Sermon: Laying Down The Law?
Date: August 10, 2025
Scripture: Matthew 5:17-20
Speaker: Paul Walker

Jesus insists he’s come to fulfill the Old Testament, and fulfill it completely. He hyperbolically says “not one letter or stroke of the pen will pass away until I fulfill it.” He’s going to fulfill the law in a way that goes beyond the righteousness of the Pharisees, not by literally adhering to every letter or stroke of the pen—something Jesus obviously didn’t do. Jesus fulfilled the law by embodying the ultimate intention of the law. Jesus assumes God’s ultimate goal in giving the law wasn’t to simply get people to comply with behavioural rules. The ultimate goal behind the law was to establish people in “righteousness,” which means being people of justice and right-relatedness, or love. In his life, death and resurrection, Jesus illustrates a love for us so that we can live in it. (1 Jn 3:16-17) Our most central job is to receive this love, yield to this love, be transformed by this love, and then imitate this love. It is only through becoming people of Jesus-shaped love do we fulfill the intention of the law.

Desired Outcome: To explore how following Jesus is the fulfillment of what the law and the prophets longed to see.

Quotable Quote: “Some think of Jesus as just a great Jewish teacher without much of a revolution. Others see him as so revolutionary that he left Judaism behind altogether and established something quite new. Jesus holds the two together. He was indeed offering something utterly revolutionary, to which he would remain faithful; but it was, in fact, the reality toward which Israel's whole life and tradition had pointed." - N.T. Wright, Matthew For Everybody