous, but He said to us that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, why, we are not going to be in the kingdom of heaven. So, they had a righteousness, but Jesus was more righteous still.
There was a fundamental difference in their approaches to righteousness. The Pharisees' approach to righteousness was to remain blameless by not sinning. Jesus' approach to righteousness, it is stated there in Acts the tenth chapter (Acts 10:38) I believe it is, where Luke, when he wrote that, said that Jesus went around doing good! He spent His time doing good.
One had a positive approach. The other had a negative approach. This does not mean that the Pharisees were always negative in everything they did. And it does not mean that Jesus was always positive - because He had to resist as well when it came to resisting sin.
But the fundamental difference was one was defending himself all the time and the other was laying down His life. And, so, the Pharisees were doing something that was fundamentally and essentially self-concerned. All they were interested in was protecting themselves. So they really did not have a great deal of time to do acts of love toward others.
That just fits right in with I John 4:18, does it not, where fear is placed as love's greatest challenge. They were fearful of sinning. In fact, the Jews in their writings claim that what they tried to do was to build a fence around the law so that nobody could break it! They did this by making all kinds of regulations. The ones we probably smile the most about, or are most knowledgeable of, are some of the regulations regarding keeping the Sabbath. And we can kind of give a tee hee about what looks to be a futile or strange way of trying to keep the Sabbath, but they were serious. They did not do that in a bad attitude. They were serious about what they were doing. Underneath that, they were trying to protect themselves. And that is fundamentally selfish.
Now, righteousness has to begin somewhere. It has to begin where the Pharisees were. We do have to begin by not sinning. But if we can turn our attention to more positive things, then we are not going to have to do much worrying about whether we are sinning - because we will be doing the right things. And sin will not come to mind nearly as much as it would otherwise.
Turn with me, in the book of Acts, to a verse that we looked at last week, which to me is kind of the signature of Jesus' ministry, where Peter (describing Jesus) says,
Now, unlike the Pharisees - who were shown achieving a measure of righteousness through a combination of ritual and ignoring (and avoiding) sinners - Jesus focused His life on doing positive acts of justice and righteousness in peoples' behalf.
It was at this point in the sermon last week that I had you turn to Amos the 5th chapter, where God shows that we are to let justice roll down as waters and righteousness like a mighty river. Now recall that justice is the external act; and righteousness is the internal standard that is in alignment with God, which guides our conscience and motivates the outward acts. There in Amos the 5th chapter, God is calling for the Israelites to make positive steps to do good, proceeding continuously - like the waves of the ocean and a mighty river moving a turbine in order to produce even more power.
Do you get the picture? Connect this all to Jesus. He went around doing good. He followed the advice that was given in Amos 5. His acts were continuously coming forth from Him; positive acts of what the Old Testament called justice - external acts of goodness that were being motivated by, aligned with, and guiding Him; that is, the Standard of righteousness.
If you do that (if we do this), brethren, it is getting very difficult to sin. It is hard to sin when you are doing the right thing. Do you get what I mean? That is God's approach. His approach is a positive one (not negative), even though negative is a part of it - which is, we have to avoid doing sin. But the way to avoid doing sin is to do good. That was the major difference between Jesus and the Pharisees.
Do you see the progression there? From the time the Holy Spirit is poured out on Him and He is anointed for His commission, then the Bible begins to speak of Him as being full of the power of the Holy Spirit. And then He Himself announces it, that The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me.
He went about doing good. That is the meal offering. Anybody who meets the demands of the meal offering is going to go about doing good to men.
Now we are to understand that Jesus was bruised in service, but He never lacked power. That is what brought Him through it. By contrast, we are not bruised in service, we are not broken, but we are powerless. The truth is that the greatest zeal and knowledge are useless without God's Holy Spirit and the power that it brings to us.
Peter comments on that when preaching to the household of Cornelius. They had probably heard of Jesus because they had prayed to God, and He had sent Peter to preach to them, and to baptize them. Peter says,
See? He did not just know the Bible; He did not just know God's will; He went ahead and did it too!
In eating the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, it compelled Him to do, not just to be.
