Warning: Discipline Can Be Hazardous To Your Health, Part 1

I’m going to give you a pop quiz, and this is a for real one, okay? So, don’t think, like, Oh, this is kind of a nice illustration – no, no, no.

You’ll notice on your notes, it says, “To what degree” – it’s a biblical priorities pop quiz – “To what degree have you taken specific steps in the following areas?” And I told you earlier that I had that moment with Prof Hendricks, where he went over to the board, and he told us, remember? “Guys, God loves you right now as much as He’ll ever love you. The issue is, who do you really want to be?”

And then, in big letters, he wrote the word OBJECTIVES. And then, under that, he wrote, PRIORITIES. And then, under that, he wrote the word SCHEDULE. And then, he wrote DISCIPLINE. And then he wrote ACCOUNTABILITY.

Now, as we take this pop quiz, some of you are very intense. You’re trying to be very deeply honest. Would you be – you know, give yourself a good grade, okay? Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ll notice, there’s a little box. I actually want you to put a number in the box. And so, I’m going to give it, you know, the definition on the quiz, and then, if you say, “None,” put a one. If you – Well, a little, put a two. If you’ve started, you know, and you’re kind of doing okay, or even making some progress, put a three.

If you’re making some good progress – and by the way, some of you are so hard on yourself. If you feel like when we get to accountability, it’s, Oh, I meet with some people, and I’m doing some things, well, give yourself a four. And then, if you feel like, I am vigorously pursuing this. I mean, man, I am intense in this area, and I’m really trying to do what God wants me to do, give yourself a five. So, have you got it? There’s the scoring.

Question number one objectives: “Moving from vague ideas to specific decisions about the kind of person I want to become and what I want to accomplish.”

Question number two – priorities. This is about how you spend your time, how you spend your money, the order: “Ordering my life in such a way, that the important and eternal are not forfeited by the pressing and the urgent.”

Third – some of you are, I just can’t – am I really a three, or is it a four? Just – okay. Third is schedule: “Determining specifically how and when I will place the important and eternal in my daily life.”

Next is discipline, doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done; choosing to habitually delay gratification of short-term pleasure, in order to more fully enjoy long-term success. How are you doing there?

Final one is accountability: “Enlisting the support of those who love me to help me keep my commitments to God.”

Now, I want you to do something – it might be crazy – is, put a line under that, and I want you to add up those numbers.

We’re about a little over halfway through this series together, and so I thought we’d do a little evaluation. If you added those up, and if your total score was between a five and a ten, you have heard but not acted at all. If you – your score is between eleven and a fifteen, you’ve begun to take some initial steps toward what God wants you to be and balancing your life and biblical priorities.

If your score is between a fifteen or a twenty, your life is actually changing. If you’re between a twenty or a twenty-five, I think God will have a special word for all of us, but especially for you.

We’re going to look at two warnings from Jesus. You’ll notice, even the title of this message is “Personal Discipline Can Be Hazardous to Your Health.” “Warning” – flashing lights – “Personal Discipline” – and we talked about how important it is, that it’s from the Spirit of God, that we need to be disciplined, right? Now, it’s time out, before you get too focused, too fired up, personal discipline can be hazardous to your spiritual health. There are two great dangers in becoming a highly focused, highly disciplined, authentic follower of Christ.

Danger number one is the danger of distortion. Jesus warns that we can easily distort the purpose of spiritual activities.

You’ll notice that you have, in your notes, Matthew chapter 5. And then, in your notes, you also see a structure, or overview, of Matthew chapter 5. The context is verses 1 and 2: “Now when He saw the crowds, He went up into the mountainside and He sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying…”

Obviously, in our time together, I can’t go through all of this in much detail. But I want you to see the structure. Verses 3 through 12, He’s going to say the reward and the character of true followers look like this.

And then, in verses 13 through 16, He’s going to say when that kind of character is lived out by the grace of God, in relationship with Him, you are literally the salt and the light of the world. He’s saying be worthy examples. And then, after that, then, He’s going to – He’s going to have to tie it in, because they’ve spent all their time as little boys in the synagogue listening to the Pharisees teach. And Moses is the great teacher.

