Sermon Tone Analysis

Vision

Its been about a month since I have shared with you where we are at with Multiply 2025 our vision for the next three years

There are three areas to this vision…first and foremost it is to become a church that has a multiplying DNA…We need to be a church that is a multiplying church.

To bring the Good news of Jesus everywhere…To multiply disciples leaders and churches and in order to get there there are a few things that we need to address

Right now we are about 1/3 of the way there on pledges: We have $109K of the $300K pledged

We have brought in a little over $27K

and already you have seen the improvements

Facilities: We have painted the entry way and worship center.

Bob Puliz and his team have installed a new ceiling and Sonja Hak has done an incredible job decorating…And we are just getting started there…We have parking lots and the children’s building…bathrooms and roofs to do in this plan

Worship: But one of our next big steps is to hire a worship leader.

This is one of the things that we need to do to take us to the next level.

I do have good news.

Angelina (Although she couldn't be here today) is going to continue leading worship through the summer.

I have been telling you about her plans to become a pilot.

Well some classes changed and she is going to be able to stick with us for a few more months…and this will allow us time over summer to do a very good and thorough search to find a worship lead.

Planting.

Lastly, we want to plant a church to help us kick start multiplying this church.

The first church is a water project in El Salvador…We are going to bring fresh water to an impoverished community and plant a church around the fresh water well.

Right now we don’t have a ton of progress on this but it is a part of our plan

Made to rule

In February we began a journey together to crawl through the sermon on the mount.

It is Jesus’ Magnum Opus..

It is a sermon that is both brilliant in its content and yet so accessible..

It is a sermon that is simple in that it has a plain meaning but it is so hard because it gets at the core of who we all are as humans

And the entire sermon begins with an invitation.

It is an invitation to the gospel or the good news

Jesus goes all over Israel and says “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand”

What he is saying is that an entirely new way of life is made available to you today

That the rule and reign of God is now at hand

And again you have to remember that you were created to have a rule and reign on this earth

From page 1 of the Bible, God is showing us the intention of all of humanity

In other words:

you were created for both relationship with God and responsibility to God

Of course all of this gets broken when Adam and Eve sin for the first time

But Jesus comes on the scene and he is now saying…My rule and reign is here...’

You can have life with God again

Jesus’ gospel announcement is a reversal of all that was broken in the garden!

He is saying: What you were created for..>Relationship and responsibility…That was all hindered due to sin…But I am making a way back!

This is good news...

Its an invitation for all of humanity to go back to Eden.

And this is so key when it comes to talking about the Sermon on the Mount…Why?

Because The Sermon on the Mount is what it looks like.

when God extends his reign through your life...

So the sermon on the mount is what it looks like when you and God partner together for life

People read the sermon on the mount and say…I wish I could live like this but it is impossible.

NO IT’S NOT…Living life with God actually makes the sermon on the mount accessible and easy

I’d go as far as saying this is what it practically looks like to be saved!

That you are experiencing the rule of God in your life

So everything we are talking about in the Sermon on the mount is that this is what it looks like when God rules through you

Its not impossible

It is actually the much easier way of life

SOM Recap

One of the things that Jesus hits on early in the sermon is that our righteousness needs to surpass that of the scribes and pharisees

And the point that I made is that, Apart from Jesus, that is just never going to happen...

And here is what I think Jesus was saying there: The scribes and pharisees were trying hard to do nothing wrong.

their faith was rooted in just trying not to make a mistake!

Many of us have lived a version of Christianity that we parceled together from the scribes and pharisees.

It is not Jesus’ gospel…Its called the gospel of sin management

Sin management is where you try as hard as you can to just not sin any more

You try to be a better person

And while obviously our own effort matters…sin management is not good news!

Trying to follow God in such a way that is just managing which sins you commit is a heavy burden

Instead Jesus offers a different kind of life

We call it the with God life

When you live daily with God he will transform your inner character and desires so much so that to do the things that you used to do would be unthinkable.

The with God life is character and inner life transforming

See living with Jesus shapes our internal character…He shapes our motivations

As human beings our wanter is broken…That is to say…what we want is corrupted by sin…Living life in apprenticeship to Jesus slowly begins to transform what we want

And that means we want what God wants...

Living life with Jesus reshaped our “wanter”

See when our desires are shaped by God then it frees God up to use us and to bless us.

So today in the Sermon on the mount…Jesus is again digging deep beneath the surface and he is hitting on some very personal things…and it may not seem personal when you first read it but it is intensely personal

Its about our need for significance

I call it the respectability trap

We all want to be respected right?

We all need to feel significant

And apart from Jesus there are two main ways that people go about meeting this need:

Both start out innocent enough but can be destructive

Money

Now its not to say that money is bad…if you have amassed wealth, good for you, God can use that to do incredible things

No it is not money itself that is destructive…

It is finding your significance and your identity in the amount of money that you have.

It’s finding your hope and your security in money that is dangerous

Its buying certain things so that you can show the world that you are impotrant

Wealth is a handy tool to make sure that our reputation stays solid and therefore our significance level goes up

Flaunting money is an easy thing to do and to fall into because we live in a society that rewards and looks highly on people with wealth.

Elon Musk is asked his opinion about everything these days.

And he is not the smartest man in the world, he is the wealthiest man in the world

There is something in our brains on a subconscious level that says, if that person has money, then they are smarter than the rest of us.

The reason why money is such a block to our relationship with God is that we find our security and our confidence in it rather than in Jesus.

By definition, we are leaving Jesus out of it

Now there are people who have tons of money and don’t treat it that way at all…People who have wealth but don’t find their identity in it…I know people who just can’t stop making money…But they know the trappings of it so they live simply

but I bring this up its a struggle for everyone…our society ascribes great importance to people with money

the second destructive thing is this:

Reputation

And our world is perfectly designed for us to think about our own reputation all the time isn't it.

The challenge is that we live in a world where we are always playing to an audience

Kids today grow up with a crazy pressure of feeling like they have to entertain their audience of followers

Their significance is in how many follows they have or likes they get.

from our earliest moments we are always curating our own reputation...