Read the Manual

I want to tell you this morning about a very traumatic experience that I had as a child.

It was winter, probably around 1972 or ‘73, and my father and I were out at one of my favorite places.

There was a field near our home in Portsmouth where we would go to fly kites and launch model rockets and things like that. It was located adjacent to the Olive Branch Cemetery, and in fact the cemetery has grown into that field, and that’s where my Dad is buried today.

But back in 1972, this was a wide-open field, and there really wasn’t anything there to attract a lot of people, so it was usually pretty deserted. That made it the perfect place to launch rockets or fly kites. We had lots of space for things to go wrong without worrying about damaging other people’s property.

So it was a winter day, not long after Christmas, and Dad and I headed out to our field with my prize Christmas present — a fly-by-wire bomber airplane with a working plastic “bomb.”

Now, for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, let me describe the setup. There was a plastic airplane with a gasoline engine that drove a real propeller. The airplane was attached to a couple of control lines that were 40 or 50 feet long and attached at the other end to a sort of handle that a person would hold onto.

Once you started the airplane’s engine, you would give those control lines a little tug and start turning in a circle, and the plane would take off and fly around in a circle while you controlled its climbs and dives and, with this one, even a bomb release.

As I describe it to you now, it sounds like a torture device. I can’t imagine how dizzy I would be after spinning around like that for more than a minute or two.

The crazy thing is that this, apparently, is still a thing, even with the rise of radio-controlled airplanes. According to the Academy of Model Aeronautics, control-line flying is still the most popular form of model aircraft flying around the world.

Now, I was seriously into airplanes as a kid, and after I saw this model airplane under the tree, I could barely contain my excitement.

So, when the day for our first flight came around, I could hardly wait. Dad and I headed out to the field, he gassed up the airplane and told me to read the instruction manual, and then once everything was ready, he cranked the motor, moved away with the control handle and then launched the airplane.

The way I remember this incident — and Dad’s no longer around to disagree — is that he flew it in a couple of circles and then said, “Hey, wanna see me drop the bomb?”

And then, I said, “No! The instructions say to fly it around for a while and get used to it first!”

And then he said, “Watch!”

And within two seconds, the bomb had hit the ground. The problem was, it was still attached to the airplane, which had also hit the ground at top speed. It was smashed beyond repair, and it never flew again. My Dad had crashed my prize Christmas present, and I’d never had a chance to even try to fly it.

As you can probably tell, I’m still dealing with the psychological damage.

So many times in life, we wish that we had an instruction manual for the things that we’re going through. But the truth is that many of those times, we have a manual — we’re just not using it.

Today, we’re going to begin a series on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Many commentators throughout the centuries have called it the King’s Speech, because it can be likened to King Jesus’ manifesto about life in the Kingdom of God.

But, as I read the Sermon on the Mount, one of the things that jumps out at me is that it reads like an instruction manual for the Christian life. It’s an instruction manual on how to live in the already/not yet Kingdom of Jesus.

As we work through this first of five major discourses of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, what we are going to see is that Jesus sets an incredibly high standard for those who follow Him in faith.

Indeed, I think we will rather quickly see that this is not a standard that we can meet in our own strength. We can only meet it through the strength of the Holy Spirit who indwells each of us as believers.

From the very first verse of this sermon, we are confronted with the fact that there is nothing we can do to earn or merit our salvation.

“But when we have received this salvation as God’s free gift, the sermon shows us how we should live in the service of our gracious God. It shows us what life is like in the kingdom of God. The sermon removes all complacency. The follower of Christ cannot say, “I have done all I should; I am the complete servant of God.” No matter how far we have gone along the Christian road the sermon tells us that there is more ahead of us.” [Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 92.]

Matthew clues us in to the theme of this sermon in chapter 4, verse 23:

Matthew 4:23 NASB95

Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.

Jesus had been teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the gospel, the good news, about the kingdom. The kingdom Jesus preached was the Kingdom of God. This is the kingdom that the prophet Daniel wrote about:

Daniel 7:13–14 NASB95

“I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. “And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.

This is the kingdom that Jesus spoke about in His first recorded words in the Gospel of Mark:

Mark 1:14–15 NASB95

Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

God had promised His chosen people, Israel, a kingdom where righteousness would reign, a kingdom of peace and love, where one like a Son of Man would reign forever on the throne of David.

And here was Jesus, God’s unique and eternal Son, who so frequently called Himself the Son of Man, proclaiming that this kingdom was at hand.

The King had come for His kingdom. That’s one of the primary themes of Matthew’s Gospel — that Jesus was the Messiah-King who had been promised to come from the line of David and fulfil God’s promise of an everlasting, righteous kingdom.

But a king must know that His subjects understand what is expected of them. And so, we see that in this first major discourse of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, He lays out for His followers just what the King expects from His subjects — just what it takes to be part of the kingdom and what the responsibilities are for those who have become part of it.

You’ll see Jesus’ thesis statement in verses 17-20 of chapter 5.

Matthew 5:17–20 NASB95

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Kingdom of God is Moses on steroids.

Moses gave the people of Israel the Law, and the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time were proud that they had kept it so well.

They were so careful about their tithes, for instance, that they brought one-tenth of even their mint and dill and cummin into the temple.

But Jesus says here that entrance into the Kingdom requires a righteousness that surpasses even such careful attention to the Law of Moses.

This kind of righteousness isn’t something that man comes by naturally. This is the righteousness of Christ imputed to sinners when they come to faith that His death and resurrection are their only means of being reconciled to the God who made us to be in fellowship with Him.

