"Mountain Top Theology" Matthew 4:23-5:1 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Matthew chapter 4, verse 23 through 5-1.

He, being Jesus, went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

So his fame spread throughout all Syria.

They brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them.

And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

And seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain.

When he sat down, his disciples came to him.

This is the first week of school, and so I'm sure the students here are excited to be back.

I thought I would begin with an introduction from Greek mythology, because that's kind of in keeping with the first week of school.

Sisyphus, if you know him, was the founder of Corinth.

He was the founder of the Isthmuth Games, which of course were even more noble and famous in the Olympic Games at their time.

He was a Roman general and Greek king.

He, in founding Corinth, uh, became legendary for starting the Games, and then he decided that his fame had grown so much that he wanted to escape death.

So he crafted a plan.

He would fake his own death, he would convince his wife not to actually bury him, but to go through with the whole, you know, lamenting and all of that, so that when death came to him, he would have a surprise.

And sure enough, death came to capture him, thinking that he had already died, and he sprung up and took death captive instead.

He put death in chains in his own dungeon, and as long as death was in his captivity, nobody on earth could die.

The Greek gods were not comfortable with nobody on earth dying, because if people didn't die, then the gods didn't have any benefit over people.

That tells you a lot about Greek gods, right there.

And so the Greek gods got together and crafted an escape plan, and they sprung at death from Sisyphus's cage.

And now death was free to go and claim its victims once more.

You can guess who death went for first, right?

Uh Sisyphus.

So when he died, he was banished to Hades, and he was given a Herculean task.

Come on.

You guys are not up on Roman history.

That's that's funny, you know.

So at his task, he was supposed to roll a boulder up a mountain in Hades, and he was never able to reach the top.

Right before he'd get to the top, the boulder would collapse on him and roll down.

It was an impossible task.

However, every time he did it, he would get a little bit closer than the time before.

And if you just have a logical understanding of how that would work, if you have an impossible task and you keep getting closer and closer, that doesn't help.

It just increases your frustration exponentially for all time.

That was Sisyphus and his task to roll the boulder up and down the mountain.

We'll return to Sisyphus a few more times this morning.

What we have here in Matthew 4, in the beginning of Matthew 5, though, is Jesus ascending a mountain.

Jesus climbing to the top of a mountain to deliver his sermon on the mount.

If you have been to Galilee, you would be forgiven for asking, what mountain?

Galilee has a bad case of no mountains.

There is the lake there, the Sea of Galilee, as it is called.

At the 6 o'clock on the lake, is where Tiberius, the big city, is, and the Jordan River leaves there.

Jesus, it's never recorded going to Tiberius, even though it's the largest city there.

It was the Roman capital, and the Jews stayed away from it, built on a graveyard.

Most of the Jews shunned it.

There is a mountain kind of above that Mount Arbel, which gives you a great view of the Galilean area.

It's unlikely that Jesus gave this sermon up there.

It's not really near Capernaum or the other areas where he goes to when he's done with the sermon.

If you move along the side, the other side, kind of like the three o'clock side of the lake, that's Assyria.

The decapolis is over there.

That's ten Gentile cities.

That's on that side.

He didn't give the sermon there.

There's really no mountains there.

They call it the mounts, but that's where the pigs filled with demons ran off into the sea.

It's not really a mountain.

You can see mountains off in the distance to the north, kind of at the 12 o'clock of the lake.

That's a, you know, a couple days' journey walking up there.

That's the mountain Jesus would go up to to be transfigured.

That's way up there.

It's not where the sermon was at.

On kind of the 9 o'clock side of the lake is where the plains are.

There's fields there, there's little hills, but they're not even mountains by like Virginia's standards.

They're barely mountains by like Burke's standards, you know.

In fact, when Jesus gives this the sermon that's described here, Luke in Luke 6 says that he gave it in a plane.

And that makes sense.

When you go to the site that people say is where the Sermon on the Mount happened, you know, nobody knows the exact field, but it is certainly an area that has plains in it.

There's openings, and you know, the grass and the wheat grow up in there.

It's the wheat that Jesus cut through often in his ministry.

Matthew 12 says it was his habit to cut to those grain fields, and the disciples would pluck the grain, and it's that's very fitting.

That's the kind of place where it would be.

So why does Matthew call it a mount?

Why does he say he went up a mountain?

Augustine was the first person in church history to take that phrase and use it as the introduction to the whole sermon.

Augustine labeled this, the Sermon on the Mount, after that phrase.

It certainly is a significant theological phrase that the Bible refers to it as the Sermon on the Mount.

