The Sermon On the Mount
Notes
Transcript
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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Introduction (context)
Welcome, my name is Adam,
I’m the pastor of Abide Church
I’m also a professor here at Columbia Basin College. I teach accounting and economics courses.
If you’re new this morning, thank you for visiting us today.
We are so glad you’re here.
I want to start this morning by telling you 3 things about our church.
You might jot these down as our “distinctives.”
We are all about Jesus (at Abide Church)
We sing for Jesus
We talk about Jesus
We put our trust and hope in Jesus
We find our identity in our relationship with Jesus
We tell people about Jesus
The Bible teaches us that no one has ever seen God and that God is so awesome and so powerful that it’s impossible to know him unless he chooses to reveal himself to us.
The Bible teaches us that God did exactly that when he sent his son into the world. Jesus is the revelation of God to man; and for that we worship him.
We are an imperfect people (worshiping a perfect God)
a. I see a lot of new faces out there and I don’t know what sorts of backgrounds you are bringing to church this morning.
b. One of the biggest complaints I hear about churches is that they are filled with a bunch of hypocrites. Let me put your mind at rest right now. The more you get to know us, the more you will see we are a church filled with normal people just like you. Broken, hurting, and often times confused.
c. We are not a church filled with people who have their life together.
d. The way we see it is that every person falls desperately short of God’s standard for righteousness. Because we fall short, we do our best to be open and honest with our struggles and give each other grace when we fail.
e. Because we all fall short of God’s standard for righteousness, we all find common ground and unite under the banner of Jesus’ grace. Jesus is the one who has made a way for us back to God.
And this leads me to our 3rd distinctive...
We will never stop telling the world the good news about Jesus
This world is broken. Humanity is separated from God.
Jesus came into the world to make a way back to God.
Jesus came into the world to heal our brokenness.
Jesus came to set us free from our own rebellion against God.
This is the greatest, most life-transforming, eternal, good news the world has ever known.
Jesus said,
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Jesus said,
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus said,
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
The world is broken, everyone can see it.
Jesus is the answer. We know Jesus and Jesus has commanded us to tell the world about his offer of peace and redemption.
Today I am beginning a new preaching series.
We are going to take a full year to look at the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher to ever walk among men. Namely, Jesus himself.
For the next 9 months, we will closely examine Jesus word out the Matthew 5-7.
This discourse is commonly referred to as the “Sermon on the Mount”
If you have never looked closely at these word from Jesus, you are in for a real treat.
Let me start with a little context for this “Sermon on the Mount”
Before Jesus formally started his ministry, he spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness.
Then he was temped by Satan but remained without sin.
Jesus’ time of testing ended and his formal ministry began.
We read in Matthew 4:
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
And he 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.
This idea of the “kingdom of heaven” or what other gospels call the “kingdom of God” is key to understanding Jesus teaching.
The jews in that day had an expectation of a coming messiah,
For the jews of that day, this messiah was largely a political figure, someone who would save the jewish people from Roman rule and establish an early kingdom.
Jesus flipped that on its head.
Jesus wasn’t worried about the Roman’s rule over the people but sin’s rule over the people
Jesus wasn’t worried about establishing an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly kingdom.
And what we learn from the Sermon on the Mount is that this heavenly kingdom flies directly in the face of almost everything the religious leaders of the day stood for.
The religious leaders of the day are referred to in the Bible as “Scribes and Pharisees”
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
Note about sitting… sitting in this time and culture denoted authority. A Rabbi would often sit when delivering more formal teaching and would be standing or pacing when giving less formal instruction.
Chair in a college department
So, when Jesus began to preach:
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
2 natural questions would have been asked:
From what must I repent?
How can I gain access to this kingdom?
Remember, most anything the Jews would have known about religion or spirituality at this time would have come from the Scribes and Pharisees (the religious leaders of the day).
Most everything Jesus taught went against the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees
Jesus did not think highly of these guys.
In Matthew 12 Jesus calls the Pharisees a “Brood of vipers”
In Matthew 23.27 Jesus calls the Pharisees whitewashed tombs:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
The Pharisees wanted people to believe they were righteous, but in reality they were dying inside.
Jesus was patient and loving towards sinners, even when calling them to stop living sinful lives, but he had very little tolerance for religious people who thought they were better than everyone else for following certain rules.
This is central to the message of the gospel. You will never reach God by getting your act together. No amount of good we do can restore our standing with God.
So, when we act like our good deeds have somehow merited God’s favor, we insult God and Jesus both.
God because our most righteous deeds are evil compared to God, and Jesus because Jesus paid a way with his own blood for us to have God’s favor.
Let’s head to the end of Jesus’ sermon to read his final words:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
The meaning of these words are simple. To build your house on the rock is to accept Jesus’ words as true. To accept his offer of salvation through faith. To have your foundation firmly in Jesus.
To built your house on the sand is to try and find steadiness on the ever shifting wisdom and law of man.
When the rain, floods, and wind come, which is symbolic of the judgement of God, only those who have put built their house on Jesus words will remain.
I want to end with this:
And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
Jesus words stand on their own authority.
You cannot follow the instructions of Jesus without following Jesus.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.
Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,