Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
Spurgeon once said, pour gasoline on yourself, strike a match, light yourself and people will come and watch you burn if you're a preacher. When you're preaching the words of God, how could we not react with anything but, that is amazing, that's wonderful to hear the words of Jesus Christ.
It's a historic day in our church today. I got here eight and a half years ago and we started with the book of James, we went to the book of Mark, we finished Ephesians and we start a new book today. It's very exciting.
My old church, we used to say, well how long have you been at the church? We'd never say years, we'd say, well I started attending during first Thessalonians, how about you? My favorite sermon that I've ever heard in my entire life was taken from this very passage today.
I've listened to it hundreds of times, a sermon called Examine Yourselves, an overview of the Sermon on the Mount. And today we have the privilege of going to the book of Matthew, if you have a Bible please turn to the first book of the New Testament, to the book of Matthew and we will in the next year or two begin to look at the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, chapter 5 and chapter 7, preached by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Famous famous text. You say, well why are we jumping in? Aren't we supposed to start at the beginning? Well we could but we just finished Mark a while ago so I don't want to start another whole gospel.
But over the last four years as I've been working on my doctorate in preaching, I wanted to preach a sermon, a set of series of sermons on the greatest sermon I believe ever preached and that's the Sermon on the Mount.
I've read probably 50 books on preaching in the last four years and I want to see every week, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, the majesty and splendor of Jesus Christ as he preaches this famous famous sermon that even unbelievers know about.
I love the Sermon on the Mount and I want you to love it too and that's basically my outline today. I want you to love it and so I'm going to preach it that way, why you should love the Sermon on the Mount because I think it will give you a good overview and then we'll get into the details beginning next week.
Is that Ken Ramey back there? Ken Ramey, welcome. What are you doing here? All the way from Texas. You have family up here, don't you? All right, I just had to acknowledge, while we're acknowledging people, Glenn Tebow, would you stand up for a second?
We have prayed for Glenn, Fred and Maxine. Ken wants to know why he didn't get a clap. First things first, Ken and I have ministered in India together preaching the word in Pune and over in Mumbai together and so he's here with his wife and family.
You're from Massachusetts originally, right? And Glenn, we've prayed for you for a long time. You've come back from Iraq and lost many friends there and you're home safely and our church has prayed for you to come home safely and we praise God for that and for you.
Why I love the Sermon on the Mount, that's what we'll look at today. It'll be a good introduction and it'll tell you why you should love it. Someone even said to me this morning, I read the Sermon on the Mount today on the way to church.
It is one of these books, it is one of these passages, it is one of these sermons that is just amazing and I want you to get a little grip of it as well. Matthew, as you know, means gift from the Lord and if you'll turn over to Luke chapter five, let me give you a little summary of Matthew before we get into the sermon today or at least the outline today, why I love this book.
But let me just give you a little overview of Matthew and how he got saved. Luke chapter five, you just turn over two books to your right. In chapter five of Luke, it tells us what happens to Matthew.
Luke 5 .27, after that, he went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi or Matthew sitting in the tax booth and Jesus said to him, this is amazing, follow me. And he left everything behind and got up and began to follow him.
And Levi gave a big reception for him in his house. There was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who are reclining at the table with them. Pharisees and the scribes, verse 30 says, began grumbling at his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?
Jesus answered and said to them, it is not those who are well who need a physician but those who are sick. Certainly, Matthew knew he was one of those. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
And it's amazing when you look at the gospel of Matthew, he calls himself the tax gatherer. Matthew the tax gatherer. We know Matthew as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's go back to Matthew and let's turn to chapter 21 and let me give you kind of the theme of the book.
We've seen the person and his salvation. Now let me tell you the theme of the book of Matthew. I believe it's the first gospel written. It's the first in our New Testament canon. And if you look at Matthew 21, there's a good summary statement of the book of Matthew.
I don't know, maybe we could have a couple of ushers open up some windows. Do you all think it's hot in here? It is burning. I don't want you to fall asleep or struggle. Lenita, you're not hot? Feels like it's August in here.
I feel like I'm in India, Ken. Matthew 21, verse 4, this took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet. Say to the daughter of Zion, and here's the theme of the book of Matthew, behold your king is coming to you.
