The will of the lord be done
Matt 21. 23 Now when He came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?”
24 But Jesus answered and said to them, “I also will ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things: 25 The baptism of John—where was it from? From heaven or from men?”
And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the multitude, for all count John as a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus and said, “We do not know.”
And He said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
The Parable of the Two Sons
28 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ 29 He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?”
They said to Him, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but tax collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him.
Is it possible to achieve complete deliverance without complete surrender?
Are we trying to live a life of a carnal Christian while seeking God’s help?
Who is my father and brother Jesus was asking but For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”
Matt 7
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Are we seeking to be delivered from the law or are we seeking to fulfil the law in Christ, the trouble we find is that when we try and do away with the holy law of God we find it cannot die, it clings to life most vigorously.
Jesus in his most famous address gives us a clear example of the law, role in salvation,
Obeying the law is what sanctified the Jews, Jews believed in the here and now some doubted the thought of an afterlife, we read that the Sadducees, said there was no resurrection, so the thought of salvation was not possible; all we have is now, so to obey the commands in full was all they had to be sanctified.
Fulfilling the law, the spiritual reason behind the law is what the path to salvation is,
The Jews knew the law, they followed it to the letter, knowing that it was connected to every part of their life, they had the 10 commandments the written law and they had the oral law, the smaller laws that when done help fulfil the law.
What they knew was the had to apply to their whole lives, it was not a matter of having a church life, and a work life and a home life, this was their life, there was no need to ask someone, how are you doing spiritually, there was no work for spirituality, it was all connected, not disjointed.
The Pharisees, reprimanded by Jesus for this very reason
Seven woes
1. Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness
2. For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God
3. For you love the best seats, the praise of men
4. Unmarked graves, inside full of death, white washed tombs
5. For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
6. For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them
7. For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves
Essentially Jesus is saying to these guys that they are hypocrites, actors, living the life on the outside but not on the inside.
Why, as Christians can we feel like we are living two lives?
Jesus came to teach us how we can live and enter into the kingdom of heaven.
He did say to many who came to ask that the law was a major part of this.
When he said the greatest commandments in Luke 10 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with your entire mind,’ and ‘your neighbour as yourself.’”
He was quoting Leviticus 19 and duet 6 the lord your God is one God
A serious mistake both Christianity and Judaism make about the teachings of Jesus. Both hold the erroneous view that Jesus departed from the teachings of the Old Testament, especially with regard to law.
Christians who think that they are free from obeying any law and live a life of sin, transgressing the law have not understood the message of Grace.
God in his mercy does not punish us for transgressing the law, but God in his grace enables us to keep the law
The record shows that while Jesus disagreed with the religious leaders, He didn't disagree with Old Testament Scriptures. The same record shows that traditional Christianity itself does not follow the teachings of Christ.
To know the real Jesus we have to ask: What did He really say? It doesn't ultimately matter what people say about Him. Nor does it really matter what interpretations they give of what He said. What truly matters is what He really said, and whether we're going to believe what He said.
Clear statement in the Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount is a good place to begin, we should expect to find in it His view toward the laws of God as recorded in the Old Testament. And indeed we do.
One of the reasons for some of Jesus' statements in the Sermon on the Mount is that—because His preaching was so different from that of the Pharisees and Sadducees—some people believed His intention was to subvert the authority of God's Word and substitute His own in its place. But His real intention was to demonstrate that many of the things the Pharisees and Sadducees had taught all along were contrary to the original teachings of the Torah of Moses, the first five books of the Bible.
Jesus refuted the erroneous ideas people had formed regarding Him with three emphatic declarations about the law. Let's look at them.
"I did not come to destroy but to fulfil"
Jesus explains His view of the law very quickly after giving the beatitudes: "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17).
So immediately we see that Jesus had no intention of destroying the law. He even tells us not to even think such a thing. Far from being antagonistic to the Old Testament Scriptures, He said He had come to fulfil "the Law and the Prophets" and proceeded to confirm their authority. "The Law and the Prophets" was a term commonly used for the Old Testament Scriptures (compare Matthew 7:12).
"The Law" referred to the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses in which God's laws were written down. "The Prophets" referred not only to the writings of the biblical prophets, but also to the historical books of what came to be known as the Old Testament.
Regrettably, the meaning of "fulfilling the law" has been twisted by many who claim the name of Jesus but don't really understand what He taught. They say that since Jesus said He would fulfil the law, we no longer need to keep it and the law has no further obligation on His followers.
Another view of "fulfilling the law" is that Jesus "filled full" what
was lacking in the law—that is, He completed it, partly canceling it and partly adding to it, forming what is sometimes referred to as "Christ's law" or "New Testament teaching." The implication of this view is that the New Testament brought a change in the requirements for salvation and that the laws given in the Old Testament are obsolete.
But do either of these views accurately reflect what Jesus meant?
Jesus' view of fulfilling the law
The Greek word pleroo, translated "fulfil" in Matthew 5:17, means "to make full, to fill, to fill up, ... to fill to the full" or "to render full, i.e. to complete" (Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 2002, Strong's number 4137). In other words, Jesus said He came to complete the law and make it perfect.
How?
By showing the spiritual intent and application of God's law. His meaning is clear from the remainder of the chapter, where He showed the spiritual intent of specific commandments.
