When Being Good Isn't Good Enough

It started in a small group with JD, get to know God, and our friend Chad, Chad Price, who introduced my family to Summit. And then I joined an all women's small group, and I had no idea how much I needed those women, but certainly God did, praise the Lord, those women are forever going to be in my life. And I proudly serve in prison ministry, also on the board for prison alliance. That's one of the organizations that Summit supports, and our babies love it here. They're seven and ten, and they skip in and out of their classes on Sunday. And my son, who's ten, said he's ready to give his life to Christ, which, woo! This mom was hard, it's so full, I just love that. And because of God's grace and love and the support of our church community, our family has grown so much. I know personally I speak professionally for a living to large crowds, but the thought of coming up here like JD and the team, I'm like, "Oh, how to put little Jesus in my pocket right here to get me through." But when you put your yes on the table for God, he always equipped you for his glory, praise God. So today we are at the sermonists from Matthew 5, verses 1 to 2, 17 to 22. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them saying, "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. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not in iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel, and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire." This is the word of God for the people of God. Thank you. You may be seated. Well, listen, real quick, before we get started this morning, we are entering into election season. And I know that makes a lot of you nervous, but I also know a lot of you want to know more about what the Bible says, about how to think about political issues. And so we have a whole bevy of resources available for you at summitchurch.com/vote or you can just text the word "vote" to 33933, and we can get those resources to you that way or at least connect you to them. But please, please don't do that right now, or I know you will not pay attention to anything that I'm up here saying for the next little bit. But I think you'll find that helpful, and I think you'll find a lot of stuff on there that you can use. Also, also, the bullpen podcast that we just launched, we get into a lot of that kind of stuff on there, stuff that we just don't have the capacity to talk about this way we get to on there. And, by the way, on the podcast this week, my wife is joining us this week, and you will definitely want to know what she's got to say about this stuff, all her hot takes. But anyway, I wanted to make you aware of those resources if you didn't know about them. One more thing today is all call baptism Sunday. This is a weekend where we give you a chance to be baptized if you never have before. It is one of the best weekends of the year around here, so I want you to get excited. A lot of people have already been baptized this weekend, and by God's grace, a lot more are going to join that number. Okay? Right, listen, if you've got your Bibles, and I hope that you brought them, and you have

not yet found Matthew chapter 5, please make your way there. Matthew chapter 5, if you are under the age of 35, like me, the name Enron, the name Enron may not mean that much to you, but around the turn of the century, Enron was one of the hottest companies in America. It was this massive energy conglomerate located in Houston, Texas, Fortune Magazine, named it America's Most Innovative Company, six years in a row. Its stock was soaring, everything was just amazing, that was just one problem, and that is their whole reputation, their whole book of business was built on lies. During these really impressive numbers they boasted, they were hiding enormous losses, and in 2001 the whole thing collapsed, like a house of cards, and one of the biggest corporate scandals in American history. After the debris settled, all these incredible, how did nobody see this kind of articles? a bunch of professional financial analysts to do an article on the company. And so Enron took 75 of their employees, but employees like secretaries and custodians, and they set them up on this fake trading floor and had them pretend to be energy traders when the analysts walked through so that the analysts would assume that their amount of energy traders was a lot bigger than it actually was. They had these people even bring in family photos and personal items to make their desk look lived in. And when the analysts walked through the floor, these people picked up their phones and held fake business conversations with nobody. Apparently it worked. The Wall Street Journal gave Enron a great rating in 1998 and the deception lived on for three more years until the whole thing imploded. I share that because that's a pretty good picture of what Jesus is confronting in Matthew 5. You see, Jesus says that a lot of people do with religion what Enron did on that fake trading floor. They staged success. They substitute external religious busyness with internal spiritual health. Jesus puts his finger on the heart of the problem in verse 20 when he says, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." I want you to let that phrase sink in for just a minute. Jesus is not one prone to exaggeration, especially when we're talking about things like going to heaven. And he says, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never, you will never even see heaven." We are in week number two of our study on the Sermon on the Mount which is arguably the most important sermon ever preached in history. It certainly was the

