The One Who Did

Well, the day has come where we now conclude the Sermon on the Mount. This has been a journey we began back in June of 2024, so we've spent a year and a half in these three chapters here of Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and really what is perhaps the most famous body of teaching contained in Scripture.

So much of the New Testament, as we've seen, is carrying on or reflecting or at least refracting the teaching of Jesus here in these three chapters.

And as we conclude our time in the Sermon on the Mount, I want to focus partly with where we ended, where Jesus ended this sermon, and then draw that out in terms of what it should mean for us as we reflect on the whole, and then also draw our gaze, draw our focus to the

Lord Jesus Himself. And so if you remember, we, for several weeks now, have been looking at the significance of doing.

Jesus says talk is cheap. In fact, even professing Me as Lord can be something hollow and empty that will not sustain you at the end.

It's not the one who says, but the one who does that is blessed in all that he does. And so our big focus has been for several weeks now, the fact that there is a will that we are to submit to.

There is the Father's desire, the teaching of the Lord that we are to accomplish.

Jesus says all others are workers of lawlessness. So He makes a division right at that point.

What are we working? What are we working at? Are we those who say but do not do?

Or are we those who have heard and received the words of Jesus and seek to apply them and see their fruition at work in our lives?

Jesus says of those who are workers of lawlessness that He will declare, I never knew you.

He only knows in that intimate, covenantal, adoptive sense. He only knows those who do the will of His Father in heaven.

So the last two weeks we looked at the one who does, that was where we began. The one who does is likened to the wise man building his house on the rock.

The one who does not is likened to the foolish man who builds his house on shifting sands.

And summarizing the whole this morning, we'll also come to consider the one who did. That is the

Lord Jesus Christ, practicing, fulfilling all that He's taught here in the

Sermon on the Mount. Let's take some steps back and consider what this past year and a half have brought to the fore.

When we're opening the Gospel of Matthew and we come to chapters five through seven, we're coming to the first major discourse in the

Gospel of Matthew. Of course you begin with the infancy narrative. I trust all of us spent some time considering those words in different formats, in different ways as we came through the past few weeks.

And you come to chapters five through seven, you have the first major body of teaching, the first section of discourse.

There's three large sections of discourse in the Gospel of Matthew, and we start to see a superstructure to the way that the

Gospel of Matthew has been composed. From the time of the apostles all the way through church history, but really especially when you get to the fourth century, the

Sermon on the Mount is by far the most frequently cited text in all of church history.

You look at the writings, you look at sermons, you look at liturgies, the vast majority of citations of quotations are coming out of the

Sermon on the Mount. It has hardly been surpassed ever since it was spoken. That's very significant for us, that these words have had that kind of staying power, that kind of intensity in the church throughout the past two millennia.

Preachers of old saw within this the perfect standard of righteousness.

This is the full disclosure of what it means to be a Christian. Luke Timothy Johnson put it this way, in the history of Christian thought, it has been considered to be the epitome of the teachings of Jesus and therefore the essence of Christianity.

Now maybe that's not something that we've considered. Someone says, well what is Christianity? That a legitimate answer has been and could be the

Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5, 6, and 7, if you want to understand something about what

Christianity is, you need to reckon with the Sermon on the Mount. And part of this sermon, as A.

B. Dutrois says, is to pose a thoroughgoing challenge to every generation.

It's a direct onslaught, as we've seen, on our selfishness, on our self -indulgence, on our hypocrisy.

It affects not only individuals, but whole societies. It challenges our work ethic.

It challenges our anxiety. It challenges the ways we must break out of our comfort zones if we would accept the cost of carrying the cross of Christ.

It's nothing less than the clarion call to discipleship. This is what the Sermon on the Mount does.

And we dare not whittle down its challenge, as we're tempted to do. Let's defang these heavy words of our

Lord. Let's take out all that makes it so cumbersome, everything that would make it so difficult.

Let's make that narrow way a little more broad than Jesus presents it as being. That's the temptation that we face.

In leaving the Sermon on the Mount, that's the temptation we'll face. Let's just broaden out that way. Jesus must have been exaggerating.

Surely this is sarcasm. Who could possibly conduct their lives in this way? Jesus says what he says.

So as we reflect upon the past year and a half, the first thing we must not do is make light of what is heavy.

Jesus, his burden is light, his yoke is easy, but if you hear the warning, that lightness, that ease is in comparison, in contrast to the heavy burdens, the impossible yoke that the

Pharisees were seeking to hoist on their would -be disciples. Jesus isn't saying that the way is easy.

He said it's narrow, it costs your life. It's not easy. It's just something that is possible.

By the grace of God and by the empowerment of the Spirit, it is possible. It's impossible to bear the burdens of the law in the way the

Pharisees were holding them. It's a burden, as the apostles said, that neither we nor our fathers could bear.

Rightly understanding the righteousness of the law shows our complete inability to be righteous as the law demands.

That draws us to the Savior. The Savior then opens the way that is narrow and difficult. By his own presence and power in our lives, we're able to conduct ourselves on that narrow way, the way that's so difficult, so few find it.

It's really important we hold these things together. Jesus doesn't say, it was really, really hard until I came, and now it's super easy.

Here's your get -out -of -hell -free card. That is not what the Sermon on the Mount holds out to anyone. So we don't make light what is heavy.

We don't whittle down the challenge of this sermon. We need to keep in mind all that we've heard about the moral law.

Certainly, Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, is distilling what the moral perfections of the law require.

Really important we understand this. We talk about the moral law, that which

God imbued within man at creation, that which is reflected in man's heart, which man represses the truth of in unrighteousness.

