Matthew 5: Jesus Doesn't Lower the Bar, He Changes Your Heart

Introduction

"What God wants is your heart." That is the sentence Loïc Richard asks the congregation at la Chapelle to say to the person next to them, right after the reading of Matthew 5:17-20. His message is titled "The Heart of the Problem" and is part of a series on the Sermon on the Mount, "the greatest speech in the world." After the Beatitudes (everyone is welcome in the kingdom) and the call to be salt and light, this is the passage where Jesus sets the frame for all the ethical teaching that follows.

The preacher begins with an exercise: read Matthew 5 to 7 in full, then imagine a world where everyone put it into practice. People of perfect integrity, who tolerate no anger, no bitterness, no greed, who love their enemies, who reject hypocrisy, who pray, fast, live simply and generously, who worry about nothing and do not condemn others. "That is exactly what Jesus asks us to be."

But how can we get there, when Jesus declares that our righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees? Loïc Richard answers in three steps: Jesus does not lower the bar, Jesus cleared the bar for you, and Jesus changes your heart.

Outline of the Message

1. An Invitation That Disturbs

• In Matthew 4:17, Jesus begins to preach: "Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." He calls his disciples, travels through Galilee, heals the sick and sets people free from demons. Word about him spreads as far as Syria (Matthew 4:24): "Jesus goes viral."
• In the Beatitudes, he declares that everyone is welcome in the kingdom. The preacher says it again for anyone who needs to hear it: whatever your past, your present life or your level of moral perfection, you are welcome in the kingdom of heaven.
• This radical invitation is shocking. To approach God, there were many rules and sacrifices to offer in a precise way. And Jesus eats with tax collectors, prostitutes, people with a bad reputation. Many wonder whether he really respects the law and the prophets.
• Jesus answers clearly: he did not come to abolish but to fulfill. Not one letter, not one stroke will disappear from the law. Whoever practices the Word and teaches it will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
• "If your ambition is to be the greatest on this earth, it is not the right ambition. But if your ambition is to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, that is better." Everyone has a circle of influence: your family, your friends, the people around you.

2. Jesus Does Not Lower the Bar

• Then comes the shocking sentence: unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
• For the people of that time, the Pharisees and the experts in the law were not hypocrites, they were role models. A saying went that if only two people were saved, it would be a scribe and a Pharisee. It would be like saying today that you have to be more committed to the mission than David Pothier, the pastor of la Chapelle.
• The Pharisees were the religious leaders, the scribes were "the Bible nerds," the theologians of the day. They kept 613 commandments and added traditions of interpretation: the tithe on spices weighed out at 10%, 39 categories of work forbidden on the Sabbath, a distance of 2,000 cubits (about a kilometer) not to be exceeded when walking on that day.
• Some grew up in an environment where rules were added, with this pressure: the more I keep the rules, the better my chances of being accepted by God. God then looks like a boss waiting for your first mistake so he can fire you, not like a good father who adopted you into his family.
• The preacher tells how he lost his temper with his children the day before, perhaps out of tiredness. "Are they any less my children because of that? Absolutely not."
• Jesus goes further in the rest of the chapter: anger and contempt toward your brother is like murder; a lustful look is already adultery; no more sending away your wife over a badly cooked meal; no more multi-level oaths, just be reliable; love your enemy and pray for the one who persecutes you, said to a people oppressed every day by the Romans.

3. The Two Traps of Religion

• Some hear this and get discouraged: "I'll never make it." You feel you are never good enough, that after sinning you have to be "reasonably well-behaved" for three or four days before you can pray or come back to church. That is exactly the trap of the scribes and Pharisees: they had made the law their god.
• Religion says: if you do enough, you will deserve God's presence. Grace is discovering that God loves you and has accepted you unconditionally, and that it is from this identity that you can obey.
• Others simply lowered the bar. "Those are beautiful words, but it's impossible." Sexual purity? "It's 2026." I don't kill my brother, but I nurture bitterness and destroy his reputation through gossip. And for everything else, "YOLO, God is grace."
• The preacher names these two paths conservative religion (do everything right and God will accept you) and liberal religion (do your best, God will be happy). In the first, when life does not meet your expectations, you blame yourself and give up. In the second, you blame God, whom you see as being at your service.
• "Long-term obedience can only come from grace."
• Jesus does not want to make us "super Pharisees." What matters is not the 2,000 cubits or the 10% of spices. He wants a life of absolute peace, generosity, integrity, love and justice. And at the end of the sermon, Jesus warns that there is no point in listening to his words without putting them into practice.

4. Jesus Cleared the Bar for You

• The goal of the Pharisees was to be able to tell God: "Look, I am righteous enough to deserve your presence." But that means putting yourself on the throne. No one can meet the demands of the thrice-holy God.
• For them, the law was a barrier between them and God. The result: if I succeed, I become proud and compare myself to others; if I fail, I feel like a failure and unworthy of his presence.
• Jesus turns it all upside down: "I came to fulfill the law" (verse 17). You no longer need to fulfill the law to be accepted by God; you will obey because you are accepted and loved. "It is no longer: I must obey to be loved. It is: I am loved, so I can obey."
• "Grace does not say the law doesn't matter. Grace says Jesus did for you what you could not do for yourself. Now, let his work transform the way you live."
• Quoting Grant Osborne, the preacher reminds us that Matthew sees the law, the writings and the prophets finding their fulfillment in Jesus. The sacrificial laws point to the spotless Lamb, who paid once for all. From Genesis to Malachi, the whole story culminates in him.
• The image of parking in Montreal ("does it take a PhD to park in Montreal?"): you fulfill the law either by parking in the right spot or by paying the fine. Jesus did both. He kept the law perfectly, and he paid with his life the price of our failures, to give us his righteousness.
• "Who has sinned in the last seven days?" Bad thoughts, anger, impatience, gossip, jealousy, comparison, pride, hypocrisy. If we had to sacrifice a sheep for each sin, there would be no sheep left in Montreal. Thanks to Jesus, you can come before the throne of grace, repent and receive the righteousness he won for you.

