Seeing Jesus: Exploring the Sermon on the Mount

I know. Yes. Oh, I'll get an air gun. That would be great.

I don't think I should do that. Well, you guys are having fun. It's good. I don't know.

Okay. There it is. There's the lull. There's the lull. I'm going to grab that while I can.

Okay. Well, we are back. We are back in the book of Matthew this morning.

We're picking up in chapter five and there are Bibles in front of the seats in front of you.

So if you don't have a Bible with you, I'm going to recommend that you you have

it with you, because we're going to ask you to do some reading.

Not out loud, don't worry.

Well, one person's going to do some reading out loud.

But yeah, just to follow along. So we're in the book of Matthew,

the gospel of Matthew, and we're picking up in chapter five.

So that's where you want to get first book of the New Testament, the gospel of Matthew.

And just to get ourselves situated, we're kind of doing this rolling series.

We did about five weeks through through the first four chapters of Matthew,

and now we're going to pick up again in Matthew chapter five, right?

We took a break, and then we're going to get through this Sermon on the Mount,

really, which is Matthew five through seven.

And then after that, we'll go on to something else and come back to Matthew eventually.

But just to get ourselves situated, the end of chapter four, right?

The first four chapters of Matthew are just kind of this preliminary stuff,

talking about where Jesus came from, like how he was born, what is the situation

around his birth, The whole Christmas narrative is in there.

So we did that early last July.

And then we see that in chapter four, there's the temptation of Jesus.

He's a man at this point. He's grown up. There's the temptation of Jesus.

Then he starts to go and he starts to preach a little bit in Galilee and he

calls his first disciples.

And then he begins his public ministry.

And it's really an instant constant success.

He is kind of an overnight star here in Israel.

And we read about that at the end of chapter four, picking up in verse 23,

it says this, now Jesus began to go all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues,

preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

And then the news about him spread throughout Syria. And so they brought to

him all those who were afflicted, those suffering from various diseases and

intense pains, the demon-possessed, the epileptics and the paralytics, and he healed them.

Large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem,

Judea, and beyond the Jordan.

So that's his first entree onto the scene. As he's preaching,

it immediately becomes a big deal.

People are hearing about Jesus. Jesus he's he's

teaching to crowds they're hearing that he's

teaching and his the substance of his teaching is the good

news of the kingdom that's how Matthew describes the message that

he went around preaching the good news of the kingdom or the gospel which means

good news of the kingdom and they're also hearing about the fact that he is

a healer that people come to him and and he'll pray for them and they'll be

healed and Matthew tells I mean he tells about two groups of people here at the end of chapter 4.

We see that there are crowds of people who come up from the rest of Israel, right?

Those different places, those different regions, Galilee, the Decapolis,

Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.

And I have a little map here of Galilee. So this is kind of the northern Israel.

You can see Jerusalem there at the bottom.

And Galilee is this northern most region of Israel.

And between Jerusalem and Galilee, there's this region called Samaria,

which was not a place that really the Israelites liked to acknowledge because

it was sort of a region that had a group of people called the Samaritans.

And they were not well-liked in Israel, right? So Galilee is like.

Other side from Jerusalem, and it's interrupted by this group of people that no one likes.

And Galilee really is, I mean, it's sort of a backwoods.

It's like the main of Israel.

And if you say, well, I don't know what that means, that's exactly right. Exactly right.

No one has any idea what that's like. And that's okay.

I'm from the East Coast, so I like Maine a lot. But probably you out here on

the West Coast don't really have a strong sense of what Maine is like.

Okay. And so he's up in Galilee and then all of these people,

I mean, it's kind of remarkable, all these people from the real Israel,

the lower 48 of Israel, if you will, again,

this analogy, it's breaking down, it's terrible, but they're coming up into Galilee.

They're coming from everywhere because they're hearing about what he has to say.