Dulled the conscience, darkened the mind, he represses that truth in the acts of unrighteousness.

And the further you go in unrighteousness, the more you repress. So it always is. Eventually, those pangs of conscience just are no longer heard.

It's the Charlie Brown teacher effect. It just doesn't have any impact on the way that you're thinking or carrying yourself.

But that moral law is how we were created. It's what we were meant to be as human beings. This is what image -bearing is supposed to look like.

Anything less falls short of the glory of God that he intended for humanity. Again, this is not some added bonus.

This is not some extra layer. This is not for the Christian elites. This is simply what the moral law of God requires.

It's what sanctification will look like, because sanctification is God's grace restoring our nature as human beings, as image -bearers.

Righteousness is not something beyond our humanity as created beings. It's something that constitutes what we're meant to be as human beings, as image -bearers.

You see? Very important. So our confession, very helpful in chapter 19, it holds out the same law, this is the language from their confession, the same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness even after the fall, and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in Ten Commandments.

This is chapter 19, paragraph 2. The same law that God created us, constituted us in, imbued us with that righteousness, original righteousness, was ever the standard of righteousness,

God gave it in Ten Commandments written by his own finger in the stone at Mount Sinai, a reflection of Israel's stony heart, their inability to be what they were made to be, the glory of God as his image.

And so they from that should have garnered the voice of the prophets, we need a heart of flesh because we have a heart of stone, we cannot do this law, we need the spirit that will cause us to walk in the law, that will carry out the law in our lives.

This is what Jesus is appealing to in the Sermon on the Mount. That's the moral law. Now listen to this, this is paragraph 5 from that same chapter, so helpful.

The moral law does forever bind all. This is part and parcel of what it means to be human.

This is how we were created and therefore this is how we will give account. And that's the big question, how will you give account for what

God requires of you by virtue of the fact that you're made in his image, you owe him, you have to stand before him as his image.

How far short will you fall? So will your judgment be. Outside of Christ that is an impossible terror.

The moral law forever binds all, not just unbelievers but even justified people.

It binds us to the obedience of the law, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, in other words not just because of what is said but because of who gave it in respect of the authority of God the creator.

Neither does Christ in the gospel in any way dissolve but he rather strengthens this obligation.

That's what we've seen in the Sermon on the Mount. That's what's behind Jesus clarifying what hypocrisy looks like and what being his disciple looks like.

That's the two ways to live. That's Jesus saying I'm telling you do not be like the hypocrites.

Don't make it all a fashion show. Actually understand this teaching, this word because if you don't understand it and apply it and build on it, great will be the collapse at the end.

Now when our confession actually states this in paragraph 5 of chapter 19 that neither does

Christ in his gospel in any way dissolve the obligation of the moral law, he rather strengthens it.

They cite one passage in particular. What is that? Matthew 5 .17 right here in the

Sermon on the Mount. Do not think that I came to destroy the law of the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

For assuredly I am saying to you until heaven and earth pass away not one jot, not one tittle will by any means pass from the law until all has been fulfilled.

So Jesus does not overturn the law. He fulfills it. He does not undermine the law. He fulfills it.

He doesn't dissolve the law. He strengthens it. Not that it's weak in itself but in our flesh it was weak as Paul says.

It was marred over by human blindness and human error. Jesus came as the great prophet

Moses said you must listen to him and he said let me tell you what God has always commanded. What the law always requires.

Now we're going to get to where that goes. We're looking at this in the context of the Sermon on the Mount on Jesus' warnings but it's very important that we don't then disconnect the

Sermon on the Mount from the whole of Matthew's Gospel. That's where we're going a little bit later this morning. I'm just trying to establish what we've seen in this sermon from the lips of Jesus.

Whatever you want men to do to you, he says in Matthew 7 .12, do also to them for this is the law in the prophets.

So the heart of this sermon is clarifying and presenting what scripture requires.

What is the will of my heavenly father? And he's shown us that in Matthew 5, 6 and 7. He knows that scripture cannot be broken.

So he points to the law, he upholds the law, he clarifies the law. We're meant to frame this all in Jesus is coming as the law giver.

If we remember when we began the Sermon on the Mount we were comparing Moses in Exodus 19 and 20 with Jesus here in Matthew 5.

Both go up on a mountain and are seated, we read, with disciples. They have, in other words, the 70 that go up to receive the law that's given to Moses.

We have the followers of Jesus going up and are seated to receive what Jesus is instructing, what he is revealing.

Both see the Lord, both receive the law. So there's a major parallel in this statement.

Jesus is one greater than Moses, full of grace and truth, as John says.

He's not the giver of a new law, he does not dissolve, but rather strengthens the obligation of the moral law, clarifies the obligation of the moral law.

So he's not the giver of a new law, but he is a new law giver. That's what we see in the

Sermon on the Mount. Now this, of course, is the testimony of Scripture.

One greater than Moses has come, Hebrews 3 .3. This one has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, and as much as he who built the house has more honor than the house.

Reflecting Jesus was not merely the one teaching after Moses in light of Moses, he was the one who was before Moses.

He was the one who built the house. He was the one who gave the law to Moses, and then comes in the fullness of time and flesh to reveal, to clarify, to press the demands of that law upon his heroes.

So Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, the Reformers at large all wrote extensively on the

Sermon on the Mount, calling it the law of Christ. But again, this is not a new law, but rather the law from a new law giver.

However diverse these views may have been, the traditions of Luther and Calvin, you think of the

Reformed understanding of the law, the three uses of the law over against Lutheran understanding of the law, but they still all generally hold that the

Sermon on the Mount is a proper interpretation of the law given by Moses.

