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CONNIE: It’s been said we all get our 15 minutes of fame. But how would you like to be truly great for a bit longer—say, for eternity? Join us as we look at what Jesus taught about how to be Great—in the kingdom of heaven!

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for more than 70 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko. Let’s begin with a question: How do you measure true greatness?

CONNIE: Most of us can remember hearing Muhammad Ali, the boxer, proclaiming “I Am the Greatest!”—taunting his opponents with those words.

LONNIE: And as far as boxers go, he certainly was a great athlete, but of course such greatness is fleeting. There’s always some new young fellow coming along to challenge your claim to fame.

CONNIE: In Jesus’ day, greatness was often judged by how a person lived. The people who were really looked up to were those who claimed to be the holiest—those who kept the Law of God most carefully.

LONNIE: That would, of course, be the Pharisees.

CONNIE: Just who were these people, Lonnie? They don’t get very good “press” in the New Testament, but were they really all that bad?

LONNIE: That’s a question I put to Professor George Knight, recently. He’s the author of a great book called The Pharisee’s Guide to Perfect Holiness, and he understands that group quite well.

CONNIE: Let’s listen in on that interview.

LONNIE: Dr.George Knight from Southwestern Michigan, professor of church history at Andrews University, welcome to the Voice of Prophecy.
GEORGE: Thank you Lonnie.

LONNIE: George is an author, professor, pastor, and theologian. Tell us a little bit, particularly historically, who were these people the Pharisees?

GEORGE: Ah! The Pharisees! You know, when you read the New Testament you sometimes get the idea that they weren’t very nice people. You know, Lonnie, they were the best people. You might say that they were the spiritual elite of the time of Christ.

LONNIE: And desperately earnest in their search of the law of God.

GEORGE: Looking at the Old Testament they found 613 old commandments in the books of Moses, and just look at the Sabbath, one-thousand five hundred and twenty one rules. Here are people who are desperately earnest; they really want to be right with God.

LONNIE: Guardians of the faith. Really you would want some of these people in your congregation, wouldn’t you?

GEORGE: I imagine that most of us would be very happy to have Pharisees in the congregation.

LONNIE: Build a little picture of some of the good pluses that they would have generated, and maybe some of the things that we haven’t heard yet and about some of the things we smile about.

GEORGE: They had a good education, they wore the right kind of clothes, and they were leaders in the community. There were roughly six thousand of them in the time of Jesus, and they had laws and rules on almost anything. For example they could tell you how long you could leave your radish in the salt on the Sabbath day, because if you left it there too long it became pickling, and pickling was a category of work and work was sin.

LONNIE: They loved the Bible though, didn’t they? And they loved God’s law and they were missionaries zealous for good works.

GEORGE: They went over, Jesus said, land and sea seeking new converts to their way of thinking. They were zealous, and everything just about that we would like to find in a good church member, the Pharisees were there.

LONNIE: Ok, so these were the good guys, and you really needed them in your church, and they achieved huge levels of righteousness, where was the problem?

GEORGE: The problem was that their righteousness wasn’t good enough. Now that statement which Jesus actually made in Matthew 5: 20, must have astounded people. How could anybody have been better than the Pharisees, they must have thought. Jesus said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. The common people who were listening must have thought to themselves, how could anybody be better than a Pharisee?

LONNIE: So could I reintegrate this to say that the problem with Pharisee was that it was a very human or works centered religion.

GEORGE: Yes, and the very goodness of the Pharisee was their main problem. You could say Lonnie, that they had the ultimate sin, and that is the sin of goodness.

LONNIE: Which makes one look at himself, or herself and become proud, like wow I’ve really come along way compared to my brother.

GEORGE: Take a look at the Pharisee over in Luke 18. He says, I’m thankful I’m not like other people. I pray twice daily, I fast, I do all theses things, I’m better than other people. Now the problem with the sin of goodness, is not that it not only makes me feel better than other people, but it makes it so I feel no need of repentance.

LONNIE: And you can actually begin to despise maybe the way other people live, and maybe become a little critical.

