A Sermon on THE Sermon

Pre-service Psalm: Psalm 103

two quick points to make about this Psalm.

what an incredible testimony to the forgiving/redeeming/merciful power of Our God! verse 3: he forgive our iniquities and heals our diseases. verse 4: he redeems our life from the pit. he rescues us! but not just that, verse 4 continues he rescues us then crowns us. We could continue verse 8 he is merciful and gracious then verse 10, the greatest hope that anyone could ever hope to hear: Psalm 103:10 and finally verse 12 promises to remove those sins from us. but this leads us to point 2

What does this God deserve and demand? All our praise and honor. So the David opens: Bless the Lord O my soul! and ends with the same command: Bless the Lord all my soul!

He has dealt bountifully with us, because of the work of the Son he has forgiven us all our sins. we are his people and he deserves our glory honor and praise. So as we gather today let those two thoughts inspire you, let them incline your heart towards the God who is worthy of all devotion and the God who saves!

Lets Pray!

Scripture Reading: Deut 6:4-9 (Deacon?)

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Sermon:

Good Morning Church! I was Glad when they said to me let us go and worship in the house of the Lord!

I pray that everyone had a blessed and wonderful Christmas yesterday. Well, with Christmas passing that means that we are no longer in an advent series and are instead back to the grindstone working our way through Matthew. And today we have a bit of a treat, or a challenge depending on your point of view. We have made it Matthew 5, which is the beginning of one of the most famous portions of Scripture, the Sermon on the mount. And the Goal today is to tackle this whole thing. That’s three full chapters of some of the most important, deep, rich, weighty scripture, in one sermon. Is that a little crazy, yes, is it important. Yes as well I think.

So what are our options here? So on one hand we could do a seven hour sermon as my Day late Christmas gift to you all, or we could approach this a little differently. and It turns out that we will be going with option 2.

The goal for today is to just ask some questions about the sermon on the mount itself. to ask: what does this mean in light of the scope of all of Matthew, how does this fit with the aim that he has in general. What does this sermon as one cohesive unit tell me about my savior? and ultimately we should ask the question of “so what” how does this impact my life?

But before we dive in lets pray.

PRAY: Our father in Heaven, may your name be honored in this place As Holy. We pray that you would speak to us today, that your words about your kingdom would rule and reign and we do pray, as you commanded us to that your kingdom come and your will be done. We pray that you would today feed us according to your word. that we would find from you sustenance and fullness as we live on what you have said. Give us a heart to follow you. I pray that by your spirit our eyes would be opened to see and our ears would hear the message that you have for us all today. Be with us. In Jesus name we pray, AMEN

So today lets look at all of the SERMON ON THE MOUNT (SLIDE)

The Sermon on the Mount:

Caveat here, I have preached not just a sermon on this passage, but if we remember back to the first series I preached here we did an entire 28 week SERIES on the sermon on the mount. so most assuredly this is just a surface level scratching at best, but we should make some quick contextual and basic notes first.

One: lets remember what has been happening this far in the book of Matthew. Jesus was born, he was baptized, he was tempted then he began calling and ministering (here ministering specifically means preaching the message of Matthew 4:17 “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”” and healing those mentioned in Matthew 4:24 “So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them.” . So this marks the first of a few longer discourses in the book of Matthew

In fact, not only is the the first of a few longer discourses it is also the longest discourse of Jesus recorded ANYWHERE in Scripture. If you have a bible that helps you out by placing the words of Jesus in red, then Matthew 5, 6, and 7 are three straight chapters of red letters. And while on one had that does NOT make them more special or important than any other passage of Scripture (for all Scripture is God’s words) on the other hand that makes it of infinite worth and value, for these are our saviors words to us. As such they are worthy of love and honor and devotion.

