The King & His Kingdom - Matthew 4:17

Providence Baptist Church iconProvidence Baptist Church

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"From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”" - Matthew 4:17

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was written by John Newton. And it goes a lot, it has a lot richer context than some of the modern songs that we sing at times.
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So good, thank you for leading us in that, Gunnar. We start a new series tonight.
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I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter five, as you're turning there.
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I'll tell you that a man by the name of Walt Disney envisioned a kingdom.
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And perhaps he was ahead of his time, but what Disney imagined was actually building a futuristic city.
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And this city would have schools and an airport and places for state -of -the -art research and technology and all of these things.
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But Walt Disney, he never got to actually realize this dream because in December of 1966, he passed away.
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And so as good organizations do, they scrapped all of his stuff, right? And what happened is in the place of his dreams, the
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Walt Disney Company built the Magic Kingdom, which opened in 1971.
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It was the first of four parks simply known as Disney World, a place where all the imagination of Disney movies and characters comes to life.
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It's supposed to be a place of fun and laughter. And for many folks, it turns out to be kind of a once -in -a -lifetime or maybe a dream sort of vacation.
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But the reality is, of course, that Magic Kingdom isn't actually magical and it's not actually a kingdom.
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And since we're dropping these truth bombs, I'll go ahead and tell you that Walt Disney, Magic Kingdom, Disney, these things will not be around forever.
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In fact, the Bible shows us that all the kingdoms of the world eventually come to an end, even imaginative ones.
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But there is a kingdom that is eternal. And so tonight, we're beginning our series on the
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Sermon on the Mount, which begins in Matthew 5. And we see here that Jesus taught about a kingdom.
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Now, not a kingdom with fairytale subjects, fairytale characters, that is, but a kingdom with real subjects.
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And not a kingdom from the mind of any man, but one from the mind of God. It is a kingdom that has a mighty, holy, and good, and gracious King.
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And it is a kingdom that has a particular ethic. And so the title of our series through the
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Sermon on the Mount is just gonna be this, Kingdom Living. And we're gonna walk through these three chapters of Matthew over however long it takes us.
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Brother Jacob will be preaching. He and I talked about Brother Jacob's gonna be preaching on Sunday nights once a month.
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And so that'll kind of cut into a little bit of this series, but we're gonna get through this and walk through this together. And we're gonna explore how the
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King of this kingdom calls for his subjects to live.
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We wanna take a look at what type of people that grace creates.
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And we wanna think about what our King not only desires us to do, but actually what he enables us to do.
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And we want to explore kingdom living. So I hope that you found Matthew 5 because we're not gonna read from it to start.
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Back up to Matthew 4, verse 17. And that's where we're gonna begin tonight.
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Will you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word. Matthew 4, verse 17.
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From that time, Jesus began to preach, staying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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Let's pray. Father, would you help us tonight? Would you help us to understand your word?
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Would you help us to understand your kingdom? Would you help us to understand what it means to be a recipient of the kingdom and to live in accordance with the righteousness of the kingdom?
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Would you help us to discern between the right and wrong kingdom and put all our eggs in a basket, as it were, in the kingdom of heaven?
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Let us be all in. Let us be sold out to this kingdom, knowing that this is not a kingdom that we earn.
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This is not a kingdom that we can conquer, but it is a kingdom that has been brought to us by Christ.
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It is a kingdom that has entered into our life by grace. It is a kingdom that we desire to live under the joyful reign of our
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King and seek to please Him. We pray that studying this would help us to differentiate between true and false
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Christianity, and it would help us to be a light in this dark world. As we think about the people of Perry County, may even we see that this passage of scripture shows us how we can be a city on a hill, how we can be light in a dark world, and how even adjusting our lives accordingly to the scriptures will have an evangelistic impact in our community.
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These people that we're preaching to and sharing the gospel with, we don't merely see them and then they never see us again, but they see us.
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They see us at harps. They see us walking about the town. And so they can look at our lives and they can know whether or not if what we are preaching lines up with how we are living.
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And so I pray, Lord, that we would seek to live in accordance with your truth. Show us your grace tonight.
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Thank you for your word. And thank you for the Lord's day where we can sit under the preaching of your word.
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And we pray it in Christ's name, amen. Be seated. So as we begin in the
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Sermon on the Mount, we're not gonna begin in the Sermon on the Mount. We're gonna begin here in Matthew 4, 17, which as you know, in your
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Bible, you can just see it yourself, but you see that this precedes Matthew 5, but we're right here at the cusp of it.
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But as we think about Matthew 4, 17, I wanna let this set a context for us in understanding the
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Sermon on the Mount. So I have three preliminary points. Really, that's just preacher talk for,
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I have more points in this sermon than I want you to feel exhausted with. And so I'm just saying
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I have preliminary points so it doesn't count on the total point scale. You understand, it's preacher lingo.
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But three preliminary points. The first is this. The first is this, obvious reality. There is a kingdom.