GEORGE: Part of the problem of the church I think is that sin follows as the church.

LONNIE: Describe a little bit.

GEORGE: Well, here I am. I’ve changed my ways, I’ve come to Jesus, now I start giving my money to the church, and soon I get proud of my giving. I use my talents for the church, I sing, I preach, and pretty soon I get proud of my singing and my preaching. I take the glory to myself rather than give it to God. Pride is the center of what sin is all about.

LONNIE: Now Dr. Knight, if rigid orthodoxy is so important we must be perfect even as your Father is in heaven. What is that other dimension that they lack where Jesus said, your righteousness must exceed that of the scribe? What is the missing dimension?

GEORGE: Well it was an inward dimension. The Pharisee treated the outward aspect of law. For example they were against killing, but anger was permissible, and when Jesus said, you must be perfect as your Father in heaven, he really meant that you must be perfect in your heart, that you must be able to love your enemies even as God loves His enemies.

LONNIE: Is Pharisee alive and well in the church today?

GEORGE: It’s alive and well in the church today, my brother, and there is a Pharisee in the heart of each of us.

LONNIE: Define that a little bit.

GEORGE: Each of us has the desire to be proud. Each of us has the desire to be better than other people. Of course, I’m no longer proud, now that I’m a Christian, of the bad things that I do. Now I have just transferred my pride to the good things that I do, and that’s the essence in many ways of Pharisee.

LONNIE: If the central problem is their general goodness and being proud of it, then what is the solution, what is the antitheses to being one of the Pharisee?

GEORGE: Well, I think the solution is found over here in Matthew the fifth chapter of what we call the beatitudes. When we realize that we can never reach the standard that Christ has set for us. When he fills up the law full of its real meaning, there’s nothing we can do, we realize how poor we are in spirit and we come to Jesus mourning and he fills us. We hunger and thirst for righteousness and he fills us. It’s that coming to Jesus, realizing that even our goodness; even the goodness of a Pharisee is not good enough. That realization drives us to the foot of the cross.

LONNIE: George Knight, professor of church history at Andrews University, thanks for being with us today.

CONNIE: Wow! That’s a powerful thought, from Professor Knight: When we realize our own sinfulness, it will bring us right to Jesus—right to the Cross—which is the only place we can find perfect forgiveness, and the kind of perfection we need to be a part of the kingdom of God.

LONNIE: Jesus teaches us that things are different in that kingdom, than in any earthly kingdom, and the Wedgwood has a song that reminds us of that. It’s called, “In the Kingdom.”

“In the Kingdom”, Wedgwood, from Simple Truth.

LONNIE: We’re talking today about the kingdom of heaven, and how to not only be in the kingdom, but be Great in the kingdom. And we’ve got a great guidebook for just that purpose.

CONNIE: Of course the Bible is the greatest guidebook to the kingdom, but we’ve got something a bit smaller that looks at a portion of the Bible very close to the passage we’re studying today. It’s called An Insider’s Guide to the Kingdom, and we’d like to share a copy with you as our gift today.

LONNIE: You can request a free copy of this book for yourself or for a friend by calling 1-800-872-0055. Be sure to ask for An Insider’s Guide to the Kingdom when you call.

CONNIE: And now let’s listen as Lonnie shares today’s message, “How to Be Great in the Kingdom.”

How to Be Great in the Kingdom

The great 19th-century Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, was fond of telling the story of a wealthy English gentleman who was traveling to Australia when the ship he was on encountered a severe storm. Soon the word went out among the passengers that the ship had sprung a leak.

The man began pacing nervously about, worrying that they would never make it to Australia, but then the storm subsided and the crew was able to make repairs.

The next day though, as another storm approached, the man became fearful again and began talking non-stop about how the ship was sure to sink because she had sprung a huge leak in the last storm. The captain realized that such talk would soon spread panic among the passengers and crew, so he called the man aside. "I understand," he said, "that you have information about the leak and our perilous condition. Since you seem to know about it and perhaps the others do not, you had better not mention it to anyone, lest you should frighten the passengers or dispirit my men. Perhaps, as it is a very bad case, you would lend us your valuable help, and then we may possibly get through it. Would you have the goodness to stand here and hold hard on this rope? Do not leave it, but pull as hard as ever you can till I tell you to let it go."

