The Attitude Behind the Act A

God is concerned about what you really are, not what you appear to be.

It is the internal that is infinitely more important than the external.

The righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees was an external hypocritical legalism,

and the righteousness that God demands is something internal.

Welcome to Grace To You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson.

It's a natural thing to do to put sin into categories.

I mean, a sinful thought or attitude is not as bad as a sinful action, right?

But is categorizing sin the right thing to do?

Are your actions, the sins people can see, the main issue, or does the problem lie deeper?

Well John MacArthur will examine important questions like those, as he begins his series

called the sinfulness of sin.

But before we get started, perhaps you're wondering why that title?

What exactly are we getting at when we talk about the sinfulness of sin?

Well, we asked John about this study's title some years ago, and here's what he said.

It really is odd, isn't it, that you have to describe sin as sinful?

But sin has been diminished in the culture.

Everybody acknowledges sin.

But the definition of sin is almost like some slip up.

It's a mistake.

It's a mistake.

It's an error you made.

Yeah, you hear people say that all the time.

I admit I made a mistake.

I admit I made a bad decision.

So we have to redefine sin.

And by the way, the sinfulness of sin is an old phrase that goes way back into the

Puritan era.

Even then, there were people who wanted to minimize sin.

There are always going to be people who want to turn sin into mistakes, and they will

or they want to turn sin into miscalculations that I made because somebody else did something

to me or misinformed me.

So the idea of the sinfulness of sin is to set the excuses aside, the cheap shallow definitions

aside.

And let's go to the heart of what sin really is.

And by the way, that's exactly what Jesus did in Matthew chapter 5.

He said, Oh, you think sin is this to the Jewish leader.

I'm telling you, it's this and he went from the behavior to the attitude, to the heart,

to the motive.

What's behind the act?

Who is really an adulterer?

Who is really a murderer?

What is man's biggest problem?

It's not what he does.

He does what he does because of what he is on the inside.

So understanding the true, profound depth of sin and the fact that man cannot escape it

in his own power, nor is he willing to is very, very essential.

It's a critical understanding to understand your relationship with Christ and even to

presenting the gospel.

Somebody said years ago, people are receiving the gospel and not even knowing why.

Because sin is not being dealt with.

You can't present the good news until people understand the deadly reality of the bad

news.

That's right, friend.

When you see the depths of your sin, you'll see the depths of God's grace more clearly.

This study will help you not only present the gospel accurately, it will help you cultivate

greater thankfulness for the love God has shown you if you're a Christian.

So to begin his series called the Sinfulness of Sin, here's John MacArthur.

Now most people evaluate their lives and the lives of other people on external appearance.

First Samuel 16, 7 says, man, looketh on the outward appearance.

Jesus said in John 724, judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 10, the Apostle Paul said, do you look on things after the outward

appearance?

We dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend

themselves.

There are people who commend themselves on the basis of their outward appearance.

There are people who are satisfied with how they behave externally.

There are people who evaluate others on the basis of what they see visibly in terms of

religious behavior.

Now this is rather typical of fallen man.

He is basically satisfied with externals.

God is not so concerned with the outside as he is with the inside.

The outside is only validated in so far as it is representative of what is on the inside.

And that is, frankly, the basis of the text that lies before us.

Jesus emphasized here in the sermon on the mountain, frankly, throughout his whole ministry,

that external ceremonies, that external religious rights, that certain works, are not the whole

issue, that God is concerned with the heart, and that is precisely the thrust of verse 20.

Look at it.

I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes

and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Now the scribes and the Pharisees had a righteousness that was external.

And what Jesus is saying is, you must have one that exceeds that which is internal.

God is concerned about what you really are, not what you appear to be.

It is the internal that is infinitely more important than the external.

That is essentially what verse 20 means.

The righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees was an external, ceremonial, ritualistic,

hypocritical, legalism.

And the righteousness that God demands is something internal.

And by the way, it's always been God's concern and isn't anything new.

Jesus isn't articulating something never before known.

