Upside-Down Righteousness

Welcome.

My name is Scott.

I am the executive pastor here at the Crossing Church, and I am so glad that you are tuning in for the next message in our Upside Down Kingdom series.

So before we get going, if you would join me, in a brief prayer, and then we will get rolling.

So God, thank you so much that we get to go through and dissect and understand the words of Jesus.

Thank you that he spoke to us so plainly and gave us these truths that are just as relevant now as they were back when he spoke them to his disciples.

So God, give us wisdom and just help us, to understand what you want from us from today's words, and we thank you for that in the name of Jesus.

Well, like I just mentioned for the last couple months, we have been going through what's called the Sermon on the Mount.

And this is a sermon Jesus gave and it involves some of his most radical teachings, some counter cultural stuff, and this because of that, we have called the series upside down kingdom, and it paints a picture of the kingdom that came to earth in the form of Jesus.

He was the seed that began this movement.

And so, as we've gone through the sermon on the mount, we we've seen Jesus talk about the attributes of a kingdom person, what this person looks like, how he is going to form them.

We've looked at the ethics of a citizen of the kingdom and how they relate to the to the law and how they how how they proceed.

And then we talked about the mission in this world of those who belong in this kingdom.

And in the last couple weeks, we have been looking at very closely Jesus' words on the motivation of those, his followers, who are part of this kingdom.

And it started with the first the first motivation in having generosity to those in need.

And then it talked about the motivation in our posture and prayer and and how we were to approach that.

And now we're going to do the third and the final of the of the motivation section.

This is Matthew six verses sixteen through eighteen.

So whether you're following along on the screen or you've got your own bible or a bible app open, this is what we're going to be going through.

And if you're not familiar, we use the New Living Translation here at the crossing, but whatever translation you're using is going to be just fine.

So here is Jesus' words.

He says, and when you fast, don't make it obvious as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people would admire them for their fasting.

I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get.

But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face, then no one will notice that you are fasting except your father who knows what you do in private, and your father who sees everything will reward you.

So once again, for the third time as we've gone through the cycle, we see Jesus use the word hypocrite as he is pointing out people with the wrong motivation in their spiritual disciplines.

So hypocrite refers to somebody with false motives, somebody who's a pretender or an actor, somebody who's playing a part.

Now what's going on the outside, which is looking holy and righteous, doesn't match what's going on the inside, which is self centeredness and and looking for applause.

And just like we've seen as we went through and we looked at helping the poor and prayer, a hypocrite's motive is themselves.

And it's really important that Jesus gives this this instruction, and I know that we want to externalize hypocrites are somebody else, but again, he's speaking to his disciples, which is us.

This is something we have to be wary of in our own spiritual life.

The hypocrite is somebody who's concerned with building up their reputation and getting approval or followers and and status.

And so the first point to be made from this paragraph, as we're going to go through and look at this idea of of fasting, is fasting is a practice of kingdom living.

Yet, we don't really have any trouble accepting this when we talk about giving.

Jesus says, when you give, there's an expectation.

And then he went on to say in the next paragraph, when you pray, there was an expectation that he had that you're going to pray.

And just the same way, he says, when you fast when you fast, when you do this, you are practicing depriving yourself for some time and to some degree of normal food and drink.

Now fasting is kind of all the rage in our culture right now because people are understanding that there's health benefits to to fasting and weight loss benefits to to fasting.

And so we're gonna look at why we would want to fast, and what our motivation is for doing that.

But right at the top, just understand there's an expectation that Jesus has that this is something that one of his followers is going to engage in.

Now he hasn't put any sort of rules to it.

He doesn't set how often we should fast or what occasions we should fast.

He doesn't really give any other details to it.

He leaves it very open ended.

Seems to be a lot of latitude in this practice.

So as we set out on this teaching, what's the intent of fasting?

That's the question that I want to get to as we go through this message, but before we get there, what I want to remind us of is what fasting does not do for us.

Just like what giving does not do for us, and just like what prayer does not do for us.

