The Greatest Sermon Ever Told: The Law Abiding Citizen. Matthew 5:17-20

Most people when confronted with the Gospel will counter with something similar to, "I'm a pretty good person."  Without getting too far off topic, just know that there is no "good" person.  We are all messed up, and from the moment of our conception, we are all bad.  This doesn't change that people continuously deny Jesus, because they feel they are good enough and God will allow them into heaven based on that.

Entrance into heaven does not work that way.  In verse 20 of Matthew 5 Jesus says, "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."  For the next few minutes let's take a look at what it would take for a person to be "good enough" to enter heaven.

One. You must be righteous. That's simple enough, be a good person.  If you ask, "what does it take to get to heaven?" most people will tell you exactly that. Be a good person, or do more good with your life than you do bad.  This also leads to the question, "how good is good enough?"  Which carries us right into our next point.

Two. Your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.  I'm no ancient Hebrew scholar, but I have read the list of rules and laws these guys were required to follow and let's just say, it was strenuous.  BUT, Jesus says more is required! Your righteousness must exceed the scribes and Pharisees to enter heaven.  What on earth is to be done if these men haven't done enough good in their lives to pull it off?

Three.  Changing your idea of "good."  We have the idea that doing good is equal to being good.  It is not.  God is good and He is THE standard of what is required to be considered good.  We miss this a lot.  We think of doing better than our buddy, our neighbor or our co-worker makes us above average and therefore good.  When in reality the standard for good is being like God, and anything less than being like God not good AKA bad.

Four. Recognizing the inadequacy of your own righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 says our righteous deeds are to Him as filthy rags.  This is what our "good" actions look like when we do those actions without Him.  As much as we want to do good on our own, even our best efforts fall magnificently short.  Not only short, but disgusting to God.

Five. Accepting the adequacy of Jesus.  There is only one way to live up to God's standard of "good" and that is to accept His offer to do it for you.  Yes it is actually that easy.  God sets up an impossible task, to live a life that measures up to Him.  He then reveals to people that they can't live this life.  He does not leave us in our hopeless realization, but instead shows us that He will do the work for us.  God sent Jesus to be perfect, because that is what is He requires, and because we have failed miserably.  But luckily for us, where we are perfectly inadequate He is perfectly adequate.

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