most revolutionary and I would argue that verses 17 through 20, specifically verse 20, the passage that we are looking at today encapsulates the heart of this sermon. Let's review really quick. Last weekend, Pastor Brian said that one of the reasons that Jesus went up into a mountain to give this sermon was that in those days revolutions always started in the mountains. And so Jesus going up into the mountains shows that he intended to start a revolution and that is certainly true. But there's something else really important happening here. You see, the most famous lawgiver in Israel's history, a man named Moses, had also gone up into a mountain to receive his law. So Jesus going up into a mountain to teach Jesus' law is Jesus doing this whole second Moses kind of thing. The gospel writer Matthew is not even subtle in how he sets this up. Basically, in his gospel, Matthew lays out how the first part of Jesus' life tracks alongside Moses' life. Check this out. In Matthew chapter 2, Jesus tells us, excuse me, Matthew tells us that as a kid, Jesus and his parents had to flee to Egypt to escape being killed by Herod, the Jewish king, which was like Moses, who had been kept safe in Egypt when Pharaoh, the Egyptian king, tried to kill him. In Matthew 3, Matthew shows us that Jesus' ministry started with baptism, where Jesus passed through water and was then anointed by God's Spirit. Well, this also was like Moses, who delivered Israel to the Red Sea, which Scripture says was a kind of water baptism, after which the presence of God came upon Moses and Israel in Matthew 4. Matthew tells us that after Jesus' baptism, he was driven into the desert for 40 days, where he was tempted by Satan, which is like Moses and the children of Israel, who spent 40 years after the Red Sea, wandering in the wilderness, being tested. And that brings us to Matthew 5. Just like Moses had gone up into a mountain, Mount Sinai, to receive God's law, Jesus went up into a mountain to issue a new law. Matthew wants you to feel the parallels between Moses and Jesus. But then there's at least one huge difference between two huge differences, between what Moses did and what Jesus did. Here's the first one, whereas Moses simply relayed God's law to the people. He was simply the conduit of it, literally carried it down the mountain on tablets. Jesus claimed himself to be the source of the new law, which is why throughout the Sermon on the the mountain Jesus is going to say things like what we saw in verse 21. referring to the law that Moses gave, now watch this, verse 22, but I say to you, see how he claims to be the source of the new law? Who was the source of Moses' law?

God, who is the source of this new law? Jesus himself, see how he is making himself equal with God? By the way, whenever you hear somebody say the colossally ignorant thing that Jesus never directly claimed to be God in the gospels, this is the kind of thing that you should point out to them. In so many ways, in so many places, Jesus literally put himself in the place of God, making himself the equal of God. I mean, to say like Jesus does right there in Matthew five, hey, God said this, but I say to you, I mean, unless Jesus is outright the greatest blasphemer ever to wall at the face of the earth, he is taking on an authority that doesn't make sense. If Jesus doesn't actually think that he is God. Do you think as your pastor, I would ever stand up here and say, well, God says this, but I say this. Well, you should leave this church immediately if that happens. So that's the first difference. The second difference is encapsulated in that phrase back in verse 20, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. The scribes and the Pharisees were the two groups that had perfected obedience to the Mosaic law. When Jesus made this statement right here, everybody in the audience would have gasped and then started whispering to each other because nobody, nobody could exceed the devotion

these guys showed keeping the law. It'd be like me standing up here saying, me standing up here saying to you, unless you're in better shape than seal team six, you're never gonna make the cut. These guys were like the most OCD of religious OCDers ever. Normal Jewish day-to-day life was governed by 613 different laws. It's what we find in the Torah, right? 613 laws, that's just if you're a normal standard Jew. But the Pharisees and scribes had developed a whole system of laws on top of those laws called the Mishnah, which was basically a bunch of extra laws that they'd come up with to make sure they didn't break one of the 613. For example, the law said to tithe, which means that you're supposed to give God the first 10% of all your income. But the Pharisees asked, what all does that apply to? So the Mishnah specified what in your life you had to tithe on and what you didn't. For example, if your cow has 10 calves, you have to tithe one of them back to God. But the Mishnah says, if you have a cat and it has kittens, do you have to tithe one of those kittens back to God? And the answer was, no, God does not want any of your nasty cats, okay? That is true, by the way, look it up. The Mishnah also said, you should tithe