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There is a kingdom. This is what Jesus says in verse 17. From that time, Matthew 4, 17, from that time,
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Jesus began to preach saying, repent, why should we repent? Because there's a kingdom. For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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Now, what is this? Well, this much ink has been spilt on this, but I'll summarize it this way.
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This kingdom is where the rule of God is recognized and rejoiced in.
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Where the rule of God is both recognized and rejoiced in. It is a kingdom,
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Jesus says in John 18 when he's before Pilate, it is a kingdom that is not of this world.
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Meaning, it is a spiritual kingdom. That is, you don't see political boundaries.
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If you look at a map and you say, where's the kingdom of heaven? Where's the boundaries? You don't see political boundaries.
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You don't drive down the road and see, Alex and I went and looked at the population sign the other day.
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We're doing some video work with some things for the book. And so we went to the city limits and as you're coming into Perryville from every direction, there's a sign that differentiates between, this is not in the city limits and this is in the city limits.
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But it's not like that with the kingdom of heaven. You're not driving down the road and see a sign, now entering the kingdom of heaven.
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And yet, though this is a spiritual kingdom, those in this kingdom absolutely do impact the kingdom of this world.
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Let me make it more plain. There are two kingdoms, two overarching kingdoms. There is the kingdom of heaven that Jesus speaks of here and there is the kingdom of the world.
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The kingdom of the world is at present ran by the prince of the power of the air. In fact, the evil one,
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Satan. Go back, you're in Matthew 4, 17. Go back to verse eight and nine. This is the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.
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And back in verse eight and nine, it says this. Again, the devil took him, that is
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Jesus, to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And notice,
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Satan says something interesting here to Jesus. He said to them, all these I will give to you.
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That is, Satan is in control, as it were, in a sense. Obviously, he's under the sovereignty of God and there's not an inch that Satan can move apart from the sovereignty of God.
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And yet, Satan tells Jesus, I will give you these kingdoms if you will fall down and worship me.
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And so we have the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, one kingdom, and then we have the kingdom of the world.
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Yet, something is now happening in the ministry of Christ. Verse 17 says, from that time,
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Jesus began to preach, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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The kingdom of heaven is at hand. In other words, in the ministry of Jesus, it is breaking through into this kingdom of darkness.
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So these two kingdoms exist simultaneously and side by side because Christ, in his work and his ministry and his life, his death, his burial, his resurrection and reign, he is building his church.
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Now listen carefully to this. The kingdom of heaven and the church, they're not necessarily like a one -to -one equivalent, but in a sense, in the words of William Hendrickson, the kingdom of God and the church, that is, who's the church?
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The people in whose hearts God is recognized as king. The kingdom of heaven and the church are nearly equivalent.
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That's what Hendrickson notes. That is, in one sense, in one sense, the church is the kingdom, as the people of God who love
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God and bow to his rule and spread his fame among the world.
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All right, number two. Number one, there is a kingdom. Number two, there is a king. Okay, that's obvious, right?
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Jesus says, from that time, Jesus began to preach, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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In other words, you cannot have a kingdom without what? Without a king. If there's no king, then maybe you have some sort of democratic entity, but you don't actually have a kingdom.
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For example, would we say the kingdom of America? No, we don't say that.
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But they do talk about, for example, the United Kingdom, right?
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That's because, if my understanding is correct, let's see, that covers Great Britain and Scotland, right?
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Am I right about that? And Wales. So you have that political reality because you have monarchy, right?
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But in America, we wouldn't call it the kingdom of America because we're a democratic entity, or actually, we're a republic.
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Actually, I might make this note. Too many within evangelicalism today treat the kingdom as though it is some republic, right?
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Like Christ is our representative, but we can live and do as we please, and we can adjust and adapt his rules however we see fit, right?
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We'll just vote. I know Jesus says this, but hey, we live in a new world today, and so we'll just do these things. But I'm just reminding us here that this isn't a democratic reality.
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It's not some sort of club or gathering. Rather, the Bible says,
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Jesus says here, that this is a kingdom, right? It's a kingdom, and therefore, it has a king, and so Christ is not our president.
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He's not a senator. He's not some sort of elected official. Rather, Christ is king, and Christ preaches a kingdom.
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By the way, so did John the Baptist here in Matthew four. Flip over to Matthew three. Matthew three, verse one and two.
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In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Repent.
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Why? For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. In other words, Jesus' preaching lines up with the preaching of John the
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Baptist. John the Baptist saying, it's almost word for word, right? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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There is a kingdom, and there is a king, and it's undeniable that Christ is king of this kingdom.
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He is head of his church. He reigns now upon his throne, whereby the
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Psalms say that righteousness and justice are the foundations of this throne.
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This is not less than the earthly kingdom of David. Rather, it is much more, and Christ reigns over his kingdom right now until all of his enemies are subjugated under his feet.