So there's that group of people, but there's also another group of people just

before that in verse 24, we read that people outside of Israel,

people in the region of Syria, which isn't quite modern day Syria,

but it's pretty darn close, right?

So people north of Galilee and northeast into what is now Syria are gathering

in and they're not just actually, they're sending, they're sick.

They're sick people. They're demon possessed people.

They're epileptics. They're paralytics. He's saying like the worst of the worst,

the ones with the biggest problem, they're hearing, oh, there's this guy lie down here.

Like, let's just send our people down there. And what does Jesus do when those people arrive?

Well, he heals them. He heals them.

And I think that it's worth noting that because what we see is that throughout

the book of Matthew, there is a tension that arises. And it's true in all the gospels.

There's a tension developed throughout the book of Matthew. you,

and it's around this thing. It's that Jesus is Jewish, right?

He's a part of Israel, and Israel has a bit of a reputation in the world at

the time for being a people who were really into the idea of not being a part

of the rest of the Roman Empire, really being a distinct people,

a separate people. And.

And Jesus, okay, he's preaching this message about the kingdom,

right? Which is coming, right?

And so you can imagine that if you're a Syrian, you're not a part of Israel,

and you hear about this Jewish guy down in Galilee, and he's preaching about

the kingdom, you might be a little bit worried about that.

That someone in another nation is talking about having a kingdom,

and you're, of course, on the border of this nation, you're probably thinking,

because, well, this guy's Jewish and he's in Israel, probably thinking you're

not really included in that kingdom.

But you also hear, man, well, he's a healer. He's a healer.

And so you can understand that the Syrians who are sending their sick people

are kind of taking a risk here.

They're kind of putting it out there thinking, I don't know what's going to

happen when we send our people down here if Jesus is going to do anything with them.

Because you might expect him, because he's preaching a kingdom, to just send them away.

In a lot of, honestly, there's a lot of tension throughout the book of Matthew

because Jesus does heal people who aren't Jewish or are not really a part of

the good people in Israel.

So what you see is these Syrian people coming, taking a risk,

sending their people to Jesus.

And what Jesus does, I mean, it's a pretty short little narrative,

but he doesn't say, well, how you doing?

He doesn't interrogate them. He

doesn't ask for their passport or their citizenship. He just heals them.

People can come to Jesus right here at the outset, right at the very beginning

of the ministry. People come to Jesus like anybody can come.

Nobodies can come. People who are outside of God's chosen people can come.

And somehow Jesus heals them.

People who aren't the right kind

of people, people who are from the wrong place, they get carried to him.

And Jesus says, no, I'm going to have mercy on this person.

Part of the kingdom coming here in Israel, right, in this unique place,

is that this is going to be a place where everyone can come.

I'm going to be the sort of king that will accept all people.

And when they come to me and they seek after me and they come saying,

just do whatever, please, would you heal me? I'm going to have mercy.

We see this right at the beginning of the narrative.

And it becomes a tension that's developed throughout.

But I think it's really worth noting and just paying attention that we see these

little seeds being planted right here at the beginning of the book of Matthew,

that Jesus is a merciful king.

He's somebody who is just so willing to receive people who are far from him,

or by at least the way that we would understand that according to worldly standards.

Jesus is merciful.

So let's jump here into 5.1. We get the scene is being set.

It says, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up to the mountain,

and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.

I'm just going to stop there for a minute. So what Matthew's done,

right, he's built this suspense.

We're leading up to this moment throughout this book. For four chapters prior,

we're leading up to this moment. And think of Matthew like a director of a film.

I mean, honestly, if you read the book of Matthew and you just sort of played

the movie in your head, it kind of feels like a movie.

He's a masterful director. He's narrating Jesus's life.

And there's really a lot of drama in the presentation, right?

And it's right here in chapter five, this scene where you'd find like 15 or

20 minutes into a movie, right?

When you understand the characters and you kind of are up to speed on what's

going on, 15 to 20 minutes into a movie, then you really start to get,

hopefully, you really start to get hooked.