on the spices that you grow in your garden. So for every 10 mint leaves, you were supposed to give one back to God. I mean, y'all, when we take up the offering and you're putting in stuff from your spice drawer, that's serious business. Here's another one, the law said you should not work on the Sabbath. But what exactly counts as work? The Mishnah gave you an allotment of steps that you could take on the Sabbath before it technically counted as work. 2,000 steps was the limit. If they'd had or rings back then, some member of the family at church would have been checking that thing. 1,998, 1,999, stop, everybody stop. Nobody move, any step from this point on is sin. Give you one more just for fun. The law said that you shouldn't work on the Sabbath, right? Transporting stuff from point A to point B was a kind of work, but that raised the question, what technically counts as carrying? Here's what the Pharisees concluded in the Mishnah, and I'm not making this up. I actually looked it up this week. This is Mishnah, chapter 10, section three. I copied this down verbatim. They said if you carry something in the normal way, meaning in one of your hands or on your back

or slung over your shoulder, that was carrying, and obviously a Sabbath violation, but if you carried it in an abnormal way, which they defined as on the back of your hand, okay? In your mouth, in or around your ear, in your hair, tucked between your belt and your clothing, in the hem of your garment, sit down in the cuff of your pants, right? In your shoe, or maybe best of all, balanced on your elbow, that was not a Sabbath violation. I expect all of you guys are bibles in here to walk out this morning, carrying them right on your elbow, so it's not a Sabbath violation. By the way, none of that is a joke. The point is, if anybody looked righteous, it was those guys, and Jesus looks at this crowd and he says, verse 20, "I tell you, "unless your righteousness exceeds "out of the scribes and Pharisees, "you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Can't you imagine everybody think you exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees and the scribes, the step counting people? The balanced stuff on my elbow people? How am I supposed to ever do that? Now, let me ask you, do you think Jesus was saying, yeah, those guys keep 613 rules? I want you to obey 713 rules, is that what he's saying? No, what he is saying is actually even more extreme than that.

He explains himself in verse 21 and 22. See, you've heard it said to those of old, this is what Moses said, "You shall not murder, "over murderers will be liable to judgment, "but I say to you that everyone who is angry "with his brother will be liable to judgment. "Whoever insults his brother will be liable "to the judgment of the counsel. "Whoever says you full will be liable to hellfire." Moses said you shouldn't murder, we all get that. Jesus said, yeah, but God cares about more than whether or not you actually murder somebody. God cares about what is going on in your heart as in how you feel about the people who make you mad. And if you are angry with somebody to the point that you insult them or curse them or wish their harm in any way, well, then you've got the spirit of murder in you even if you don't follow through with the action. Here's what Jesus is asking you to consider. You ever get angry with anybody to the point that you wish pain or harm on them? You're in a standstill on 540. And that dummy whips out into that lane beside you that's not really a lane and starts to pass everybody like traffic laws don't apply to him. And you think I would just love so much to such wipe him right now, just bam, just knock him into the trees. That probably is going to be included

in what Jesus is talking about right here. Or maybe you're just mad at somebody and you think, you know, I really want to slap you right now. I hate you. I wish bad things would happen to you. I wish somebody would put you in your place and I would really love for that person to be me. I hope you do something to really embarrass yourself. I'm fantasizing about you embarrassing yourself right now and I'm really enjoying that. I hope you get acne and gain lots of weight. I mean, something negative like that, right? Anybody? That's the murderous spirit Jesus is exposing. How about this one? You ever in an argument with somebody? You say something rude or mean. Maybe you say in a text, maybe you say it in the heat of a moment, you know, like in the kitchen or maybe you're whatever talking to your spouse or your kids or your parents, a friend. Whatever you say, later you just feel really bad about it. So you want to apologize and you go to them and you almost always will say something like this, right? You're like, hey, I'm really sorry. I was mad. I called you stupid and competent, a loser, a worthless waste of skin, whatever you said, right? Something like that. What do you always say right after that?