It's worth asking why, and I think we'll discover that this morning.

To build up to the Mountain of Jesus, I want to give you a different school lesson this morning.

I want to give you a lesson in topography.

It's the first week of school, so this is going to be fun.

This is theology's topography in three summits.

I have three different summits for you through the Bible to give you the topography of theology here.

How theology is directing how people should relate to God through a series of mountains.

The first of those mountains occurs at creation.

The first mountain is creation, where God separates the dry land from the water, the darkness from the light.

He then forms the earth.

It was formless and void, and when he takes the land aside, he makes a mountain there for mankind to live on.

He makes the whole earth, of course, but specifically he makes a mountain.

It's elevated.

The rivers run from the mountain.

It didn't rain in the Garden of Eden.

The water came up from the ground and then flowed out of the Garden of Eden.

Multiple rivers did, which lets you know that it was elevated.

It's flowing down in different directions, and so it's clearly a mountain.

Garden of Eden is described as a mountain in the Bible.

You don't just need to deduce it from the rivers, but in Ezekiel chapter 28, it says that Eden was a mountain, that Satan was high and lofty in heaven and was thrown out of heaven for his rebellion, and he fell onto God's mountain, the mountain of Eden, it says, where the rivers flowed from it.

Ezekiel 28 · chapter mention

What was that mountain like?

Well, God made it.

It was good, it was perfect, it was holy, it was sinless, but it was capable of change.

Mankind lived on the mountain, Adam and Eve did at least, and whatever children they may have had before the fall, if they had any.

They're living on the mountain.

They were naked and not ashamed.

They lived in sinless fellowship.

It was a paradise.

God gave the condition for this paradise very clearly in Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Yahweh God commanded the man, speaking directly to Adam, you shall eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

From the day you eat of it, you shall die.

This is the commandment given to Adam and Eve.

It's got conditions to it.

Adam does this, he gets this.

If he eats from it, he will die.

Some theologians call this the creation covenant, or the there's different names for it, but it's a command to Adam and to Eve.

As long as they're on God's mountain, they will live forever.

They walk in fellowship with God.

This is that first mountain.

It is a mountain of communion and fellowship with God.

And it stands that way really throughout the rest of the Bible.

When people go to meet with God in the Bible, they often go onto a mountain.

This is where God walked with Adam and Eve.

Elijah, when God wanted to reveal himself to Elijah, brought him up onto a mountain.

When Jesus is transfigured, he goes up onto the mountain.

This is hearkening back to the original mountain where God and mankind dwelt in harmony and in unity and in joy without division, with no sin, no embarrassment.

God walked on earth in this place.

And yet you know how it went.

Adam and Eve did eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

They did eat of it.

And they did die spiritually in that day.

They would later die physically.

In fact, death reigned over all of creation because of that.

People die because of Adam and Eve's sin.

The devil convinced them that God was withholding the tree from them because he didn't want them to be like God.

Another difference between good and evil.

But the truth is, God was withholding that tree because he knew that if they ate of it, they would die.

And so there is still the tree of life in the garden after they they fall and God guards it with angels, banishes them from the garden to keep them from eating of the tree.

Now that they know what sin is and they love sin, they can't eat of the tree of life, or they would live forever in their sinful condition.

So as a mercy, God sends them out of the garden.

And the flood, of course, reorients the earth.

The tree of life is gone.

You're not gonna find a tree being guarded by angels, and if you sneak the fruit, you'll live forever.

That's over.

That mountain has been destroyed.

But ever since then, people want to get back to God.

They try to return to a relationship with God.

They try to find the mountain, they try to work their way back to Him, but they cannot.

Sin has cast us out, paradise has been lost.

That leads to our second mountain.

The mountain of condition.

We saw the mountain of creation, which God made.

The second mountain in the Bible is the mountain of condition.

That's what man makes.

The second mountain is, in a sense, man-made.

It's men who are trying to make their way back to God by their own effort and their own conduct.

People who think they can earn an appearance before God by being a good person.

This is a conditional kind of relationship with God.

If I do this, God will give me this.

If I act in this way, God will reward me.

It's a conditional covenant.

It's a conditional mountain.

This is the mountain that casts a shadow over all of the earth.

It's a basic operating principle, which is, by the way, a true principle.

If you keep God's law perfectly, you can have a relationship with him.

If you do everything God commands you to do, you don't need a mediator, you don't need a savior because you are a good person.

And you can stand before him, you don't need to fear your sin because you have no sin.