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And let's just make a brief note about eschatology. That is your doctrine of the end times. Some people are waiting for Christ to come back and reign.
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I'm telling you, he's reigning right now. And when he comes back, he is not going to keep reigning, or reign in some sort of new way.
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Rather, when he comes back, he is going to bring with him the fury of the wrath of God.
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This is Christ's kingdom. There's a kingdom, there's a king. Thirdly, there's only one way into this kingdom.
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Verse 17, from that time, Jesus began to preach, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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Now, let me just give you the lexical definition of this Greek word, metanoeo.
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It means, repent, it means to change one's way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness.
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Friends, the only way into the kingdom is repentance. The kingdom of heaven is supernatural.
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In fact, Jesus says it this way, John 3, the natural man can't even see it. If you think, if you're a
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Christian, you ought to understand what the kingdom is like. You ought to see Christ and your brothers and sisters, and you ought to see
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Christ in your own life and how more and more of your life comes under the rule and reign of Christ. You see that.
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Jesus says the natural man can't actually even see that. That's what he says in John 3. He says, unless you're born again, you cannot see, to Nicodemus, the kingdom.
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So, entrance into this kingdom requires a supernatural work of grace. You must be born again.
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Friends, when we think about kingdoms, we think about ideas that we earn the kingdom, right?
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You conquer, kingdoms conquer, right? So you go and you conquer this territory, and now this territory is part of your kingdom.
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But this is a kingdom that you cannot conquer. It's a kingdom that you cannot earn. The gate to this kingdom is locked, and your works cannot open it.
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The only way that this gate opens into the kingdom is Christ opens it for you.
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In other words, Christ brings the kingdom to us. You can't earn it.
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And so the command in our text is, and it's to all, is to repent.
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Repent, think about it in this context of kingdom. Repent means to come swear filthy to the king of this kingdom.
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Come bow the knee before this king, beseeching him for pardon and mercy.
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Turn from sin and self and idolatry and turn your life to and over to this gracious king who is willing to pardon.
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Friends, the Bible teaches us that this king left his throne and entered into the grimy life of the rebel peasants.
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He spoke with them and to them with his mouth. He touched them with his hands.
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He walked with them. He healed them by his power. He taught them.
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Though they were undeserving of his pardon, he bought it for them in his own blood.
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He went up Calvary's mountain carrying their burden. He carried their sins in his body on the tree and he perished there under God's holy judgment and righteous wrath.
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And he was buried, not even in his own tomb, but one of theirs. And yet on the third day he rose again from the dead in victory for his subjects.
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Those who see this, those who turn to Christ in faith, those who repent and believe the gospel, those are the ones who enter this kingdom.
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From that time, Jesus began to preach saying, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
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There's a kingdom, there's a king, there's only one way to enter this kingdom.
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Now this brings us over now to Matthew 5. I'm actually gonna read the end of Matthew 4 later in the sermon.
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But Matthew 5, one and two says this, seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught,
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I want you to see this, so see it in your Bible. He opened his mouth and taught them.
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We'll talk about this more in just a minute, but the them, of course, is a pronoun. The antecedent to this pronoun is not the crowds.
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The antecedent to this pronoun is his disciples. So seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them.
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That is, he taught his disciples. Now in the layout of Matthew's gospel, it's not a coincidence here that there's such a close connection between Matthew 4, 17 and then just a few verses later, the beginning of the
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Sermon on the Mount that Jesus preaches. So it's my thesis as we enter into this series that what
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Jesus is preaching in the Sermon on the Mount is what life in this kingdom is to look like.
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What does it look like to be a subject of the king? Well, what does it look like to live for Christ?
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And this is what Jesus is gonna teach us. And that's why we've entitled this series Kingdom Living.
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So for the remainder of the sermon this evening, I'm gonna ask four introductory questions. You see how that, you see the trick there because I said
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I had three preliminary points and now I've got four questions. It sounds so much better than saying
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I have seven points. That sounds scary, but three preliminary points and now four questions, that's not scary.
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Okay, question number one. What is the Sermon on the Mount? Let's be basic, okay?
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We have children in here, we have adults of different levels of understanding and different parts of sanctification, different parts of growth as it were.
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Okay, so what is the Sermon on the Mount? Let's be basic. Number one, obvious, it's found in the book of Matthew. It's also found in the book of Luke.
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Now there's a discussion as to whether these are the same exact sermons or if they're similar sermons preached at different times.
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Either way, that doesn't concern us that much. I'm not gonna say any more about it really than what
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I just said. What we're gonna do is we're gonna study this sermon in Matthew. Matthew is, of course, the first canonical book in the
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New Testament. Matthew is written to show us who Jesus was and to show us why
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Jesus came. Particularly Matthew, it's understood, is written to a primarily
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Jewish audience. So it's interesting that Matthew's gonna show us here how
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Jesus is greater. I'll mention this again just a second. How Jesus is greater than Moses, right?