Why is it that Jesus is hammering this nail so hard?

He's gone through this three times.

When you do your when you do your acts of generosity, when you pray, when you fast, and he comes to the same conclusion each time.

Well, I just want to go back because there's something that we might have missed because there's really an unfortunate chapter break in the Sermon on the Mount.

Just want to take us back to the end of chapter five.

This is Matthew chapter five and it's verse forty eight, and this is how Jesus, of course, the chapters are this is not how it was originally written.

The chapters were imposed by us, so it's kind of an artificial ending to one thing and beginning of another.

This is all a consistent thought.

This is what Jesus says at that at the end of r chapter five.

He says, but you are to be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect.

Now, a bunch of weeks ago, Tony taught us very well about this and you can go back and and listen to the to the message that he had about the end of chapter five.

Perfect means complete.

Perfect means whole.

What what Jesus is saying there is because we're made in the image of God, he is he is giving us an invitation to find our completeness, to find our wholeness, to find our significance in the one who created us.

That's exactly what we were designed for.

We weren't designed to follow rules and and to to to obey a law.

We were designed to have our sense of acceptance and approval and security and significance completed in relationship to God.

Right?

So Jesus says, you are to be perfect.

Then the top of chapter six, that's why this chapter break is so unfortunate because these two consecutive statements are intertwined together.

Be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect.

And then he says at the top of chapter six, watch out.

Don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others for you will lose the reward from your father in heaven.

See, Jesus knows our hearts.

He knows what is going on inside of us.

And so he knows that it is hard for us to accept this idea of being perfect as an invitation.

We would rather take this in, instruction to be perfect as a challenge.

Right?

Okay.

I've got to be the best possible rule follower so that I can be perfect or I could be the most complete or I can be the best.

See, part of our nature, our broken nature, is we like control.

We like to earn.

We like to compare ourselves to others.

And so because of this, our good deeds that Jesus is talking about here become our measure of what makes us acceptable to God.

And that's why Jesus is hitting this theme so so hard.

He says, okay, when you give, k, well don't make that the the source of why you're acceptable to God.

When you pray, don't judge your quality of relationship, k, by the accolades you get for that.

We tend to look at our effort to earn God's favor, our effort to prove that we are worthy.

And so kind of the key foundational principle that I that I'm going to here is our acts of righteousness, our good deeds are the fruit of our right relationship with God.

They are not the cause of our right relationship with God.

They are the product of our right relationship with God.

Our righteousness.

That is what Jesus is driving at here.

Our righteousness or our goodness is not the product of not doing anything wrong or doing more good things than bad things, so the scale is somehow tipped in our favor.

We are righteous and our actions are righteous because we've been accepted or we've accepted that invitation to be united with God.

So here's a quick exercise for us.

I want you to think to yourself, okay, the answer that you would put in this blank.

Don't take time to labor it.

I don't want you to come up with the right answer because the exercise will not be helpful if you if if you take too much time to deliver it.

How would you complete this sentence?

I know I am a good person because blank.

Fill in that blank now.

Or maybe you would rephrase that.

God loves me because fill in the blank now.

Or maybe this one's a little a little darker.

I know I'm better than my neighbor because fill in the blank.

See, Jesus gives this warning at the very top of chapter six to to watch out because our hearts left themselves will turn to our behaviors.

And so maybe you would have left your own device.

You say, you know what?

I'm good because I take good care of my kids.

Or I know I'm a good person because I work hard.

Or I know I measure up because I have a college degree.

Or I know that God loves me because I handle the money that he has given me well, or we can even spiritualize this even more.

I know I'm a good person because I read my bible twice a day.

I know I'm good because I feed the poor.

I know God loves me because I pray every morning before I start my day.

See, what what what the core of all those statements is is you're good because of something you have done.

You've left God out of the equation.

And so back to our verse about fasting, what Jesus says is this is what the pharisees were exactly guilty of.

So a little historical background right here.

Israel had been given one occasion to fast.

Their celebration of the day of atonement.