You really start to get into the substance of the plot. lot.

And that's where we're at right here.

This is the substantive presentation of the person of Jesus who we've been seeing

throughout the book of Matthew.

And just as Jesus is going to start talking to his disciples and explain to

them what the kingdom is all about, Matthew does something really interesting,

and it's something that we can easily miss.

He uses this little phrase, he went up to the mountain.

He went up to the mountain. And we might think, well, of course,

I mean, it's the Sermon on the Mount. It has to be done on a mountain, right?

That's hindsight. But what we actually see is that that is a very particular

phrase from the Old Testament.

It's actually a very direct reference. And if you were a Jewish person reading

this in the Greek translation of the Bible, the Septuagint, which is basically

what Jesus would have read, he wouldn't have read it in Hebrew.

He would have read the Old Testament in the Greek translation, and Matthew would have.

Oh, that's fun. Matthew would have read it in the Greek translation, all that stuff.

Okay, so if you had read this little phrase, it would have meant something to

you. It would have meant something to you.

There, imagine a slide. It says, Matthew uses the three times in the Septuagint,

the Greek translation of the Old Testament, in Exodus 19,

Exodus 24, and Exodus 34, for, and always to describe Moses' ascent to Mount Sinai.

Okay? So this little phrase, which we think, oh, it's just, you know,

he's a mountain climber. He likes to hike, you know, just like all of us.

No, it's actually a very direct reference to, but it was not missed by the original hearers of this book.

This is a very significant thing.

This sermon, as Matthew is signaling to us, is Jesus's definitive message.

These three chapters that we're gonna look at encapsulate the basics of what

Jesus went around teaching.

And as we'll see over the next few weeks, like this is an expansive sermon. There is a lot to it.

But this sermon was understood at the time and by Jesus's earliest followers

and the church fathers, that basically up to the fourth century as the definitive

presentation of Jesus's teaching.

Preaching. So like we can read the Sermon on the Mount and we can think,

oh, this is a nice little bit, like don't really know what Jesus is saying.

But the early church, when they first heard this Sermon on the Mount,

they were like, this is Jesus.

This is 100, like you can't even think about understanding what Jesus is about

or what he's saying until you get into the Sermon on the Mount.

And I think we've lost that, but Matthew is signaling all over the place.

No, this is Jesus's like Exodus, like Moses coming down from the mountain,

telling the Israelites what it's all It's all about, it's like the same level.

It's very clear here in the text.

And the early church understood that. A little quote from a guy named Jonathan

Pennington, really great scholar, Baptist, who's written a lot about the Sermon

on the Mount. We'll hear from him again as we go along here.

He says, in the patristic period, that is the early church up to basically the

fourth century, this sermon was seen

as paradigmatic and foundational to understanding Christianity itself.

Representative of this dominant view is John Chrysostom, early church father,

who saw the sermon as providing a vision for the politia or kingdom community

that Christ is establishing in and through his people.

Similarly, the great and influential Augustine wrote an entire commentary in

the sermon, seeing it as the perfect measure of the Christian life.

But if you know a little bit about theology or if you've been around church,

let me just ask you, let's take an informal survey.

I'll make you like raise one finger because nobody wants to raise their hands, right?

Like, is that how we think of the Sermon on the Mount anymore?

No, you can raise a finger. Yes, you keep your hand down. Oh,

you guys aren't even going to participate.

No gold stars for anyone in the room. That's okay.

Look, my experience is that no, like we don't think of the Sermon on the Mount

as being as definitive as certainly as the early church did.

If you know a little bit about theology, there's some reasons for that.

We don't need to be an expert in theology to understand the Sermon on the Mount,

but people have done a lot of things with the Sermon on the Mount theologically

over the years, to the point where I think we've really kind of lost sight of

how important this sermon is.

It certainly was for the early church. There's a Mennonite theologian by the

name of Clarence Bauman.