More or less they all, in their own way, share the continuity between the law of Christ and the law of Moses.

It's very important that we understand that. And of course, the whole point of Matthew 5 .17,

when we see it in light of the whole gospel, is that word fulfill. Do not think I've come to destroy the law of the prophets, but rather to fulfill them.

To feel the weight of the law as it's reflected in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is one thing, but to situate

Matthew 5, 6, and 7 in the light of the whole gospel of Matthew is another. We recognize from Galatians that Jesus was one born under the law.

So the law whose obligation he strengthens is the law that he's born under. The law that he came to fulfill is a law that establishes every act, every thought, every breath, every prayer, every notion, every intention, every ambition.

As we sang in the hymn earlier this morning, it was him living out in living characters the law of God.

And that's what we see. One born under the law, the second Adam, fulfilling all that the law requires, showing forth in his life what the law looks like in practice, in life, in relationship, toward God, toward others.

He's the living illustration of the righteousness of the law. He is the word of God.

He is the image of the invisible, the perfect image bearer. He is the one who shows us forth all of the perfections of the

Godhead dwelling in him bodily. So this fulfillment is something so profound.

It's not something just contained in his teachings or in a few scattered activities. It's the whole of his life and everything that comprised it.

It's his atoning death, his resurrection and ascension. All this is held forth. In fact, if we just look at where this

Sermon on the Mount comes, we see this repristination of the history of Israel in the first four chapters.

The storyline of Exodus at work, the slaughter of the infants, you have the return of the

Deliverer, the baptism through the waters, the testing in the wilderness, and here the mount on which the law is given.

That's a recreation of Israel's history in terms of redemption here just in the first five chapters of Matthew.

And how does that set up the rest of the Gospel? Well, Matthew, of course, has confirmed to us that Jesus is

Immanuel, God with us. The yes and amen of all that the prophets have prophesied.

In the baptism, in the wilderness testing, Jesus' sonship is emphasized. This is the one whom

I love. This is my own beloved son. That's not just a declaration, matter of fact.

It's carrying within that all the notions of Davidic kingship. This day I've counted you my son.

This is not simply a great prophet that must be heard. This is the divine son of God. This is the

Messiah, the anointed one, upon whom all of the promises of God rest. And what's contained within that?

Just again, thinking of the whole of the Gospel of Matthew. We know from the very beginning in Matthew chapter one, as an angel appears to Joseph and gives this word,

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary as a wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the

Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a son. You will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Whatever you make of the Sermon on the Mount and this challenging demand for kingdom righteousness, kingdom living, don't alienate it.

Don't separate it from the whole of Matthew's Gospel. From the beginning, it's been announced that this law giver is the one who's also been born under the law to be a savior to his people from their sins.

Whatever Jesus is doing on the Sermon on the Mount, he's not saying, here's the law, good night and good luck.

That would only be true if the Gospel of Matthew was seven chapters long. But it's 28 chapters long.

And there's a lot more that Jesus came to do in order to save his people from their sins.

It wasn't simply giving us a challenging teaching about what it means to belong to the kingdom.

It was actually to drag his cross in that perfect righteousness all the way through Golgotha.

It was to build his house, the house of his life, for those short three decades, on everything that his father required of him.

Lo, I have come to do your will. At no point did he seek to serve himself. As a son of man, he didn't seek to serve himself.

He came to serve others, to give his life as a ransom for many. And so at every turn, he was deflecting, deferring, as we said at the beginning from Philippians 2, not holding it robbery, though he's equal with God, to deny himself, make himself of no reputation, to have the king of the world brought to birth through the gutters and canals of some manger.

He made himself nothing, nothing. And then as he grew in wisdom, in favor with men, in stature, understanding not only the will of God as it was in the word, but even understanding his own role and relationship to God in that word.

Understanding as he grew in that stature that, lo, these things are written of me. And so the entrance to his ministry is just the outflow of a reflected consciousness he had had throughout his young life.

We go to Luke 4 and he's in the synagogue and he's opening the scrolls and he finds that place and he says, these things are written, they're concerning me.

I'm telling you that today this is fulfilled in your hearing. I'm what Isaiah spoke of. I'm the servant who you've been looking for.

That's something that would have come upon him throughout his young life. And so from the very beginning, he came as one who was establishing, building his whole life on the will of God.

He built up in majesty, not the thorns and the thistles of wasted humanity, of fallen depravity, but this green vine, this shoot from Jesse.

He established his life and in every way it was pleasing, fully pleasing to his father.

The pleasure that he had in that eternal triune relationship shone like sunlight gliding through the clouds upon him at his baptism.

This is my son, my beloved son. I'm so well pleased. I haven't had a pleasure like this in humanity since Adam fell.

Adam, Adam was the song of creation. He was my delight, the joy, the sheer pleasure

I felt to commune with him in the cool of the day until the serpent slithered in and turned him away from me.

And he brought all of humanity into the disaster of sinful rebellion against me. And so in my wrath,

I cast him away from my presence, but in mercy, I gave him the hope. And now this hope has come in my own son whom

I sent in his incarnation. He is my delight. And the son feeling that perfect delight at every turn, seeking the smile of his father.

Not what I will at every turn, not just in Gethsemane, at every moment. Not what I will, not what

I will, not what I will, but what you will. That's my delight. Who do

I have in heaven but you? He could sing it greater than Asaph could ever sing it. You're the strength of my heart.

Though you lead me through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. I trust you.

You are with me, Father. Jesus fulfilling all that was held out by the law, all that was held out by the prophets, building his life perfectly upon the will of the father, reflecting that righteousness of the law perfectly in all that he did toward God and toward man.

