2024-11-10 Practice Towards Perfection

Well, we have come to the end of our series on the Sermon on the Mount. 38 weeks looking through these three chapters in the book of Matthew. And I want to say something here. I know there has probably felt like there’s some repeat content along the way. Certain topics and ideas seem to come up over and over again. And I think in a lot of ways this is actually the point. Jesus was on a mission. A mission to transform the way that people saw the world, the way they saw God, and the way they saw the coming Messiah and the fulness of His kingdom here on this earth.

Something that has really stuck out to me in the last few weeks especially is the conversation that Jesus has with Pilate, the Roman governor, right before he is executed. It’s in John 18:33-37, / / Then Pilate went back into his headquarters and called for Jesus to be brought to him. (private conversation) “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him.

Jesus replied, “Is this your own question, or did others tell you about me?”

“Am I a Jew?” Pilate retorted. “Your own people and their leading priests brought you to me for trial. Why? What have you done?”

Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”

Pilate said, “So you are a king?”

Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”

Two important things here.

First, when asked if Jesus is the king of the Jews his response is not, “Yes, but not like you think.” His response is, first, “is this your own question…”, but more importantly, he says, / / “My kingdom is not an earthly kingdom.”

He doesn’t even bring into the conversation whether he is a king or not. He is, but that’s not the point. He’s not trying to prove anything about his worth as a person, or leadership, or authority in the earthly realm. Have you ever had a conversation with someone, and they are making a really big deal about something but you just don’t really care because what they are talking about just does not concern you?

I kind of get that feel from how Jesus responds here. “Listen, Pilate, you don’t need to be threatened by me. I’m not looking to overthrow Rome. I’m not looking to take your leadership away from you. I’m not even looking to get my own piece of land somewhere and set up shop. My kingdom, what I stand for. What I represent. What I rule. Isn’t even of this world.”

It’s kind of wild that Pilate doesn’t say, “Are you crazy?” he says, “So you are a king?”

Meaning he has no concept of what’s really happening here. Right? He doesn’t see it. Of course he doesn’t. He’s not looking for the Messiah of the Jewish people.

But, my point is this, and this is why this has kept sticking out to me over and over and over again.

/ / It is in the heart of man to make the Kingdom of God rule on the earth, but it is in the heart of God to make the Kingdom of Heaven rule in man’s heart!

Jesus came to have the rule of your heart. Not earthly kingdoms. He already owns that on a grander scale than we could ever imagine. How crazy is it that we try to relegate the God who made the universe, the expanse of all that is seen and unseen - and think about that for a second. We don’t even have the technology yet to see all that God has created, whether that is because it’s too far away in space, or because it’s too small here on earth, but we somehow want to shrink Him down to our size and make it about the kingdoms of the earth.

And every time we make Christianity about the kingdoms of the earth things go poorly. Honestly, I think every Christian should be encouraged to do a bit of Church history reading to see what we come from. You need it from a good Christian perspective, not just a history perspective, because reading Church history without the Holy Spirit involved could be seriously depressing. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some wonderful, inspiring, amazing parts of church history. Incredible people. Incredible development of the doctrines of truth and miracles, and transformed lives. But there’s also a pretty dark side, and unfortunately a lot of time it’s when the church gets too buddy buddy with the political system.

Jesus didn’t come to rule the kingdoms of this earth. You want to know how I know that?

Because there will always be a human that wants to kill you to take over what you have.

There will always be a bad guy, someone who’s heart is corrupt, evil, wicked, and has a desire to have what someone else has and is willing to take it by force.

You want to know the darkest side of church history? You don’t. But I’m going to tell you anyway. It’s when the church was so connected to the government system that it forced conversion to Christianity, and killed you if you didn’t. When a Christian nation would fight against another nation and take it over, sometimes they would force people to be baptized in water, thinking that made them a Christian and they just expanded the kingdom of heaven.

