Sermon on the Mount
Matthew 5-7 – The Sermon on the Mount
The next few months we are going to be studying the Sermon on the Mount. It’s found three chapters of Matthew – 5 through 7. John Stott begins in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount that it is “probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguably it is the least understood, and certainly the least obeyed.”
The Sermon on the Mount contains teachings that use images of salt, light, turning the other check, and many more teachings that you are familiar with. But what is the Sermon on the Mount? Why are we going to be spending the next four months looking at it.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones has a series of questions in his book on the Sermon on the Mount that he says we must ask ourselves before studying the sermon.
What does it mean to us?
Where does it come in our lives and what is its place in our thinking and outlook?
For whom is it intended?
To whom does it apply?
What is the really the purpose of this Sermon and what it its relevance?
These are valid questions. So what is the Sermon on the Mount? It is the teachings of Jesus that he spoke to the disciples, but it is something that was intended for all Christians. So if we claim to be a follower of Christ then the Sermon on the Mount is meant for us.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones says that the Sermon on the Mount is the perfect picture of life of the kingdom of God. John Stott says it describes what human life and human community look like when they come under the gracious rule of God. Looking at the Sermon on the Mount we see that it was intended for Christians. It describes what a Christian is to be like.
It is a message of counter-culture. John Stott describes it as Christian counter-culture. D.A. Carson titles his book on the matter: Jesus’ Sermon the Mount and His Confrontation with the World. Christians are not to be like everyone else. It is by their fruit that you will recognize them Jesus said. Jesus emphasized that his true followers, the citizens of God’s kingdom, were to be entirely different from others. They were not to take their cue from the people around them, but from him, and so prove to be genuine children of their heavenly Father. The values and attitudes shown throughout these 3 chapters go against everything that the world teaches us.
It is a Christian value-system, ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude to money, ambition, life-style, and network of relationships – all of which are totally at variance with those of the non-Christian world.
Right now you might be thinking then I am a failure. I can not live up to the standards of the Sermon on the Mount. Critics of the Sermon on the Mount say that its ideals are noble but unpractical; attractive to imagine but impossible to fulfill.
Perhaps this is true. But as Dr. Lloyd-Jones said it is a perfect picture of life of the kingdom of God. It is the perfect picture of someone who is completely devoted to and following God. When we face the Sermon on the Mount and its implications and demands we see our utter need for Christ. We realize that on our own we are not able to fulfill these things through out own power. It drives us to Christ.
John Stott says “For the standards of the Sermon are neither readily attainable by every person, nor totally unattainable by any person. To put them beyond reach and say we can ignore them is to ignore the purpose of Christ’s sermon and to say that we can do all of them is to ignore the reality of our sin. They are attainable, but only by those who have experience the new birth which Jesus told Nicodemus was the indispensable condition of seeing and entering God’s kingdom.
Jesus spoke the Sermon to those who were already his disciples and thereby also the citizens of God’s kingdom and children of God’s family. We do not achieve this privileged status by attaining Christ’s standards, but by attaining his standards we give evidence of what by God’s free grace and gift we already are.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rains came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”