Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text is the Holy Gospel reading which was just read.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in our Gospel reading from Christ's Sermon on the Mount, He begins one of His statements in a way that He was fond of doing: "verily, I say to you"; in other words, "truly, I say to you." The Greek is literally, "Amen, I say to you." Jesus put His "Amen" at the beginning, because He is on the giving end of the Truth, not the receiving end like we are. And because He is "the Way and the Truth and the Life," we are to receive all of Christ's Words as Truth, and then we say "Amen" to what He has said.

But Satan is called "the Deceiver" in Scripture, for good reason: he hates the Truth, and so the Deceiver wants to get us all to question and reject Christ's Word as a bunch of lies. Jesus said, "[The devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies". This morning in particular we will focus in on some lies that Satan would have us believe about God's Law-the Ten Commandments-the commandments that we heard read in our Old Testament reading.

The first lie Satan would have us believe about God's Law is the idea that we can obey God's Ten Commandments completely. This is what some of the Pharisees thought, but the only way they could pull it off was by ignoring God's intent for the commandments and instead watering down the commandments to make them easier. So, for example, they assumed that the Fifth Commandment not to murder could be fulfilled simply by not murdering someone, which isn't a terribly hard thing to avoid doing. But they watered down the commandment by ignoring its original intent.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus corrects the Pharisees by showing them the Fifth Commandment's full meaning. Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment." Jesus says that even being angry against another Christian brother makes you subject to judgment by God. In other words, uncontrolled anger also is a sin. So Jesus dispels the first lie about God's Law, the idea of Pharisees that we can keep God's Law perfectly without sinning. No, as St. Paul later would say, "None is righteous, no, not one!". Jesus makes this abundantly clear by filling out the Law, showing that even anger breaks the Fifth Commandment, lust breaks the Sixth, gossip breaks the Eight, and discontent breaks the Ninth and Tenth, and so on. We see that Jesus has filled out the Law by showing that it is impossible for us to keep perfectly-we are all sinners.

Many of the Pharisees probably would have acknowledged that they were sinners, but they would have gone on to say that they could count on God to forgive them if they just would try harder at keeping God's Law. That was the precise teaching of the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation-"sure, you are a sinner, but if you just do the best you can to obey God's Law, He will forgive you and make up for your failings."

But this attitude captures the second lie about God's Law-the lie that God's Law was given in order to get us right with Him. It is a lie that the Ten Commandments can lead us to righteousness and innocence in God's sight. And here we need to realize that we are not just sinners, but we are helpless, poor, miserable-unable to do anything to save ourselves. Jesus makes this clear when He says to us, "I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees cannot lead someone into the kingdom of heaven, eternal life. They attempted to be right with God by doing His Law, but time and again God's Word condemns this idea. The notion that God's Law can lead to righteousness is a lie, because our sinfulness alone is enough to damn us; we cannot make up for our sin somehow; we cannot work off our debt. St. Paul wrote, "If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe". Salvation is by faith alone, not by works of the Law.

So it is a lie that God's Law can make us right with Him, and therefore it is true that we are helpless to save ourselves. But the wonderful grace of God tells us that it is also a lie to believe that God's Law still condemns you. That's right, Satan accuses you, saying, "You sinner, God's Law condemns you to the hell of fire for you disobedience, and you have no hope!" But Satan's accusation is a lie, because God's only-begotten Son has taken your place under the Law to save you. Jesus said in our Gospel reading, "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." Only Jesus could step into our place and fulfill the Law for us. That is, He not only made the Law more difficult to keep, but He fulfilled it in the sense of keeping it perfectly for us, since we couldn't do it!

The God-Man Jesus Christ went into the River Jordan to place Himself under the Law, to take our sins onto His back even though He was born without sin, and He never committed any of His own. John the Baptist didn't want to baptize the sinless Jesus with a baptism intended for sinners, but Jesus said, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness". All righteousness means that Jesus repented of all of your sins in His Baptism, He lived a perfectly righteous life according to God's Law, and then on the cross His suffering and death for your sins achieved a reconciliation between you and God so that you are now righteous and holy in God's sight.