When the Reformation happened in 1517, and over the following years there was a division between the Catholic church and the Protestant church things even got worse, in my opinion. At that point nations began to identify as either Catholic or Protestant, and so they went to war with each other, Christians killing Christians… veiled under “expanding the kingdom” or “establishing the church”.

How does that contrast with what Jesus did?

Jesus came and laid down HIS life for all people, once and for all.

He came for hearts, not land.

He came for relationship, not servants.

He came for friends, for the children of God, not for converts to a religion.

He came for love.

John 15:13-14, / / “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.”

The starting point of which is, “Follow me…”

So, here we are, at the end of 38 weeks of looking at what might be called the foundation of Jesus teaching on what it looks like to be a people who’s hearts are ruled by this Kingdom of heaven.

In John 15:19 Jesus says to his disciples, / / “…you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world…”

Now, that can go too far in some people’s response to hearing that. How many have heard the saying “We are in the world but not of the world.” And some people take that as we can do whatever we want, or we’re not subject to earthly authority or whatever the case may be. That’s the backward approach to hearing what Jesus is saying.

We don’t use our status as children of God, as Kingdom Ambassadors to say that we are no longer subject to the authorities of this world, we use our submission to the Kingdom of Heaven to dictate how we live and who we represent, inviting people into a life of true freedom in Christ Jesus.

And that kingdom is not of this world.

Which means sometimes the world, the people around us, don’t understand what we stand for, what we believe, what we represent and preach.

Now, before we get into today’s passage of Scripture, I want to say 3 things in regard to the election from this past week:

/ / Pray for our leaders.

And here is what I want you to pray. Pray for their salvation. Pray that they have an encounter with the living God we worship and come into a reality of their own sin and their need for redemption through Jesus Christ.

What if you think they are already saved? Pray for their transformation. Pray that they would have an encounter with the living God who invites us all to lay down our own way to take up the way of Jesus.

/ / Follow the way of Love

1 Corinthians 13 says that Love does not boast, it is not arrogant, it is not rude

boast - to talk with excessive pride and self satisfaction about one’s achievements… and let me just add, including political victories for parties they support.

Listen, over 40% of the voting public feel like they lost. I feel like we need to line up the country like at the end of a little league game and shake hands, “good game…”. It’s healthy for both winners and losers.

rude - to act unbecomingly… offensive, impolite, ill-mannered

And that means whether you are happy or sad about the results of the election.

/ / Be an Ambassador more than a Patriot

I say that with the most sincerity I possibly can because I love this nation. I am proud to be an American citizen. I am grateful that I was able to come here, and that there was a legal process for me to become a citizen. I was sad that I was sworn in during the pandemic and was in a room by myself with no fanfare, but glad all of you drove by my house and cheered!

But the reality is. More than a patriot, more than a proud American, I am an ambassador of Jesus Christ. We have to be ok with being very honest with ourselves and realize that the kingdoms of this world will fade away but the kingdom of our God is eternal.

Jesus says in Matthew 24:35, / / “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

What is temporal, earthly, has a time limit. What is eternal is worth giving your life for.

And that’s all I will say on that. I’ll tell you what Kelley has told Kaylee a million times over: / / Be sweet, be kind, be awesome.

Ok, so let’s jump into the last passage of scripture from Matthew 7:24-29: Jesus of course sitting on a hillside, teaching all who have come to hear him.

/ / “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.”

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.

Ok, I think I might have said this in our introduction back in January, but this really gives a good indication that this was one set of teachings given at one time. I truly think the Sermon on the Mount can be viewed as one sermon.

Now, it could be one of two things here. First, this is exactly how it happened. Matthew 5:1-2 says this, / / Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them saying…

And then you have from Matthew 5:3 - Matthew 7:27, every single word is marked as a word coming out of Jesus’ mouth. If you have what we call a ‘red-letter’ bible, that means that anything in red is coming from Jesus. It’s his words from his mouth. Everything else is commentary, story, or someone else talking. But the red letters. That’s specifically Jesus.