If you keep God's law and his commands perfectly, you can climb the mountain of God and be face to face with him.

The problem is that people sin.

And the problem is that our sin separates us from God.

And the problem with this mountain is that once you sin, the rock falls back down, so to speak.

Your righteousness doesn't cancel out your sin.

You have an impossible task.

If you're setting out to be received by God, because you're a good person, God requires perfection.

And it's an available path to you.

You can dedicate your life to appearing before God by being a good person.

But the problem is once you sin, you have closed off that path.

And yet people always try to find it.

They always try to rebuild that mountain.

From the Tower of Babel forward.

I mean, Tower of Babel, they did it literally.

They literally built the mountain up.

They tried to build the tower to reach up to God.

They thought by their own work and their own effort they could approach him rather than being submissive to him.

They thought they'd earn their way back to him.

This is the principle that exists in the world since Adam ate the fruit all the way to this present day.

You want to be pleasing to God, then be perfect.

Do everything he tells you to do.

And of course, Genesis 6, even before the flood, declares that every thought of man's heart is only evil continually.

Our hearts are always rebelling.

They can't climb the mountain.

They get three steps up the mountain and take a water break.

That's our idol-making hearts.

And so God seeks to reveal his covenant more plainly and more clearly to us.

And he does so through Moses.

Moses, if you recall, his birth, was born to be the rescuer of his people.

God had a plan for Moses from the moment he was born.

Pharaoh saw the threat of the Israelites.

I don't think Pharaoh identified Moses in particular as a threat, but Pharaoh saw the Israelites as a threat and sought to wipe them out, wanted all of the newborns put to death.

A maniacal king sought to slaughter all of the infants going after Moses.

God rescues Moses supernaturally by directing him down the in the basket down the river, where he ends up with Moses' own mom.

Is the strange Swiss in that story.

He was rescued by the princess of Egypt, the Pharaoh's own family, raised in Pharaoh's family by Moses' mother.

Moses grew up.

When he was 40 years old, the king, the Pharaoh, tried to kill him again, and Moses had to flee into the Egyptian wilderness, where he remained for another 40 years.

After 40 more years, the Lord appears to Moses and says, The man who sought your life is gone.

Go back and deliver my people.

And so Moses does go back to the Israelites who are in captivity in Egypt out of the Egyptian wilderness.

He is summoned back and he goes and he leads the Israelites to freedom through signs and wonders.

He gathers them to himself through the ten plagues.

He then leads them to the Red Sea, where the sea is parted.

He leads them through the Red Sea to the wilderness where Moses wrestles with the devil for 40 years.

The devil attacks Moses and the Israelites, and the Israelites keep sinning, and God wipes them all out.

I mean, that fight with the devil lasted all the way until even after Moses died, if you remember.

The devil wrestled with an angel to get Moses' body even after he died.

That's described in the book of Jude.

Once all the people are gathered there in the wilderness, God calls Moses up onto the mountain to deliver his new covenant with them.

As he's brought up onto the mountain, of course, God begins speaking to the Israelites.

The million plus Israelites are gathered there on the mountain, and the Israelites don't want to hear from God.

And this is very revealing.

You know, people will often say, Oh, I wish God would speak to me, or I wish God would just, if only God would tell me what to do, then I would be happy.

The Bible is filled with stories of people whom God told exactly what to do, and none of them liked it.

People don't get a vision from the Lord and say, praise Jesus.

They get a vision from the Lord and they're undone.

You know, Isaiah grabs a coal and sears his tongue.

And he's like, I'm a sinful and wicked person.

Elijah quits, Jeremiah quits.

I mean, that's that's normal.

People think that they're gonna die because they saw the Lord.

That's the normal way that that happens.

And so the same is true with Moses.

God has the million plus people that are on the plains, by the way, and he begins speaking to them, and the crowd begins shouting God down.

God's voice is like a trumpet that's blaring to them.

There's tornadoes that are going through the camp, and the people begin begging God to stop talking.

They were rebelling against Moses five minutes ago, but now that God is speaking, they grab Moses and they push him forward, and they're like, He's our leader, talk to him.

They push Moses up on the mountain, and the first thing God tells Moses is, nobody else can touch the mountain.

If even an animal touches the mountain, I want that animal put to death.

Well, Moses hears that and he freaks out.

I mean, if a bunny rabbit can't hop on this mountain, how can Moses walk there?

Hebrews 12 says, So terrible was the sight that Moses overflowed with fear.

It's a very strange uh construction in the Greek there.

His body filled up and overflowed with fear.