You always say, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. That's not really how I feel. Except in that moment, that was exactly how you felt. It was precisely what you meant. Am I right? It's just that now you feel bad about that and you're embarrassed because for one moment, what was actually in your heart escaped the half dozen filters that normally keep your feelings and emotions hidden. One pastor friend of mine refers to that as though, where did that come from moment? You say or do something ugly and you immediately think, well, where did that come from? That's not like me, but guess where it came from? You, that ugly thing you said was not some alien intruder that temporarily took you over. No, the situation that you were in simply revealed a capability that was already in your heart. Jesus said that, that, that's what I'm talking about. That's where real sin lifts. It lives in the motivations. It lives in the desires. It lives in the secret thoughts of the heart. In verse 27, Jesus gives you a second example of this. He says, yeah, you've heard it said of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everybody who looks at a woman with lustful intent We're gonna spend a lot more time on this one next week, but here is the main point Jesus is getting at.

The prohibition against adultery is not just about you not having sex with people that you're married to, that you're not married to, right? The prohibition against adultery is about what goes on here and here. You could legitimately have only one, only have sexual intercourse with one person, within the bounds of marriage for your entire life. You could only kiss one person, you'd have only one boyfriend or girlfriend, and still be pitch black guilty of breaking this commandment. 'Cause it's what goes through your mind and your heart on a day by day basis. It's where your mind goes when it idols. In fact, I've asked you before to consider it like this. You know how your phone has this little find my app or Life360 where other people can track your whereabouts if you've given them permission? Now it's a wonderful safety feature, right? You know, it can actually be convenient. It can also be kind of annoying, right? Teenagers, your parents are like, why were you at someone's house? I signed at 2 a.m. You were supposed to be at this other guy's house of sleep. Your college students, your parents are like, hey, why aren't you in class right now? Have you gotten that text? I see in the app that you're still in your dorm room. Are you skipping class again?

Or, hey, it's Sunday morning. Why aren't you in church? Some of my friends are like, JD, why are you at McDonald's again? This is the second time today. Of course, if you're up to actual no good, other people being able to track your whereabouts can really get you into trouble. I've asked you what would it be like if there was a little app on your phone and your friend's phone, your family's phone or whoever you gave permission to that would let them see exactly what you were thinking at any given moment. Meaning at any moment they could just open the app, mark you, and they could see your exact thoughts. Would you give anybody permission to view that? I wouldn't. I'm probably gonna keep my job as your pastor for very long, if that was the case, right? Or imagine if you had a display monitor attached to the front of your head that displayed what you were thinking at any given moment. How many conversations would that make end rather awkwardly? Jesus says, yeah, but that's where God lives. That's what God sees. That's what God evaluates. And maybe right there, maybe right there you'll say, well, wait a minute, why does God care what's in our heart

so long as it doesn't affect our behavior? It's because God is a spirit and where God abides with us and relates to us is in our spirit. I mean, just think about this in relation to those that you love. If I knew every time my wife was with me, she was always wishing, she was with some other guy, wishing she was with some old boyfriend, and I knew that every time she kissed me, she was imagining him. If I knew that's how she really felt, do you think I'd be okay with that? As long as she active like a faithful wife to me? No, I'd be brokenhearted. Or imagine if a middle school kid knew that whenever his dad came to one of his games, all his dad was thinking about was the thousand other places that he would rather be or about how boring this all is or how disappointed he is with his son. Do you think the middle school kid would be okay with that just so long as the dad fulfilled his obligations? Of course not. Hear this. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven because God sees the heart. God you see is not just after righteous behavior.

God's after a whole new kind of righteousness. A righteousness that grows from desire. A righteousness where you seek God because you love God. A righteousness where you do righteousness because you love righteousness. A righteousness that exceeds even that of the scribes and Pharisees because it's of a whole different kind. And see, that's the dilemma with the Mosaic Law. It's a dilemma with all religious laws, frankly. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, any form of Christianity that reduces itself to a list of rituals and practices and rites and sacraments. All of them. No law, not even a perfect law can change the heart. Laws only correct external behaviors. They cannot transform internal desires. And see, God wants people in heaven who love him more than they love anything, who desire his kingdom more than they desire anything, who don't obey because they have to, but they obey because they want to, because everything inside of them has changed. He's always coming in late. When he gets there, he watches YouTube all day. He's constantly stealing stuff from the companies, pilfering stuff from the supply closet. So you put a security camera over his desk and you show him that security camera. Suddenly, he's employee of a month.

