click to listen: 065 Morality is Not Righteousness (Matthew 12 ,43-50)
Morality Is Not Righteousness
Matthew 12:43-50
September 11, 2011
As you know we are studying through Matthew’s gospel,
And most recently we are studying the rejection He received by Israel.
No doubt this rejection was fueled by the constant disdain
Given to Him by the religious leaders of the day.
They hated Jesus, and they did everything they could
To get the people to hate Him as well.
We have seen them condemn Him for breaking the Sabbath,
And we have seen them discredit any and all good He seeks to do.
Most recently Jesus cast a demon out of a man
And the Pharisees sought to discredit Him before the masses
By claiming that His power to cast out demons only came from Satan.
Their blasphemy led Jesus to challenge them head on.
“Either make the tree good, and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad.”
He had told them to determine what they were going to do with Him.
Either He was good, or He was bad.
He then pointed out why they couldn’t speak good of Him,
And the reason was because they had no goodness in their hearts.
Jesus said, “How can you being evil, speak what is good?”
He knew they couldn’t.
“For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.”
The tongue doesn’t defile the man, but it proves he is defiled.
A similar example would be like when we talk about faith and works.
Works reveal rather or not you have faith.
And so the Pharisees bad words only revealed their bad heart.
James 3:11-12 “Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.”
This was the Pharisees.
Despite their claims, their tongue testified against them.
And so Jesus nailed the Pharisees to the wall.
However you will remember that last week they tried to
Deflect His condemnation by blaming their lack of belief on Him.
They asked for a sign.
In effect saying, “Our unbelief is not because we are evil. We don’t believe because You haven’t done enough to earn our belief.”
But you will remember that Jesus nailed them again.
Jesus said, “The reason you ask for a sign is not because you need more proof. The reason you ask for a sign is because you are “evil and adulterous”.
And so Jesus nailed them again.
And we can identify because we have all been nailed to the wall by Jesus
At one time or another in our lives.
We have all had our speech prove us carnal.
We have all had our desire for proof prove us evil.
THE QUESTION IS WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN JESUS NAILS YOU?
NOW GENERALLY WHAT HAPPENS.
When people get condemned like that.
PEOPLE TRY TO FIX THE EFFECT.
They do good works, or they try to change their speech.
People learn that “faith without works is dead”
So they try to add works.
People learn that “the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart”,
So they change their speech.
If that is what you thought Jesus meant.
YOU MISSED THE POINT.
Jesus told us the tongue reveals the heart,
The purpose wasn’t to get you to change your tongue.
The purpose of the sermon was,
LISTEN TO YOUR TONGUE – CHANGE YOUR HEART.
The point is not morality; the point is righteousness.
Many people try to use the Bible just as a guide to morality.
The Bible never was written just to be a moral code.
The Bible wasn’t here to get you to clean yourself up.
The Bible is here to lead you to Jesus, who can clean up the inside.
John 5:39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;”
Now, of course we believe that Christians should be moral.
But that should merely be the effect of coming to Jesus, not the means.
The Bible was not given to make you moral,
The Bible was given to lead you to Christ.
The Response to the Scripture is.
If your tongue is bad, change your heart. Don’t change your tongue.
HOWEVER, many would rather start with the outside.
That is a very dangerous attitude, for that is the attitude of the Pharisees.
Remember the Pharisee that prayed to God?
Luke 18:11-13 “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’”
That Pharisee was only concerned with the outside with absolutely no thought given to the condition of his heart.
Jesus revealed their true nature later in Matthew 23
Matthew 23:25-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Morality was the major problem of the Pharisees.
They were so blinded by their own self-righteousness,
That they saw no need for repentance.
When truth was applied to their lives,
All they ever did was change the cover, they never dealt with the source.
That is what we often do today.
False religions work like crazy to make people moral.
Have you ever seen one of the Mormon commercials?
They are very good people.
But even churches can be guilty of this.
We can get focused on making sure people look the right way on the outside before we ever concern ourselves with the inside.
We are often focused on things like stopping drinking, or stopping drugs,
Or getting teenagers to save sex for marriage.
And obviously those are good things.
The problem is that the outside is the wrong place to start.
Namely because morality is NOT the goal.
Righteousness is the goal, and righteousness is of the heart.
All morality can do
Is make people talk better about you at your funeral.
It cannot save your soul.
Our goal cannot be morality, it must be righteousness.
Charles Spurgeon said,
“Now observe, brethren, if I, or you, or any of us, or all of us, shall have spent our lives merely in amusing men, or educating men, or moralizing men, when we shall come to give our account at the last great day we shall be in a very sorry condition, and we shall have but a very sorry record to render; for of what avail will it be to a man to be educated when he comes to be damned? Of what service will it be to him to have been amused when the trumpet sounds, and heaven and earth are shaking, and the pit opens wide her jaws of fire and swallows up the soul unsaved? Of what avail even to have moralized a man if still he on the left hand of the judge, and if still, “Depart, ye cursed,” shall be his portion?”