And so, Jesus is going to, He is declaring Himself and His message and His followers. And then, He’s going to say, “Where do I, in My teaching, fit with what you’ve heard all your life, with Moses?” And He’s going to make a very radical statement in verse 20, and He’s going to talk about true righteousness.

So, have you got the structure? So, with that, just listen. Let’s listen, first, to the reward and character of His followers: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In fact, blessed are you when people insult you, and persecute you falsely and say all kind of evil things against you because of Me.”

You see the role He’s taking? “Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” And so, He gives a character quality – the poor in spirit, someone who sees their need before God – and then, He gives the reward. The character quality, the reward; the character quality, the reward. He says, “This is an authentic follower of Mine.”

And then, He goes from that to impact: What’s the role? How do you live? “You are.” He doesn’t say “become”, He doesn’t say “do”. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It’s no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and praise your Father who is in heaven.”

And in their minds, when He said “good works”, the good works that would immediately come to their mind would be the good works of the Pharisees. I mean, all the good works, all the duties, all the rules, all the stuff.

And He’s going to just lay it out: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, nor the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands” – did you notice the emphasis? Practices and teaches.

What’s His problem with the Pharisees? What’s His problem with the religious culture? It’s duplicity. It’s the problem we have today. Everyone says, “I’m born again.” Everyone says, “I love Jesus.” We just don’t live that way. “Anyone who practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of God. For I tell you” – and this is the one where their jaws dropped – “I tell you unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Now, can you imagine hearing this sermon, and getting to that part and going, Are you kidding? I mean, these guys are squeaky clean, squeaky clean, squeaky clean.

And then, Jesus begins to make the distinction between external righteousness – activities, spiritual activities, good activities, doing the right things, however, for the wrong reason.

True righteousness is always a matter of the heart. True righteousness is always an issue of relationship, not performance.

What He was saying to them is, “Your righteousness needs to exceed that of the Pharisees, because they’ve got all the external religious activity, but their hearts” – remember what He’d say? “Your lips profess this, but your hearts are far from Me.” They weren’t poor in spirit. They didn’t see their need. They weren’t merciful. They weren’t pure in heart. They weren’t seeing God. They weren’t being persecuted; they were persecuting Him!

All the things about the character, did you notice that every single thing of those beatitudes, they were “be” not “do” attitudes? They were issues of who you are inside, who you are that only God can see, who you are when no one’s looking. What are your motives? What matters? Jesus says genuine righteousness is always a matter of the heart.

But He’s going to say, “You have heard it said,” and what He’s going to say is, “Here’s the external righteousness that you’ve been taught since you were little boys and little girls. But I say to you, behind that external thing, this is the Spirit, this is God’s heart, this is what He was always after.”

The Pharisees – each one, He’s going to, “You have heard it said” – the focus is external. Jesus will say, “No, no, the focus should be internal.” With the Pharisees, it was always about doing. Jesus will say, “No, no, no, no, it’s really about being.” The Pharisees were pounding people and making people greater sinners than themselves. It was about duty, duty, duty. Jesus said, “They missed it. It’s about devotion.” The Pharisees would say, “It’s performance. Are you doing this? Are you doing that? Are you doing this?” Jesus said, “Performance – no one can be justified by the Law. It’s about your relationship.”

On the Pharisees’ side, they manipulated and controlled people with guilt. Jesus said, “I want to introduce you to grace.” They were focused on the letter of the Law. Jesus said, “No, no, it’s not the letter; it’s the spirit of the Law. The letter kills; the Spirit gives life.”

Finally, Jesus said, “They’ve got it all in their head. I want you to know that I’m looking for the pure in heart.”

Let’s go through how He applied it. So, He starts with murder, now, remember, the context is, your righteousness – if you were listening to the sermon by Jesus – it needs to be exceeding that of the most religious, squeaky-clean, got-it-together, disciplined folks that you could ever imagine.