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The Jews look to Moses as their primary teacher and Matthew's gonna show us that Jesus is greater than Moses.
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Now Matthew, don't think of it that he records everything Jesus did and he doesn't record everything that Jesus said, but he does under the influence and inspiration of the
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Holy Spirit. He records for us everything that we need to know. And part of what
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Matthew is doing, this is in your background, you need to know, part of what Matthew is doing in the whole
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Gospel of Matthew is he's showing us that Jesus is a fulfillment of Moses' prophecies.
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For example, specifically this one, I'll read to you, Deuteronomy 18, 15. In Deuteronomy 18, 15, it says, the
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Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers.
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It is to him you shall listen. Jesus is the fulfillment, the great fulfillment of this prophecy.
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Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the great prophet. Jesus is better than Moses.
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He shows us that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, but also that he's greater than who
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Moses is. Moses, think of it this way. Moses went up to Sinai, remember? He goes up to Mount Sinai, and what does he receive there?
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He receives a word from God. But Jesus goes up the mount here and himself speaks with authority.
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In other words, seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them.
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In other words, he doesn't go up the mountain to get a word from God. He goes up the mountain, and he speaks from the mountain because he is
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God. Secondly, the Sermon on the Mount is in the book of Matthew.
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Secondly, the Sermon on the Mount is a sermon of Jesus, that's obvious, but let's start in verse, let's back up to the end of chapter four, and let's just read that.
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Let's just kind of read it to get some context. So I'm gonna start in verse 23. It says, and he that is
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Jesus, chapter four, verse 23, and he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.
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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, epileptics and paralytics, and he healed them.
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And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the
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Jordan. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them.
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So now that Jesus has begun his ministry, he's drawing crowds, and Matthew records now
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Jesus' first public sermon that's recorded. It begins in chapter five here,
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Matthew chapter five, and it goes through the end of Matthew chapter seven.
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So Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he gives us here the meat of the sermon, and the
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Sermon on the Mount is found here in the book of Matthew. It's a sermon of Jesus. He's speaking from a mountain.
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Thirdly, I want you to know that this sermon, you're gonna recognize some of these things I'm gonna say, it's an off, we're talking about what is the
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Sermon on the Mount? Thirdly, it's an off -quoted sermon in our day. Maybe you quote parts of it and you didn't even know the context of what you're quoting.
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So for example, the best Bible verse, we're smaller tonight, I'll let you be interactive. America's number one known
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Bible verse today is probably what? Yeah, Matthew 7 .1,
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which says what? Judge not, right? Matthew 7 .1,
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judge not. What is the context of Matthew 7 .1? It's preached in the context of the
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Sermon on the Mount, or how about this one? Turn the other cheek. You ever heard anybody say that? Have you ever said that?
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Where does that come from? It comes from the context, it's Matthew 5 .39. The context of the
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Sermon on the Mount. Or what about this one? The golden rule. What is the golden rule? Do unto others, right?
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Where does that come from? It comes from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7 .12. Or what about, have you ever referenced the
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Lord's Prayer? We quote that sometimes. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Where does that come from?
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It comes from the context here of the Sermon on the Mount. So what I'm saying is, this is a more well -known sermon than you may realize.
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Christians and non -Christians alike, they use these verses, they use these phrases, but what we're gonna try to do in this series is we're gonna try to show what these phrases actually mean and how they actually apply to our lives.
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Okay, so what is the Sermon on the Mount? It's the most famous sermon ever preached. It was preached by Jesus. It's found here in the
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Gospel of Matthew, and it's a well -known sermon. This leads us to the second question.
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How should we interpret this sermon? How should we understand it? Man, there's lots of ink been spilt on this.
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But let me answer this question by showing how not to interpret. The first I would say is, this might not be around so much anymore, but it used to be around.
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And that is this extreme liberal view that would say something like this. The Sermon on the
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Mount is what we need the world to just live by. You guys need to just live by the Sermon on the Mount. So they would say that the
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Sermon on the Mount, it's not hard at all. This is how you should live. If we could just have the world live this way, we would just make the world a better place.
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What we need to do is just go out there and teach people to be nice to one another and to love one another and to live in harmony.
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Of course, we now understand that this type of thinking will never work. But more importantly,
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Jesus is not teaching the world. He's not teaching the world here. In the
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Sermon on the Mount, again from your text, He's teaching who? His disciples.
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Seeing the crowds, He went up on the mountain and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him and He opened
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His mouth and taught them. He's teaching His disciples. The world cannot live this way.
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Jesus' teaching on the Sermon on the Mount turns the world on its head. In fact, Martin Lord Jones says it this way, it is wrong to ask anybody who is not first a
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Christian to try to live or practice the Sermon on the Mount. So let me reiterate this again.
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The Sermon on the Mount is for Christians. It's for believers. Fallen human nature cannot and does not want to submit to what is demanded by Jesus in the
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Sermon on the Mount. Okay, secondly, here's the second error. So the first is, well, it's so easy, anybody can live it.