He was undone because of fear at the voice of the Lord, and he was the one that had to go talk to him.

And the Lord took Moses up to the top of the mountain and sat him down and delivered to him the law.

This was the law that if the Israelites did it, they would live.

613 commands.

Ten commandments, but one basic principle.

Do this and live.

Do this and live.

The law could be summarized, I think, in this way, Leviticus 18, verse 5.

Leviticus 18:5

You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules.

If a person does them, he shall live by them.

I am Yahweh.

That's the law.

Do what God says, and if you do it, you live.

So the corollary of that law would be if you don't do it, you're not gonna live.

Do you want to approach God on merit?

Then Moses shows you the way.

You want to have a relationship with God because you're a good person?

Moses paves the way for you and says, go on this way.

Here's how you can be right with God.

Do what this says.

And again, this is the basic moral operating principle of the world.

If you want a relationship with God, then be a good person.

You can do it.

It's available to you right up until the moment that you sin.

And how did it go with the Israelites, by the way?

Moses comes down the mountain carrying the law.

What does he find?

They're worshiping, they built a cow out of gold and say, this is Yahweh.

Look at him.

He's a cow.

They're breaking all of the Ten Commandments, assuming it happened on a Saturday.

They're breaking all the Ten Commandments.

Moses breaks the law, you know, throws it down, and God says, I'm gonna make you write it all over again.

That didn't work.

You can't do it and live.

You can't keep the law.

As I mentioned, 613 commands, ten commandments, but one principle, do what God says.

How did it work out for the Israelites?

Ezekiel 20, verse 13.

Ezekiel 20:13

The house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness.

They did not walk according to my statutes, they rejected my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live.

That's a reference back to Ezekiel, or to Leviticus 18.

God said, If you do this, you get to live.

The Israelites didn't do it, they don't get to live.

And so God responds in Ezekiel 20, 13.

I said, I'll pour out my wrath upon them.

That's what happens when you don't keep God's law.

You want to climb the mountain of God by your own works?

This moment you fail, God will pour his wrath out on you.

People love sin and not God.

The command, the heart of God's law is to love him through keeping his commands.

It's a mountain that is just not scalable.

Hebrews 10 puts it this way, Hebrews 10.28.

This is kind of this is the New Testament summary of it.

Anyone who violates the law of Moses dies without mercy.

Remember, Moses brings the law down, breaks it, God says, write it again.

Then God by mercy doesn't, you know, provides him with another copy of it.

They then enact it.

Moses reads the law to the Israelites.

Like the first Saturday rolls around, they find the guy collecting firewood on the Sabbath.

They don't know what to do with the guy.

So they they arrest him and they bring him to Moses.

Moses doesn't know what to do with the guy.

Moses prays to God and says, What do we do with the guy?

And God says, put him to death.

I don't think that until that moment, I don't think the Israelites fully comprehended what they were dealing with.

But it became clear at that moment: whoever violates the law of Moses dies without mercy.

Remember the rich young ruler?

He came to Jesus and said, What must I do to have internal life?

This guy had it all.

He was rich, he was young, he was powerful, politically well connected, like all the things our society elevates.

Handsome, good looks, power.

And he says, What do I have to do to have eternal life?

And Jesus tells him, keep the commandments.

And he says, Oh, I've done this since I was a kid.

That's kind of funny.

I mean, if he's done that since he was a kid, if he's kept the commandments since he was a kid, what does he need Jesus for?

He didn't keep the commandments since he was a kid.

Do you remember how the story ends?

He goes away sad.

Jesus is sad for him, and he's sad because he doesn't have eternal life.

That's the nature of the second mountain.

That's the nature of the law of Moses.

That's the nature of the covenant of works or the commandment, the principle of works.

That's the nature of this.

If you think you can relate to God by being a good person, you cannot.

The law kills.

Paul summarizes it this way, 2 Corinthians 3 verse 6.

2 Corinthians 3:6

The most, I think, perceptive summary of, I know it's a Bible verse, so of course it's perceptive, but the most perceptive summary of the Old Covenant law, 2 Corinthians 3, verse 6, the letter kills.

2 Corinthians 3:6

The letter kills.

These are the words Moses brought down the mountain, engraved on stone, written in parchment, passed down as Torah.

They provoke and they condemn sinners.

They provoke and they condemn sinners.

This is where most people in the world are.

Most people, especially most Americans, even the kind that say, I don't believe in God, but I'm going to heaven when I die because I'm a good person.

Which I think is a large, a large portion of Americans.