So, from Matthew 5:3 all the way to Matthew 7:27, it’s all red. Not a single non-red word. Until Matthew 7:28 where Matthew writes, And when Jesus finished these sayings…

So, that’s the first option. It happened exactly like that.

The second possibility is that as his disciple, Matthew has been cataloguing the teachings of Jesus, and as we’ve seen, and I’ve mentioned this a few times, not everything Jesus said in his life made it into the bible. John 21:25 says, / / Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.

So, Jesus taught more, did more, there were more miracles than we know about, more healings than we read about. All of it. There’s so much more. And if we define this Sermon on the Mount as a sort of manifesto of what living in the Kingdom is like, then it stands to reason that he probably said these things more than once. And we see that in scripture, we see that in the four gospels, sometimes you have parallel accounts across the books, meaning two or more of the gospel writers wrote about the same event, and sometimes the same teaching shows up where they do not suppose it was at the same time. So Jesus is repeating himself. Of course he is.

Look at how often I repeat myself.

Maybe you think sometimes, “Ya, Pastor Rob, we covered this already…” I know. I do it on purpose. Why? Because what is being said is valuable, important things we must learn and we don’t get it if we just read it once. We don’t get it if we hear one sermon and then go away and never hear anything about that topic again.

Think of the language that the new testament writers use.

I just wrote a paper on Romans 12:1-2, where Paul says, / / I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice - the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

He’s talking about a transformation over time. changing the way you think takes time. The ESV says that it happens through the renewal of our mind, which means a renovation. That’s a process of tearing down and then building up. It doesn’t happen in an instant.

My therapist is constantly trying to get me to see that. Pay attention to when you are listening to the lie, because it’s in those moments that you need the truth. If you settle for the lie you’ll never change, but if you can recognize the lie, divert to the truth, eventually you may just notice that the lie gave up because the truth set you free!

Titus 3:3-5 (ESV) says, / / For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit…

By the what? The washing of regeneration and renewal… regeneration means rebirth, and again that word renewal is the same from Romans 12, renovation, a completely new thing is being built up in you through the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 5:25-26, / / …Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.

Washed by the word.

It’s so easy to think, “The bible is so hard to read. It can be so boring.” When was the last time one of your kids said that about a shower, but you made them do it anyway?

“I don’t want to take a shower…” But you stink! You’ve been outside in the world, you’ve got mud stuck on you, you’ve got…ewww…what is this in your hair???? Go get in the shower!

How sticky do you think sin is? Or thought patterns, habits, the things we do that we would like to change. How sticky are those things, like caked on mud…

You need a shower. You need to be washed by the Word!

How many times have you started the same new, good habit, but you forgot you were trying to do something new and then after acting in the old way went, “Shoot, I forgot I am not doing that anymore?”

Since our topic on fasting a couple months ago I have chosen to fast every Wednesday, and I encourage you to join me. From sun up to sun down. A concentrated effort to position ourselves before God in prayer and worship with our very lives. For me, and not for everyone who fasts, but for me, that includes no coffee. Do you know how many times I have almost made a coffee?

Transformation takes time. We need reminders of the truth. So of course Jesus repeats himself. He doesn’t expect you to get it on day one. What he wants is for you to commit to the process.

Matthew 16:24, / / “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”

Now, I want to touch on something incredibly important this morning. Because, as I’ve mentioned in the last few weeks, it can feel sometimes like we are caught between grace and works. Where do we draw the line between freedom in Christ, and what Paul calls being a slave to Christ, completely committed to doing all that he has said to do in following him. And how do we handle messing up, not getting it right? How do we deal with not being good at it sometimes?

When we read about Jesus’ disciples, sometimes they struggled with giving up their own way. But did Jesus push them down or kick them out? Or, did he offer them a helping hand, compassion, and direction?

So I want to look at a couple scenarios: First, the brothers, James & John…

/ / Then the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with her sons. She knelt respectfully to ask a favor. “What is your request?” he asked.

She replied, “In your Kingdom, please let my two sons sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.”