That's a great thematic phrase for the entire book of Matthew. Jews, your Messiah is coming to you. Jesus is Messiah. Matthew 2, 2 says, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Matthew 27, 37, this is Jesus, the king of the Jews.
This is all about Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. Now, let's go through chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 in kind of jet tour like speed. So let's go to chapter 1. I was very thankful we had some folks come over to our house for Thanksgiving the other day.
And what we do at our house is everybody gets a verse in front of them that has a verse of Thanksgiving from the Bible. And then you're to read it, and then you're to say something in front of everyone that would show your thanks to the Lord.
And I won't mention who, but somebody got the little piece of paper and they said, well, the real context of this verse is such and such, but here's how I want to thank God. And I thought, I'm so pleased by that, that we always think, what is the context of the book?
And so we can't jump into chapter 5 right away without seeing chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 just kind of quickly, and then we'll get in to the Sermon on the Mount. So I won't read every verse, but I want to show you some of the verses in chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 before we dive right into chapter 5.
Matthew 1 .1, the record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And here is the Messiah's, here are the Messiah's credentials for his office, for his position, for his title.
Here is Jesus, the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Holy One, and he's called here the Son of David, mentioned seven times in this book, the Son of Abraham. In Luke, he goes all the way back in the genealogy to Adam because he's a Redeemer for mankind.
In Matthew, it's very specific, it goes back to Abraham because here he's the Jewish king. Verse 17, if you go to the end of the genealogy, so all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations, from David to the deportation of Babylon, 14 generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, 14 generations.
And now, if you were going to write a gospel to teach the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, what would you do quite often? If Mark is written to the Gentiles, there's not a whole lot of Old Testament quotes there because they're Gentiles, they don't know.
But if you were going to try to prove to a Jew that Jesus is the Messiah, you would go to what? The Old Testament. And you'll see that in chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, the prophets were fulfilled. And that says it over and over and over.
Let me give you a few. Matthew 121, she will bear a son, you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.
And then you see, at least in New American Standard, verse 23, capital letters signifying Old Testament quote, behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us.
Go to chapter 2, verse 5 and 6, and you see the same pattern. This is a book to confront the Jewish nation with their Messiah, and certainly we can learn a lot from it as well. Matthew 2, 5, they said to him in Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what has been written by the prophet.
You see the capital letters again, and you Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, for out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Chapter 2, verse 15, this was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet.
Out of Egypt I called my son. And you see him trying to just set it up. Here's the fulfillment of the Old Testament. He's the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The circumstances were to fulfill the Old Testament.
Chapter 2, verses 17 and 18, you see it again. Through Jeremiah the prophet, this was fulfilled. Chapter 2, verse 23, this was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets. And then we come to chapter 3, and we have a man named John the Baptist, and he was going to make straight this way for the king.
John the Baptist, and he was preaching something, and his message was summarized by one word, and that was what? Repent. That's exactly right. Then we come to chapter 4, and we have Jesus being tempted by the devil.
And this is a whole sermon in and of itself, but you can look at chapter 4, verse 1. Then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And then Jesus is now localized in the Capernaum area for his ministry.
And I could pretty much summarize his ministry by he went around doing what? Good. That's exactly what happened. He went around doing good. Even Peter said in Acts 10, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.
News spread, Matthew 4 .24. You bet it did. And almost like a snowball starting small and pushing it down a hill, it gets bigger and bigger with more speed. We have this finale or this climax, at least initially, and it's the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 5, verse 1. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain. After he sat down, his disciples came to him. He opened his mouth and began to teach them saying. It's as far as we're going to get today.
Let's look at Matthew 5, 1 and 2. There's all kinds of mountaintop experiences in Matthew. Can you think of a few? Here's one. Can you think of any others? Jesus was led up to a mountain for the third temptation, the Mount of Transfiguration.
Jesus gives the great commission from the mountain. And here's what the Old Testament scholar, Dalich, called the Sinai of the New Testament. The Sinai of the New Testament. It's almost on purpose that he goes to a mountain to deliver the news of how do you get entrance into this great kingdom of the King Jesus, the Messiah.