He's there on time. He works hard. He quit stealing stuff from the supply closet. Has his heart really changed? No, would it be wise for you to make him your CFO after two months of good behavior? No, the camera did not change him. The camera merely restrained him. Take away the camera and he'll probably go back to being the same old person he always was. That's the difference. Jesus is getting that here. Religion puts cameras up all over your life, rules, accountability, consequences, reputation, the fear of getting caught. Those things can restrain ugly behavior, but restraint is not transformation. God's not looking for people who have the self-control, not the murder because they don't want the consequences, yet inwardly they hate others and despise them and seek their harm. They don't, Jesus doesn't want people who stay faithful in their marriages but are eaten up with selfish lust. It doesn't want people who crave revenge, yet manage to keep smiling and keep a sweet little smile on their face because they know somebody somewhere is watching. No, Jesus wants a whole new kind of righteousness or righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees or righteousness that flows from transformation. And see, if you got any self-awareness at all, any knowledge of your own heart, that'll bring you to the point of despair. How could I ever have that kind of righteousness, the kind of righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, the kind of righteousness where I change at the heart level? Do you have that? Is that the story of your life?

Certainly not my story. I am a walking illustration of the prophet Jeremiah's statement that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. So with an impossible standard like this, who can possibly expect to ever get to heaven? Great question. Jesus anticipates it, verse 17, he says, "Well, don't think that I've come to abolish the law of the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Jesus deals with the first fake answer." He says, "Hey, don't think I'm coming around saying y'all know what Moses was a little bit uptight, y'all, am I right?" I mean, God's not a legalist, relax, take it easy, God grades on the curve, just be a good person, try to love others and do your best and God's cool with that. That's how most people in our culture interpret Jesus, tell some of the most famous TV preachers talk about Jesus. I heard one literally say just this the other day, Jesus is like a nice substitute teacher for the Mosaic law, he wore Birkenstocks, he was pretty chilled, it was kind of cool with everything. Just once you love people, do your best, try hard, and you do that, he's going to be okay with it. That was the opposite of Jesus' message. You're looking at this? For truly, he says, verse 18, "I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not in Iod and not a single dot, he's going to pass away from all 613 of those laws until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes," see that word? Relaxes is one of the least of these commandments, teaches others to do the saint. We call it least in the kingdom of heaven, y'all sooner will heaven and earth pass away, than a single Iodah of a standard of God's perfection will dim by the slightest bit. Now, Jesus' answer is not like, "Hey, God grades on the curve."

His answer is, back in verse 17, in one word, "I didn't come to abolish him. I came to fulfill them. I came not to abolish the law or the prophets, but fulfill them. Jesus fulfilled the law in three ways." Y'all, this is so important, you should definitely be writing this down. Number one, here's how we fulfill the law, Jesus and Jesus alone lived out the demands of the law perfectly. Y'all, Jesus is the only person who has ever walked the face of the earth, who obeyed God fully in every situation from the heart with the right motives every single time, and not because he was being watched, not because he was trying to earn God's blessing, not because he had a reputation to maintain, but because he loved God with his whole heart and pleasing God and loving others was what he genuinely wanted to do, whether anybody was watching or not, just flowed out of him. Number two, Jesus fulfilled the law because Jesus fulfilled the law's curses. You see, when Moses gave the Old Testament law, he attached a curse to it. if you fail to obey any of these things you will die. But the law also says Deuteronomy 21-22, look at this, if a man is committed to crime punishable by death and you hang him on a tree, he is cursed by God. By the way, this is a little bit of a random insertion. If you go back and redo Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy is in the midst of saying if you don't obey these things you will be cursed and then just kind of randomly, right, just sort of out of nowhere you have this insertion here about Moses saying that if you a man is hung on a tree then he is cursed by God. That is because listen, this law was prophesying that one day a Savior would come who would obey this all perfectly and yet he would still die by being hanged on a tree and thus he would fulfill all the curses that Moses was giving. That's not a random insertion, it is a prophecy about Jesus who would fulfill this curse. Number three, here's the third way fulfills the law because of that Jesus can give me the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees and that's going to come to you in two ways. Listen to this, very important, this is the whole Christian life in a nutshell. First he gives it to you positionally, meaning we are credited with Jesus' righteousness because on the cross Jesus took my record of sins, he can now credit me with his perfect record of righteousness. The gospel, the essence of the gospel, hear this, the essence of the gospel is that we traded places.

