The biggest problem

When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, he wasn't giving his audience a list of helpful hints about the benefits of being meek, humble and peaceful, said Paul Dunk at Smithville Christian High School's Thursday chapel during Spiritual Emphasis Week.

"The Beatitudes is not a list of things to do, it is a list of things that we CANNOT do," he said. "Jesus is not saying 'try your best, it's good enough.' Jesus has given us a list that is a glorious impossibility."

 

Similarly, with his references to the 10 Commandments, Jesus made it clear we would not measure up.

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment,’ " said Dunk, reading excerpts from Matthew 5. "' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Jesus went on to say that if your eye is causing you to sin, you should pluck it out, or if your hand is causing you to sin, you should cut it off, Dunk said. But Jesus knows it's not our eyes or our hands that cause us to sin. "It's your heart that causes you to sin, and Jesus knows that," he said.

"Jesus is saying 'guys, this is deeper than you think,' " Dunk said. "The Pharisees think they are pulling it off, but they're not. We think we are pulling it off, but we're not."

"We try to soften what Jesus said to make it more do-able for us, we soften it into something we think we can do," he said, turning the Christian faith into a legalistic rulebook, and our churches into religious sweatshops. The result is that we are "driven into exhaustion" trying to achieve value, acceptance, belonging, meaning, fulfillment, purpose and peace by our own efforts.

"Your generation is chronically addicted to perform," Dunk told the students. "Why? Because your parents and grandparents were chronically addicted to perform. We are addicted to getting a gold star from heaven, from our parents, from our peers." But we're doomed to failure.

"We believe the greatest problem is outside us and the answer is inside us," he said. "We believe the greatest problem is outside us. But Jesus shows up and says the greatest problem is inside us."

"The bad news is, God is not honouring our progress, God only honours perfection," Dunk said. "The good news is, God provided perfection."

 

Many people believe in karma, he said, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. But the truth is, we, and all the "heroes" of the Bible, "are bad, undeserving train wrecks, and God gives us what we don't deserve."

Our Christian lives are not about doing good works to earn God's approval, he said.

"You and I will bear fruit, and we will do good things. But all of this doing comes from being, and our being comes from Jesus Christ.

"The good news is Jesus says you will have a new heart, and when we rest in Jesus, we become like him and our lives transform. The way you get out of your sin is not by trying harder, but by looking at what Jesus did."