The day when sacrifices were were brought for the sins sins of the nation, and it was an opportunity for repentance, and to accept God's forgiveness, and and reconciliation with him.

On that day, all of Israel was supposed to fast.

Now from there, fasting got incorporated into other celebrations, but by the time we we get to Jesus, you know, thousands of years later, the pharisees had totally co opted this idea of fasting.

They were fasting twice a week.

And if you saw them, you knew they were doing it.

They covered themselves with ash.

They let you know how much they were suffering by groaning and making a big ruckus, and all of it was intended for them to be noticed, for people to point to them and say, look, that is a righteous person.

They are suffering for God.

Well, Jesus says that that's not righteousness.

That is somebody living for themselves and holding their own behavior up to to the standard of what is right or wrong.

We will call that self righteousness.

Here's a great example.

Jesus tells tells a little parable just to just so that we would totally get the clearest picture possible of what this look like.

This is found in the gospel of Luke and this is chapter eighteen verses nine through fourteen.

So Jesus is sharing this this parable.

Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness.

They had self righteousness.

They were good and they knew it.

They earned God's approval or so they thought, and they and scorned everyone else.

So Jesus says, two men went to the temple to pray.

One was a pharisee and the other was a despised tax collector.

The pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer.

I thank you, God, that I'm not like other people, cheaters, sinners, adulterers.

I'm certainly not like that tax collector.

I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.

But the tax collector stood at a distance, dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed.

Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow saying, oh God, be merciful to me for I am a sinner.

I tell you this sinner, not the pharisee, returned home justified before God.

For those who will exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

So that picture is pretty clear.

The pharisee stood and used all the good things to justify why he was in right relationship with God.

I'm not a cheater.

I'm not a sinner.

I'm certainly not like that tax collector who who's just a commoner.

I I give a tenth of my income.

The pharisee is filling in the blank, I know I am a good person because, And it was completely based on his own actions.

He was in control.

On the other hand, the tax collector knew.

He knew right away.

He could not climb that ladder to God.

He could he could he couldn't make it, he couldn't make the first step.

And for that reason, he leaned in and he was relying on God's goodness and mercy for forgiveness.

So when we look at that picture, we can ask ourselves the question, who knew more about God and his character?

The Pharisee that was spending his time trying to oppress God or the tax collector who knew that he couldn't and he was fully reliant on God for his justification.

We're not the first ones to struggle with this.

Right?

There's nothing new under the sun.

We as followers of Jesus are the same as the original followers of Jesus.

This is Paul's writing to the Galatian church in Galatians chapter three verse three.

They were going through the same thing and Paul says, how foolish can you be?

After starting your lives in the spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?

They were taking that that invitation, be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect, and they were trying to do it by their own human effort.

And so for us as followers of Jesus, this is the tension that we have to learn to to live in as we walk the the narrow way.

We are called to do good deeds.

We saw that earlier in the sermon on the mount.

The mark of a faith that is alive and thriving is is is good deeds come come out of it.

They're they're a response to what's been done for us.

But the tension is that good we do is not what makes us righteous.

It's not what earns us God's favor and his love.

We should enjoy our freedom.

We are free from a performance driven religion and our attitude should be like that of the tax collector.

I know that I am a sinner.

God, I am completely dependent on your grace for for anything good in me and that comes out of me.

So as we as we follow Jesus, it's important that we have that awareness and we and we and we examine our heart.

Growing in awareness of the depth of our sin will cause us to to rest in Jesus' righteousness.

When when when we are trying to cover up our sin, that's when we perform.

That's when we're on the treadmill.

That's when we can never do enough good stuff to to measure up.

But when we are aware of our brokenness and we're aware that Jesus is the one that takes care of it, we can rest in the righteousness that Jesus provides because our our being right with God, our becoming kingdom people is is not about how good we are.

It's it's about how good Christ is.

Here's Paul writing to a different church, told you all churches have struggled with this since the beginning of the of the whole movement.

This is the Corinthian church in second Corinthians chapter five verse twenty one.