That's why when people get baptized here they wear a shirt that says Jesus in my place. Jesus took my curse of sin and death and I get his record of perfect righteousness. The book of Ephesians, Paul says that we now wear the breastplate of righteousness and I love that breastplate analogy. You ever seen the movie Gladiator? This is one part of Roman fashion I would love to come back and style for guys because no matter what you got going on under there when you put this thing on right here you got perfect abs. Am I right? When Paul says God has given you the breastplate of righteousness probably somewhere in his mind is this dimension of it right here. I got Jesus' perfect righteousness abs. I wear his righteousness and God registers me as perfect in his sight even though I am not because I've been gifted Christ righteousness. I have the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees but that leads me to the second way that he gives us this righteousness. Watch the righteousness that exceeds the other scribes and Pharisees and that is transformationally because see when you become a Christian when you trust Christ his spirit literally comes in and changes your hearts or begins to change your heart. Paul says 2nd Corinthians 5-17 if any man isn't Christ he is a better person. No no it says he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. They literally die. All things have become new. That means a new heart. It means a new life. It means renewed emotions. Jesus wasn't calling for a better version of you. He was calling for a brand new you. Last week Pastor Brian said the kingdom of God comes to those who are at the end of themselves. Remember this? The kingdom of God belongs to those who are poor in spirit. They know they have nothing to purchase it with. It comes to those who mourn because they realize they've got nothing to make a claim on heaven or God with. It comes to those who are discouraged to those who have come to the end of themselves and concluded once again that they just don't have what it takes to those who know that they're not good enough. To those who have the honesty to admit this weekend I'm an addict. I'm broken. I've made a mess of my life and I know it. It's like Pastor Brian said last week the truth is we're all broken. Just some of us don't know how to admit it yet. But see when you do admit that then you'll be ready to receive Christ righteous and send His power. I got a letter this week that was a perfect illustration of this. It actually came from one of the guy who just finished our Alpha course here at the church. He now serves as one of its leaders. He said this in this note. He said, "Hey, I grew up in church. I knew a lot about God. But by college I'd quietly walked away from the faith. Then a co-worker invited me to a

Summit worship and prayer. He said that night I completely broke down, for the first time I understood what it meant to be poor in spirit. What it meant to realize I had nothing to offer God to have no righteousness to stand on and listen to this, no way to fix myself. That's what it means to be poor in spirit, that statement right there. But when I finally turned to God, I didn't find rejection, I found mercy. I was on the ground pleading for God, and He was already reaching down to help me back up. Shortly after that, I went through alpha and slowly found my way back to faith. I decided to go all in on following Jesus. Now I serve on our alpha team, and I'm planning to start seminary in the spring to learn more and explore whether full-time ministry might be my next step. And I'm amazing. Something like this is the version of every single person, the story of the person, every single person who comes to faith in Christ. Hear me. Listen. Truly, Jesus said, "Unless you have a righteousness that exceeds that of the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you have no hope of ever entering heaven." And I need you to let that sink in. But believe it or not, there is a way for you to obtain this kind of righteousness, and the way you do it is by acknowledging your poverty and spirit, by acknowledging that Jesus did for you what you couldn't do for yourself. So I want you to read this verse right here, you've got to read it in light of the beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, those who know, who know, who know they have no hope of righteousness on their own, to those who come as beggars with empty hands to Jesus, theirs is the kingdom of heaven because it's a gift, it's not something you earn. When you trust Jesus and you ask Him to put His spirit into you, to change you in ways

you can never change yourself, He'll do it. In fact, we call that receiving Christ. Do you ever hear that term in church? Receiving Christ. That's not a quick little prayer you pray, it's not an owl you walk, it's not some ritual you go through, it is you giving Jesus your whole life. Jesus is willing to do that for you if you wanted to, but friend, He never forces that on you. You've got to choose to receive it, and you receive it by simply receiving it, by calling on Him in faith and saying, Jesus, I need your righteousness. I need you to put your spirit into me, I can't be righteous enough to earn heaven, I can't fix myself. I can't make myself into the man or the husband or the mother that you want me to be. When it comes to righteousness, Jesus, I'm poor, I am poorer than poor. I need what only you can give. Then after you receive that, you're supposed to show it by baptism, which we're going to give you a chance to do today if you never have. Y'all we do this a few times a year at the Summit Church? Baptism is your public profession that you're trading places with Jesus. You come up at one of our campuses, basically you confess your belief that Jesus is Lord, and then we dip you under the water for a second to show that you are accepting Christ death and resurrection as your own. Maybe the years as I've extended this invitation, the same excuses from people's surface as to why they don't want to do it. Well, this is great, inspiring, but I didn't come ready to get baptized today. Good news. We came ready for you. People said, well, I didn't bring a towel, trust me, we got towels, literally thousands of towels. We have an unreasonable number of towels.