John Stott says it seems likely that he deliberately went up onto the mountain to teach in order to draw a parallel between Moses, who received the law at Mount Sinai, and himself, who explained its implications to his disciples on the so-called Mount of Beatitudes.
Now I first used to read the Bible. Here's how I'd read it. I kind of wanted to do the Evelyn Woodhead speed reading course and I just wanted to read through it. I wanted to know for all the years of my life, 29 years, I just couldn't care less about the Bible.
I wanted the love part and the mercy part and the grace part. I wanted to go to heaven. But anything that told me how to live and created a standard of righteousness, I didn't want. So I just would kind of push it to the side.
Then I got saved and I thought, this is a love gift of God to me. These are the words of life. These are the words that convict and confront and sanctify and save and conform. I've got to read it all really fast.
Then I started slowing down a little bit and that's how I want you to read this, verses 1 and 2. We kind of chuckle because we know me in terms of how slow we're going to go, but this is packed full and if you just read it not thinking, you're not going to get any of the significance.
He went up to the mountain and after he sat down, why would he sit down? He's just kind of tired. Remember he was in the boat and he sat down. If you're thinking like a Jew, when the teacher sits down, what must you be thinking?
Well, when you're walking and just kind of strolling, he might be teaching you and when Jesus says, follow me, they really follow right behind him and he probably teaches some things on the go. But when Jesus sets down, this is something that's going to contain, especially for the Jewish mind, authority.
He sets down and even today we have that. If you're a professor at a university and you are, what kind of professor if you've been there for a long time and you have a special what? You are a chaired professor.
The seat of Moses, when someone would sit down in the seat of Moses, what they gave was full of authority and full of great importance. Even in the Roman Catholic Church, people would use these words.
When the Pope sits in his chair and he gives a dogmatic statement, what? Ex cathedra. It's that kind of thing. Very official. And Jesus sets down to give some official teaching. This is the accepted posture of how they would teach in the synagogues or how they would teach at school.
And the disciples came to him and there's all kinds of people. If you look at chapter 7, which you don't have to do now, there was all kinds of crowds there. And there were some disciples here now too.
He's got believers and unbelievers and everyone in between. There's no one in between, but he's got both kind of people there. And what did he do? NIV doesn't even say it, but the text says he opened his mouth.
Well, that's good. How can you teach without opening your mouth? And again, if we look carefully, this is going to show that what follows is going to be very sober, very deliberate. It's important. When you read this kind of idiom, he opened his mouth, it means that there's something important going to come out.
Paul said, when I preach in Ephesians 6, I pray that God would give me utterance in the opening of my mouth. Acts chapter 8, Philip opened his mouth and beginning from the scriptures, he preached Jesus to them.
Acts chapter 10, opening his mouth, Peter said. Acts chapter 18, when Paul was about to open his mouth. This is not just I'm opening my mouth to speak because we have to do that. This is official, authoritative, important, solemn, listen, pay attention.
Some of you have children and they're disobeying and you really want them to look at you. And I kind of just take them by the shoulders and I square their shoulders up to me, I make sure their chin goes up and we see each other eye to eye because I've got something very important to say and I want you to listen to me.
This is not Jesus scolding a child, but with the same determination. These are important words. These are words of life. You have to listen. So he sets down in the official teaching position, he opens his mouth, everyone's about ready to listen and he begins to teach.
It's spellbinding. I kind of want to get going now to the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. We're going to wait till next week. My voice will hold up. Would you look at chapter 4, verse 17? From that time, Jesus began to preach and say what?
Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. John the Baptist, repent. Peter, repent. Paul, repent. Jesus here, his first words in public ministry were repent. And basically, what the Sermon on the Mount is, is an expansion of that term repentance.
What is repentance? It means to change your mind. Specifically, how do we know what to change? Let's look at chapters 5, 6, and 7. So before we dive in, I want you to know that Jesus is preaching repentance.
I read an anonymous quote the other day. Noah's message from the steps going up to the ark was not something good is going to happen to you. Amos was not confronted by the high priest of Israel for proclaiming confession is possession.
Jeremiah was not put into the pit for preaching, I'm okay, you're okay. Daniel was not put into the lion's den for telling people, possibility thinking will move mountains. John the Baptist was not forced to preach in the wilderness and eventually beheaded because he preached, smile, God loves you.