Paul writes, for God made Christ who never sinned to be offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God, so that we could be righteous in God's sight through Christ.

Paul writes something similar when he writes to the Roman church and when he writes to the to the Galatian church.

There he says, are clothed with Christ.

When when we become a follower, of Jesus, we put on Jesus and what that means is we take off our own filthy rags of trying to trying to impress God and we put on Jesus' righteousness, his his white robe.

And now under this clothing, make no mistake, we're not we're not supposed to stay the way we are.

We partner with the spirit to be conformed in the image of Jesus, to to have our minds transformed, to think more like Jesus, and to to work out our salvation, to use Paul's phrase.

But somehow, some way, and this is the mystery, when God looks at those who are disciples, he sees his son's righteousness.

God's pleased with disciples of Jesus because he's pleased with Jesus.

This is the upside down righteousness of the kingdom.

We are righteous not because of our our own actions.

We are righteous because of the actions of the one who gave himself for us.

And in that, if we can fully live in that, that's freedom.

That is refreshing.

The pressure is completely off.

Paul writes in Philippians chapter three verse nine, he says, I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law.

Paul says, it's not about me.

It's not about filling in that blank.

I am a good person because.

I know God loves me because.

Rather, Paul says, I become righteous through faith in Christ.

This kind of sharpens the image of what we saw earlier in the Sermon on the Mount.

If you go back to chapter five verse seventeen where Jesus says that that he he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.

The law is still good.

The law still points to Jesus and the character of God, but what the law is not is the source of our righteousness.

Jesus is.

And that is why he's made such a big deal at the beginning of chapter six of going over and over and saying, watch out.

He wants us to be sure that we never abandon him as our source of righteousness and begin to to subtly substitute our own temps.

So with that quick primer on the righteousness of Jesus and our our covering, we're gonna go back and we're gonna finish up this idea of fasting.

So again, Matthew six verse sixteen says, and when you fast, don't make it obvious as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people admire them for their fasting.

I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get.

We fast not to make ourselves right with God, but because we're already right with God.

It's it's an expression of that relationship.

It's not something we do to be admired.

So here's a truth about fasting.

It is abstinence from food for spiritual purposes.

What abstinence means is that we are intentionally practicing this discipline of deprivation.

It's not just because we haven't gone to the grocery store or it's we don't feel like going out to dinner.

K?

That is that is not abstinence.

That is maybe laziness or bad planning.

K?

We abstain for a set amount of time to go without something that we need and we will notice that we were without without it.

And what fasting does is it confronts our attachment.

And in the case of fasting food, which is what Jesus is referring to here, you are you you you're you're confronting your attachment to something that is necessary to live.

You see, in the spiritual disciplines, a a discipline of deprivation is about releasing something that defines you.

It's an act of humility before God.

And so what Jesus what we see here is food is the most common type mentioned or demonstrated in the bible.

Now you can fast from other things that have a perceived value.

The difference that I would say is when you fast something like social media or coffee or watching TV or chocolate or shopping or some sort of activity, again, it's good to break our ties with those things, but I would say that fasting from food, something necessary for life, something we're dependent on God for, is something completely different because it goes radically against our flesh.

Here's Jesus' words.

This is a little later in the gospel of Matthew chapter nine verse fifteen.

Jesus had been confronted by the pharisees and said, why why is it that our disciples, they fast, but your disciples, they eat whenever they want.

They don't do any fasting.

And what Jesus says is, do wedding guests mourn while celebrating with the groom?

Of course not.

But someday, the groom will be taken away from them and then they will fast.

Jesus is saying right now, it's a celebration because he had come into the world.

God was on the move inaugurating this kingdom that that the Israelites had waited for for so long.

Jesus said there will be plenty of opportunity to fast when he has been taken away.

And so fasting, what this tells us is an expression of a real desire for the presence, the return of Jesus.

See, in the old testament, times of fasting were done maybe in preparation to commune with God, preparation for prayer or for forgiveness, or when oppression, or great concern comes into your life, or fasting was done by the nation when when there was imminent danger.