And he builds up that perfect life, that life we could never live, that life that we're already born onto shifting sands, born in degeneracy, born alienated from the life of God, from the hope of his promise.

We're born in Adam's sin, in Adam's rebellion, dead in that trespass and sin, according to Scripture.

But Jesus wasn't. Jesus was born of the virgin in his mother's womb, knit together by the

Holy Spirit, God of very God, light of very light, a house glorious.

Though he emerged from hands, he was the house made without makers, the temple made without hands, a temple resplendent.

Not a temple corruptible, but a temple pure, the very dwelling place of God among men, the immaculate presence of God, the spotless purity of his presence, the glory and the beauty and the fiery power of all that God is contained in him bodily, the perfect building.

But because he came in our stead, because as Matthew 1 lays out, he came to be a savior for the sins of his people, great was the collapse when his house was torn down.

This is the one who did. We have to frame the whole Sermon on the Mount in light of the whole

Gospel of Matthew, that perfect life built upon the solid rock of his father's will, to then experience the judgment as if he had never for a moment sought the will of his father, as if he was constituted in our rebellion, to be torn down, to face that wrath that's due for our sin.

This is how Jesus is able to save us from our sins. He was the house we could never be, that we could be built up in him, to be a holy dwelling place for the

Spirit of God. He lived that perfect life we could not live to be built up in that way, only to be torn down in the ways that we should be torn down.

Great should be the collapse of all of the houses of our lives, except for this

Gospel of Jesus Christ. Think of this house, brothers and sisters, he was in the world, the world was made through him, the world did not know him.

He came to his own, his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, not of will, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but born of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the

Father, full of grace and truth. Whatever Jesus is holding out to us in the

Sermon on the Mount, he's also holding out himself, holding out his life, not just his teaching, but his life, his impending death.

He doesn't just give his disciples this instruction and righteousness, he reminds them the Son of Man must suffer, must be delivered over, must be crucified, but will rise on the third day.

If you tear down this temple I've spent my whole life building, it will be rebuilt in three days.

And so the center of Christianity, though the Sermon on the Mount may be its essence, a distillation of what

Christianity looks like at work in the world, the heart of Christianity, the center of Christianity, is

Christ himself. It's not the law as it's revealed in all of its obligations, nor is it the sacrifices that we make, the ways that we will be changed and the things that we will do in order to keep being salt and light in this kingdom way.

It's the sacrifice once for all given from the Savior who gave his life as a ransom. It's the one for whom the world was made, though it was made through him and the world did not know him.

It's the one who upholds in his hands all of history and all of time, sustains all of life, composed all matter, bears all authority, contains all glory, beholds all eternity.

Christ is the very center of Christianity. That's why

Paul, and he's reflecting on this, is talking about the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over creation.

By him, all things were created that are in heaven and on earth. And he's the head of his body, the church, which is from the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he will have preeminence.

It pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell. And by him, he's now reconciled all things to himself.

By him, whether things on earth, things in heaven, he's made peace through the blood of his cross.

And you, though you were once alienated enemies in your mind, in your flesh by wicked works, now he's reconciled in the body of his flesh to present you holy and blameless above reproach in his sight.

And what does Paul say in light of that? Verse 23, if indeed you will continue in the faith grounded, steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you heard.

The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6 and 7 is showing us what it means and why we must continue in the faith grounded, steadfast.

The whole gospel of Matthew shows us the hope of the gospel, which we heard. That's nothing less than the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So make sure you know the difference between what you must continue in grounded and steadfast and that which alone is your hope.

There is hope in no other. There's hope in no other way. It was the Puritan David Dixon who said,

I would amass before me all of my great sins, all of my treachery. I put in one big heap before me and then against that I would put together a heap of all of my good works, all of my noble sacrifices, all of my virtues that I've amassed and I would abandon them both and flee to Christ.

Because he alone can give me rest and peace. So whatever we take away from the

Sermon on the Mount, we are not somehow distorting the hope of the gospel. We're rather receiving the teaching of the

Lord to help us, to prod us, to warn us, to continue in the faith grounded and steadfast.

We do not want to be like those who do not receive the word. We want to be those who do receive the word, who do build wisely, but we cannot do that unless we base all of our hope and stay on the one who did.

That's what the gospel of Matthew as a whole is trying to put forth to us. The divinity of Christ is the very center and keep of Christianity.

Listen to J .C. Ryle. Here lies the infinite value of the atoning sacrifice on the cross.

Here lies the merit of his atoning death for sinners. The death was not the death of a mere man like ourselves, but of one who as Romans 9, 5 says is over all eternally blessed

God forever. We need not wonder that the sufferings of one person were a sufficient propitiation for the sin of a world.

But when we remember that he who suffered was the son of God, we cling to the doctrine with watchfulness.

With it, we stand upon a rock. Without it, we have nothing solid beneath our feet. Our hearts are weak.

Our sins are many. We need a redeemer who will save us to the uttermost, deliver us from the wrath to come.

And we have such a redeemer in Jesus Christ. You see what Ryle's saying? If we're looking for any other way to be saved, we are on shifting sands.

Your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees, that of the Sadducees, that of the scribes.

Otherwise, you'll never inherit the kingdom. The only way to inherit the kingdom is to believe upon and build your life upon the son of God veiled in flesh.

We see that Jesus is the one who has all authority. That's something held out here in Matthew 7.

It's also something that comprises the very end of the Gospel of Matthew. In chapter 7, the final warning is

Jesus is presented as the divine judge. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter.