The two prophets of the tribulation will not be killed for preaching. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. God loved his people and he sent his son to tell them the truth and here's the truth.
Repent. It's a loving thing. And that word repentance is really a concentration of all Christ's teaching. Now, if you are taking notes for an outline, let me start with that. There's the sermon outline title, Why I Love the Sermon on the Mount and maybe I could change it this way so it preaches why you should love the Sermon on the Mount.
And I'm going to give you several reasons. I have about two hours worth and we're going to stick with the time allotted. Why you should love this sermon, why you should want to read it and study it and obey it and maybe even memorize it.
And this is one of those sermons where you can't really understand it properly and be in the middle. People like Gandhi said, you know, it was kind of good and if everybody lived by that, that'd be fine.
But he didn't really understand the demands of the sermon. You either love it or you hate it. And not everybody loves it. Nikita Khrushchev said many years ago when he was in the United States, I'll tell you what the difference between Christians and me is.
And that is if you slap me on the face, I'll hit you so hard your head will fall off. He knew that the Sermon on the Mount talked about turning the other cheek. Harry Barnes said, once we make a candid examination of the actual teachings of Jesus insofar as we know of them, it must be admitted that they are not only archaic but even destructive for any advanced civilization.
If the teachings of Jesus as they exist were applied to contemporary society, nothing less than anarchy and the destruction of the civilized order would inevitably follow. If you want to do what Jesus said, it's going to be chaos.
But I don't want you to think that way. I want you to love this sermon. So let me give you several reasons why you should love it. Number one, you should love this sermon because it was preached by the prince of all preachers.
It was preached by Jesus Christ himself. And as I said earlier, I just can't wait for the next several years to kind of just have one wave after another wave of his teachings kind of roll over us and onto us.
And some will encourage us and others will just kind of push us down to the bottom. I remember when I used to go surfing in Southern California. I was taught very early that if you're riding a wave and you fall and you get slammed down to the bottom, the first thing you do is you have your head like this so you don't jam your neck.
And the second thing to do is you just hold your breath. And I was reading of Navy SEALs training even two weeks ago and having to hold your breath under the surf for almost two minutes as the water would just come crashing down.
Sometimes the sermon will do that to us. And I can't imagine zipping through this in one or two weeks. There are 107 verses of Christ's sermon in chapters 5, 6, and 7. Longer than Philippians, longer than Colossians, longer than 1st Thessalonians, longer than 2nd Thessalonians.
For comparison, Ephesians was 155 verses. So that took three years. We're going to have two years of just the Sermon on the Mount listening to our Savior. I see a lot of smiles. And you just think, why rush?
As my old pastor would say, how can you go up with the transcendence of worship when you don't dig down deep into what the text says and means? You can't do it. I love this sermon because it's preached by Jesus.
Now, I'm not one of those people that say, open your Bibles to the words that are all read. We only read those. But I love to read the words of our Lord. I love to get to know His person. I think this is the greatest sermon ever preached.
I always say that. Whatever passions I'm studying, that's it. But right now, I know it's subjective. This is the best. Thomas Watson said, he alone is the prince of preachers. He alone is the best of expositors.
The one in whom there is a combination of virtues, a constellation of beauties. The one in whose lips there was not only sweet as honeycomb, but His very words did drop as honeycomb. Jesus, preaching with great authority.
Remember what they said later on? He doesn't preach like the scribes. He preaches like one who has what? Authority. And I like some of this authority. Let's just take a little preview. Look at chapter 5, verse 21.
There's a series of, here's what you've heard. Let me tell you the real truth. Here's what you have heard from someone else. Here's what I tell you. And I love this authority that Jesus has. Everything about Him is wonderful.
Matthew 5, verse 21. Again, my purpose in all this is to give you an overview of the sermon before we dissect it next week. You have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not commit murder. And whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. Whoever says to his brother, you good for nothing, shall be guilty before the Supreme Court. Whoever says, you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
I love to see the Lord as He preaches that way. Look at 5 .27. You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
He does that in chapter 5, verse 31 and 32. 33 through 35. 38 to 39. Chapter 5, verse 43. Look at that one. You have heard it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
I love it when I study this sermon because Jesus loved people. Early on, and I'm still in process with this, but it was said to me, Mike, you need to love your people as much as you love preaching. And that's a real struggle sometimes because we, myself included, sometimes we're not that lovable.