The man was glad to be able to do something to help out, and stood his guard well, pulling on that rope with clenched teeth and feet firmly planted throughout the storm. When it was all over and they were sailing on calm seas again, he felt very good about the part he had played in saving the ship, but he was disappointed that the captain didn't tell anyone else about his marvelous contribution to their survival.

So the "hero," in a roundabout style, hinted that such valuable services as his, having saved the vessel, ought to be rewarded at least with some few words of acknowledgment.

Imagine his disappointment when the captain replied, "What? You think you saved the ship? Why, the only reason I had you pull on that rope was to keep you busy, so you wouldn't alarm the other passengers. Your work had nothing to do with saving the ship."

Ahhh . . . you get the lesson already, don't you? It's a story about salvation--about how we can be saved. We'd like to think that our own efforts--our own pulling on the rope--or our own pulling the right strings--can save us. Better yet, we'd like to think that if we pull on the rope hard enough, we ought to be worthy of some special honor from God.

We're continuing our journey through Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and today we're looking at Matthew 5:17-20. And do you know what? At first glance it almost appears as though Jesus affirms the attitude of the man on the ship--or of the Christian who strives to do all the right things in order to have honor in the kingdom.

Let's read Jesus' words:

" 'Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven' " (Matthew 5:17-20, NKJV).

Did you notice what verse 19 said? If you break a commandment of God, you'll be considered least in the kingdom, but if you keep all the commandments and teach others to keep them as well, you'll be great in the kingdom.

That seems to agree with the ideas of the gentleman on the ship, doesn't it? If you just work hard enough at something, you'll be worthy of honor.

And I can almost see the faces of the people who were listening to Jesus when He spoke those words. His disciples had followed Him up onto the hillside to hear His teaching. This is near the beginning of His ministry, and people were no doubt wondering just what new teachings this young prophet might have. Word was already spreading among the crowds that maybe Jesus was the great prophet that Moses had promised would come in the future. Could it be that Jesus would teach something new--that His teaching would replace that of Moses the great lawgiver?

What about this "kingdom of heaven" that He talked so much about? Was it something new? What were the entry requirements? Was this kingdom something different from the nation that God had established under Moses' leadership? The qualifications for being a part of that nation were clear: Keep the covenant--obey the laws that God gave at Mt. Sinai.

But most people had discovered by now that full and total obedience to the law of God was not an easy thing. Could it be that Jesus would tell them about some easier way to get into the kingdom of heaven?

If that's what they thought, they must have been disappointed when Jesus said " 'Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.' "

And then He went on to say that people must do and teach all the aspects of the law in order to be great in the kingdom. That must have seemed discouraging. It sounded very much like what the scribes and pharisees taught.

And here's something that must have made it seem even worse--even more difficult. In Jesus' day, the laws that people were expected to obey were so numerous that it was a full time job just to learn them all!

There was no way a poor person who had to work all day could ever memorize all the requirements--let alone live up to them. Only the scribes and pharisees--who could spend all day studying the law--had any chance of even knowing all the laws, let alone keeping them.

So, it must have seemed to the common people listening to Jesus that He was holding up the scribes and pharisees as great examples to emulate.

But then comes the kicker--the little twist at the end--that changes everything and puts Christ's unique spin on the matter. Listen again to verse 20: " ' For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.' "

Whoa! That's a surprise. First Jesus says you have to keep all of the laws, then He points to the people who were most adept at keeping laws, and He says that they're not good enough at it.

How discouraging. It's like saying to a young person--you want to play basketball? Well, all you've got to do is go one-on-one with Michael Jordan and win, and you're in! You've got to be better than the best!

Now, why would Jesus say a thing like that? Why would He make it seem so hard to be part of the kingdom?

We'll look deeper into that question in coming weeks as we continue our study of the sermon on the mount, but for now, let me give you the short answer.