Jesus opened this sermon with an introduction that we call the Beatitudes, and the Beatitudes begin and end with statements about those to whom the kingdom of heaven will belong.

Matthew 5:3 NASB95

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

AND

Matthew 5:10 NASB95

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Neither of these verses described the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time.

They were not poor in spirit — they were not people who recognized and acknowledged their complete unworthiness to stand in God’s presence. In fact, they were proud of their own righteousness — they were SELF-righteous — and they believed that they had earned their way into the Kingdom of Heaven.

They weren’t persecuted for the sake of righteousness. In fact, they tended to persecute others whom they considered to be sinners.

Remember how we talked last week about the Pharisees grumbling because Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors? They didn’t think such people to be worthy of spending time with a noted Rabbi.

But these people — the people who acknowledged that they were spiritually bankrupt and the people who suffered because of their faith — are JUST the people that Jesus says will be a part of His kingdom.

“Belonging to his kingdom, and living the kingdom life, takes more than external conformity to a set of religious standards. It has to go deeper than that.” [Iain D. Campbell, Opening up Matthew, Opening Up Commentary (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2008), 45.]

Now, Matthew starts his account of the Sermon on the Mount by telling us in verse 1 of chapter 5 that Jesus went up onto a mountain or a hill, away from the crowds that were following Him and that His disciples followed Him.

So, what we should understand is that the intended audience for this sermon was the people who were already following Jesus in faith and not the crowds of people who merely had a passing interest in hearing what this man who had become so popular had to say.

To be sure, the crowds would have found their way onto the hillside during the sermon, and there are lessons here that even atheists today recognize as great ethical teaching.

But the Sermon on the Mount is for believers. It is the King’s proclamation about how life in His kingdom is to be different than life outside His kingdom.

“It describes what human life and human community look like when they come under the gracious rule of God.” [John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 18.]

Throughout this Sermon — and throughout the messages that you will hear about it in the coming weeks, you will see that followers of Christ are to be different from the people around them.

You’ll hear it in His teaching about prayer in chapter 6, when He compares how the Gentiles prayed with the way that we believers should pray. “Don’t be like them,” He says.

You’ll hear it in His teaching about love in chapter 5, when He says not just to love those who love you, but to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

You’ll hear it in His call for His followers not to worry about what to eat or what to drink or what to wear, but to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

You’ll hear it in the way He intensifies the Mosaic Law in chapter 5, showing that breaking the 10 Commandments is something that happens first in the heart.

You’ll hear it in what He teaches about relationships in chapter 7, when He says:

Matthew 7:12 NASB95

“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

We know that verse as the Golden Rule, and a version of it was known by Jewish religious leaders even before the Sermon on the Mount.

In fact, there is a story about a rabbi in 20 A.D. who was challenged by a Gentile to summarize the Mosaic Law in the length of time the Gentile could stand on one leg.

The rabbi is reported to have replied: “What is hateful to you, do not do to anyone else.”

Do you see the difference there? The religious leaders of Jesus’ time were teaching that people should not do bad things to other people if they would not want those bad things done to them.

But what Jesus did was to turn that negative principle around and make it a positive principle. Do good things for others if you would want those good things done for you.

It’s a subtle difference, but it’s an important one.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls His followers to be different — “different from both the nominal church and the secular world, different from both the religious and the irreligious.” [John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 19.]

We are to be a counterculture within our culture. We are to have different standards and values when it comes to money, to ambition, to relationships with friends and enemies — even different standards when it comes to religious devotion — and Jesus will describe how those standards are to look throughout this sermon.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out a standard of life in a kingdom that He said was at hand.

But then, He was crucified and raised from the dead, and He was taken back to heaven.

So, how are we to now understand this Kingdom?

Even His closest disciples didn’t understand. As Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives, just before He ascended into heaven on the clouds in his risen and glorified body, He promised them that they would soon receive the Holy Spirit, and they recognized this as the fulfillment of a Kingdom promise from the days of Israel’s prophets.

“Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” they asked.

This was the right question for them to ask. It showed that they had been paying attention, that they understood at least some of the prophecies and that they had the right desire — the desire for God’s righteous kingdom.

But what they soon came to understand was that they lived — just as we do today — in a time of already, but not yet.

The kingdom had already come. King Jesus had inaugurated it in His time here on earth.

But the kingdom had not yet come in its fullness, and it still has not yet done so, because God, in His infinite grace and mercy, is withholding the judgment that must come before His kingdom is fully established.

The kingdom has been deferred in order to give time for more to become subjects of it. The kingdom has been deferred so that more can turn to Jesus in faith.

As the Apostle Peter put it:

2 Peter 3:9 NASB95

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

But be assured that the day of judgment, the Day of the Lord, is coming, and Peter quoted Jesus when he said that it will come like a thief — it will be completely unexpected — and “the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and all its works will be burned up.”

There is still time for you if you have not followed Jesus in faith. But none of us knows how much time we have. The Day of the Lord could come at any moment, or you could be hit by a truck on Whaleyville Boulevard today.

If you have not put your faith in Jesus as the King and Savior and your only means of being reconciled to God, now is the day of salvation.

But if you are have been saved by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus, then your King has called you to live in the tension of the already/not yet as subjects of the kingdom that Jesus inaugurated, looking for Christ’s return for His church and spending the hours until them “in holy conduct and godliness” so that you will “be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless.”

You don’t have to live as if there’s no instruction manual. We have it right here in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus tells us in these three chapters just what it should look like for believers to live in this tension of already/not yet.

Read the manual. He put the instructions in the box for a reason. Read the manual.