He says this, and I think it's an accurate diagnosis of the way we think about

it. He says, the Sermon on the Mount is an enigma to the modern conscience.

Many enlightened minds admire what it says without affirming what it means.

They assume, albeit regretfully, that its message does not apply to contemporary

life and the ethic of Jesus is therefore essentially irrelevant.

A beautiful, irresistible impossibility, a conspiracy to ensure our failure.

There are a lot of reasons why we've de-emphasized the Sermon on the Mount,

But I think just my assessment is that Bauman's right for modern people and

modern theologians, too.

We're really uneasy about this sermon. We have trouble thinking about how it could apply.

There's some historical reasons for that. like starting in the Middle Ages,

5th, 6th, 7th century, the church, the Catholic church, the only church,

the church that existed at the time, started to see it as kind of like that

there were like priests and clergy and monks and that this sermon was for them.

But for regular people, no, they didn't have to like look to the Sermon on the

Mount as something that was valuable.

Martin Luther looked at the sermon and he actually said that it was an impossible ideal. deal.

He read it and he said, we're not trying to aim for this.

We're not trying to apply this. We're actually to read this and to actually

understand how it would never be possible for us to actually live like this.

And so that should turn us to grace, which is a reading of the text.

Existentialists, 1800s, early 1800s, kind of argue that the sermon is just about

the heart. It's about our heart disposition, right?

So we can kind of read it metaphorically and not literally.

Dispensationalists, right? People who think that there's yet to be a millennial kingdom coming.

They say, well, this is kind of the ethics of the new millennia.

It's not applying now in the church age. It's when Jesus comes back,

this is what he's going to establish.

And then that'll be the binding rule. It'll be the guide for what's going on.

There's a wide diversity of views in the sermon.

But I think I've made this clear, but I want to recognize when people heard

this sermon from Jesus, they didn't think, how can we not apply this to our lives?

They actually reacted and they were amazed by it and they liked it.

And they thought that it was something serious and something to really consider

and something to build their lives upon.

We see that at the end, right? At the end of the sermon, Matthew describes how they all reacted.

And it says this, when Jesus had finished saying these things,

that is this whole sermon, the crowd were astonished at his teaching because

he was teaching them like one who had authority and not like their scribes.

So they don't think, oh, they don't think basically all the things that we've

thought about this sermon, they think, oh, this Jesus is serious.

He's laying out some truth and some revelation and something that we really

need to consider. And they're compelled by it.

They weren't saying, oh, this is impossible. We can't possibly do this.

Or we'll just tell us to have good hearts and that'll be enough.

They heard him speaking. They recognize his authority and they believe that

Jesus was calling them to act upon this teaching in some kind of way.

So here's what we're going to do.

I'm going to invite Lenore. Where's Lenore? Lenore. It was going to be my wife,

but then my wife said, Lenore can do it. She doesn't want it because that's how Molly rolls.

So, okay. The thing about the Sermon on the Mount is it's a sermon.

It's a long sermon. And usually when we study it, we study it in little bits.

But I just want to just read the whole sermon together because it's a sermon.

It was meant to be heard from beginning to end. That's how they heard it.

So Lenore is going to come up.

She's going to read it for us because I'm not that great of a reader.

And she's going to do great. So, all right, let's listen to the Sermon on the Mount.

Okay. Matthew 5. Please join me.

When he saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain. And after he sat down,

his disciples came to him.

Then he began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the humble,

for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every

kind of evil against you because of me.

Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven,

for that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt should lose its taste, How can it be made salty?

It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden.

No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand.

And it gives light for all who are in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your

good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Don't think that I come to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to

abolish, but to fulfill.

For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter

or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished.

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others

to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever does and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and

Pharisees, you will never go into the kingdom of heaven.

You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder,

and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.

But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment.

Whoever insults his brother or sister will be subject to the court.

Whoever says you fool will be subject to hellfire.