And this mindset is true of Jesus as well.
Jesus didn’t want a cleaned up outside.
Jesus wanted a cleaned up inside.
Yet people still missed the point
And while many received outer cleansing from Jesus.
Very few received inner cleansing from Him.
REMEMBER THE TEN LEPERS
10 received outer cleansing – 1 received inner cleansing.
Luke 17:15-19 “Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine — where are they? “Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” And He said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.”
Only one received inner cleansing.
Jesus aim in all our lives, is not just to moralize us,
But to make us righteous from the inside out,
That is His point in this text.
Don’t be moral, be righteous.
#1 WHAT JESUS DOESN’T WANT
Matthew 12:43-45
Here Jesus gives His listeners a little illustration
Of how a person who seeks morality will eventually end up,
It is an illustration about morality, but it is told from the perspective
Of the demon who worked in the man’s life.
If nothing else, this indicates to us that morality
Is first and foremost a spiritual problem.
When Jesus saw a man in sin he saw a demonic influence.
He saw a man tempted and overcome by Satan.
Our battle against sin and immorality is a battle against Satan and self.
Ephesians 6:10-13 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”
The battle for righteousness is a spiritual battle.
We have Satan the tempter and our corrupt flesh which loves it.
Jesus here shows us the battle from Satan’s view-point
This is very enlightening in helping us understand
What we are up against.
We see here 6 things.
1) THE RETREAT (43a)
“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man…”
What we find here is a man that for some reason or another
Is actually able to rid himself of his “unclean spirit”
It really doesn’t matter what this man struggled with.
The point is that somehow this man was able to clean up his life.
And we do see this sort of thing happen
In fact we often applaud it.
A man may get a job, and need to get cleaned up.
Maybe he meets a woman who convinces him to change.
Maybe he has kids and sees the need to grow up.
Maybe he is afraid of punishment, so he changes.
Maybe he is just tired of the gutter, and desires to change.
Who knows the reason, but morality occurs quite often.
But we have a man moralizing himself.
And this man’s demon has retreated.
Either the man resisted him, or Jesus removed him,
But the spirit retreated.
The man is outwardly clean.
2) THE ROAM (43b)
“it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it.”
Here Jesus actually gives us a little insight into the desire of a demon.
This demon “passes through waterless places”.
Obviously as angelic beings they don’t need daily sustenance.
In short this demon isn’t seeking survival.
WHAT IS HE SEEKING?
“rest”
Because he is fallen he is also discontent.
This demon, like Satan, has no rest or comfort in this life,
But he is in search of it.
The only problem is he “does not find it”
We don’t know specifically what a demon is looking for, but we know what he isn’t looking for.
Remember Legion?
Luke 8:31 “They were imploring Him not to command them to go away into the abyss.”
Matthew’s gospel records:
Matthew 8:29 “And they cried out, saying, “What business do we have with each other, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”
We also know that apparently inhabiting something
Is better than roaming loose.
Matthew 8:31 “The demons began to entreat Him, saying, “If You are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.”
So the demon is removed, but he is extremely discontented
As he roams looking for rest but never finding it.
This is what actually occurs in the spiritual world
When a man moralizes himself.
The Retreat, The Roam
3) THE RETURN (44)
“Then it says, “I will return to my house from which I came; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order.”
So obviously the demon found no rest and decides to return.
(It sort of reads like a spiritual prodigal son story)
The demon comes back.
Notice he calls it “my house”.
That indicates that he has not totally surrendered ownership,
Even though he has been away.
So a demon can leave and still feel like the owner of the house.
And when he returns notice what he finds.
He finds the house
“unoccupied”
“swept”
“put in order”
So the house is clean, the house is orderly, the house is moral,
But the house is still “unoccupied”
So while the demon may not have been living there,
The Holy Spirit is obviously not living there either.
This man is moral, but he is not saved.
This man is clean, but he is not redeemed.
And even though his life looks good he is still considered to be
Property of the demon, not the property of Jesus.
This is how Satan works.
You may remove him for a little while, but if that house remains unoccupied, rest assured he is coming back.
But this time he comes back with help.
4) THE REINFORCEMENTS (45a)
“Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there;”
This is why we call it spiritual warfare.
This demon was forced to retreat once, he isn’t taking that chance again.
‘seven other spirits more wicked than itself”
And “they go in and live there”
The house is no longer unoccupied.
And it won’t long be swept and put in order.
Now this man has a worse problem than when he started.
The demon has returned and has brought friends with him.
5) THE RESULT (45b)
“and the last state of the man becomes worse than the first.”