In 1 Kings 839, the Scripture said, then here, thou in heaven thy dwelling place and

forgive and give to every man according to his ways, listen to this, whose heart thou

knowest, for thou even thou only knowest the hearts of all the children of men.

And so God is enjoined in that verse to respond to men not on the basis of outward

deeds, but on the basis of the heart which God alone knows.

In 1 Chronicles chapter 28 verse 9, also in the Old Testament, the Scripture says, and

thou Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father and serve him with a perfect heart

and with a willing mind for the Lord, searcheth all hearts and understandeth all the imaginations

of the thoughts.

The same emphasis, God is concerned with the inside, not the outside.

Now the standard that God said and people, this is really critical.

The standard that God sets to evaluate men and women is the standard of the heart.

The message is clear.

God is concerned with external behavior.

Yes, absolutely yes, but it is only justified in so far as it is the outgrowth of internal

righteousness.

For God evaluates the heart.

So He has said, this is what God requires, it's internal character.

Now at this point, He shows how such people living by such principles relate to the Old Testament

law.

Why?

Because this is critical to the Jews listening to Him speak.

Because so far what He has said is revolutionary to them.

Jews is purely external religion and He has laid down axioms that are not common to their

understanding of religion.

And so their question at this time is, well, this is well and good, but how does it relate

to the Old Testament?

How does it relate to Moses?

How does it relate to what the rabbis have taught?

How does it relate to the system of traditional law that we ascribe to?

The Jews to whom Jesus was preaching would lean so totally on the teachings related to

their own Judaism law that our Lord couldn't bypass this section.

He has to show how this relates to their system.

And really verse 20 is the key.

He says, God standard is higher than yours.

What you now know as a righteous standard is unacceptable.

Now they're going to immediately say, wait a minute, we obey the law of God.

And in essence, Jesus is saying, I have to redefine the law of God for you because it's

been lost in the midst of your tradition.

So that in fact, and I want you to get this, the Judaism of the time was far from that

true Old Testament law which God had given.

And so Jesus is saying essentially in verse 17, I am not here to destroy the law.

I am not here to destroy the prophets.

In fact, till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle shall in any way pass

from this law.

And I'm not going to tolerate anybody who sets aside one of God's commands, but what

you have is not God's standard.

What you have is not God's law.

And so I will redefine it for you.

And frankly, that's exactly what he does through the rest of chapter 5, chapter 6, and

chapter 7.

All three of these chapters are Jesus' explanation of what he said in verses 17 through 20.

How does all of this new information, how do these be attitudes relate to the Old Testament?

How do they relate to the Judaism extent at that time?

How do they relate to what these Jews knew as their system of religion?

Jesus said, it isn't God's law, I'm setting aside, you've lost God's law in the midst

of your tradition.

And I'm about to set God's law back in its primary place.

And that is precisely what he does in chapter 5, chapter 6, and chapter 7.

Now, let's see how he goes about it in chapter 5.

Look at verse 21, and watch this common occurrence.

You have heard that it was said by them of old, thou shalt not kill.

And whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of judgment.

But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of judgment.

Stop right there.

Jesus says, you have heard it said, but I say unto you, now look at verse 27.

You have heard that it was said by them of old, thou shalt not commit adultery.

But I say unto you that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her as committed adultery

with her already in his heart.

And he says, you have heard it said, but I say unto you, look at verse 31, it half been

said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.

But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife except for the cause of fornication

causes her to commit adultery.

You have heard it said, but I say, verse 33, again, you have heard that it half been said

by them of old, thou shalt not purge yourself, but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths.

But I say unto you, swear not at all, verse 38, you have heard that it half been said,

and I for an eye, the tooth for a tooth.

But I say unto you, ye shall resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right

cheek, turn to him the other also.

And finally in verse 43, ye have heard that it half been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor

and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, love your enemies.

Now listen, six specific illustrations, and I want you to get this.

They all follow a similar pattern.

Jesus is saying, your religion teaches you this, but I say unto you, and what he's doing

is this.

He's not comparing himself with the Old Testament.

He's not raising the standard higher than the law of God.

He's not talking about what Moses said.