And so, He starts. He said, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, I say, if anyone says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone says to his brother, ‘You fool!’ is in danger of the fire of hell. Therefore, I say to you, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there at the altar and go be reconciled to your brother; then come and present your offering .” And then, He goes on and talks about settling matters.

The command was about: don’t commit murder. What’s behind murder? Murder is the last thing you do when you have relational conflict that’s unresolved. And where does it start? It starts with anger. It’s when I’m angry. I mean, people don’t have casually wonderful feelings and say, “Hey, I think I’ll kill you today.”

It starts with a resentment, and there’s anger or a hurt or injustice, and the anger builds, and it ends up in the action of murder. And so, Jesus says what’s behind that are some relational issues.

Relational reconciliation and human relationships are the heart of that command.

Well, He applies it to the next area, and He’s going to, instead of talking about murder, He’s going to talk about the sanctity of sex. He says, “You’ve heard it said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I say to you anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. It’s better for you to lose one eye from your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” A hyperbole, here. He’s making a metaphor to say the gravity of what you need to do, but what’s His point?

They got to the point where, hey, did you commit adultery or not? Is it legal? I’ll tell you what, Moses gave a certificate of divorce – and at this point, there were two schools of thought. But, basically, the average guy could say, “You know what? She doesn’t look very pretty anymore. I don’t want her anymore.” A woman had zero rights, “Eh, you’re out. I’ll get a new one.”

And Jesus said, “Wait a second. It’s not just the external behavior. I’m telling you that when your loyalty moves from the fidelity of in a covenant marriage to even mentally going to another person, before God, you’ve already missed.

He goes to the next area, which is having to do with divorce. He says, “It’s been said among you that if anyone divorces his wife he must give her a certificate of divorce.

But I tell you if anyone divorces his wife, except for marital infidelity, I just created a new word, I think causes her to become an adulteress.” And, again, it’s the sanctity of the family. It’s not just the legality. It’s the covenant. It’s what you committed to. It’s the relationship.

He skips down to oaths: “Again I say, you’ve heard it said from people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths that you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, don’t swear at all: either by heaven, for that is God’s throne; or the earth, for it’s His footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it’s the city of the great God. And don’t swear by your head, for you can’t make even one hair be white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No.’ Anything beyond that comes from the evil one.” Be men and women of integrity from the heart.

And then, He gets to retribution and, you know, that classic “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.” “But I say to you, do not resist evil person or resist if someone strikes you.” And by the way, the striking, here, on the right cheek, most people are right-handed. This is more of the offense. It’s the slapping.

And then, He says, “If someone asks you to go one mile” – the Roman soldiers, by law, could come to anyone and say, “You carry this for a mile. You carry my equipment for a mile.” And, basically, what He says is, “You know your pride and your rights, and when you get offended” – “Well, they did that to me. I’m going to do that to him.” He said, “You know something? There’s some law, how about grace? How about we show the world how different and wonderful God is? Let’s give people what they don’t deserve.”

So, a Roman soldier says, “Okay, I command you now, in the name of the emperor and the Roman government, you must carry my equipment, by law, for one mile.” And then, they had markers. “There’s a mile.” And you look up and say, “Hey, do you mind if I go one more?” And that soldier goes, “What?” He says that’s a kingdom citizen. You see the heart? You see the difference?

Then, finally, He said, “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemies.’ But I tell you, love your enemies” and then listen to this, “pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”

And the idea of sons, especially in Hebrew culture, it has family likeness as the idea. You’ll be like your Father in heaven. “He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you” – duh! “what reward is that? Don’t tax collectors and sinners do that?”

And then now, He says, “What do you do to your enemies? You don’t give them what they deserve.” Grace is giving people something they don’t deserve. Mercy is withholding what people do deserve. And so, when your enemies do, He says, “I want you to withhold what you would normally give them, and I want you to overcome evil with good. You’ll never be more like your heavenly Father than when you love people who have wounded and hurt and abused and betrayed you.”