97. Beginner Bible Course: The Sermon on the Mount

EPISODE 97  The simple Bible overview of…JESUS GIVES THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT ABOUT HIS KINGDOM

Was your childhood and growing up years, pretty normal mine certainly was. At least I thought it was. I grew up in a family of nine on a farm in rural Minnesota. It was a dairy farm where you melt cows morning and evening 365 days a year. That means we didn't get off the farm much. It was eight miles to the nearest town and going, there was a big thing. We practically packed a lunch to eat half way, life revolved around milking cows and the little country church, a mile and a half up the gravel road. We thought those deer people in that little country church were living the normal life too. Our house was normal. It was 130 year old farm house.

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It had been built at a time where insulation meant throwing hay around the foundation in the winter. But then when I was 10, my mother moved us, me and my two brothers and her 12 miles to a distant town. I remember the date December 2nd, 1970. We moved to an upstairs apartment in a home right across from the super value and a little Baptist church. That's when I discovered my life growing up had not been all that normal at all there on the first evening, December 2nd, 1970, our upstairs apartment was actually hot on that little farm. Our pipes froze normally about November and stayed frozen until the middle of April.

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Normal for us was hauling our water and going to the bathroom in a four gallon white chamber pot. Thankfully with the lid now here in this upstairs warm apartment, the toilets flushed and next to it, a tub. It didn't take long to Dawn on me at all. What we had defined as normal growing up. Wasn't very normal at all in America, in the 1960s and seventies, that same realization is what fell on Jesus apprentices and crowd. When Jesus gave his famous sermon on the Mount, these disciples and those listening on believe, they were growing up very much normal.

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But according to what they're about to hear from Jesus from God's perspective, their growing up was anything but normal in the sermon on the Mount found in Matthew chapter five through seven and Luke chapter six, Jesus redefines normal. You should know Luke's version of Jesus' sermon on the Mount is much shorter than Matthews. Some people believe Matthew collected different sayings of Jesus and put them into one sermon leading us to conclude these all happened in one sermon on the hillside by Lake Galilee. That may well be true. Matthew liked to collect things in topics. Matthew five through seven are all under the topic, the preaching of King Jesus, or you might say his principles for his kingdom.

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But remember Matthew was an eye witness at this time. He's a tagalong disciple. So maybe Matthew is giving the full sermon that did happen that day on the hillside. And Luke is just summarizing it in his account. If you listen to or read this sermon out loud, it takes less than 20 minutes. I like to have fun with pastor friends of mine who think they need to preach for 35 or even 40 or 45 minutes. So people can get something out of it. Chew on the meat of God's word. I giggle this sermon of Jesus takes 20 minutes max, and that's if he slowed down and patted babies and children on the head, but there's plenty in here to chew on.

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I've heard of pastors, who've preached on Matthew chapter five through seven, the sermon on the Mount, and it's taken them well over a year. Some break it down phrase by phrase. There's so much here. It's likely not hyperbole to say a pastor could preach just Matthew five through seven for pretty much the rest of his or her life. And that being the case. It's crazy for me to think. I can give you much of an idea of what's in Jesus' sermon in the next five to seven minutes. What I can give you is a sampling of the contrast between what Jesus' disciples in his audience thought was completely normal. And what was actually normal from God's perspective in the sermon on the Mount Jesus who Matthew claims is the promise King.

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The son of David clarifies for us, what it would be like if he were King and what he would expect from his citizens. If they were citizens of his kingdom, normal life in God's kingdom kind of stuff, actually, I'm going to change plans. I'm going to talk about what we think is normal today. And what Jesus said was normal for those following him and citizens of his kingdom, you should know. We actually haven't changed a whole lot since the time of Jesus. Most of these were the same attitude of the disciples and the crowd. Listening to him, let's start with attitudes and values. The things that really make us happy.

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Normal for us as being independent and confident in ourselves King, Jesus said, no, my citizens are interdependent. They're aware of their needs, especially their spiritual ones. And one help. Normal for us is feeling upbeat with no worries to King Jesus. Normal is feeling bad about some things we should feel bad about. I mean really letting her rip. If we know there are problems and feel bad about it, solutions are just around the corner. Normal for us is running free, like a wild stallion or a dog loping along through the neighborhood King, Jesus says for his citizens, normal is a horse.

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That's tamed. It's a train dog running within its yard. It's power, but under control in our world, normal is not being a doormat. You know, cheat me once. Shame on you cheat me twice, shame on me, but in Jesus' kingdom, it's acknowledging, you know, I'm really messed up too. I get it. And keep coming back for forgiveness. You can't go to my well too many times. Normal in our world is finishing at the top. Winning at all costs, whether it's an argument or a contest, but normal in King Jesus world is working as a team. If it's a win for me in a loss for you, it's a loss for us in our world.