And for us as followers of Jesus, all three of those things can combine to summarize our desire for Jesus' presence.

That Jesus is present in our concerns.

Jesus is present when we are approaching God.

Jesus is present when our community and our nation is in imminent danger.

We enter into fast because we long for the presence of Jesus.

Finishing up our passage in Matthew chapter six, it says, but when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face, then no one will notice that you are fasting except your father who knows what you do in private, and your father who sees everything will reward you.

So lastly, what what fasting is, it's for the purpose of dedicating ourself to God.

See, as we go about living our lives, we spend so much of our time in minimizing our dependence on God.

We can just go to the grocery store and we can just swipe our credit card, and we can go to McDonald's or wherever, and so we don't even realize that God is in charge of providing everything for us.

And as we fast, we can turn that hunger we feel in our on our insides to our hunger for Jesus.

So so how do we fast?

How do if you if you've never done it before, how do we enter into this discipline?

Well, it's not really that hard.

Choose a time.

Prepare yourself.

Prepare a time that is going to be, good for you, where you're not going to have to be too active or you're not going to have to, you're not going to have to be around too many people.

Prepare by understanding what your spiritual purpose for entering into fasting is, that you have a longing for Jesus, or you're fasting on behalf of some need that you have and you're imploring God.

Myself, when I fast, I choose to do it for a full day.

And so by the time dinner ends on on day one and fast all day two and get to breakfast on day three, that's that's about a thirty six hour period.

Now that's my duration.

That works for me.

Maybe for you, fasting is just skipping breakfast, and then using that time and that hunger that you feel to your next meal as a time to turn your attention to God.

Fasting is a necessary discipline.

It humbles us before God.

It reminds us that we are not in control of anything, least of all, what we put in our mouths.

This is from the old testament.

This is the book of Joel.

This is chapter two in Joel.

This is, why the Lord says, turn to me now while there is time.

Give me your hearts.

Come with fasting and weeping and mourning.

Don't tear your clothing in grief, but tear your hearts instead.

Fasting is a way to turn our hearts toward God, to tear ourselves open, and we are interconnected creatures.

Our heart, our soul, our mind, and our body are all are all interconnected.

So when we create hunger in one, it helps refine what we hunger for in the others.

And so what I'll leave you with is that our motive for fasting, what Jesus says, don't do this for approval, do this because your father knows.

Our motive for fasting is to be loving obedience.

And this has been Jesus point in each of the the three areas when he's talked about giving and prayer and now fasting.

The actions that that we produce are for God, not for admiration.

So what do we do with this?

What are our what are our next steps from a message, like this?

Well, I've got three things.

The first is if you have not put on that clothing with Christ, if you have not confessed with your mouth and believed in your heart that it is Lord, if you've not been baptized in into his name, we've got something great coming up.

We have got a splash day coming up in August, and that is a day where we are gonna celebrate baptisms and change lives and commitments, to Jesus, and signing up is pretty easy.

Just send me an email, Scott at the crossing church dot org, and I'll follow-up with you.

We can have a conversation about why you feel that now is the time for that to happen.

The second one is simple.

Plan a fast.

You don't have to be too ambitious.

Plan one meal and see how it goes, and see if your spirit doesn't feel refreshed and you don't feel closer to God.

And lastly, this is the same next step that I give every week.

Read Matthew five through seven every day.

Just try to do it every day this week.

Go through the sermon on the mount.

It will transform how you think, it'll transform how you see Jesus and the world around you.

Before we go, please join me in prayer.

God, thank you so much for for Jesus and his concern for us and his desire that we know him better.

Thank you that he knows our hearts and gives us this caution to watch out that as we do our good deeds, that we are not doing them for ourselves to build ourselves up, but that we are doing it for the father.

So God, I pray for myself and for anyone listening to this message that our hearts would be pure, that we would partner with the spirit, and that we would practice our our good deeds, we would do them out of gratitude for the righteousness that you give us.

Thank you so much.

In Jesus name we pray today, amen.

God bless you guys.