Some distort the meaning of "fulfil" to have Jesus saying, "I did not come to destroy the law, but to end it by fulfilling it." This is inconsistent with His own words.
He showed that the spiritual application of the law made it even more difficult to keep, not that it was annulled or no longer necessary.
Jesus, by explaining, expanding and exemplifying God's law, fulfilled a prophecy of the Messiah found in
Isaiah 42:21: "The LORD is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will exalt the law, and make it honourable." The Hebrew word gadal, translated "exalt" or "magnify" (KJV) literally means "to be or become great"
Jesus Christ did exactly that, showing the holy, spiritual intent, purpose and scope of God's law. He met the law's requirements by obeying it perfectly in thought and deed, both in the letter and in the intent of the heart.
Many Jews fail today to see how Jesus did not change the law,
All will be fulfilled
The second major statement by Jesus given in the exact same context makes it even clearer that Jesus did not come to destroy, rescind, nullify or abrogate the law. "For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled" (Matthew 5:18).
With these words, Jesus likened the continuance of the law to the permanence of heaven and earth. He is saying that the law is immutable, inviolable and unchangeable and can only be fulfilled, never abolished.
We should note that in this verse a different Greek word is used for "fulfilled": ginomai, meaning "to become," "to come into existence" or "to come to pass" (Thayer's, Strong's number 1096). Until the ultimate completion of God's plan to glorify humanity in His Kingdom comes to pass—that is, as long as there are still fleshly human beings —the physical codification of God's law in Scripture is necessary. This, Jesus explained, is as certain as the continued existence of the universe.
His servants must keep the law
The third statement of Jesus pronounces that our fate rests on our attitude toward and treatment of God's holy law. "Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least [by those] in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:19). The "by those" is added for clarification, since, as explained in other passages, those who persist in lawbreaking and teach others to break God's law will not themselves be in the Kingdom at all.
Jesus makes it very clear that those who follow Him and aspire to His Kingdom have a perpetual obligation to obey and uphold God's law. He is saying that we cannot diminish from the law of God by even a jot or tittle—the equivalent of the crossing of a "t" or dotting of an "i."
The value He places on the commandments of God is also unmistakable—as well as the high esteem toward the law that He requires from all those who teach in His name. His disapproval falls on those who slight the least of the law's commands, and His honour will be bestowed on those who teach and obey the commandments.
Since Jesus obeyed the commandments of God, it follows that His servants, too, must keep the commandments and teaches others to do the same (1 John 2:2-6). It is in this way that the true ministers of Christ are to be identified—by their following the example He left them (John 13:15).
So what is our response to this matter, what is it that Paul says He came to redeem us from the curse of the law not to do away with it altogether.
Christ fulfils and complete and makes perfect in us his holy law
He writes his law on our hearts, his work is that of salvation, his death provided the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, taking away the curse that was meant for us who disobeyed the law, what shall we do now, we read recently that we are no longer slaves of sin but we are slaves of righteousness, harsh choice of words, we are now obligated to fulfil all righteousness we are no longer with an excuse of ignorance to his holy work his law.
Have we submitted fully to God?
Can God ask us for anything?
Are we living this divided life, like an actor, or can we have the faith that God will unite our heart with his?
What if we fail?
Suppose a painter had a piece of canvas, on which he desired to work out some beautiful picture.
Suppose that piece of canvas does not belong to him, and any one has a right to take it and to use it for any other purpose; do you think the painter would bestow much work on that? No.
If we say that we live this life yet we don’t give our selves to the Lord how is it to be fulfilled in us,
Yet people want Jesus Christ to help them in their trouble perhaps in taking away their temper, or that other sin, though in their hearts they have not yielded themselves utterly to His command and His keeping. It can not be. But if you will come and give your
whole life into His charge, Christ Jesus is mighty to save; Christ Jesus waits to be gracious; Christ Jesus waits to fill you with His Spirit.
Will you not take the step?
God grant that we may be led by His Spirit to a yielding up of ourselves to Him as never before.
Let us come in humble confession to him that we can yelid ourselves fully to his work
The carnal life has predominated too much, has altogether marked us, and that we can have a bitter consciousness that with all the blessing God has bestowed, He has not made you what you want to be a spiritual man?
It is the Holy Spirit alone who by His indwelling that can make a spiritual man.
Come then and cast yourself at God's feet, with this one thought,
"Lord, I give myself an empty vessel to be filled with Thy Spirit." Each one of you sees every day at the tea table an empty cup set there, waiting to be filled with tea when the proper time comes. So with every dish, every plate.
They are cleansed and empty, ready to be filled. Emptied and cleansed. Oh, come! and just as a vessel is set apart to receive what it is to contain, say to Christ that you desire from this hour to be a vessel set apart to be filled with His Spirit, given up to be a spiritual man. Bow down in the deepest emptiness of soul, and say, "Oh, God, I have nothing!" and then surely as you place yourself before Him you have a right to say,
"My God will fulfil His promise! I claim from Him the filling of the Holy Spirit to make me, instead of a carnal, a spiritual Christian." If you place yourself at His feet, and tarry there; if you abide in that humble surrender and that childlike trust, as sure as God lives the blessing will come.
Under Grace God gives righteousness through Christ.