It's kind of an American worldview right there.

That's where people are.

God knows that I'm a good person, so I'm going to heaven when I die.

And then there's a sense in which they're at least understanding this condition the right way.

They're at least understanding Moses' mountain the right way.

This is what God revealed to Moses.

If you do it, you will live.

If you do it, you will go to heaven when you die.

But the second you sin, remember Hebrews 10 again, you deserve death.

And so most religions interact with this, understanding the principle, but trying to negate it.

So most other world religions interact with this by saying, yes, you sin and you do bad things, but if you do good things, the good cancels out the bad.

This is very expressed in Islam.

You know, Islam has the five pillars, you act according to those five pillars, you know, act in love and charity and all that.

And all of your love and charity is put on a scale and it is offset against all the wicked things you've done.

And, you know, there's no concept of assurance in Islam.

I mean, in Islam, God is a fair judge and he will weigh your good and away your bad.

And you're doomed if that's your approach.

Because the moment you have anything on the sin side, you deserve to die.

Catholicism.

There's the seven sacraments.

You energize your works with your faith.

Works energized by faith, and you accumulate righteousness.

You do positive works through faith, and those works are credited to you as righteousness, and so you you do something bad, and then you cancel out with penance or something good, and you you store it for yourself righteousness, and if you don't have enough, other saints have excess righteousness that they can impute to you.

It's all these deeds and works that go on your scale, and then but do you understand that once you sin, you're deserving of death.

And it's not canceled out.

When Paul says you break the law of Moses, you deserve to die, he doesn't then say, so go keep the law of Moses.

So if you break the law of Moses once, and then you keep it once, it cancels each other out, and then you keep it twice, you've now accumulated more righteousness than you had before.

That's again the way most, I think, people in the world view righteousness.

You just gotta do more good than bad.

And people think I'm a good person, I'm going to go to heaven when I die because God knows I try to do good.

Yeah, I've messed up and I failed, but you know, I've led a better life than my parents and my kids and my spouse and the other my neighbors.

Man, those people are totally bad.

So God knows.

That's the second mountain.

So many people want to live there.

But it does not lead to salvation.

Since it's the first week of school again, I have a syllogism.

A syllogism.

All the homeschoolers love syllogisms.

Your major premise, you're justified by faith.

The Bible teaches that.

Minor premise, the law is not of faith.

Conclusion: you cannot be justified by the law.

Keeping this second mountain, climbing Mount Sinai, cannot justify you.

Because the rock will always roll back down on top of you.

You think you can be, you think you can be a good person and earn your way into heaven?

Great, you made it all day without sinning.

Good job.

Now tomorrow.

It's an impossible task.

And I know what some of you are thinking.

I can see it in your eyes.

Some of you have enough good theology, enough dispensationalism in you to say, hey, I'm not under the law of Moses.

I'm not a Jew.

The Torah wasn't given to me.

I'm not held responsible for this.

This doesn't apply to me.

I thought you would say that.

So did the Apostle Paul.

Paul writes this, Romans 2 verse 14 When Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they're none of the law.

Romans 2:14

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.

And the conscience bear witness.

They have conflicting thoughts.

So what Paul's saying here is, okay, fine, you're not a Jew.

Moses didn't walk down the mountain and hand you the Ten Commandments.

He didn't hand you the 613 commands.

Nevertheless, somebody hits your car and drives away, you get upset.

Your taxes get raised in what you consider an unjust manner.

You're like, taxation is stuffed, yo.

Well, who told you stealing was wrong?

Where'd you learn that?

Someone steals your wallet?

You file a police report.

Who told you stealing was wrong?

Someone punches you, you want the person in jail.

Well, who told you punching was wrong?

Where'd you pick that up at?

So the moment you get upset about those kind of things that are injust in the world, you condemn yourself by the law of Moses.

You condemn yourself because stealing is wrong and murder is wrong and adultery is wrong and coveting is wrong, and you know those things.

And once you know those things, you are outed as a lawbreaker.

You're outed as a lawbreaker.

And so the whole world stands condemned.

This is the futility of the covenant of works, this principle that is at work in the world, that you can reproach God if you're a good person.

Yeah, it's true, but you're not a good person.

And so the result of this operating principle is described in Isaiah 24.

Every word in this verse is so important.

Isaiah 24, verse 5.

Isaiah 24:5

The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants.

The whole earth.

Not just Israel, not the wilderness where they worship the cow, not Palestine when they crossed the Jordan River and set up Jerusalem.

Not those places, the whole earth.