And you need to love the people you're preaching to, not just you to love preaching. And here, of course, Jesus loving His people. He had a great love for them. The shepherd of the sheep. I love this sermon because it shows me the heart and mind of Christ.
Number two. I love this sermon, and you should too, because it shows you Christ's high premium on preaching. True or false? God loves preaching. God loves preaching. Where are the preachers today? Preaching is attacked, yet preaching should be at a premium.
It's like you see people take someone and they're trying to quietly kill them and they take a pillow and they put that pillow over that person's mouth and just suffocate them, and that is what Satan would love to do and is quite successful these days in suffocating the Word of God and biblical preaching.
When I introduce myself now to people, I never say, Hi, I'm a pastor. I say, Hi, I'm a Bible teaching pastor. Pulpits aren't in the front center anymore. In the old days, they used to be pushed to the side a little bit.
There's a reason this pulpit is right here. Do you know the reason? Because preaching God's Word, and it has nothing to do with me, because if you know me well enough, you can testify to the fact of who I'm not, and I'm not a fourth person of the Trinity.
I'm a wretched sinner who's glad there's chapter 8. There's no condemnation for me in Christ Jesus. But this is here for a reason, because the pulpit and God's Word is high and center. It's not up to the side.
It's not over here. It's not some kind of little music stand. I guess some of those men do preach the Word, but we want a pulpit in the center, because it tells us the Word of God is central at this church.
People say in the world, Don't preach to me. Don't preach at me. Somehow we're arrogant if we do. God loves preaching, though. People are okay if it's a chat, if it's a quiet talk, if it's sharing. Somebody would say to me, as they would go out the door, Thanks for sharing that today.
And I'm nicer kind of in person than I am in the pulpit, so I didn't say anything, but I wanted to say, and you've lost it all. This is not sharing. This is God proclaiming truth. I'm just the mouthpiece.
Storytelling's big. I studied this week. Mime ministry is wonderful. You don't have to preach. It's just kind of mime. Here's a new one. Poker ministry. The world loves poker, so you'd bring everybody in by playing poker, but you don't really play for money because, you know, Christians don't gamble, so you play for a wad of bucks.
I don't know. Preaching, these days, is a second-class citizen. It's kind of the stepchild, almost, yet Jesus exalts preaching. He tells his people to preach. Lloyd-Jones says the most urgent need in the Christian church today is true preaching.
Jesus loved preaching. One man said, God only had one son, and he made that son a what? A preacher. Not that I could ever do it, but if somebody said, Mike, you can either be the president of the United States of America, or you can be a preacher, what would I pick?
I wouldn't stoop so low. The exalted class of a preacher. Not for the person, but just the text that we get to deal with. Thus saith the Lord. You go to seminary, and they don't even have preaching classes.
How to administrate, how to manage, how to lead, how to... I don't know what they teach you, but I want preachers. Matthew magnifies preaching. Matter of fact, and we'll get into this later, five times in the book of Matthew, there's kind of Jesus heals, he has authority, he does a few things, and five times, there's a climax, or a pinnacle, or an apex, that ends with Jesus preaching.
He almost arranges it that way. Matthew's not necessarily chronological. And so Matthew even arranges the book. Healing, preaching. Ministry choosing the twelve, preaching, later on. Here's what's going on in the end times.
Preaching. Preaching is exalted. Matter of fact, it even goes to show you how far we've fallen when people say, well, I came to your church, and I didn't like the worship. What they mean is, I didn't like the music.
But in fact, is not preaching worship? Listening worship? People say, well, if you preach the word, you're going to offend people. That's right. I'm offended when I read the Bible sometimes. I could not believe it as I studied this week.
Here's some books on how to grow churches. Seven characteristics of a growing church. And I'm not even going to mention their names to shame them. Nothing about preaching. One man said in his book, the successful pastor, nothing about preaching.
Did I just say that? Build high morale in your church. Nothing about preaching. Understanding church growth. Research should look for reproducible patterns of growth possible to ordinary congregations, ordinary pastors, and ordinary missionaries.