Jesus wanted to shake people up. He wanted to shake them loose from their usual way of looking at things. He wanted them to start thinking "outside the box." And He wanted them to realize that the righteousness of God far surpasses what even the hardest-working, most conscientious pharisee could ever achieve.

Here's how the apostle Paul--himself a former pharisee--described the problem facing the pharisees:

"For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness" (Romans 10:2-3, NIV).

It's almost a conundrum. Jesus says keeping the law is very important for people who want to get into the kingdom. But then He goes on to say that keeping the law is not enough. It will never allow you to achieve the level of righteousness you need. It will never bring you fully into God's will--God's righteousness.

The law, you see, only points out sin. It tells us what we shouldn't do. And the scribes and pharisees were very good at not doing a lot of things!

But God's righteousness involves more than that. It involves what we do. It involves living lives filled with God's love. It involves responding to the Spirit of God's will, not just the letter of the law.

You can keep a whole lot of laws without ever becoming acquainted with the Lawgiver and His true will.

On the other hand, it's possible to be very religious--and to think that you have a close relationship with God--but to ignore His will as revealed in His law.

Either way you'll stray off the true path of righteousness.

Jesus calls us to balance. He points the way to balance. He calls us to lead spirit-filled lives that live out the spirit of the law, not just the letter.

And He not only calls us to it, and points us to it. He empowers us to it.

"If you love me, you will keep My commandments," He says in John 15. It's not just a matter of something we think we have to do because we follow Jesus. Obedience is something that springs from our love to Jesus. Our trust in him.

The gentleman in Spurgeon's story would have done just as well to sit back and trust the sailing of the ship to the captain. But he felt he needed to do something--to pull on that rope.

My friend, will you trust Jesus to sail your ship? It won't mean jumping overboard. You'll still go where Jesus leads. You'll still follow His will.

But you can let go of the rope. You can rest fully in the assurance that Jesus will bring your ship safely to port. You can let Him sail your ship--let His Spirit work out the spirit of obedience in you. So you aren't just keeping laws, but walking in the fullness of the love of God.

It's a glorious plan of salvation He has for us. To place His Spirit in your heart and mine, friend. So that it becomes natural for us to do the will of God. To live as God would have us live.

And to do it eternally!

Friend, I want to do that, don't you? And that's why I've surrendered the sailing of my ship to Jesus. Won't you do the same? That’s the way to be GREAT in the kingdom!

“Turn Your Life Over to Jesus”, Christian Edition, from Higher Ground.

CONNIE: That was Christian Edition, singing “Turn Your Life Over to Jesus,” a song that’s found on their album Higher Ground.

LONNIE: You know, Connie, there’s a very important member of our production crew whose name listeners hear quite often, when we thank him for his good work. But we don’t often hear his voice on the program.

CONNIE: You’re referring to our studio engineer, Armando Cordero, of course.

LONNIE: That’s right, but if I don’t miss my guess, he was singing bass in that musical selection. He’s been a part of Christian Edition for many years. So if you listened carefully, you probably heard him in that song.

CONNIE: We really appreciate Armando, and his music! And here’s something we think you’ll appreciate, if you call and ask for it: The little book An Insider’s Guide to the Kingdom. It’s based on a series of programs we did a while back on the Beatitudes, and we’d like you to have a copy. You can call us at 1-800-872-0055, or write to us at Voice of Prophecy, Box 53055, Los Angeles, 90053. Again: Box 53055, Los Angeles, 90053 to request it.

LONNIE: And our Canadian friends can write to us at Box 2127, Oshawa, Ontario L1H 7V4. The book is free—our gift to you, just for the asking. But do remember, when contacting us, if you can include a gift to help support our ministry, we’ll guard it carefully and use it for spreading the Gospel around the world.
CONNIE: We’re glad you joined us today, for our look at How to Be Great in the Kingdom. Next week we’ll have another brand new program, looking at the messages of some of the Old Testament prophets, so we hope you’ll join us again then.

LONNIE: It’s time for us to close, and as we do, we want to say, may the Amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ,
The extravagant love of God,
The intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit,
Be with all of you.
Amen.