It's defiled by the sin of the people who are on it because they've transgressed the laws.

They've violated the statutes.

They've broken, notice the phrase here, the everlasting covenant.

This is going back to the first mountain.

This is going back to Adam and Eve.

This is going back to paradise where there was the simple principle, obey God and live.

That was broken.

And so now the whole earth is plunged into spiritual darkness.

The phrase in Isaiah 24, verse 6, a curse devours the earth.

Isaiah 24:6

It's the curse from Genesis 3.

Its inhabitants suffer for their guilt.

Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are scorched.

And few men are left.

This is that principle.

You think you can work your way to God?

You will fail.

You think you'll go to heaven because you're a good person?

You're not.

Because of Adam's sin, you're not because of your sin.

And if you're honest, you recognize the moment you've sinned, you've confessed yourself as a sinner.

And the idea is, yeah, but the whole world is a sinner.

Then by that standard, that's exactly right.

That's exactly right.

The whole world, everybody who descends from Adam, is indeed a sinner.

This leads to the third mountain, the new creation.

So we saw the mountain of creation, which God made.

We saw the mountain of condition, which man tries to make.

Moses brought up on top of it given the law.

And now we see the mountain of new creation.

So now we're in Matthew 4, and Jesus here is beginning his ministry, and you're supposed to pick up on that he is just like Moses, that's made expressly clear in chapter 5, verse 1.

The phrase he went up on the mountain, it's an unusual phrase in Greek.

It sounds normal in English, but it's an unusual phrase in Greek.

It's only three times in the Old Testament.

Both times it's about Moses going up on the mountain to get the law.

Every Jewish reader, Matthew's written to Jews, every Jewish reader would associate this with a parallel with Moses.

Jews would read Gospel's Matthew, Matthew's gospel through the lens of Moses.

It's all over the place.

Moses was, the king sought to put Moses to death when he was born by killing all the babies.

Same thing happens to Jesus.

God supernaturally rescues Moses, same things happen to Jesus.

God tells Moses, someone's gonna kill your life, you better run to the wilderness, same thing happens to Jesus.

Moses spends time in the wilderness of Egypt, and then God says, the one seeking your life is gone, go back, same thing happens to Jesus.

The angel goes to Joseph, remember, and says, the one seeking your life is gone, go back.

So if the scripture would be fulfilled, out of Egypt I called my son.

Same thing happened to Moses, same thing happens to Israel, same thing happens to Jesus.

Moses comes through the water into the promised land.

Jesus goes through baptism, the water of baptism into the promised land.

The Jordan River, in both cases, by the way, when the Israelites enter the promised land, it's through the Jordan.

Jesus baptized there.

Moses wrestles with the devil for 40 years in the wilderness.

Jesus goes to the wilderness, fights the devil for 40 days, is triumphant.

And now, after all of that, Jesus goes up onto the mountain.

He gathers his people next to him.

That's in verses 23 and 24, and it's worth going through this to see the kind of people he has.

Remember, Moses gathered his people on the plains, and he gathered them by the ten plagues.

He gathered them by the wonder of the Red Sea crossing.

Look at how Jesus gathers his people.

He went throughout all of Galilee, so not just not just Jews.

Remember?

Back in chapter 4, verse 13, it describes this is uh verse 15, it describes this is Galilee of the Gentiles, saying Jesus went here because the Gentiles were there.

So Jesus is going to the Gentiles.

He's also ministering to the Jews, verse 23 says, by teaching in their synagogues, he's proclaiming the gospel.

That's one word in the Greek Yungalitzo, it's like a volume proclamation.

You're proclaiming good news.

Jesus is preaching the good news of the kingdom.

He's healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

He's, in this sense, undoing the curse.

Disease and affliction is in the world because of the fall.

Sometimes people experience suffering in this world because of their own sin.

But honestly, the majority of physical suffering in this world is not because of your own sin.

The majority of physical suffering in this world is because of Adam's sin and the curse.

We live in a fallen world.

We live in a fallen world.

And so Jesus is coming and he's undoing the curse.

He's healing every disease, every affliction.

His fame spread throughout all of Syria.

Syria is the far side of the Sea of Galilee, by the way, opposite of Capernaum, where Jesus was headquartered.

Today it is modern-day Syria.

They brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains.

And then you get this list here, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them.

That's not just a laundry list here.

That's not a grocery list of miracles.

These are actual people in Matthew's gospel.

You probably know them if you think about it.

The man oppressed by demons.

Do you remember him?

He was out on the Gentile side.