I will say to them, I never knew you. That's divine judgment. Jesus is saying, I'm the one you'll answer to.

What do men say of me? That was a sermon we had a number of weeks ago. Who do you think that I am? It's a question

Jesus asks every single one of us. Who do you say that I am? How does your life reflect what you say that I am?

Lord? Or a noble teacher?

A social revolutionary? Or Lord? So we continue to demand this way of life, this righteousness that exceeds the scribes and the

Pharisees. We recognize that we ultimately must give an answer to him. He will say to us whether it be,

I never knew you or enter into the joy of your master. It's he who's enthroned.

He's the one who has all authority. Matthew 28, all authority has been given to me on heaven and on earth.

It's what Philippians 2 says, the name above every name. And at that name, every knee will fall.

Every tongue will confess. So we see the authority. We have to grapple with the demands of our Lord and our

King. And the demands of our Lord and King are far more rigorous than anything the

Pharisees could hold out. What did Jesus tell us? If we murder in our hearts, we're liable to hellfire.

What did Jesus say? If we give ourselves over to the fires of lust in our lives, we'll end up in fiery judgment.

Jesus says, if we reject the will of our Father in heaven, we should not expect to enter into his kingdom.

These are the words of our Lord and King. The danger as we close out this series now is they become words in one ear, out the other.

That's what Martin Luther said. I don't know if he came up with that phrase, but it's been around for at least 500 years.

In one ear, out the other. When we lose heart and grappling with the demands of the

Sermon on the Mount, what we do is we set them aside as something utterly impossible to obey.

And so we normalize failure in our Christian walk. We normalize failure.

Little thoughts like, no one's really like this. No one can really walk in this way.

I haven't met anyone who really does this well. We're reminded the warning of Scripture, to the defiled, all things are defiled.

Of course, we all stumble in many ways. Scripture is very clear about that. But God's word never normalizes the practice of sin.

Jesus doesn't dial down the demands of righteousness. He turns the volume all the way up. In such a way that we recognize we have to abandon our efforts to fix or clean up ourselves, we must have him as a savior for sin.

We must flee to the cross. We must know him by faith that we may receive his grace, his righteousness imputed to us.

You don't get that by normalizing the practice of sin or countenancing its expectation of failure.

You get that by looking at how Jesus demands a righteousness that human beings cannot muster up.

It must be given by the grace of God. Otherwise, you might as well think no one really can obey

Jesus. No one really can bear good fruit. There's really no such thing as a good tree. There's really no such thing as building your house on the rock.

No one's really pure of heart. No one really is going to enter the narrow gate. That's nothing that Jesus is saying here in the

Sermon on the Moon. If you don't take that from me, take it from Martin Lloyd -Jones. He says, we've so emphasized the teaching that all is of grace that we ought not try to imitate his example in order to make ourselves

Christians that we're virtually in the position of ignoring his teaching altogether. Ancient Christians used to model their lives in imitation of Jesus.

That is what it means to be a disciple, a student. And in antiquity, students would join themselves to a master and they would imitate the whole way of life of that master.

If you were wealthy enough to send your sons, rarely your daughters, to be educated, it wasn't just sitting at a desk and having three hours of instruction.

It was a whole way of life. How do I speak? How do I act? How do I cook? How do I walk?

How do I interact? You were learning how to imitate your master. You think of like the old guilds, the painter's guilds and so on.

You would have a master, a master painter, and he would have a workshop and he would have apprentices that were learning how to complete the masterpieces by copying and imitating every stroke, every preparation, every detail, every mannerism of the master.

And so when you go to an art museum and you see after the school of Titian, after the school of Raphael, you're looking at imitation.

That's what it means to be a student. That's what it means to be a disciple. Ancient Christians understood we are meant to reflect and gaze at the person and work of Jesus Christ so that we can imitate it.

We are to be like him. Something has happened in our mindset now where it's like he's so perfect,

I could never be like him. I'm just thankful that he saves me. And there's no desire to actually allow our lives to be saturated by the presence and the character and the fruitfulness of Christ.

We're not understanding the Sermon on the Mount if we don't understand that. As Lloyd -Jones is saying, we're virtually in the position of ignoring his teaching altogether.

Yada, yada, yada. It's nice that he has all these warnings. It doesn't mean anything because I know at the end he died to save me.

What is he teaching? What is he presenting? How is he inhabiting in such a way that our lives are meant to be modeled after him?

Listen, we are virtually in the position of ignoring his teaching altogether and of saying it has nothing to do with us because we are under grace.

Now, Lloyd -Jones says, I wonder how seriously we take the gospel of our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The best way of concentrating on this question is,

I think, to face the Sermon on the Mount. Do we actually take his teachings seriously?

Do we desire to be like him? I grew up going to youth groups and everyone had the rubber band with WWJD.

And there wasn't a lot of people that were looking to be like Jesus that were wearing those rubber bands. I used to work at a Christian bookstore.

Do you know what the most commonly stolen item was? WWJD bracelets.

Can you think of the irony of that? I want to be like Jesus.

I better steal his bracelet. It's laughable, but we can do the similar thing.

I want to have some emblem, some symbol that I belong to him, but it's not going to be my life imitating his life.

My behavior, my attitude, my thought life, my prayer life, my character, my responsibility, my work ethic, that's all under grace.

That doesn't have to imitate him. I just want the rubber wristband. I just want to seem the parts.

I want to go through the hoops, go through the motions. We haven't even begun to understand the Sermon on the

Mount if that's our position. Are you taking the gospel seriously?

Not just the parts at the beginning and the end of Matthew, but here in this first major discourse. This is what it means to be salt and light.