But Jesus answered by saying to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink?”

“Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!” (Matthew 20:20-22)

Jesus gives them some warning, yes, they will both go through suffering like He will. And they don’t know what that means yet. They don’t know what they are asking. Notice, it’s their mom that asks the question, BUT, Matthew says that Jesus responds to THEM, and then asks them the question, not their mom.

‌The disciples of course are pretty upset. How dare these two be so arrogant, so conceited, thinking they deserve to sit on the right and left of Jesus…what about them.

So we have some people getting some things wrong. First, James & John, their mom, but then also the rest of the disciples that are clearly put off by this.

Jesus doesn’t say, “no, you can’t handle what I’m about to go through. In fact. I’m just done. Forget it. Ya know what..you don’t get what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time. It’s not an actual kingdom. I’m not going to be king. It’s eternal. It’s heaven. It’s not here and now.”

No, what he says is, / / “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:24-28)

He doesn’t scold them, discipline them or kick them out. He teaches them. He says it again. He leads them toward life and a better understanding of what it means to follow him.

Ok, another big one. Peter is quite possibly the biggest blunder of all when it comes to the disciples.

Let’s just read a bit of his story here. Jesus and the disciples have just finished up the Last Supper, and they are on the way the Garden of Gethsemane.

/ / On the way, Jesus told them, “Tonight all of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say, ‘God will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have been raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there.”

Peter declared, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.”

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter - this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.”

“No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!”… (Matthew 26:31-35)

Jump over to John 18:10-11, Judas has come into the Garden with the leading priests and Pharisees. They are there to arrest Jesus. / / Then Simon Peter drew a sword and slashed off the right ear of Malchus, the high priest’s slave. But Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Shall I not drink from the cup of suffering the Father has given me?”

Ok, let’s go over to Luke 22, Jesus has been arrested, brought before the high council and the high priest and Peter doesn’t dare go inside, so he’s hanging out in the courtyard. You may know the story. A girl comes up to him, not asking, but stating, / / “This man was one of Jesus’ followers!”

Peter denies it.

A little while later another girl comes along, notices him and says, / / “You must be one of them!”

Again, Peter denies it, but this time, he makes an oath, / / “I don’t even know the man!”

Things settle down for a bit. But a little later some other people are pretty sure they notice him. I mean, he’s been right beside Jesus for 3 and a half years of incredible ministry in the region.

/ / “This must be one of them, because he is a Galilean, too.”

Matthew says Peter swore, / / “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about!” … immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.

Now, this is why I read this from Luke, because he says in vs 61, / / At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Suddenly, the Lord’s words flashed through Peter’s mind… And Peter left the courtyard, weeping bitterly.

Peter is devastated. Absolutely devastated.

He has done everything wrong. He cut a man’s ear off. This is not the way of Jesus.

I mean, seriously, what’s the punishment today if you cut someone’s ear off? And we’ve talked about this before, it is either that Peter has unbelievably good aim and gets that ear while slashing with a sword, OR, he missed.

My personal take on that is that Peter is a fisherman turned disciple of Jesus. He’s not a marksman. He’s not a soldier. He did his best and missed.

And now, He’s denied even knowing Jesus three times. The way Luke describes that. As he’s in that final denial, the rooster is crowing and Jesus looks up and locks eyes with him.

Here’s what I think that probably looked like. Jesus had the most loving, forgiving look in his eyes, but that didn’t matter. Peter was undone.

Now, what’s my point here. My point is that / / Jesus isn’t looking for perfect, he’s asking for commitment. We are so used to living in a world of contracts, you do for me, and I’ll do for you, and we are bound by this contract, unless one of us breaks it, and then we consider it undone, or there are legal penalties for that. Or at bare minimum the relationship is now severed. But Jesus doesn’t do contracts. Jesus does covenant.

That’s the story of the Bible. A covenant. And a covenant is binding because of death, and unto death. What’s that mean. It means a covenant requires sacrifice, and when you enter into a covenant, you are bound to that covenant until you die.