If the zombie apocalypse ever occurs, Summit Church will be the regional towel distribution center. I promise you that. We got you covered, literally. People say, well, I can't get these clothes wet. We got clothes for you to get baptized in. You say, well, but you're not going to have my size. Look, we got every size from baby gap to queen size bed sheet. Okay? Seriously, we got them all. You say, what about my underwear? We got underwear for you. I'm not joking. This is the weirdest order we place every year, but we do it for you. And we don't want them back, by the way. Okay? Those are yours to keep. Free gift from us. It says Summit Church. No, I'm kidding. Don't say that. Don't say that. That is not true. That is not true. You say, well, about my hair, we got shower caps at every single campus if that's a consideration for you. Again, you didn't come ready for this, but we came ready for you. more importantly, let that point you to the fact that he He's done all the work, okay? All you gotta do is step into it.

(audience applauding) Now look, I know that for some of you, your objection is less practical and it's more substantive. You say, well, it's embarrassing to get wet in front of a bunch of people. I'm really tempted here to point out that God sovereignly sent a hurricane to take away that excuse from you this weekend, but yes, I will grant it's a little inconvenient. But y'all, it's a command of Jesus. And it kind of shows whether or not you're really serious about following Him. I mean, if you won't follow Jesus in this one very simple command, very straightforward command, how would you expect to follow Him in more difficult ones? And by the way, do you realize how much Jesus sacrificed to save you? He died on a cross for your sin and you're not willing to inconvenience yourself even a little bit to obey His command? That doesn't make any sense. You say, well, I got baptized when I was a kid, got baptized when I was a baby. Listen, I say this was a sincerity. That's awesome, that's great. That was a wonderful expression of faith that your parents made. But see, in scripture, baptism is always

a confession of your faith. So what I offer you a chance to do is to ratify what your parents did so many years ago. People are like, well, I don't wanna reject what my parents taught me, and I don't wanna do something that implies my previous baptism when I was a baby is no good. Don't think about it that way. Think about the hope that your parents were expressing when they baptized you. They were hoping one day you would follow Jesus. You were a baby, you could make that decision. That was their hope for you. Well, now you're doing it. So now you get to ratify that hope from so many years ago and say, I'm just adding my profession of faith to yours. You get to call them this afternoon and say, mom, dad, remember what happened so many years ago? I just want you to know that I'm doing it. You're not rejecting it, you're fulfilling it. You say, yeah, but they're not here and I want them to see this. Hey, good news. About 15 years ago, I got him Steve Jobs invented this little thing right here, okay? Everybody's got a camera in here, right? Your friends will get great pictures. If not, ask us, we'll make sure that we get one. Videos, if you want, point is stop making excuses when Jesus is given a command.

Today should be the day of your obedience. By the way, one more real quick. I know a lot of people who tell me that they're waiting to get baptized because they feel like they're just not ready. And they need to get better at church. They need to get better at living out the Christian life. When they do that, then they'll take this big step. Like, baptism's a big step. So I got to get better at everything. Before I take a big step by baptism to see, listen, you've got the order reversed. 'Cause essentially what you're saying is when my righteousness is sufficient enough, then I'll get baptized and that ain't ever gonna happen. Your righteousness would have to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees and you're nowhere even close. Listen, it's not you live the Christian life well and then baptism is your reward. No, your baptism becomes the power that enables you to live the Christian life. Baptism is not the crown, it's the root. By the way, that's what you see in the life of Jesus, right? Jesus' baptism happened at the beginning of his ministry before he ever started. The Father declared, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased before he did anything. And then the Holy Spirit came on in. The same is true for you.