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Normal is seeking to be popular and hearing applause. That's what makes us happy. But Jesus says citizens in my kingdom will take the booze of some in order to get the applause of God that's normal. And that's where true happiness really happens. Jesus then moves on from attitudes or values to how we behave. Our world says normal people don't kill people, but Jesus says normal people in my kingdom don't even hate people in wish they were dead. They don't wish them harm at all. They pray for people like that in our world. Normal people try to keep their commitments, especially their romantic commitments.

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I mean, don't be a jerk, a player don't act on those creepy thoughts, but in King Jesus kingdom, his citizens fight against even having creepy thoughts. Our world thinks it's normal to go for it, get what you need and get it now. But in Jesus' kingdom, normal is considering the long-term consequences and making changes now for long-term benefits, our worldviews money and wealth like this, whoever dies with the most toys wins, but in Jesus' world money, isn't about getting toys. It's a tool, a tool that must be used wisely and carefully, or it will become a weapon and destroy us and others.

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In our relationship with God in our world, we bite our nails down to the cuticles, worrying about how we're going to control our life. But in Jesus' kingdom, his citizens trust a loving and gracious God to provide for their, every need in our world. We're pretty hard on others judging their motives and actions. But in King Jesus kingdom, we start with ourselves before we point a finger. We acknowledge we have three fingers pointing back at us in our world. We where our goodness and religiosity on our sleeves so others can see it in King Jesus world. We keep it on the down low it's between God and us in our world.

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We put on our best face, you know, only one chance to make a good first impression. The King Jesus says my citizens are just who they are. What you see is what you get in our world. Normal is impressing people with what's on the surface, but King Jesus says my citizens work much harder. Their hearts what's under the surface, the foundations of their lives. Now please Jesus' sermon. Does it infinitely better than my quick pathetic comparative summary. Read it for yourself many times and let it soak in, in my classroom. When the students read Matthew five through seven out loud, I instruct them that at the end, I'm going to ask you all to vote.

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You'll have to either vote. This is for here for how we should behave here in this life or hereafter in a future time or life. Perhaps a few will say it's only for hereafter. Usually they point to verse 48 of chapter five. Most translations say something like this. Therefore you should be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. It's no wonder my students think it's not for a time like this here. Now that's setting the bar terribly high. If that's normal, who could live like that. But I tell those folks that word perfect means complete growing to completeness. If I read it that way, votes occasionally change.

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Therefore be growing to maturity even as your father in heaven is mature or perfect progress toward this goal. Citizens under King Jesus. Most of my students vote. It must be for here. When I asked them why they point to versus like don't divorce, don't murder. Don't be hypocrites. That certainly isn't describing a time like heaven where there'll be no divorce, murder or hypocrites. But if Jesus in his sermon is defining what should be normal for those who follow him as King, he certainly is setting the bar extremely high, at least compared to what most of us view as normal.

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This reminds me a little bit of God's purpose behind the 10 commandments. If you read the 10 commandments again, God there in Exodus chapter 20, set the bar pretty high. I mean, look at number 10, don't covet. Anything your neighbor has don't even think about wishing you had it. That's pretty high. We learned in that episode on the 10 commandments episode, 38, that the purpose behind God giving those 10 commandments was not that we'd strive after these things to become better people. It was not a prescription to make us healthier. It was a test to show us how diseased we were and realizing how diseased we were.

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We would cry out to God for a solution in many ways. I think that was the purpose of Jesus' sermon on the Mount as well. He's not giving his disciples or the audience platitudes that they would write on a sticky note post on their mirrors and work really hard to achieve. He showing them the kind of kingdom he would bring. And as we'll see going forward, he promises to give them the internal resources to have hearts, to want to seek, to grow in these areas as his citizens. Your reaction might be similar to the reaction of Jesus' crowd that day on the hillside. They were amazed. The Greek word means to strike out at something.

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In other words, to punch someone in the face, maybe they were hammered, struck dumbfounded. That's not far off of how I felt in that little warm upstairs apartment across from SuperValu in the little Baptist church on that December night in 1970, there's really very little normal about our world or even our churches in our world. Not when you compare it to King Jesus sermon on his kingdom and the citizens in his kingdom punched in the face by the sermon. Many of Jesus' disciples and audience didn't really grasp what Jesus was saying. So Jesus like any preacher worth his salt is going to illustrate this sermon.

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And the way Jesus normally did that was with vivid word pictures. We call them parables. They were his favorite method of teaching. And I'm going to introduce you to Jesus and his marvelous message to hammer home the principles of his kingdom in our next wordpicture.