Had so many demons in him that filled the pigs.

Or there was the guy in the synagogue in Capernaum, oppressed by demons.

Remember, he was in the synagogue and he cried out.

And Jesus banishes the demon from the guy in the synagogue in Capernaum.

Or in Magdala.

Mary was in the synagogue in Magdala, where Jesus visited that synagogue, and Mary was being attacked by seven demons.

And Jesus banished them.

Epileptics.

Think of the boy later on in Matthew's gospel who's thrown down in fits.

And the disciples can't help him.

And Jesus says this kind of only comes out by prayer.

Or paralytics coming up in Matthew.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

Chapter 8, or chapter 9, the hole's going to be made in the roof, and the paralytics are going to be lowered down to the roof.

These are real people that Matthew knows.

It's not just a list.

He healed them.

He heals Peter's mother-in-law in Capernaum and not long after the sermon.

He's doing all this, and great crowds followed him.

Luke says the crowds are following him, trying to touch him.

So this is a chaotic scene.

The sick are pouring in from the Decapolis, which is ten Gentile cities.

Syria, modern-day Jordan, and Lebanon, beyond the Jordan, is called, it's called beyond the Jordan in the Bible, but it's modern-day Jordan.

Lebanon, which is the source of the Jordan River, which flows into the Sea of Galilee.

Even Jews from Jerusalem are leaving Jerusalem and going out to Jesus.

Part of the crowd is Pharisees trying to catch Jesus in a sin.

We learned that in Matthew 12.

The Pharisees are following him.

In Matthew 12, he's cutting through the grain fields in Capernaum.

And his disciples pluck the grain and the Pharisees confront him.

I mean, that's this crowd.

An insane scene.

Matthew in chapter 25, or in chapter 4, verse 25, just says great crowds followed him.

But again, Luke is like telling you everybody's trying to press onto him and touch him and Pharisees confronting him.

I mean, it's nuts.

And he goes from Galilee, the decapitus, Jerusalem, Judea, beyond the Jordan.

That's all those nations now.

It even stretches into modern-day Egypt.

Those people are just pouring over to Galilee, which is Galilee, is nowhere.

But they're flooding into the place.

Jesus has attracted this crowd.

Moses attracted those who were in slavery in Egypt and bondage and led them into the wilderness.

Who does Jesus attract?

This is an important question for you to think through.

Because if you're sitting at the feet of Jesus when you're reading his word, what kind of person are you?

Jesus attracts to him the sinners, the broken, the demonically oppressed, the sick, the afflicted, the poor.

Missing from this list is like the leadership and the who's who.

You're going to find a centurion running out to him in chapter 8, but he's like running out to him for somebody else.

Now Jesus draws to himself the needy.

And Jesus gets his crowd to him.

Verse 2, he says he's going to open his mouth and teach them.

That's a different word.

Teaches Didasco.

That's the word from the Great Commission, going to all the world, making disciples, teaching them Didasco.

You're teach teaching his instruction.

Disciple means you're a student.

That's a different word than it was in Matthew 4 earlier.

Earlier, Jesus was Yungalitzo.

He's preaching the gospel to the crowds.

But now he's got his disciples.

Now the sick and the hurting and the needy, those people, he's drawing from them.

They're his disciples, and he's going to bring them together.

He's going to teach them.

But to teach them, Matthew says he goes up on the mountain.

Again, this is an intentional illusion after everything that's gone before.

An intentional illusion to Moses.

Jesus is going to usher in a second commandment.

A different covenant, a new covenant.

Not like the old covenant that Moses brought on the mountain.

Not like the covenant of works that you do this and you live.

Jesus is going to usher in a totally different commandment, not of works, but of faith.

It is opposite in so many ways of the old operating principle that you have to be a good person to appear before God.

That's the Sermon on the Mount.

It turns everything upside down.

Even with how it begins.

We'll look at this next week, but it begins with you've got to go low, you've got to be broken, you've got to be humble, you've got to mourn your own sin.

That is not how the law began.

The way you climb this mountain is by lamenting your inability.

The way you climb this mountain is by throwing yourself at Jesus' feet.

That's how you get up this mountain.

He better carry you.

It's totally different.

It's the new creation.

Anyone who is in Christ, behold, they're a new creation.

The old is gone.

That's why Matthew says Jesus went up on a mountain.

It's to make the point that what he's doing here is like Moses, only better.

You know, all the prophets prophesied about Moses.

All the prophets opened the scrolls and spoke about the law.

Jesus opens his own mouth.

He doesn't bring a scroll up here.