So if you are offering your gift on the altar and there you remember that your

brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.

First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

Reach a settlement quickly with your adversary while you're on the way with

him to court, or your adversary will hand you over to the judge,

and the judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison.

Truly, I tell you, you will never get out of there until you have paid the last penny.

You have heard that it was said, do not commit adultery, but I tell you,

everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away,

for it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole

body to be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away,

for it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

It was also said, whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of

divorce, but I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in the case

of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery.

And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Again, you've heard it was said to our ancestors, You must not break your oath,

but you must keep your oath to the Lord.

But I tell you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven because it is God's

throne, or by the earth because it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem because

it is the city of the great king.

Do not swear by your head because you cannot make a single hair white or black,

but let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.

Anything more than this is from the evil one.

You've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,

but I tell you don't resist an evildoer.

On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt,

let him have your coat as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him too.

Give to the one who asks you and don't turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You've heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy,

but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

For he causes his Son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the

righteous and the unrighteous.

For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have?

Don't even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary?

Don't even the Gentiles do the same. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others, to be seen by them.

Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven. So whenever you give

to the poor, don't sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues

and on the streets to be applauded by people.

Truly, I tell you, they have their reward.

But when you give to the poor, don't let your left hand know what your right

hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your Father who sees

in secret will reward you.

Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. Oh, they love to pray

standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people.

Truly, I tell you, they have their reward. But when you pray,

go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in

secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

When you pray, don't babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they'll be

heard for their are many words.

Don't be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask Him.

Therefore, you should pray like this. Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive

you as well. But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.

Whenever you fast, don't be gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their

faces so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly, I tell you, they have their reward.

But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face so that your fasting

isn't obvious to others, but to your Father who is in secret.

And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy

and where thieves Thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures

in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will

be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness?

No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other,

or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

Therefore I tell you, don't worry about your life, what you will eat or what

you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.

Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing? consider the birds of the sky.

They don't sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Aren't you worth more than they? Can any of you add a moment to his lifespan

by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes?

Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow. They don't labor or spin thread.

Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these.

If that's how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown

into the furnace tomorrow, won't he do much more for you, you of little faith? faith.

So don't worry saying, what will we eat or what will we drink or what will we wear?

For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things

will be provided for you.

Therefore, don't worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Do not judge that you won't be judged, for you will be judged by the same standard

with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use.

Why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye but don't notice the beam of wood in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me take that splinter out of your eye?

And oh look, there's a beam of wood in your own eye.

Hypocrite. First take the beam of wood out of your eye and then you will see

clearly to take the splinter out of your brother's eye.

Don't give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs or they will

trample them under their feet, turn and tear you to pieces.

Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.

Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives,

and the one who seeks finds, and to the one 1 Peter 3,

1 Peter 3:1–10

verses 1 through 10.

For this is the law and the prophets.

Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road broad that

leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it.

How narrow is the gate, and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.

Be on your guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing,

but inwardly are ravaging wolves. You'll recognize them by their fruit.

Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?

In the same way every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces

bad fruit. A good tree can't produce bad fruit.

Neither can a bad tree produce good fruit.

Every tree that doesn't produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire,

so you'll recognize them by their fruit.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven,

but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name,

drive out demons in your name and do miracles in your name.

Then I will announce to them I never knew you.

Depart from me, you lawbreakers.

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like

a wise man who built his house on the rock.

The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house.

Yet it did not collapse because its foundation was on the rock.

But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn't act on them,

they will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

The rain fell, the rivers rose, The winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed.

It collapsed with a great crash.

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his

teaching, because he was teaching them like one who had authority,

and not like their scribes. Thank you, Lenore.

When's the last time we just like

sat down and did a sustained reading of scripture? I think that's great.

We're not going to do that every single week, but maybe we'll do it at least one more time.

I think it makes sense why Jesus is so difficult for us to understand.