And in your Baptism, you have been clothed with that righteousness greater than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. You have been clothed with a righteousness that grants you entrance into the kingdom of heaven, because in Baptism you have been born again by water and the Spirit. As we heard in the Epistle reading, you have been buried with Christ in Baptism so that you are now dead to sin and alive to God. St. Paul wrote, "Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus".

In Christ Jesus you are not dead in your sins, but alive to God. And so when the devil lies to you and says, "You haven't done enough to be saved; you haven't obeyed God's Law; there is no way you can go to heaven," then you can respond with the truth; you can say, "Devil, be gone! Christ fulfilled God's Law for me, and He died for every last one of my sins on the cross, and He washed away every all of my guilt in my Baptism into Christ's death and resurrection." Don't believe the devil's lies when he tells you that your sins against God's Law are too big to be forgiven. "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" If the world's sins are on His back, then your sins are there, too, being answered for by that man on the cross.

And so you should not have that nagging feeling of not having done enough, that nagging, burdensome guilt that so many Christians have because they think they are still living under God's Law, rather than under God's grace in Christ in the Gospel. I'm sure you know the feeling of leaving for a trip and already being a hundred miles away in the car or 30,000 feet in the air, yet you still having that nagging feeling that you didn't turn off the faucet, or that you forgot to pack something important. That uneasy feeling of incompleteness is what so many Christians feel in their consciences-they think that they simply haven't done enough repenting, or they haven't felt sorry enough, or they haven't made amends the way they should. But listen to Jesus when He says, "I came to fulfill the Law." When Christ says that He has fulfilled the Law for you, He wants to free you from that lie that you haven't done enough. He says, "Truly, I say to you, I have done it all in your place! In Baptism, your sins have become Mine, and My righteousness has been made yours!" That is the truth for you!

But there still are three more lies about God's Law that we must consider. First, there are some who will say, "Jesus came to set us free from the Law, and so we don't need God's Law anymore." This lie is called antinomianism, and it fails to properly distinguish between our consciences and our earthly lives. In your conscience, you should always know that Christ has fulfilled the Law for you, but on the other hand, God's Law still applies to your outward conduct in this earthly life. Jesus said in our Gospel reading, "I came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it." The Law is still in effect; God still expects us to follow it. Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished."

Jesus says that the Law of God, the Ten Commandments, will remain whole until the Last Day. God threatens wrath and punishment against all who break His commandments, and so the coercive use of His Law is necessary to maintain outward order in the world and to discipline our sinful flesh. God's Law is good and necessary for the outward ordering of society, for the discipline of home and public life.

But another lie about God's Law is to say that Christians cannot learn positive things from the Ten Commandments. Yes, it is true that in our relationship with God, we are free from the Law; that is, the Law cannot justify us before Him. But in fact, He calls us into this very situation under grace in order that we may now begin to delight in His Law, in His Ten Commandments. St. Paul wrote, "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." So even Christians can learn what good works God desires for them to do by studying and pondering God's Law. The Holy Spirit leads us to delight in God's Law, as Psalm 112:1 says, "Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments!" And the Small Catechism explains, "God promises grace and every blessing to all who keep these commandments. Therefore we should also love and trust in Him and gladly do what He commands." St. Paul also described this when he said, "For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being"). That is, according to his new, faithful man that had been created in Baptism, he loved God's Law and wanted to follow it and do good works, and so this is what we are to do as well.

But as I am sure you have experienced, Paul recognized the tension involved in this sort of life. He did not believe the lie that he could ever become perfectly pure and law-abiding in this life. He did not believe the lie that God's Law can ever be used without it also accusing us and reminding us of our sinfulness. So he recognized his continuing sinfulness, and therefore his continued need for repentance and faith and for continuing to receive God's grace in Christ Jesus. Paul said, "For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. [That is, Paul saw that there is a battle going on between our old sinful flesh, and our new, holy man created in Christ in our Baptism. He said,] Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."

When God's Law accuses you, then look to Jesus. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, who said, "I came to fulfill the Law." He did it for you. Our victory is in Him alone, and in your Baptism into His death and resurrection. And so we say along with St. Paul, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.