Jesus here is rescuing his people from the slavery of sin, and he rescues them by preaching something different, better, than the old covenant.

They can be saved, they can be rescued through faith.

That's why John says, John chapter 1, the law came through Moses, but grace and truth come through Jesus Christ.

John 1 · chapter mention

You have Moses' mountain and Jesus' mountain.

You want to be a good person?

Try to climb Moses' mountain.

Let me know how it goes.

Moses' mountain had Moses as the mediator.

Jesus' mountain has Jesus as the mediator.

Moses' mountain required perfect righteousness.

Jesus' mountain offers you an alien righteousness, a righteousness that's not yours, that Jesus fulfills in your place and gives it to you.

Moses' mountain offers life based upon your works.

Jesus' mountain offers life based upon your faith.

Moses' mountain makes you aware of your own sin.

Jesus' mountain forgives you for your sin.

Moses' mountain had a law written on stone.

Jesus' mountain has a law written on your own heart.

Moses' mountain convicts you through your conscience and law that is all over nature.

Jesus' mountain is not seen through nature.

The glory of God is seen in all of creation and it condemns you.

The gospel is not seen through all of creation.

It's seen through the words of Christ, but it saves you.

Moses' mountain would destin you to failure.

Jesus' mountain is only fulfillment, that he fulfills the law on your behalf.

Moses' mountain is all about the blood of bulls and goats.

Jesus' mountain is the blood of the lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

Moses' mountain has Abel's blood that cries out for vengeance.

Jesus' mountain has a blood better than the blood of Abel that cries out, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

Moses' mountain, you have priests dressed in their elaborate garb.

Jesus' mountain, you have the firstborn enrolled in heaven, dressed in festal garments, Hebrews 12 says.

Moses' mountain, the law comes through angels.

Jesus' mountain, the angels serve the Lord who brings the law.

The second mountain that brought the law of Moses only brings condemnation.

But this third mountain, the mountain of Christ, it brings life through faith.

C.S.

Lewis's book, Till We Have Faces, is one of my favorite Lewis books.

It's the last one he wrote in his life.

Before he died, he wrote it with his wife, parts of it even.

Incredible story.

But it has Sisyphus in it.

Only in his telling of it, it's this lady who's having these dreams of rolling the rock and she's condemned to it, and she can't get out of it, and it's vexing her her whole life.

And then what changes in this book is she realizes that it's only in her dreams she's rolling the rock.

It seems so real, but it's only in her dreams she's rolling the rock.

If she opens her eyes and with faith sees what the world does not see, then the task is gone.

I love that imagery because that is how people live.

They want to roll the rock.

They want to earn their way to heaven.

You can't do it.

You feel condemned by it.

But then you can open your eyes and see that it has been done in your place.

It has been done in your place.

Of course, there are other mountains in the Bible.

Jesus is going to return to one, as I said earlier.

He's going to climb another mountain for his transfiguration.

He's going to go to another mountain, Mount Zion, where he's going to be crucified.

This is the same mountain that Abraham went up, by the way.

God told Abraham, go up the mountain, bind your son, and it's on the mountain that the angel stops.

The voice of God stops Abram from sacrificing his son and says he'll provide a sacrifice.

That's the exact same mountain that Jesus walks up, where he is crucified.

Jesus resurrects from the dead, goes up another mountain, calls his disciples to him, ascends into heaven from the mountain Bethany.

But of course, the Bible closes with this scene: Revelation 21.

Come now.

The end of all of human history, John's vision.

The one speaking talks to him.

Come, I'll show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.

This is us, the church in heaven.

He carries me away in the spirit to the great and high mountain and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.

If you try to build back this mountain yourself, you will fail.

But if you throw yourself at the feet of Christ, he has climbed the mountain for you, and when you fall asleep in this life, you will open your eyes in the next, and you will behold the high mountain of God, with God coming down to meet you.

God, what a powerful picture of your compassion towards lost sinners.

We like sheep have gone astray, each to their own end.

But you have sought us and you bring us to yourself.

Lord, as we wander in this world lost, we're so thankful that the light of Christ shines from the hill and shows us where to find you.

Lord, I pray for every person here, every set of ears, every heart.

I pray.

I beg you that there'd be nobody here today who thinks they're going to heaven because they're a good person.

Disabuse us of that notion, Lord.

Help us see our own sin.

That we who have sinned deserve death.

Rescue us from the curse of the law and give us the glory of eternal life, not through our own effort, but because Jesus has climbed the mountain in our place.

We ask this in his name.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.