Pray the word with David Platt is a resource from Radical.net.

Matthew, chapter 5, verse 20.

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,

you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. What a verse. This is Jesus and the sermon on the

mountain. Talking about the people who did everything they possibly knew to do,

to try to be righteous. The scribes and the Pharisees, they studied God's law,

and they tried to obey it to a T. They even went so far as to interpret God's law. Okay,

if God's Word says this about the Sabbath and we don't do this, this, this, and this, and this,

we make sure we live in this way on that day and all these details and ways that went beyond

even God's law. But you know, these scribes and Pharisees for good reason, get a bad rap.

As we read through the New Testament, we see Jesus denunciation of them, but we can easily lose

side of the fact that these were the respected religious leaders of the day. And Jesus just said,

as he starts a section of the sermon on the mountain, that unless your righteousness exceeds theirs,

you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. Meaning they're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven

because they need a righteousness that exceeds even all that they do. And in this way, the

sermon on the mountain is setting up the reality that we know in the gospel. None of us

is righteous. What Paul will later say in Romans chapter three is he's quoting from the Old

Testament. There is no one righteous, not even one. No one who understands. No one who seeks God.

We are all sinful people who have unrighteousness in us. And this leads us to the glorious reality

of the gospel that we need the righteousness of Jesus credited to us. And second Corinthians,

chapter five tells us this is exactly what happens through faith in Jesus. God has made him who

had no sin to be sinned for us in order that we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus

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