Matthew 5:17 - ”Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

How does Jesus “fulfill” the Law? Is he the one the Law was pointing to? Is that it?

People sometimes write things like, “the Sermon on the Mount presents a stark challenge.”

And it’s a challenge we can’t meet on our own.

Adam and Eve couldn’t keep the one, single command God gave them (don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil).

The Israelites couldn’t keep the Ten Commandments from Sinai…

…much less the 613 total commands in the Old Testament.

And these commands were given not as onerous legislation but because they captured either the full sense of how God intended humans to live or were physical analogues to later spiritual realities.

Laws are required standards. Thousands are on the books in city, state, and national governments.

Can we keep every law without any help from anyone? No! We get help to stay in compliance - lawyers, accountants, inspectors, etc. They help us stay in line.

What if Jesus came to fulfill the Law in the literal sense - he “fully filled” the requirements, obeying it all, always, without sin because of the Holy Spirit’s power working in him.

The Spirit is the Helper:

John 14:26 - But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things

And he was promised long ago:

Ezekiel 36:26-27 - And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

The Spirit will help. He will cause us to walk in God’s statutes and cause us to be careful to obey his rules.

The Spirit did this in Jesus!

Luke 3:22 - “and the Holy Spirit descended on [Jesus] in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

It’s been said “sin” is an archery term meaning “to miss the mark or standard.” The Holy Spirit takes perfect aim every time! It’s maybe more rightly called “dead aim” because he destroys:

Romans 8:13b - if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

The Spirit does the killing. But if he doesn’t and we live on our accord, giving in to all the desires of the flesh (and that’s all sin - not coded language for “special, major” sins), we get beat up by it day after day and, if we care enough, we sometimes work so hard to try and overcome it:

Matthew 11:28 - Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Rest from what? From only the hustle-bustle of life? Or is it also from the assault of sin and Pharisees who load us up with rules and responsibilities that go even beyond what’s written, none of which we can achieve on our own:

Matthew 23:4 - They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

Jesus, give us rest! Holy Spirit, put to death sin around us and in our flesh and give us rest! The battle is yours. Fulfill the Law and Sermon on the Mount in us… Cause us to walk in all your great ways!