Kingdom, week 5: Careful With God's Word

Jesus spoke in Matthew 5:21-48 of the need to tremble before God's Word, never assuming you're doing a "good enough" job of keeping it that He'd consider you righteous.  "Be perfect, as your Father is perfect" is the concise summation in 5:48.  Implied is the need to continue to approach the Word of God and listen to it in order to bring about this end.  Jesus perfectly embodied this, in that He always quoted the Old Testament as authoritatively God's spoken Word.
This falls to the floor among many believers today.  Because the Word of God is being doubted, questioned, debated, and tossed around like it's an awards show acceptance speech, the idea of "being perfect as your Father is perfect" isn't popular.

But among those who actually HAVE God as their Father (and it's not everyone, but only those who have received Jesus, God's Son, as Lord; see John 1:11-13), this is a welcome invitation because they love the Word of God.  We trust that it tells the truth.  We don't look at it as a scientific textbook when it comes to the details of physics and things like that, but we consider that if it ever says something that's directly contrary to any other truth claim being postured in the world, the Bible wins, because the God who created wrote it.

We shouldn't think God's Word can be put on the same plain as "reason, tradition, and experience", as though it's worthy of being subjected to the mind of fallen people and the history of a fallen world (and if you do adhere to the so-called Wesleyan Quadrilateral, which has these three with Scripture as the top-left first point, you might disagree that here Scripture is made equal with the others; but practically, it is made equal with the rest, because the nature of a quadrilateral is that all the points are equally necessary to make the quadrilateral, even if some of the angles are wider than others).  On the contrary, obedience to Jesus' command to be careful with God's Word places the Word of God as the sun around which everything else (reason, tradition, experience, etc.) orbits.
Jesus' people believe that God has spoken, and all he speaks is right.  "I the Lord speak the truth" (Isaiah 45:19).  They view every word found in the Bible as authoritative, because a) Jesus and Moses both said that man lives by every Word that comes from God's mouth (see Deuteronomy 8:3 and Matthew 4:4), and b) Paul said that all Scripture is breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16).
Therefore, we should shut our mouths if we are hasty to utter a word before God, if we aren't first listening to God's Word to us.

Pharisaism had fallen into a state of apostasy, upholding with great care religious acts that made the people look like they were worshiping, while their diligence and care with God's Word spoke something different.  Jesus spoke this way in His Sermon on the Mount to show that God requires perfection, because He is perfect.  You can imagine that this would thunder through the peoples' hearts like a lightning bolt when they heard it.  But this is how Jesus the Living Word spoke--He spoke the truth, and truth pierces like the double-edged sword the Word of God is. 
If you've never been led to the foot of the cross and seen your need for the perfect sacrifice of the perfect God-man, Jesus, His teaching that one must be perfect should do the trick (and yet, for most, it won't).  But if you have been led there, and Jesus is your righteousness before a holy God, Jesus' teaching here should make you want to dig into the Word of God and seek a deeper discipleship and faithfulness.  Disciples are taught to obey "all that Jesus commanded" (Matt28:19), always "let(ting) the Word of Christ dwell in (them) richly" (Colossians 3:16). 

The fact is, you're building your life on some kind of foundation, assuming that it's the right one.  You hope that the foundation will keep your house standing during any storm the future might hold.  What a fearful task, to find the truth and build on it perfectly!

But Jesus offers an easier yoke--one that says "come and learn from me, and I will give you rest" (Matt11:28-29), and "if you build your life on my Words, you will stand firm" (see Matt7:24-27).
His Gospel is the way to be freed from the enslavement to sin and the world that would draw you away from His Word.  Beginning with understanding that you're a sinner and Jesus is the Savior who invites you to come as you are to be changed into a new creation by His grace and power, you're sure to make it, because He is sure to deliver.  His cross pays the ransom for sin that ensnares and His resurrection sets free those who have died with Him.
His Word promises it's true.  "This is the one to whom I will look--he who is humble and contrite in heart, and trembles at my Word" (Isaiah 66:2).