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The second error is the Sermon on the Mount is so hard that it's impossible for believers.
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So this is the pendulum swinging too far the other way. So some want to place the Sermon on the
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Mount under the category of law. And so they say the only purpose of the
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Sermon on the Mount is to drive us to Christ. So let's look at some passages. Look at Matthew 544, for example,
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Matthew 544. In Matthew 544, Jesus says, "'But I say to you, love your enemies "'and pray for those who persecute you.'"
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And people would say, that's absolutely ridiculous. That's impossible, I can't do that. And so Jesus' only purpose in teaching us this is that it would drive us to Him for our need of grace.
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But let me just say this, as you read the Sermon on the Mount and by the way, if you're reading through our Bible reading plan, you've already read through the
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Sermon on the Mount. You read through it in January, I believe. You should have finished it in January.
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But what it is teaching us, what we read here is there's nothing in this sermon that lends itself for us to believe that Jesus didn't expect us to obey this.
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Jesus expects His disciples to live this way. However, this does not mean that we can take the
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Sermon on the Mount and make it just into a list of mechanical rules. If we do that, we're no better than the
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Pharisees because they were doing that with the law of Moses. So Christ is showing us in the
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Sermon on the Mount, the Christian ethic, and He's showing us that mere outward conformity doesn't cut it.
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So let me give you an example. It's not enough to just not murder someone. So some people are like, oh yeah,
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I'm a Christian and I'm living righteously because I never murdered anybody. Well, okay, praise
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God. But Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount that it's not just about outward not killing someone.
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I mean, honestly, you ought to be able to live your whole life and not murder anybody. I mean, okay, whoop -dee -doo, you've made it.
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No, no, no, Jesus is teaching, it's not just this outward idea of, well, I didn't kill anybody, no, no, but also this inward fight with the pride of our own hearts that breeds anger toward one another.
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Or let me give another application. You say, well, I come to church. Can I just tell you, one of the easiest things, and I didn't say this, but one of the easiest things in the
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Christian life is to wake up on Sundays and come to church. Like, that's really easy. Like, that is a bottom rung step of obedience.
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And yet we've made it a top level thing, haven't we? Oh man, you come to church every Sunday? Wow, like you're really, really committed.
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No, it's really easy to come to church. But you understand, it's not just about this outward conformity of coming to church, but this inward desire to do the things that Christ would have us to do.
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So the righteousness then described in the Sermon on the Mount is not just about outward behavior, outward actions, but it's also inward motivations.
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By the way, here's where people go off the rails on that. When they hear, well, it's not just about outward behavior, they wanna throw away the outward behavior, right?
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So I can live however I want as long as my motivations are right. No, no, that's wrong too.
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It is about the outward behavior. It's not just about the outward behavior. Does it make sense? All right, so it's these things need to match.
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John Stott says it this way. The Sermon on the Mount describes what human life and human community look like when they come under the gracious rule of God.
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Okay, this is Sunday Night Crowd, I understand, but I need to ask us this. Has your life come under the gracious rule of God?
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If your life has, if your life is under the gracious rule of God, if God has regenerated your heart, if you have turned from your sin and put your faith in Christ, then
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I'm telling you tonight, the Sermon on the Mount is for you. It's yours to follow.
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It's a high standard though. Look at Matthew 5, verse 48. In Matthew 5, verse 48,
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Jesus says, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly
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Father is perfect. Okay, now Jesus is not saying, now this is why we need to understand this in its context.
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Jesus is not saying if you'll just be like God, you'll get to heaven. No, rather, he's saying as believers, we desire this.
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Okay, so when you hear Matthew 5, verse 48, as a Christian, there's two things that happen or should be happening in your life.
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The first is you feel how far short, how immeasurably short you are.
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When you hear Christ says, what is my desire for you? What is my desire for my disciples? It is this, you be perfect as your heavenly
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Father is perfect. And so on one hand, since we hear that and we're broken, we're sad, our heart hurts because we realize there's so much remaining sin.
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There's too many thoughts and ill motivations. And I just think I'm gonna conquer it today.
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And I get out of my bed and in two minutes, I'm mad at the cat, right? It happens so quickly.
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So I hear this and I hear, oh Lord, this is what you want for me. And I fall so short.
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And yet the other side is, it doesn't stop there. It's like, though I fall short, and though yet again,
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I'm knocked down by sin, by grace, I get up again and I pursue this because it's what
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I want. I want to be like Christ. I want this. I know
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I'll never attain this. Sorry, not sorry, John Wesley, who taught sinless perfection.
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I'm not gonna ever attain this, but yet I want it because I'm a disciple.
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We repent and we want all of us, all of our mind and heart and soul and strength to come under more and more and more
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God's gracious rule. We hunger and thirst for righteousness.
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So the Sermon on the Mount is meant to show believers how citizens of the kingdom of heaven live.