Luke 22:20, while Jesus is giving communion at the Last Supper, / / After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people - an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.”

You know what happens when I make Kelley upset? Now, just to clarify, this is purely hypothetical, because, come on, there’s no way I ever make her upset…. right honey???

But, what happens when I make her upset?

One, she’s incredibly forgiving. She’s true sweet, she’s kind, she’s awesome.

Two, I work to change my ways. For my sake? No, for her sake. Because I love her. Because it matters to her.

I will let you in on a little secret. For many a year I just didn’t care if my socks were on the floor, or if there was a cup left on the counter. My coffee mug on the table. Whatever. Not a big deal…. for me.

It DID and DOES matter to Kelley. Well guess what happened. Because I was wanting to honor my wife, now what do I do? My socks make it to the hamper. I’m on point. My cup, most of the time, makes it to the kitchen. My mug, maybe a little less, but I’m going to use it again, you know I’m gonna drink more coffee… But it makes it to the kitchen.

Why? Because her desire becomes my desire as our relationship grows.

Now, take that attitude with the perfect Jesus Christ. He does nothing wrong. If anything gets in the way of our connection, that’s on me. Not him.

Those eyes that looked at Peter were not full of condemnation, they were full of mercy, but what did Peter do? He wept bitterly and ran! Why? Because he was ashamed. He was undone by his own betrayal of the one he loves.

So, Jesus is crucified, dies, is put in the tomb, and three days later he is raised from the dead.

Jesus has appeared a couple times already, but one day Peter decides to go fishing, and some of the other disciples go with him. While they are out on the water Jesus appears on the shore. He calls out to them, “Hey, catch anything?” “Nope!”

Jesus calls back, / / “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat and you’ll get some!” So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. (John 21:6)

This is where John realizes this is Jesus, because he’s seen this happen before. He says, “It’s the Lord!” And Peter jumps out of the boat and swims to shore as fast as he can.

He makes it to Jesus and Jesus is there with a little fire going, cooking some fish and bread.

John says this is the third time that Jesus has appeared to his disciples since he’d been raised from the dead, but clearly, Peter is still not ok. So him and Jesus have a conversation.

Jesus asks Peter,

/ / “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”

“Then feed my lambs,”

Then Jesus repeats the question,

/ / “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

“Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I love you.”

“Then take care of my sheep,” Jesus said.

A third time he asks him,

/ / “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said,

/ / ++“Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.”

Why does Jesus ask him three times? Well, we don’t need to get into that all too much today, but I think it’s simple. Three times denied, three times redeemed… Jesus is settling once and for all for Peter that He is not condemned. Peter then becomes one of the if not the greatest apostle and the leader of the church. He’s the one that stands up on the day of Pentecost and 3000 get saved when he preaches under the power of the Holy Spirit. That moment with Jesus by the fire transformed him.

Let’s tie this all together as we’re wrapping up this series. Jesus says in Matthew 7:24-27, / / “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.”

Let me ask you, South Floridians, Miami natives, Hurricane Andrew survivors and the toughest of the toughest. What happens when a storm rolls through and tears everything down?

/ / 1. You rebuild!

You rebuild, right? You don’t just walk away. Sure, some do, and I’m not putting anyone down here, but if your life is here, and you’re committed to this place, and your family, you rebuild.

This is how I feel when it comes to following Jesus. I might not get it right all the time - meaning, my house isn’t always strong in the storms. Sometimes I crumble. And in those areas where I struggle to follow the teaching of Jesus, when the storm of that area of my life comes rolling through and tears it all down, I know too much, I love too much, I’m too much in this to just let that house stay torn down, I have to rebuild!

Yes, I might be a mess, but when Jesus asks, “Do you love me…” I have to say, “You know all things. You know I love you…” “So get back up, rebuild… but this time…”

/ / 2. Build Your House Better

Ok, Another thing that happens after a storm is there is often building reform. The insurance companies go, “Whoa, we can’t afford for this to happen again.” And so the government says, “Alright, let’s increase the building code, let’s put new things in place to make sure these houses don’t fall over so easy.”