Now many people automatically assume that maybe the first demon
Was something minor like laziness, or gossip.
And so these must be real bad things like drug use, and murder, and adultery, and robbery, etc.
BUT DON’T THINK LIKE THAT.
Don’t measure sins by which ones you think are the worst.
Measure them by which ones Jesus thinks are the worst.
As Jesus walked this earth which sins did he think were the worst?
It wasn’t things like adultery and robbery.
Jesus’ disdain was reserved for the self-righteous.
John Macarthur wrote:
“The Pharisees were classic moralists. No other Jews, and certainly no Gentiles, were committed to such rigid standards of religion, morality, ethics, and daily living. They lived by a complex and demanding code, a system of laws that regulated virtually every aspect of life. But those man-made standards, purportedly based on God’s Word had led them further and further from God. They were so self-sufficient and self-righteous that when God Himself came among them in human form they rejected, vilified, and finally crucified Him. They had so thoroughly convinced themselves of their righteousness that when the very Source of righteousness stood in their midst they accused Him of being in league with Satan. Under the illusion of their own goodness they became unreachable with the saving message of the gospel. When Jesus came preaching deliverance from sin, they were not interested, because they could not imagine such a message having relevance for them. And when Jesus declared that their self-righteousness was, in fact, the most insidious form of unrighteousness (Matthew 5:20), they were infuriated.
Jesus had little trouble reaching prostitutes, thieves, extortioners, murderers and the outcasts of society. But He had an almost impossible time reaching religious and moral people who were under the delusion that outward propriety made them acceptable to God. Because they refused to recognize their sin, they recognized no need for a Savior. Their strict standards of morality gave an illusion of safety and prevented them from seeing that trust in themselves was their greatest spiritual danger and a massive barrier between them and God…It is much easier to reach someone who is overwhelmed with a true sense of His sin than someone who is overwhelmed with a false sense of his righteousness.”
(Macarthur, John [The MacArhur New Testament Commentary; Matthew 8-16; Moody Publishers, Chicago, Ill, 1987] pg. 334 & 337)
That is the type of evil that came back to this man.
He cleaned himself up and now he is left in a self-righteous state.
At least before he knew he needed to be clean,
Now he thinks he is clean and no one can tell him otherwise.
That is the result of morality.
6) THE REALITY (45c)
“That is the way it will also be with this evil generation”
• Remember this was the generation that rejected His miracles.
• This was the generation that craved a sign.
• This was the generation that would yell, “Crucify”.
WHY?
Because they didn’t think they needed Him.
They already thought they were good enough.
The reality was that they were actually in far worse shape
Than the prostitutes and tax collectors.
THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MOMENT.
Could it be that moral people in the church could actually be in worse shape than the prostitutes and drug addicts and murderers out running loose?
And the answer is yes.
The worst state of humanity is not obvious sin.
The worst state of humanity is supposed righteousness.
Adrian Rogers said, “The worst form of badness is human goodness.”
And that is the danger of morality.
IT IS NOT ENOUGH, AND YET MANY THINK IT IS.
What Jesus doesn’t want
#2 WHAT JESUS WANTS
Matthew 12:46-50
This verse is a great revealer of what Jesus wants.
“While He was till speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him.”
So at this point the sermon gets interrupted
With news that His family wants Him.
“Someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.”
But look at Jesus’ answer.
“But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?”
Now put yourself in that messengers shoes.
That is a confusing question.
But before the answer could be given, Jesus answers it Himself.
“And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold, My mother and My brothers!” For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
Jesus reveals the type of relationship He is looking for.
A relationship with Jesus is not determined by outer characteristics.
A relationship with Jesus is determined by inner characteristics.
He doesn’t want a person who is moral on the outside,
He wants a person who is righteous on the inside.
IT ISN’T EXTERNAL!
It never has been.
It has always been about the heart.
You don’t spot a Christian by his outward appearance.
You spot a Christian by his fruit.
Galatians 5:22-24 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
1 John 3:10 “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”
Entering the kingdom of God is not about an outward moral code,
Those people can actually be in very great danger.
Entering the kingdom is about having the right heart in obedience to God.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”
Jesus family was the one who was obedient from the heart,
Not the one who righteous on the outside.
Our quest can’t be morality, it must be righteousness.
If you want a relationship with the Father, if you want to enter His kingdom, then be righteous, not moral.
Morality is not what Jesus wants. He wants righteousness.
HOW DO YOU GET IT?
By quitting this or quitting that?
By changing your speech so it sounds better?
By fixing your habits to appear better?
Is that how you get righteous?
NO
JESUS ALREADY TOLD US HOW.
Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
He doesn’t want morality, He wants righteousness.
And you only get it by trusting in Christ.
SO TRUST IN HIM
Matthew 5:20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