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Yet it also drives us to Christ. It reminds us of our need for grace, but we interpret it as Jesus intended.
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This is what those in the kingdom, this is what their lives look like. Which leads me to my third question.
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How is the Sermon on the Mount structured? So now let's just look at big picture. The Sermon on the
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Mount is structured around this preaching of Jesus, the preaching of the kingdom of heaven, the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom.
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These phrases, kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God, they're used combined eight times in these three chapters.
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In one sense, of course, we'd say, well, what is God's kingdom? Like I said earlier, in one sense we might say God's kingdom is the whole universe because He sovereignly rules and reigns over the entire universe.
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But what Jesus is preaching about here and teaching is where God's rule and reign is recognized and rejoiced in.
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So for example, in a way, we sum this up in Matthew 6 .10. In Matthew 6 .10,
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part of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus says that we ought to pray, your kingdom come, your will be done.
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On earth as it is in heaven. Now you think about that. In heaven, the will of God, the revealed will of God is done perfectly.
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On earth it's not. But this is what we want, this is what we pray, and we want the kingdom to expand.
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So in many ways, we're still longing for the kingdom to come, right? I mean, it's just a simple question.
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Is God's rule recognized and rejoiced in by everyone in Perryville? Of course not.
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Of course not. There's still sin and there's still sorrow in our lives. There's still pain and medical conditions and there's still death.
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So in one sense, of course, the kingdom of heaven is not yet. But in another sense, it has already come.
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Jesus has come. Jesus preached repentance. He preached, the text said earlier, the gospel of the kingdom.
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He is the Messiah. He came and he died for our sins. He is the prophetic fulfillment of all the things in the
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Old Testament. The light has come and has broken through darkness. He is Lord and he demands our allegiance and our worship.
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He is good and holy and he is the righteous king. So as subjects, acknowledge this and we adjust our lives accordingly.
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So again, just to be clear, you don't live righteously in order to get into the kingdom. Rather, you enter the kingdom of God through the new birth and this new birth has a profound impact on every area of your life so that you seek to live righteously.
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And by the way, this even has an impact on society, doesn't it? The kingdom of heaven is breaking in and even affecting and impacting the kingdom of this world.
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So the kingdom of heaven is not yet, but it is also, in another sense, already. It's right now.
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So if we don't understand all this, then the structure of the Sermon on the Mount, it might not make sense to us.
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But let me just give you an outline for the Sermon on the Mount. So the Sermon on the
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Mount is divided into three sections. The first section starts in Matthew 5, verse three.
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That's where Jesus begins to preach. Matthew 5, three, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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So that's section number one. I've entitled, that's where it begins. I've entitled this section, the recipients of the kingdom of heaven.
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So this is the Beatitudes here, the recipients of the kingdom of heaven and it runs from Matthew 5, three to 5, 16.
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So section one is the recipients of the kingdom of heaven. So it explains to us, this is the type of people who receive the kingdom by grace, the poor in spirit, the peacemakers, the merciful, et cetera, et cetera.
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The second section, and this is the main section of the sermon, is from 5, 17, not my sermon, the
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Sermon on the Mount. You get worried there, you're like, he's preached a long time and then this is the main, no, no.
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What I mean is the first section is 5, 3 through 5, 16, the recipients of the kingdom. Second section, the main meat of the sermon, 5, 17 through 7, 12.
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5, 17 through 7, 12. I've entitled this section, the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven.
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So number one, the recipients of the kingdom of heaven, who it is that receives the kingdom. Secondly, the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven.
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And in this section, Jesus teaches us the Christian ethic. He teaches us what true righteousness looks like.
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So verse 17 of chapter five, do not think that I've come to abolish the law of the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
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For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass away from the law until all is accomplished.
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Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
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But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven.
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So section one, the recipients of the kingdom. Section two, the righteousness of the kingdom. And then the final section is from chapter seven, verse 13, to the end of the sermon, which ends in verse 27.
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I'll read chapter seven, verse 13 and 14. I've entitled this section, the right and wrong kingdom.
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So number one, you have the recipients of the kingdom. Number two, the righteousness of the kingdom. And then verse 13 of chapter seven and following, you have the right and wrong kingdom.
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So let me give you an example. Chapter seven, verse 13. Enter by the narrow gate, that's the right way.
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Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, that's the wrong way. And the way is easy that leads to destruction.
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And those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
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So there's the right way, the narrow gate, and the hard way. And then there is the wrong way, which is the wide gate, and the easy, the wide way, and the easy, the easy way.
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So Jesus in this section talks about two ways, the true and false prophets, true and false converts, good and bad foundation.
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And so the sermon is structured around the kingdom of heaven. It teaches us who's in the kingdom, how these people live within the kingdom, and it teaches us how to spot impostors.
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Jesus is a masterful teacher. By the way, let's just make another comment, and then we'll move to the last question.