This is what it looks like to belong to the kingdom. These are they who know the Lord Jesus Christ and are known by him.

Do we take that challenge seriously? Do we mourn over our failure to that challenge in such a way that we end up back at the beginning of Matthew 5?

The blessed who mourn. The blessed who are hungry and thirsty. The blessed who are poor in spirit because we see that righteousness.

We see the perfection of our Savior. We long to be with Him. We want to be like Him. Maranatha, Lord. You see, the

Sermon on the Mount, it will bring you from the warnings at the end all the way back to the comfort at the beginning.

Let those wash over you like waves. The warnings and the comforts, the callings and the hopes.

If you don't take these things as they're given by the Lord, if you don't take Matthew 5 -7 seriously, even as we're departing from it now, if you don't, the

Lord's promises won't motivate you. The promises don't mean anything to you. It'll be, at best, a promise out of reach because you're not addressing your life in repentance and in faith.

You're not breaking down your own heart, your own mentality as one who is hungry and thirsty, who is poor in spirit.

And so it's a handhold. It's something that could uphold you, but it's out of reach. It's too far above you. The promise doesn't mean anything to you.

It doesn't motivate you. It's not within reach. Or on the other hand, a warning won't restrain you. Warnings don't mean anything.

Liable to hellfire? Probably exaggeration. He never knew you. Oh, that's certainly not me. It must be everyone else but me.

The warnings don't even hit you. They don't even land. We always think the warnings apply to everyone but us.

The warnings were spoken to the disciples. It's a mercy to be warned.

As we've said, it's a mercy to be warned. It's not something owed. Jesus spoke in parables so that those who the father's ears had remained stopped, the fathers did not open their eyes, that they wouldn't hear, they wouldn't perceive, they'd be dull, they wouldn't be able to understand.

It was to his disciples that he gave the revelations of the kingdom, the mysteries of the kingdom. And that included also all the warnings.

I tell you, I tell you, verily I tell you, truly I'm saying to you. Well, if the promises don't motivate you and the warnings don't restrain you, what's the end result?

You'll never be changed and you won't care. You just won't care.

If warnings and promises have no effect on your life, there's no possibility of transformation. And of course, transformation is the very impact of Christianity.

The Christian faith is transformative. Faith is likened to a seed. That seed, if it's in the right soil, if it's watered and given increase by God in that second

Corinthian sense, it must burst forth. It must produce fruit. It's impossible to receive the living word or drink from the living well, to be indwelt by the living spirit and have your life unaffected.

It's impossible. We're all affected in different ways, at different lengths, against different things and at different times, but we're all affected.

That's the point. Do you not know with overturns of Jesus, as Paul says in 1

Corinthians 6, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.

James says, brothers, be doers, be doers, be doers.

Don't deceive yourselves. If we measure our life, our actions, our attitudes, our thoughts by the standard held out in the

Sermon on the Mount, by the standard lived out by Christ, we'll find ourselves shaken to the core, but then also comforted in the great refuge of who

Christ is and what He's done for us. Both those things should be at work. Those should be your left and your right feet.

Righteous men know how to shudder at the word of God. Righteous men know how to shudder at the word of God.

Righteous men also know how to find shelter in the midst of the severest storms. Both are held out to us in Matthew 5, 6, and 7.

So we are to do God's will. We are to practice righteousness. We are not only to look to our

Savior or listen to our Savior, we're to become like our Savior. That's what faith is going to do at work in our lives.

That's what building looks like. It looks like building into the conformity of the one who was sent by God.

And according to Matthew 7, we do not enter the kingdom otherwise. Think of this again, just the end of Matthew.

How does Jesus give parting instructions to his disciples according to Matthew 28?

We call it the Great Commission. Jesus calls us to make disciples in the same way that he had made disciples.

And what does he say? These disciples must be taught to what? To obey all that I've commanded.

We haven't moved on from the Sermon on the Mount at all in that sense. Here's what it is.

Here's the will of God. Here's what I've come to do. Here's what I've come to fulfill. And here's what you're going to teach.

Here's what you're going to observe. Not a few things, not some things that are favorable, not some things that are fashionable, but all that I have commanded you.

That's what you're to do as my disciples. That's what you're to teach as my disciples. That's what discipleship looks like.

Those who make a practice of his will rather than those who practice lawlessness.

Now, this is what it means to belong to the kingdom. That was, of course, a major theme, a major language throughout the

Gospel of Matthew. The kingdom is something now and not yet. The kingdom is something near. It's at hand.

The kingdom is something yet to come. The kingdom is something that we're in now. And the kingdom is something that we hope to inherit.

So you have this tension, the now, the not yet. But we are understanding ourselves as those who belong to the kingdom of Christ.

If we're living out the righteousness of Christ unto the glimpse or the faith of Christ, we live out our lives as salt and light.

It's a whole new way of life. It's a whole new identity as the people of God. This is what kingdom living looks like.

And within this, it's the expectation that we will need a lot of mercy and a lot of forgiveness along the way. You can't even be salt and light unless you see how bland and dark your life has been.

That's the beginning of being salt and light. I see darkness. I see shadows.

I don't see luminance. I don't see pungency. I don't see the things that ought to be there for one who professes the faith of Christ.

And as I mourn that and as I shudder at the thought of what Matthew 7 says, I come back to the Beatitudes and I'm reminded

I'm called blessed when I'm poor in spirit. I'm called blessed when I mourn. I'm blessed when

I'm able to forgive debts because I'm recognizing how much my debt is being forgiven in this daily prayer.

I pray to the Lord, forgive me my debts. Forgive me my debts. Forgive me my debts. So no one enters the narrow gate unless they're poor in spirit.