You can always tell on those fly over videos of the devastation of a storm where either there hasn’t been a storm there in a long time, or not a significant enough one to force building code change because it’s just 2x4’s everywhere. They aren’t building off the ground yet, they aren’t building with concrete yet, the houses are still wood studs and the roofs weren’t tied down… and it’s just absolute devastation.

If we think about it. This is a simple statement Jesus is making.

/ / If you hear these words that I am saying and decide to ignore them, doing your own thing, it’s like building your house on sand, it will crumble in the storms of life.

BUT

/ / If you hear these words that I am saying and you actually do them, it’s like building a house on a solid foundation that can withstand storms.

Let me ask you another question.

How many of you have ever felt like you knew what you were supposed to do. You were pretty sure that the way Jesus said to live was pretty straight forward, but you chose to live a different way, and it maybe wasn’t until it all came crashing down around you that you realized you had built on sand because you hadn’t followed the way of Jesus?

This is just like getting hit by a hurricane. Do you give up? Do you walk away? Or do you rebuild on a firm foundation.

Maybe you feel like Peter some days, overwhelmed with the shame of letting Jesus down, so you decide, “I’m going fishing, clearly I’m not the one that Jesus thought I would be. I’m not going to be building any church any time soon, I think I’ll go back to what I know…”

Just like if a storm comes through and your life is torn down around you. You rebuild.

I want you to hear these words of Jesus as we are finishing this series up as an invitation for a daily practice rather than a one time, “Do it right or don’t do it at all.”

Listen, Jesus said, “Anyone who wants to follow me should count the cost before they make that decision.” And I believe that to be true. But he never said, “If you struggle with it, sorry, that’s it, you’re cooked.” No, he flat out told Peter he was going to fail, but built into his relationship with Peter was the road to redemption.

Do you love me?

Yes! of course I do.

Ok, get back to doing what you know you’re supposed to be doing.

What if I don’t know what I’m supposed to do?

What did I tell you to do?

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them.

I was thinking about it this past week as I was writing one of my papers for school, we get so worked up in Christianity about what the will of God is for our lives. It’s not that complicated. If you hear these words I have spoken and do them…

What words?

The Sermon on the Mount would be a great place to start, right? Even if all you did was live by the teachings Jesus gives in the Sermon on the Mount, you’d be in amazing shape, both spiritually and relationally.

The NIV says this verse in this way, / / “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice…”

Practice. It’s the perfect word for this.

Practice doesn’t give up when it fails, practice recognizes failure as part of the process, as long as you were trying. As long as you get up and go again. It’s the commitment that matters.

Being truly committed to Jesus does not mean you are going to get it right all the time. Peter told Jesus there was no way he would ever deny him, and he was willing to die for him. At the first challenge of that he did a duck and run!

The NIV actually bookends the Sermon on the Mount in this way. In Matthew 5:19, Jesus says, / / “Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

My invitation, my challenge, my hope is this:

Can we be a community. A church. A group of individuals that commit to Jesus and commit to practicing what He preached?

It’s not easy. It’s not easy to employ all of these things in the world we live in. People seem to be losing their minds. Morality is being thrown out the window. Evil is called good. Good is called evil. There is something you don’t want to see almost everywhere you look, something you don’t want to hear on every station, something you don’t want to watch on every channel, every social media site.

Can we commit to the practice?

Learning what Jesus said and how he lived - getting close to Him, so that we can live like him, follow his way and his example, so that we can do what He did in way of living before God and service to others.

Whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

/ / Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Jesus is the foundation, but we build the house of our lives by hearing the words of Christ and putting them into practice!

I want to finish with this thought and this challenge.

I believe God is calling out to his church to truly commit to following Jesus, not just identifying themselves as Christians. Jesus invited us to follow, to be disciples, not just to join a religion.