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That question won't be long. Back to chapter five, verse two. Jacob has done a masterful job of teaching us this in Sunday school, but let me just make a comment here since it's right here before us.
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Matthew five, verse two. It says, he opened his mouth and taught them.
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In other words, for people who try to say things like, well, Jesus was just trying to be an example,
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Jesus just showed us his love, and those sorts of things. There's of course truth to that.
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Jesus is the commiserate example. Jesus did show us his love.
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He didn't just tell us about it. But if you say that's all Jesus' ministry, you miss this great part of his ministry, and that is
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Jesus is a teacher, right? Jesus teaches doctrine. Jesus is the masterful teacher.
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He's our good and gracious king, and those who say that Jesus didn't teach doctrine, they haven't understood places like the
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Sermon on the Mount. This is God's beloved son, and we must listen to him. So this brings us to our final question tonight.
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Why preach this series? Is it gonna take us a while? Why preach this series? I have a few points.
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Number one, so we can examine ourselves. Listen very carefully to this. You need to ask yourself,
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I need to ask myself, is Jesus' ethic my ethic, right?
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Hey, you hear a lot of people telling you things, don't you? You hear politicians, probably on both sides, who will say things on the news like, well,
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Jesus would have, and then they start blabbering, right? What you need to be able to know is what are the things that Jesus actually taught?
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By the way, I'll make this comment, too. The Sermon on the Mount is not more important than any other passage of Scripture, and it doesn't carry more weight because Jesus spoke it, right?
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No, no, these are words from the Holy Spirit as Matthew's recording this, and so if you have a red -letter
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Bible, you might think, well, the red letters, those are really important. No, no, it's all from Genesis to Revelation, the
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Word of God. But what we need to ask ourselves here as we understand this teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, is
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Jesus' ethic my ethic? Is what he values what I value? Do I simply dismiss the teachings of Jesus as no big deal, or rather, do
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I seek by the Holy Spirit's help to submit my entire life to what
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Christ wants from me? Of course, none of us can live the Sermon on the Mount perfectly, but if we're truly born again, we seek to obey what
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Jesus teaches us because we love him. Bob Utley says it this way. The purpose of the Sermon on the
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Mount is not to show the lost how to be saved, but how God expects the saved to live.
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The New Kingdom ethic is so radical that even the most committed self -righteous legalists feel inadequate.
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Grace is the only hope for salvation, and the Spirit's power, the only hope for kingdom living.
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Let me say it this way. Remember how I talked about this morning, we need to be filled in the Spirit. Being filled in the
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Spirit is being controlled by the Holy Spirit. One of the things it looks like to be controlled by the Holy Spirit is that our lives are adjusting to the ethic of the kingdom of heaven.
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We want to follow what Christ teaches. So even on a Sunday night crowd, it's important to ask this question.
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Have you looked to Christ in saving faith? In Matthew chapter seven, verse 24,
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Jesus says this. Everyone then who hears these words in his preaching of the Sermon on the Mount, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.
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So the question to the Sunday night crowd is this. Is your life founded on the rock?
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Have you heard Christ and have you humbly responded to him in repentance and faith?
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And are you seeking even now to build your life on him and his teaching?
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Right, number two. So number one, so we can examine ourselves. Number two, so we can pursue Jesus' standard of holiness.
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What does holiness look like? You know, people have got this wrong over the years.
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Some people have said that holiness looks like selling everything you have and not marrying anybody and going and living in a monastery so you can devote yourself 24 hours to prayer and fasting and those things.
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Is that what holiness is? Well, not according to the Sermon on the
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Mount because Jesus is teaching us how we interact and how we live in everyday society.
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For example, in Matthew 5 .20, Jesus teaches us, I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven.
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One study Bible notes it this way. The Sermon on the Mount shows us what life should look like for a heart that has been melted and transformed by the gospel of grace.
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Obviously, there's no getting to heaven without the righteousness of Christ. Yet, and that's the only way we're justified, by the way, by grace through faith.
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We're not justified by our works, we're not justified by our own righteousness. However, those who have put their faith in Christ, we desire now to live in a different way.
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And the word of God must dictate what the Christian life looks like.
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The sermon teaches us what the people of God look like, how they live in this world, how they relate to other believers, how they relate to God, how they relate to unbelievers.
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A quote from our bulletin today, I know you all noticed it because you all read the bulletin so well, I know. But a quote
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John Wycliffe wrote, all Christian life is to be measured by Scripture, by every word thereof.
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So the first reason we read this Sermon on the Mount and study it is so we can examine ourselves.
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And the second reason is so we can pursue Jesus's standard of holiness.
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Let's just be honest, y 'all. Holy living has fallen pretty low in our days.
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So low that many are willing to flat out ignore Scripture. Right, so we have people who,
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I mean, I run around with pastors, so I hear all kinds of stories. We have people who end up leading worship, but they're living with their girlfriend, right?