I mean, so much of that, there's layers, right? There's culture,

right? We're divided by 2,000 years of history.

There's lots of reasons why we could say, oh, we don't know what to do with

this, how to make anything of it.

But I just want to like, to just pause for a second and to say like,

hey, like we take all of, I mean, as a church, like we look at the rest of scripture

and we say, we got to do something with this.

And yet it's so easy to do so little with Jesus's words.

And so as much as we might have a lot of questions and we're going to spend

several weeks going through the content of the Sermon on the Mount and really

trying to understand what it says,

I think that I just really like to ask us to just commit to getting into this

and to really considering how Jesus's words might,

like how we could live our lives according to this.

Because And so with that in mind, I'm just going to ask you,

give you a little homework, okay? I mean, maybe you can earn that gold star back.

A little homework, and that would be just to take two times this week at home,

maybe with your family or by yourself,

and to do that again, just to read through the whole sermon two times this week

at some point, to just give the Lord enough space to speak to you and to ask

the Lord, what's going on here?

What's in this for me? me.

And I just want to make two quick points, and then we're going to move on.

We're going to do communion this morning.

Two quick points. This is just to introduce this sermon. And just first,

I just want to look at the conclusion, right? We just read it.

Matthew 7, 24 through 27.

Jesus says this. I mean, it's amazing to me that we could read the Sermon on

the Mount and think, ah, it doesn't apply because this is how he concludes.

Therefore, everyone who hears these These words of mine and acts on them will

be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house,

yet it didn't collapse because its foundation was on a rock.

But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn't act on them will be like

a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house and it

collapsed. And it's collapsed with a great crash.

Now, I don't think you need to have a theology degree to come to the conclusion

that Jesus is actually inviting his hearers to respond in a meaningful way,

because he tells them that at the end, right?

I mean, Jesus knows full well, these things are hard. The things he's saying

might be difficult to figure out how to apply to their lives, right?

He knows full well that his hearers are used to hearing all kinds of nice things

and thinking, yeah, that sounds really nice, and then not doing much with them.

They're used to resonating with their teachers and thinking, oh, that's good.

And so he makes sure to invite them to respond and to actually hear what he's

saying and then make the shrewd decision to build their life on his sayings, on his words,

to respond to and enact his teaching.

And you know what? I think they were just like us, and we need to hear that

just as much as they would need to hear it.

Because we are a culture that just consumes and consumes and hears so much and

learns so much, and yet do we apply what we've learned?

Do we actually say, okay, I'm going to put this into practice?

I mean, I am so susceptible to this. I have recently diagnosed ADHD.

I was the last to know, you know how it is.

So I just feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose of information all the time. I just love it, right?

But it's so easy for me to just do that and to just have my brain so stuffed

full of information and yet to change the way I'm living, right?

Or to kind of challenge like the idols in my heart or the things that really

get in the way of true discipleship to So Jesus is like, that's so much harder

than just learning more for me.

But what Jesus is telling us that we have to figure out, how do we take these

words and do something with them?

How do we get clarity on what Jesus is asking to do? How do we make sense of this book?

But those are big questions, and that's what we're going to be doing over the

next couple weeks, hopefully trying to get something so that we can really go

apply this and be practical with it.

But understand that he's really saying that we need to do something with it.

And I'm not suggesting that's easy. There's plenty in this sermon that's difficult to understand.

But I think that there's so much promise. Okay, so this is the thing.

Like what I want for this church is I want us to be a church that depends upon

God and depends upon the spirit.

Like right now, when I try to solve a problem, I depend on my brain to figure it out.

And I'm not saying, well, we bypass our brains. That's a part of ourselves,

but that's not the main part of ourselves.

Like we are made for dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

And so much of what Jesus preaches, I think, really in the content of the sermon,

and we'll get to this actually just next week, is that there is a real invitation

to do, but not to do just in your own strength,

but to do according to the empowering and the grace and the kindness of God

as revealed in Jesus Christ and as made possible through the kingdom that is coming.