He's not talking about what the Old Testament said.

He's not talking about what God said.

He's talking about what their religious system taught them.

And he's saying, your standard is too low.

You only worry about murder.

God looks at the heart and says if there's hate there, it's the same thing.

You only worry about fornication.

God says if there's less in the heart, it's the same thing.

You see, God's standard is an attitude a little standard.

Yours is only dealing with action.

That's the difference.

The internals are what God is looking after.

Now in selecting his illustrations, he's very careful.

First of all, he chooses two commands from Moses, from the decalogue, the Ten Commandments.

Thou shalt not murder?

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Then he chooses two other, rather wider social commandments, taken from other portions

of the mosaic writings, social relationships.

He starts with the very firm Ten Commandments.

He broadens to social relationships, and finally, he broadens to discuss the whole subject

of love.

It's almost as if there's an ascending thing here.

He's saying that it all begins at the foundation of life, murder and marriage, the organism,

the individual, the organization marriage.

It all starts there.

Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery.

One is the right of the individual, and the other is the basic definition of the social

system.

God has standards right there, and they're not only behavior standards in terms of what

you do but of what you think.

And from those very basic things, he moves to a wider set of social relationships, and

he talks about things like truth and justice and honesty, and finally to the widest possible

attitude which is love.

And so there is a three-fold progress from a lower to a higher.

He starts with an individual dealing with an individual, and then in a family with

marriage, and then expands to the whole category of truth and love and justice and honesty,

and finally to the category of love which reaches as wide as not only your neighbor but

your enemy.

And he says in all of human living, from the individual and his sanctity, to the family,

to social relationships, to the wide world of our enemies, we should be characteristically

righteous on the inside, and your religious system doesn't have that definition.

So therefore your righteousness in order to please God must exceed the righteousness of

the scribes and the Pharisees.

There's a strictly external.

And so the Lord Jesus Christ, don't think it for a minute, did not come to set aside the

law of God.

He came to strip the rabbinic barnacles off the law of God to make it bare and naked and

pure as it was when God gave it and lifted it back to where it belonged.

God had always been concerned with attitudes, always.

That isn't anything new, but the people of Israel had lowered the standard and then justified

themselves by what they didn't do while their hearts were full of murder, full of lust,

full of lies, full of hate, full of anger, and yet they were self-righteous because they

had lowered the standard to accommodate their abilities.

Jesus lifted it right back where it belonged.

And what our Lord is saying is this, thoughts are just as important as deeds.

That's why no man can be justified on his own.

You may not do the deed, but if you thought, the thought, you're damned.

That's what he's saying.

He is literally devastating the Pharisees.

He is saying, I don't accept your externals.

Your heart is rotten.

And in Matthew 23 later on, he says, outside your white washed inside, you're like a tomb,

full of dead men's bones.

And so a man is not to be judged by his deeds so much as by his desires, a woman not to

be judged by her actions as much as her attitudes.

This is different than the world's standards.

For the scribes and the Pharisees, you see a man or a woman was righteous.

If they never did the forbidden thing, they didn't care about their thoughts.

They didn't care about attitudes.

But Jesus said, a man is righteous if he never desires the forbidden things.

That fair bearer says, and it's worth reading, listen to it.

In the revelation of law, there was a substratum of grace recognized in the words which prefaced

the Ten Commandments and promises of grace in blessing also intermingled with the stern

prohibitions and injunctions of which they consist.

And so inversely, in the sermon on the Mount, while it gives grace the priority and the

prominence such as in the Beatitudes.

It is far from excluding the severe part of God's character and government.

No sooner indeed has grace poured itself forth in a succession of Beatitudes than there

appears the stern demands of righteousness and law.

Listen, end quote.

God is not saying you're a Christian, you're free, do whatever you want.

God is saying, you are a child of the kingdom, then the standard is raised for you, not

lower.

Standards are still there.

God hasn't changed.

And God examines the heart to see the attitudes.

Look at me for a moment to 1 Corinthians chapter 4.

1 Corinthians 4, I just want to make a couple of comments.

Verse 3, a very key passage, listen to what it says.