5. From the High Jump to the Pole Vault

• The world record in the high jump is 2.45 m. If you set a bar at 3 meters and promise a reward to whoever clears it, no one will make it.
• That is what happened to the Pharisees and the scribes: the bar is too high. They try, they train, they start over, without success. And Jesus comes and raises the bar even higher.
• But in raising the bar, Jesus changes the discipline: he turns the high jump into a pole vault. He gives you a pole and tells you that with it, you will be able to clear the bar.
• That pole is the Holy Spirit. It is Jesus who changes your heart and transforms you from the inside to make you able to do what he asks of you.

6. Jesus Changes Your Heart

• The Pharisees looked only at the outside: measurable behaviors, the ones others can see. Jesus will tell them so in Matthew 23:25: they clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
• Imagine being served foul-smelling compost on the most beautiful, cleanest plate you have ever seen. It doesn't matter how beautiful the plate is: what counts is what is inside. Your heart can do good things and still be rotten on the inside.
• With his examples about murder and adultery, Jesus shows that we all have the roots of these sins in our hearts: anger, bitterness, hatred, lust. "All your behaviors come from your heart."
• The preacher, married for 12 years, gives a hypothetical example: a couple who set themselves good rules (talk every day, a date night every week, a weekend away together every month, a vacation together every year). But if he talks to his wife without listening because he would rather watch a game, or if he spends thirty minutes sitting across from her, face closed, scrolling on his phone, he has followed the rule without it doing their relationship any good. "The heart is not there."
• In the same way, spending time with God every day is a good rule. But when it becomes one more item on a to-do list, and you are not really present, it is nothing more than a religious performance.

7. Two Paths to a Transformed Heart

• The first path is God's surgery. Ezekiel 36:26-27: God gives a new heart and a new spirit, takes away the heart of stone, gives a heart of flesh and puts his own Spirit within us so that we follow his laws.
• "Jesus did not come to turn bad people into people capable of following rules. Jesus came to make us new people." He did not come to give us more willpower or discipline, but to change our heart so that our behavior changes.
• The second path is your responsibility. Proverbs 4:23: "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life." Pray, read your Bible, study, meditate, live in community, worship God, serve, practice simplicity and generosity, not to earn God's favor but to receive his grace, which transforms you.
• In September 1854, a cholera epidemic killed more than 500 people in ten days in London. Everyone believed the disease spread through the air and treated the symptoms, one house at a time. A local doctor, John Snow, thought it spread through water. He noted the addresses of the dead and saw that they clustered around a pump on Broad Street. On September 7, he convinced the authorities to remove its handle, and the epidemic stopped. It would later be discovered that the pump was contaminated by a nearby sewer.
• "A handle removed from a single pump saved more lives than all the remedies handed out in every house." Jesus does not say to you: try to be a little less angry, a little less bitter. He says: give me your heart, I will transform it.
• The final call is addressed to two people. The one who thinks they are good enough but has never given their heart to Jesus: this is the moment to say to him "take my heart of stone." And the one who has given it, but has let their heart become polluted little by little, a bitterness fed by every wound, one look and then a second. John 13:10: the one who is washed needs only to wash his feet. We all need Jesus to purify our hearts.

Key Takeaways

• Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. He does not lower the bar, he raises the demand.
• Neither conservative religion (earning God) nor liberal religion (lowering the bar) lasts: long-term obedience can only come from grace.
• Jesus kept the law perfectly and paid the price of our failures. You do not obey to be loved, you obey because you are loved.
• In raising the bar, Jesus changes the discipline: he gives you the Holy Spirit, the pole that lets you clear it.
• What God wants is your heart. Like the Broad Street pump, he goes after the source rather than the symptoms.

Personal Application

1. Do you see God as a good father who adopted you, or as a boss waiting for your first mistake?
2. In which area do you tend to earn God's favor through your efforts, and in which area have you rather lowered the bar?
3. Which good practice (prayer, Bible reading, church attendance) has become a box to check for you, without your heart being in it?
4. Which bitterness, anger or look have you let pollute your heart little by little, telling yourself you were entitled to it?
5. Are you ready to say to Jesus today: "Take my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh"?

Passages Cited

• Matthew 5:17-20
• Matthew 4:17
• Matthew 4:23-24
• Matthew 5:21-48
• Matthew 23:25
• Ezekiel 36:26-27
• Proverbs 4:23
• John 13:10

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Jesus mean when he says he came to fulfill the law?

According to Loïc Richard, Jesus first kept God's law perfectly, something no one had managed before him. He then paid with his life the price of our failures. Before God, it is as if you had fulfilled the law yourself: you no longer obey to be accepted, you obey because you are accepted.

How can our righteousness surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees?

Not by adding rules. The Pharisees were the role models of their time, but they focused on the outside. Jesus raises the demand and, at the same time, changes the discipline: he gives his Holy Spirit, like the pole in a pole vault, and a new heart from which obedience flows.

How can our heart be transformed?

Loïc Richard offers two paths. First, God's surgery: according to Ezekiel 36:26-27, God takes away the heart of stone, gives a heart of flesh and puts his Spirit within us. Then our responsibility: guarding our heart (Proverbs 4:23) through prayer, the Bible, community, worship, service, simplicity and generosity, not to earn God's favor but to receive his grace.