No one can make it through that difficult way unless they're humble enough and broken enough that they can actually start fitting through those narrow crevices.

If you're whole, if you're intact, if your chest is puffed out and your ego is blossomed, there's no way you can enter in a narrow way.

Your bones have to be broken. You have to kind of fold in on yourself if you would enter into the narrow way.

Part of bearing good fruit is mourning your sin and looking for the mercy that God has promised. This too runs through the whole of the gospel of Matthew.

Major theme of Matthew is forgiveness. This emphasis on God's compassion, on the compassion of Christ as the one who came to forgive his people, to save them from their sins.

We see him of course in the gospel as a healer, as the great physician, as the mighty prophet, as the wise teacher, as the exorcist.

We also see him as the one who has authority to forgive sin. Who is this that's able to forgive sin?

Is it easier to tell this man rise and walk or say to you your sins are forgiven? Jesus is the one who has the authority to forgive sin because he's the one who died for the sins of his people.

Luther was fond of saying the cross interprets everything. Everything about our faith is interpreted by the significance of Christ's atoning death.

It's not just that Christ came. It's glorious.

It's profound. It's an unfathomable mystery. But in terms of our eternal hope, it's meaningless.

It's not that Christ came. It's that Christ came and died and rose again.

So we don't put all the emphasis on the fact that he is or the fact that he is to come.

We put the emphasis on the fact that he died to save me from my sin.

That one, that one is coming. That one, that one I stand before. That will make me more poor in spirit than even my own guilt.

It's one thing to be crushed by your own sense of evil, by your own sense of darkness.

I can shed a few crocodile tears when I begin to really think about how crooked I can be at times.

But when I think about the perfections of the Savior and his mercy unfailing, that's when I really begin to shed tears.

It's not just that we estimate our guilt at the cross, as the hymn by Thomas Kelly puts it. It's not just that we're weighing or calculating our guilt.

It's we're seeing God's response to our guilt at the cross. That unmakes us as believers.

Why would I withhold anything from a God like this? Why would

I hesitate? Why would I be distant? Why would I be aloof? Why would I be cold?

No wonder the cross has to interpret everything and everything has to be interpreted through the cross. I challenge you as we leave the

Sermon on the Mount, what has this past year and a half meant to you? And what does it mean for you to look at the

Sermon on the Mount and all that's contained within it through the lens of the cross of Jesus Christ? We took, as Spurgeon says, we took our sins and we drove them like nails through his hands and his feet.

And we lifted him high upon the cross of our own transgression. And we pierced his heart with the spear of our unbelief.

And he did that all willingly, willingly to be a savior of his people from their sins.

God demonstrated his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. What does that mean to you?

Do you want a motivation to carry on this narrow and difficult way? That is all your motivation.

Christ was crucified for you. I know of no other fuel, no other motivation.

I know of nothing that so clarifies and pulls away the horse blinds of my life. He died for me.

Why would I frown? Why would I have a dejected attitude when

I can think of this and see it clearly and rightly? So what does that mean to me?

How will I respond to that? You can only respond as Matthew Meade says, with a broken heart and a whole heart.

And he means it in this way, with a broken heart that receives a broken

Christ. The fact that he was broken for us, it breaks us, it breaks our heart.

And then a whole heart, which is a sincere heart, as a witness to our own sincerity.

You need both. You can't have a whole heart, a sincere heart, if you don't have a broken heart. You also won't really have a broken heart if you don't have the sincerity.

Even the sincerity of, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Calvin says somewhere in his Institutes, we all have some admixture of unbelief, some admixture of doubt.

No one has faith in purity. Every sinner saved by grace has some place to say,

Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. You want to address those areas of unbelief in your life?

Look at it through the cross. Look at it through the cross of Christ. This is the kingdom.

The kingdom, as Paul says in Romans 14, it doesn't consist in eating and drinking. If we're looking at everything through the lens of the cross, through not just the body of Christ's teaching in the

Sermon on the Mount, but his own body. His own body living out the perfections of his teaching. His own body then dragged to Golgotha and crucified.

His own body resurrected from the grave that could not hold him. His own body, the first fruits of our great hope and glory.

You look at that and you recognize the kingdom of God doesn't consist in eating and drinking, in shibboleths and tests and trials and prods and pokes.

It's peace and righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit. I could say of this church what

I could say of my own life. If there is a lack of righteousness and peace and joy, it's because I have not understood the cross rightly.

I'm not celebrating it or seeing it or reflecting on it deeply enough. It's the lens that clarifies everything.

Do I want to crucify the flesh? Worldly ambition, worldly influence, worldly anxiety?

I can't do it unless I see clearly the cross of my Savior. I see the one who built his life in the way that I must seek to build it and died because I'll never be able to build it as he did.

And then I see his presence, his power, his call building me up. I recognize I can only do this in union with him by faith.

I commune with him by the day. His mercy renews every morning. So it's by his teaching that he fulfills the law, not only what he taught but how he completed, fulfilled what he taught.

But it's not just that. It's that he became a curse for me. He didn't just fulfill the righteous requirement of the law.

He fulfilled the penalty of death, the curse of death that the law requires for sinners. There's some video clip of,

I think it was somewhere in London maybe, or at least it sounded like English accents in a big city.

And it was a, it was sort of a sidewalk exchange between a Muslim and he had a microphone and he was sort of doing outreach and proselytization.

And then there was some pastor by that was a Christian that was struggling to defend how

God is gracious in terms of Christianity. And the Muslim thought he was standing on solid ground.

