Matthew 5:20 “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Finding good role models is a concern people have always had. We think we have one. Then they go and do something stupid. Some budding actor or actress seems to set a good example so long as they star on a show on the Disney channel. Then they outgrow Disney and go mainstream. Suddenly they are in trouble with the law. They develop a drug problem. In no time they have gone through three failed marriages.

Some great athlete seems to be a pillar in the community. Then skeletons come tumbling out of his closet from his college days or his private life.

Some politician… well, come on now. I know we do it, we treat them as role models, but what were we thinking? Making them role models must be the result of a temporary lapse of sanity. In all these cases, we might think that our problem finding good role models stems from our fascination with celebrities, but it goes deeper than that.

The people of Jesus’ day thought they had good role models in the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. We might be surprised to hear Jesus mention them in connection with role models. For us, the term “Pharisee” is never associated with “good role model.” But that is largely due to the exposé Jesus made of their fatal flaws during his ministry. These were people whose attempts to live the righteous life were exceptional. They went above and beyond in trying to keep God’s law. Jesus later criticizes them for showing off with their very public fasting and prayers and gifts to the poor. But realize that this means the Pharisees had a reputation for being men of deep faith who prayed a lot and regularly gave substantial gifts to charity.

That Jesus mentions them negatively must have shocked his original audience. If these men weren’t righteous, then who? How could anyone hope to be righteous enough? Actually, this was Jesus’ point. No role model, no Pharisee, no ordinary average Joe makes the grade.

We tend to be satisfied with pretty good, close enough, almost perfect. But even if our role models have managed to hide all their flaws and never betray their imperfections, they all fall short. So do we. Jesus was not teaching something new to the people of his day, just something they hadn’t heard in a long time. “There is no one righteous, not even one,” David wrote in the psalms. “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins,” his son Solomon wrote maybe a half century later in Ecclesiastes. God has set his bar for righteousness far higher than anyone thought. At the end of this chapter Jesus gives the true standard for righteous living from the only role model who matters. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

The stakes couldn’t be higher, either. “You will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” At stake are not community standards or the corruption of little boys and girls. This is a matter of life or death, heaven or hell. Jesus doesn’t tell us directly here what the solution is. At this point he was simply helping his audience to find their appetite for it. And if anyone still thought it was a matter of trying harder or doing better, he knocks over one false standard of righteous behavior after another in the verses to come.

If we can’t do it ourselves then, there is only one solution. Only a borrowed righteousness will do. Only a just life lived by someone else will satisfy God.

That is exactly why Jesus came. He tells us verses earlier in verse 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.” And he did. When we set aside the false standards set by role models who are only pretty good, merely mostly perfect, then we are ready to rethink righteousness. Then we are ready to see that we need a substitute, a pinch-hitter, a surrogate or replacement before God if we want him to consider us righteous.

And Jesus is the perfect man for the job. He not only lived righteous. He shares his perfect righteousness with us. In him our righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and anyone else who thinks they are holy. He is more than a role model. His own life is the source of the righteousness we need.