Overwhelming that is to say if i were just to go right now like according to

my natural self and try to do these things i would fail immediately but what

jesus is making clear is that his good news his gospel actually provides also

the empowering and the ability to do these things.

It's been it's been a whole sermon and we haven't had a dallas willard quote

yet but don't worry dallas willard says this is in the gospels the gospel that

is the good news of is is the good

news of the presence and availability of life in the kingdom now and forever

through reliance upon Jesus, the anointed.

And Jesus goes around preaching the good news of the kingdom.

He's making it clear that he's the king. He's the one, he's the anointed,

the called, the Messiah.

He's the one who's going to call Israel and enable them to do and to follow

and to obey, but through dependence and reliance, through faith in him, it's all about Jesus.

And if they They were just set out to do these things on their own and in their

own strength. That is impossible.

That is a futile effort. But what Jesus calls people to do is to be empowered

by his spirit to rely upon him.

And that's the nature of the calling. That is the good news.

It's that we can live like renewed, transformed lives through the power of the spirit.

So if we try to live life in the kingdom, but we lose sight of the king,

we won't have any power to enact any of these words of Jesus, any way to live this out.

But if we don't lose sight of the King, if we make sure that we're focusing

on Jesus, relying upon him, depending on him, then there's possibility.

It's through faith, through reliance that we can, that we're empowered to live this kind of way.

So that's point number one. And the second point I want to make is I want to

just look back at the the beginning.

So turn back to Matthew chapter five, just for a moment.

Next week, we're going to get into those beatitudes, these blessed sayings here.

But just think about this, right? What does Jesus do? He goes up to the mountain,

just like Moses went up to the mountain.

On the mountain, he is revealing the will of God.

He's revealing the word. He is expressing to the people of God like what it

would mean to follow after God, what it would mean to have this unique relationship,

this covenant relationship.

Jesus is doing just like Moses did. And again, I think we made that clear.

He's this distinctive, precise phrase calling back the Exodus account.

And what does Jesus do when he gets up there compared to what does Moses do, right?

So we read about the Moses account in Exodus 20, and it goes on.

These are the first two commandments, but this is what Moses goes up to the

mountain, and this is what he comes down with, this word from the Lord.

Then God spoke all these words.

He says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,

out of the place of slavery.

Do not have other gods besides me. Do not make an idol for yourself,

whether in the shape of anything in heavens above or the earth below or in the

waters under heaven, right?

So, and you know the list that continues on all the way through the 10 commandments, right?

And then throughout the book of Exodus, this like development of the law and explaining of it.

So that's what Moses goes up to the mountain and that's what he brings down to the people.

Jesus goes up to the mountain and this is what he begins to say.

He said, blessed are the poor in spirit for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the humble

for they will inherit. Hi, dad.

It's cool. It's my dad. Blessed are the humble for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.

I don't want to make too much of this. I never like it when pastors set up the

New Testament versus the Old Testament because that's not the way it was.

That's not how Jesus understood it, right?

I mean, if you read down here at the end of chapter five, he talks about how

he didn't come to abolish the law.

Like Jesus understood his teaching and his revelation, what he goes up onto

the mount to reveal to people and to make clear, this thing doesn't conflict

with what Moses was saying. It completes it. It fulfills it, right?

But by way of contrast, you know, not contradiction, but contrast,

I mean, which would you rather have?

I mean, just honestly, like, because on one level, what Moses is doing and what

Jesus is doing is he's saying, these are the same things. They're defining the terms of relationship.

Moses is saying in this Old Testament covenant, the covenant of law,

there is going to be this relationship where you keep your side of the bargain

and God is going to be faithful.

He's going to be your people. He's going to lead you out of Egypt.

He's going to distinguish you among the people, right?

But then as Jesus comes up and he gives his definitive teaching on what it would

be like for people to have this relationship, this covenant with him,

it's about, it begins with just a blessing.