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Or we have deacons. There've been stories, nothing here or anything like that, but there've been stories
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I've heard over the years of deacons who are getting drunk.
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Or in the SBC, we've learned of pastors who have had illicit affairs.
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Friends, and yet all these people keep coming to church and acting like everything's okay. It's because the standard of holiness has fallen so low.
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We've preached for so long that like, it doesn't matter how you live, it just matters that you believe on Christ.
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No, friends, believing on Christ changes how you live. And Jesus's standard of holiness is here.
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We cannot accept today's nominal Christianity. So many today want to feel wholesome, but they don't wanna be whole.
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That is, they don't ever, they wanna feel wholesome, so they don't want you to tell them they're wrong. They just want to feel like they're right, but they don't care about God's standard.
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But friends, to be Christian is to be holy. Let me say this plainly.
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In the Sermon on the Mount, there are not super Christians in one category, and then normal Christians in another category, and then the rest of us in the middle.
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So you got the loser Christians over here, you got the hero Christians over here, and then you got the lot of us in the middle.
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No, this is what Christianity is, period. Is it easy? Of course not.
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Jesus says, and Jesus says, what? The way is, the gate is narrow, and the way is what?
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It's hard. Why? Because the Christian life is taking up your cross daily. It's dying to self daily.
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It's fighting your sin daily. It's dealing with one another in the church daily. Hey, church life is hard, right?
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Like things are going well in our church, but church life is hard sometimes because you got this guy who's got this personality, this lady who has that personality, this guy who has these hobbies, this person over here that has those hobbies, and God sticks us all together, doesn't he?
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And sometimes it's hard, but this is the way. This is how we are to live.
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It's possible by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of God through the gospel. So there'll be much in this sermon,
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I think, that will cause us to stop and to think and to go to Jesus in repentance. But friends, this is good, this is good, this is good.
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Jesus is our faithful high priest. He's faithful and he's good and he's just and he's ready to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
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So let me stress this again. If the Holy Spirit is in you, if your life is being filled in the
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Holy Spirit, then not only can you seek to live as Jesus taught, but you want to by his grace.
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Any type of Christianity that doesn't align with Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the
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Mount is not biblical Christianity. All right, so we want to examine ourselves, we want to pursue
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Jesus' standard of holy living. And then let me say this, thirdly and finally, why preach this sermon?
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Why preach through this Sermon on the Mount? Because we want to increase our evangelistic impact.
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Go to Matthew five again and look at verse 14 as you hear the commode flush.
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Great sound effect there. Flushing sin out of the church or something. Okay, listen to this very carefully.
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I really want to preach a whole sermon on this. Well, I will when we get there. But in Matthew 5 .14,
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it says, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
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Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house.
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In the same way, let your light shine before others. So they may see your good works and give glory to your
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Father who is in heaven. In the providence of God, there is a church right here in the city of Perryville.
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And this church is to be a light to this dark place.
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We look around and I know we've had conversations and all you think like, well, there's this corruption or there's that corruption or there is a big problem with drugs in our county or there's a big problem with alcohol in our county or there's a real problem with the good old boy system or maybe you talk about people hunting out of season or whatever, like there's corruption and there's evilness and there's filth in this city and in this county and we ought to recognize that and we ought to see that.
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But we also ought to see this, God is doing something about it. What, this church, we're to be a light here.
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And what we're doing is we are seeking to, as it were, raise the banner of Christ, raise the flag of Christ over this entire city and showing these people here that Christ is
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King and He's good and He's gracious and He'll forgive you and you can have eternal life in Him and that coming to Him transforms your life and we're showing them that.
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How are we showing that? We're preaching it, we're preaching it, we're standing on the corners of harps or whatever and we're preaching it, we're going door to door, we're knocking on the door and we're saying,
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Christ is King, will you have Him? We're doing these things. But in addition to these things, we're living as though we know this
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King. We're living by His standard.
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We're showing the world, we're showing Perryville and Perry County and Central Arkansas that there is a difference between believers and unbelievers and so for the purpose of evangelism, many have thought that it should be that the church should look like the world.
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So we put on our little worldly cloaks and we look like the world and then when we get here, we say, ah, we're
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Christians, you know. No, what happens is when the church looks like the world in order to attract the world, then the church becomes the world instead of the world becoming the church.
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And so here's a profound reality. Jesus is insistent that the church ought not look like the world, but like what?
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The church. And so we look like the church and when we look like the church, it is a light to a lost and dying world.
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All right, let me close with this question and then we'll be done tonight. Are you living for the kingdom?
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No fairy tales, no imaginary heroes, no magical Disney tour, just King Jesus restoring all things in himself for his own eternal glory.
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Beloved, my brothers and sisters, my friends, as we prepare ourselves for this series, are we ready to submit our lives to Christ in repentance and faith in all areas so that our lives reflect proper kingdom living?
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Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you that it is good and true.
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We pray, Lord, for your blessing upon the preaching of your word and we pray in Christ's name, amen.