So as such what can we say about the the Sermon on the mount? well for starters we should say that the Sermon stands ETERNALLY (SLIDE)

Stands ETERNALLY

What makes a good sermon? there are probably as many answers to that as there are people listening to them, let alone people giving them, but if you ask a pastor most of the good ones will answer that a good sermon is one, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, according to the grace and mercy of God… A good sermon is one in which the hearers have their hearts profoundly changed.

so when you say: hey pastor that was a great sermon, know that your and my opinions of what that may mean are radically different. I used to tell my last church I would much rather hear: I appreciated (whatever) part of that sermon and it will help me look more like christ (in a specific way). Because a good sermon has more than just a good outline with great illustrations a good flow that gets us out in time for the football game. A good sermon is one that resonates in peoples hearts in eternity.

Well the sermon on the mount surely passes this test, in fact, it passes it perfectly. The sermon doest just change people hearts in a way that will resonate in heaven, THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT ITSELF WILL RESONATE IN HEAVEN! Lets look really quickly outside of the Sermon on the mount to see something else Jesus said.

Matthew 24:35 ESV

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

Imagine the boldness to say such a thing. Hey, heaven and earth will pass away. One day the sun will grow dim and the universe itself will fade into heat death. BUT THE ONE THING THAT WILL NOT SLOWLY SUCCUMB TO THE RAVAGES OF TIME ARE MY WORDS!

If anyone else had the audacity to make such a claim we would think they were mighty full of themselves. But note that this is not just some ordinary man who makes these claims. It is the son of God, the second person of the trinity, GOD BECAME MAN Jesus Christ our Lord and savior. He has said, these words of mine are of infinite value. and so just knowing this should impact how we feel about these words.

anything else you put your time and attention and effort into knowing and understanding is fleeting at best. but to treasure and love and value and seek to know and love and understand these words, well to do that is to invest in something eternal.

Jesus gets to this thought in the sermon when he says: Matthew 6:19-21

Matthew 6:19–21 ESV

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay 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.

if our treasure is in a very real sense these eternal words of Jesus we are building an unfathomable weight of richness in heaven. But even this thought, that the words of the Sermon stand for all eternity is a clue to the next point That I want to make which is about the nature of what the sermon is TRULY ABOUT. and that is to say that IT IS ABOUT AUTHORITY

Is About AUTHORITY

The sermon on the mount is not a moral teaching, though there are moral teachings in it. it is not essentially and exhortation to you to live better, though it does exhort you to live better. It is not even really just a summary of the teaching of Jesus even though it is in some sense that too. What it is foundationally is a statement about the one who is preaching it!

Famously Gandhi claimed to read the Sermon on the mount regularly. It was in his collection of religious wisdom that he read through. He referred to it as one of the greatest moral teachings ever recorded by man. But Gandhi never once took the time to see and ask about the one who gave the sermon and I would argue that He then never read the Sermon on the mount. Because to read this and miss seeing the one who had the authority to teach such things is to miss the entire point.

Just to drive this home lets look at Matthew 5:1

Matthew 5:1 ESV

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

Even this picture speaks of Jesus’ authority. for he sat, and his disciples gathered to hear form him. they would shut out the din of the world around them and they would devote themselves to HIM and therefore to HIS teachings. this is NOT a picture of: “lets just see what he is saying” it is a picture of this is JESUS and we MUST listen to every word that he says. but even more to the point is what everyone says AFTER the sermon.

They do not say: wow, that was some good moral teaching. They do not look around and think: well that's some good food for thought. They certainly don’t look around and think: I have heard better. No, Matthew 7:28-29 “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.”

they are astonished not just at the CONTENT of this message, but the character of the one who preached it. they think: who in the world is this guy, because he speaks with authority. he is even greater than the scribes, the ones who claimed to have KNOWLEDGE. he has knowledge AND authority. He has the insight to say this and the authority to demand it.

Demands A RESPONSE

We are left, really with a decision: what will you do with this man and his teaching.

Two options:

1) hear and walk away, having not changed

or 2), allow the words of authority, which ring in eternity to change your life!

From Martyn Lloyd Jones: “If only all of us were living the Sermon on the Mount, men would know that there is dynamic in the Christian Gospel; they would know that it is a live thing; they would not go looking for anything else. They would say: ‘Here it is.’”