Allah, you know, we don't need blood to forgive. Allah can just forgive. You know, he has so much grace that he just forgives.

He doesn't require blood and all this bloodshed. It's very ironic considering how bloodthirsty Islam is. But he's saying, you know, we actually have a

God who's of pure grace, doesn't require bloodshed like the God of the Christians. And I hope we all can understand how to respond to that.

You don't have a God who's of pure grace in that system. You have a God whose grace is completely arbitrary and foundless, a

God who's no longer just and the justifier of those he gives grace to. God's holiness demands the destruction of all that is unholy.

God's holiness requires perfection without blemish, without spot. It's not what he constantly showed forth in the law without blemish, without spot, everything straight, everything pure, everything level.

This is what it means for me to dwell with you. You cannot enter into my presence.

There must be blood without blemish, without spot. And all the blood of bulls and goats couldn't take away the least sin of a single

Israelite. It was all pointing forward to that which alone was pure, which righteous, which had to be spelled.

There was no other way. Jesus asked for there to be another way unless it went against the will of the Father. So God retains both his perfect justice as a holy

God who cannot dwell with sin, but also a God of mercy who justifies the ungodly, who gives grace to sinners, rebels, treacherous traitors.

We belong to this kingdom. This is our king. This is the one who did not come to destroy that law, but lived to the very heights of its requirements only to suffer under the weight of its curse.

The law that he fulfilled in all perfection was the law that crushed him and consumed him on the tree.

Would we then so easily dismiss it, disregard it, turn our nose up at it, cling to our get of hell free card?

If that's our position, we're ignoring everything that we've spent a year and a half studying.

Christ did not come to destroy the law. He came to fulfill it. Christ fulfills a law by his doctrine, by his revelation, by his own practice.

Christ fulfills the law by becoming accursed according to the law. After performing its perfect obedience and Christ fulfills the law in us, in the elect, creating faith in our hearts by his spirit, whereby we lay hold of Christ and all of his perfections and righteousness, and then giving us that spirit in such a way that the law is carried out in fruitfulness in our lives.

It's his obedience. It's his righteousness. It's his work at work in his people.

This is what it meant for Christ to come and be the savior for his people's sins.

Amen. So as we look forward to the next season, as we look forward to the year to come, as we look back on the past year and a half, and all that Jesus has taught us from Matthew 5, 6, and 7, let's be sure of three things.

First, let's be sure we have a right understanding of Jesus as Lord, because not everyone who says,

Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom. So make sure we know what it means to say and live with Jesus as our

Lord, that we know who he is, that we know him, not know about him, but know him.

We commune with him intimately. We find his presence. We find his power. We find his pleasure in our lives.

Let's be sure, secondly, we understand the full frame of the kingdom. A part of this kingdom is not something that we compartmentalize and internalize.

It's not something that we squirrel away inside of us for only a few people to notice. This is something that's part of the fabric of the world entire.

This kingdom must advance. This kingdom must increase. It can never relent until it dominates and conquers all under the lordship of the sovereign one.

And so that means the full frame of the kingdom involves not what I do on a Sunday for a few hours, but every day, every part of my day has something to bear for the purpose of God's kingdom.

That means that when I'm reading school books or changing diapers, when meals are being prepared or being shared, that means not just the quote unquote spiritual things, but all of life comprises this fabric of kingdom living, of kingdom advancement.

And then thirdly, let's be sure we understand the calling to be a disciple. If you don't know him, you won't love him.

If you don't love him, you won't want to be like him. Do you know what it means to be a disciple? It's not a status.

It's not a category. It's one who studies and follows in the way of their master.

To be a disciple is to be a learner, observer, an experiencer. I want to learn as Jesus learned.

I want to observe as Jesus observed. I want to notice the birds of the air and the grass of the fields. I want to have an effortless, continuous prayer life with my father.

I want to observe his word like the psalmist in Psalm 119. And if I understand that as a disciple, then

I will seek to make other disciples around me in the same way. It all begins with, do we know him? And do we love him that we know?

And do we want to be like the one that we love? Whoever hears these sayings of Jesus and does them will be like a wise one who builds their house on a rock.

Rains will descend. Winds will beat against it.

For some of you, you've come through rains beating this year, winds howling this year. Some of you, it will be the year to come.

Some of you feel floodwaters rising even now. You don't have to control the rains.

You don't have to cease the winds. You have to trust the one who has power over the storms of the sea.

You have to build your life upon the rock of all that he has told you. And if you do not, if you hear, if you've heard for a year and a half, but you don't do, you're building your house on shifting sands.

It probably won't collapse in the next week. It might not even collapse in the next year.

It might not even collapse in the next decade. But it will collapse.

And when it collapses, great, horrific world ending will be its full.

Brothers and sisters, as we close now, let's remember that our

Lord, our King, our Savior, our law giver, Jesus Christ has called us to be those who do rather than those who do not.

Because he and he alone is the one who did. He is all of our hope and all of our stay.

Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.

Lord, bury it deeply in our lives. Let it bear fruit, Lord, in and out of season.

Help us to be those who hear, those who do. Those who know, those who love, those who advance, those who disciple.

Lord, make us all that we are not. As the father of old said,

Lord, command what you will, just grant what you command. Give us the power of your spirit,

Lord. Apart from you, we can do nothing. Help us to feel that in our bones and be so broken and humble that we can be blessed.

Lord, thank you for this word and all that it's meant in the months, over the past year and a half.

And Lord, we thank you that we are not deprived from your word. We pray that it will bear fruit and you'll lead us into your word in the season and the year to come.

We ask it humbly, according to your grace that's given to us in your son. In whose name we pray.