But with me, Paul says, he's talking here about his ministry, about the fact that God has

made him a servant and a steward, and he knows the Corinthians are critical of him.

And so he says with me, it's a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by man's

judgment.

Yay?

I judge not my own self.

Now stop there for a minute.

Paul is saying, look.

I will not allow myself to settle for human evaluation.

I won't do it.

Not yours and not mine.

I can identify with that because I tend to be biased in my own favor, right?

So do you.

Sometimes people will come and say, oh, you know, such complimentary things, such gracious

things, such kind words, and I'm appreciative of those.

But I, for me, it is a small thing, how you evaluate me.

It is a small thing, whether you evaluate me negatively, whether you evaluate me positively.

I don't feel it's necessary to answer my critics, and I certainly don't want to believe those

who are kind.

It's a small thing.

I don't even evaluate myself.

Why?

Because you, whether you're critical or kind.

He, whether I'm critical or kind, don't really know the secrets of the heart.

I know a little more than you, but I don't know the whole picture.

And so in verse four, Paul says, I know nothing against myself.

I mean, I've checked around.

I can't find anything wrong.

Yet am I not by that justified?

Even though there's nothing there that I can see that's wrong, that doesn't justify

me.

He that judges me is the Lord.

I can see the externals.

You can see them.

You can say, oh, you know, on the outside, everything's good.

On the outside, it's wonderful.

On the outside, it's fine.

Or on the outside, it may even look bad to you.

You may say, boy, so-and-so is that a line.

Look what they're doing.

On the outside, boy, they're out of line.

I'll never forget one time when I was in college.

And I was at a school where they had so many rules.

They couldn't even read them in a whole year.

There were so many rules you could break them, and not even know they existed.

They passed out books on.

And I remember one time a guy was called to the high tribunal of this school.

And he was told, you have broken the cardinal rule.

We saw you leaving the campus with a blonde and a blue dress sitting next to you in your

car.

Where were you going?

Now in this particular thing, you couldn't go anywhere with a girl.

You couldn't leave the campus in your car.

This was a horrendous crime of the first order, to which the young man replied, that was

my blue laundry bag and hanging out of it was a yellow towel.

By that time, the rumor was long gone, that here was a disillute young man who was seen

driving around with a blonde and a blue dress.

It is a small thing, frankly, how you see the picture.

It is a small thing, be it critical or positive.

It is a small thing, whether I justify myself, it is the Lord that judges me.

Therefore verse 5 says, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come who will bring

to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the, I will substitute

a word, motives of the hearts, you see, you can stop right there.

That's the point.

When God judges righteous judgment, He judges motive, He judges inside.

You may be one who goes through life and you have never struck a blow to anyone.

Why you have never killed anybody, you have never even fought with anybody.

But you literally burn inside with anger.

You may be one who's never been unfaithful in your marriage, but you cultivate the thoughts

of adultery repeatedly.

That's what God's looking at.

You may want so bad to do something and all your life never do it.

And God says it says, if you did it, and God judges the evil desire.

And so you see Jesus is literally hitting these Pharisees right between the eyes.

Their hearts were filthy, while their deeds were religious.

They just dealt with externals.

The state of the heart was not their concern, but it was Jesus' concern.

Look at our society, they did this all the time, oh so and so is such a good person,

oh so and so is so charitable.

You hear this all the time, but only God knows what's going on inside.

Only God knows what motives are behind what we do.

You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur.

Today John began to show each one of us the magnitude of our sin and the incomparable

breadth of God's love and forgiveness.

Our current study is titled, The Sinfulness of Sin.

Keep in mind you can download this entire series for free.

To review these lessons or to pass them along to a friend, download The Sinfulness of Sin

when you get in touch with us today.

All six sermons from The Sinfulness of Sin study are available at our website, gty.org.

You can download them free of charge in MP3 and transcript format.

That's true of all 3,600 of John sermons.

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Now for the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson.

Be back tomorrow when John MacArthur helps you move beyond superficial actions and learn

to honor Christ on the outside and on the inside.

It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Race to You.