This chapter begins the longest of Jesus’ teachings recorded in the Bible. The standard of righteousness being taught seems unattainable! In fact, Jesus says that people need to be more righteous than a Pharisee. The Pharisees were people who tried to keep all of the rules in the Old Testament, or least look like they did. There were 613 laws in the Old Testament, but they even kept laws they made up themselves just to make sure they didn’t accidentally break one of God’s laws. To everyone but Jesus they looked like very good people. When Jesus said you had to be better than a Pharisee to enter God’s kingdom, that would have been disheartening news! Jesus points out that sin can just be thinking something that’s wrong and isn’t limited to just doing wrong things.
Sometimes people don’t think they need Jesus. They think they are good enough on their own. Jesus makes it clear that we cannot be good enough to enter his kingdom. We need forgiveness.