How do I live a life that is pleasing to God?
Throughout human history, in one way or another, people have asked this most-basic-of-all-religious questions. The gospels record how different ones approached Jesus with this question. A lawyer, one whose life was built around understanding and teaching the Law of Moses, asked him, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:36). On another occasion, another lawyer asked, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25). A wealthy young man asked the same question: “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16). Each one was asking the same basic question: What did he need to do to be pleasing to and acceptable to God so that he could receive God’s ultimate blessing of eternal life.
What does a life that is pleasing to God look like?
How one answers this question shapes one’s religious life. It determines the kind of religious life he embraces as well as what religious practices he incorporates into his life. Ultimately, it defines the quality of his spiritual life and, thereby, determines how he views and relates to others. At its core, how one answers this question reflects how one views God (i.e., one’s understanding of the nature of God and the ways of God).
As would be expected, this question has given birth to a multitude of different answers. One need only look at the number of different religions in the world or the number of different Christian denominations to see the widely diverging answers that have been given. Each religious group has its own unique answer to the question. Their answer is seen in the religious culture they have developed, in their religious beliefs, and in the religious practices they follow. Most of the answers focus upon what to believe (foundational truths the group embraces), how to live (expected behavior and moral standards), and how to worship.
Interestingly, many people—having never consciously asked the question or considered how to answer it—unquestioningly follow the teachings and practices handed down to them by their religious community or family. They assume what they have been taught is “right.” For others, however, the question is very much at the forefront of their minds as they seek to grow in their understanding of spiritual truth and, then, seek to live out the truth they understand. Most spiritual pilgrims who are serious about their spiritual lives have consciously wrestled with this haunting question.
The question—how do I live a life that is pleasing to God—is a central question addressed in the Gospel of Matthew, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7). The gospel uses the term righteousness to address the question. A life that is pleasing to God is marked by righteousness.
The Gospel of Matthew—and the Sermon on the Mount in particular—contrasts two different answers to this question and, thereby, two different understandings of what constitutes righteousness. One was offered by the scribes and Pharisees in their teachings and practices; the other was found in the teachings and ministry of Jesus. The contrast between these two positions is captured by Jesus’s statement recorded in the Sermon on the Mount, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), Jesus described the kind of righteousness that exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees. He taught a kind of spirituality that fulfilled the law (Matthew 5:17), bringing the law’s intent into reality (Matthew 5:21–48). As such, it exceeded the righteousness of Pharisaic Judaism. Indeed, it was altogether a different kind of righteousness.
In this book, I use the terms authentic spirituality and healthy spirituality to speak of the righteousness Jesus described. In presenting Jesus’s different kind of righteousness, the gospel clarifies for us what authentic, healthy spirituality is and what it looks like in one’s life. Living out of an authentic or healthy spirituality is what enables us to live a life that is pleasing to God.
In addition to this central question, a secondary, yet related, question is addressed by the gospel: When does religion become life-depleting rather than life-giving, harmful rather than healthy? What does religion look like when it is sick? What are the defining characteristics of a toxic religion?
The Gospel of Matthew, specifically in the Sermon on the Mount, speaks to the age-old question which every generation of spiritual pilgrims must answer: What does it mean to live a life that is pleasing to God? To state the question differently: What is authentic spiritually? What does authentic spirituality look like in one’s life?
The teachings of Jesus contained in the Sermon on the Mount answer our questions. They provide us with a guide to authentic, healthy spirituality. They, along with Jesus’s other teachings in the gospel, help us avoid unhealthy religious attitudes and practices that appeal to our egocentric nature but undermine authentic spirituality. His teachings instruct us as we seek to live as his disciples—the followers of Jesus—today.