Spiritually you grow from your baptism, not toward it. Baptism becomes the fountain of your growth. That's why you do it at the beginning of your Christian life. Does that make sense? See, without your baptism, you are depriving yourself of one of the most important and most valuable resources in the Christian life. Let me be really clear and I want you to think about this, what baptism represents. When you get baptized, you go into the water representing your identification with Christ's death. That perfect life he lived, it was for you. That cursed death he died, he was doing it in your place and you are claiming it, receiving it as yours. You accept all this as your own and in baptism, you identify with it. It's as if the old Jew is dying, the you that was trying to be good enough to get to God. The old curse flesh that could never obey God, you're dying to it and the new life of Christ, resurrection life, the power of the Spirit comes into you. Y'all, one of the reasons we cheer whenever somebody comes up out of the water is that we are watching a literal resurrection. For that person in the water, their old simple self is dying, they're being raised to new life, eternal life in Christ. How can your heart not explode with joy when you see that? This is what you have a chance to do today if you never have. So let me ask every head bowed at our campuses,

Okay, every headbound, nobody looking at me, every headbound. Here's my question for all of us. Listen, if you died right now, today, if you died, are you 100% sure that you would go to heaven? Is there any doubt at all? Let me ask it this way. If you were to die today and you stood before God and God said, "Picture this. Why should I let you into heaven? What would your answer be?" Just picture this moment. Why should I let you into heaven? What's your answer going to be? Would you say, "Well, I've tried to be a good person. I was sincere, tried to do the right thing." Now, I never did anything really bad. I tried to make up for my mistakes. Listen, if what fills your mind when I ask you that is anything you've done or not done, being sincere, trying to do the right thing, going to church, if any of those answers come out of your mouth, you are relying on your righteousness. And I'm telling you, you don't have sufficient righteousness to even get close to heaven. Jesus said it would have to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. See this with your heads bowed. "If God asks me why He would let me in the way, if God said to me, why should I let you into heaven? If I died today, I'll say, you know, it's because Jesus traded places with me. That's why I received His righteousness, which means I have the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees because it's His righteousness. Jesus did not trade places on the cross. He took all my sin. I now wear His righteousness. You can't turn me away, God, because it turned me away. You'd have to turn Jesus away because I'm in Him now. I'm as sure of heaven as Jesus is because Jesus is my surety of heaven. And He can be yours today, too, if you want Him to. If you're not 100% sure that you've ever officially made that trade and embraced Christ as your own, I want you to pray this with me. You can use these words just with your heads bowed, say, Jesus, I know I can't save myself. I know that only you can save me. So right now, I receive you as my Savior, and I surrender to you as Lord. I know a bunch of you just prayed that with me. So let me talk to the second group, which includes some of you. Some of you need to show that decision through baptism.

So I'm going to ask counselors at all of our campuses. I'm asking them to come and take their places in the aisles or down front. Okay, they're coming and getting into place. Maybe you just receive Christ just now. Literally you just prayed with me just a few seconds ago. Or maybe you received Christ a while ago. You've just never shown that through a public profession in baptism. I'm about to give an invitation. We're in either scenario, whatever reason you just have not been baptized after putting faith in Christ. I'm going to invite you in a moment when I stand us up to come step into the aisle. And one of those counselors will guide you to a place where we can have a conversation. And if you're ready and the time is right, we'll do it today. You're like, well, I don't want to come by myself. Fine, bring a friend with you. Nobody should come alone. You may like, well, maybe I just got questions. I got questions. I'm not sure I'm ready. That's fine. Come and start a conversation. That's what we're here for. I'm going to pray. And then I'm going to count the three. And when I get to three, we're all going to stand together. And if that's you, I just want you to step out into the closest aisle and we'll take it from there. Okay. I know it takes a lot of courage, but you step and we'll take it. Father, I pray in Jesus' name, the Holy Spirit, you would move from death to life under that eternity's families got a lot of things are about to change here in the next few moments. So give the courage to obey. I pray in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name. And here we go. I'm going to count the three. We're all going to stand. And if that's you to step to the closest aisle, some will do what we always do. We'll just go bananas and we'll cheer for all that God is doing today. Okay. All right. Here we go. This is your moment on three. When I stand this, you step one, two, three. You stand, so I'm going to put your hands together and you step right now. Just go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Step out. [BLANK_AUDIO]