Seeing what would it look like to live in the kingdom? It looks like this,

that the poor in spirit are blessed because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Those who mourn, they're going to be comforted. They're blessed.

Those who are humble, they're going to be blessed because they're going to be

inheritors of the earth.

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled.

They're going to be blessed.

So what begins is not, it's not a commandment to do, although we get there, right?

Because we have to apply this. We have to make something. But what comes first

is the revelation of the goodness and kindness and blessing of God in the kingdom

through Jesus Christ the King.

And so if we're going to start to root ourselves down and to build our lives

under the foundation, then we understand that that foundation is not only about

my obedience, not contradictory to obedience.

Again, we'll get to how does obeying and faith come together?

We'll talk about these things, right? Not contradictory, but the beginning point,

the starting point is the blessedness and care and mercy of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

The fact that because he's opening up God's presence, he's opening up relationship

to us, there can be blessing as a fundamental part of life.

Jesus Christ come, he assumes the throne as he goes up on the tree and is a sacrifice for sin.

He opens up the way of a presence with God and we could describe it this way.

There's blessedness in the midst of things that we would normally not think of as good.

There's comfort and there's joy and there's grace and there's hope for those

who are far off and those who feel like they don't measure up,

and those who feel like under condemnation from the law because they know their

sin and they know the weight of it, Jesus says,

look, understand what the world is like.

But Jesus looks at the world and says, I know my Father's kindness,

and I know he's a God who blesses in the midst of all things, even difficult things.

And that is the starting point of Jesus's Moses-like law, his presentation of

what's fundamental to the relationship between God and his people,

it begins with his blessedness.

Worship team is going to come up here, and we're going to take some time to

think about that, okay? And I mean, I know this is just like whetting your appetite.

We're not really going to get into the substance of the sermon.

We had to make time to actually listen to it, right?

So, but I want to take some time here, and I want to just think about what Jesus

has done. And you You know, I'm going to do my talky part first here.

Like tied up into Jesus's idea of the kingdom, and we'll see this as we go along

in the book of Matthew, is what Jesus makes possible.

I mean, Jesus like sees the world, the same kind of world that we live in with

brokenness, with like floods and hurricanes like we've seen this week,

with people who are suffering and people are hurting.

And he looks at the same world and he says, no, like my God,

my father, me, you know, I'm going to be blessing this world.

And the way that he does that is he comes into the world, he teaches,

and then he offers himself up as a sacrifice for sin.

He offers himself up and demonstrates his love and his faithfulness on the cross.

And so what we're doing today is we're doing what Christians have done for thousands

of years, who've responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We're celebrating the fact that we stand here and we come into his blessing

and into a relationship with him because he's made the way, right?

And this is the big thing, the big thing that Jesus is making clear, right? Right.

In Israel, it was all about righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,

which we'll talk about here in the Sermon on the Mount.

So how do we be righteous? And they would think, well, it's we obey these laws so carefully.

And what Jesus is doing is he's flipping it around. He isn't saying,

no, obedience doesn't matter.

The word doesn't matter. He's saying it does. But what's fundamental and what

we begin with is the grace and mercy and kindness of God,

that he's the sort of God who will take these Syrians from far away who have

no business being a part of the kingdom, at least according to their understanding.

But he looks at all the sick and the broken and the hurting people.

And he says, I'm going to heal them.

We have a God who begins with mercy. And he shows us that as he died on the cross.

So what we're going to do is as the worship team plays, we're just going to

have you guys come up here during this first song and then we're just going to remember that.

We're going to remember that Jesus shows us who he is, what he's like by dying on a cross.

He's died so that we could have our sins forgiven and that we could have a way

of connection and dependence and reliance upon him, the sort of new life that

comes in the kingdom, right? It's made possible through what Jesus has done.

So go up here, grab it take it back to your seat and we'll come up here and

take this together in just a moment.

Music.