Here's a good one. How to find a pastor who fits your church? This man said. Unfortunately, many churches in choosing a pastor place greatest priority on the man's ability to preach. Certainly, congregations are entitled to prepared and well-delivered messages.
Yet, sermon delivery represents a very small portion of the pastor's total work week. Indications are that the sermon by itself is a relatively minor factor in the growth of the church. How then should its pastor spend his time to have the greatest effect in church growth?
And I think he probably tries to give his answers. Jesus, when he preached, put a high premium on preaching. If there's ever a time to say, what would Jesus do? That's a good time to do it because it's true.
He was a preacher. And lately, there's this thing going around that's called the emergent church. And you don't need to know anything about it except it's bad. The leader of the movement says certainty is overrated in the Christian life.
And he will be speaking as one of the keynote speakers at Vision New England. And if he believes what he writes, he's not even a Christian. Not because of that statement, but other ones. He's no different than Ralph Waldo Emerson when he said, I like the silent church before the service begins better than the preaching.
Whitefield followed in the steps of his master, Jesus Christ, when he said, I love those that thunder out the world. The Christian world is in a deep sleep. And it's time for people to stand up and preach the word whether the congregation likes it or doesn't.
I don't know what to do as this church gets bigger, by the way, as a side note. We just keep filling up. Part of me says, well, I'm not preaching biblically enough because you keep coming. On the other hand, you see kind of the reaction to, here's the secret church, here's the secret church.
If you want to get fed, come on Wednesday nights, but we're really preaching the gospel watered down every Sunday. Pretty soon, those people end up saying, you know what, I've got to go someplace. Give me the words of life.
I don't want superficial anymore. You say, well, everything in the church, we're trying to arrange it so it's not superficial. Not superficial scripture readings, not superficial pastoral prayers, not superficial 7 -11 songs, 7 words repeated 11 times, not superficial preaching.
We want deep because when you go deep, then the Lord can bring you up to the transcendent worship of him. Jesus was a preacher and I can't do anything else. You already know that. You already know if you want counseling, don't come to me.
I'm just going to say, well, here's what the Bible says. I would encourage you to do it. Go talk to Dallas. If you're a woman, St. Francis of Assisi used to say, well, I'm going to go evangelize and if I'm forced to, I'm going to open my mouth.
No, everything about the Christian life is the proclaimed word. And I can't believe that the Lord would give me the privilege of preaching to you because you do want the word. It's amazing to see. But I'm going to keep preaching the same way, whether we shrink down to the four elders and their families because we preach for God.
And certainly, if you ask this question, was Jesus' preaching a glorifying act of worship to the Father? The answer is absolutely yes. I love this sermon because it's preached by Jesus. I love this sermon because he puts a high premium on preaching.
Number three, I love this sermon and so should you because it is anything but shallow. Rather, it is doctrinal. Jesus was a doctrinal preacher. And again, today is more of a topical kind of message. It isn't necessarily a lot of exegesis and explication and all these other words, but it's just I want to give you an overview of the Sermon on the Mount and we're going to use the outline why I love it and why you should too.
I love this sermon because it's doctrinal and it's not shallow. These days, people call me and they'll say, well, my church doesn't preach the word, what should I do? In the old days, I'd say, pray for your pastor, go to your pastor, talk to your pastor, help your pastor.
You should be one of those that come alongside. And you should still do that, but if he refuses to preach the word and he keeps having his church what I call junior church, then you need to go. Don't slander, don't gossip, don't complain, don't call everybody else, but you need to go not necessarily to this church but to a church that preaches the word.
One of the largest churches in New England. I read a sermon, listened to a sermon this week. It was how to deal with somebody who was kind of a grouch at Thanksgiving because you know you all have grouches who come to your Thanksgiving meals.
Kind of that uncle or sister or something that comes and you got to know how to deal with them. What? I mean, I'm just dumbfounded. Look at Matthew chapter 7, I mean how much doctrine can we get there important subjects?
Why go for watered down superficial kind of gruel from a concentration camp? We want the meat because that's how Jesus preached. If you ever said, you know, I kind of want it watered down a little bit, then you won't like Jesus' preaching.
Jesus' preaching was high and deep and doctrinal and sometimes you'd have to kind of do a double take. Did he just say what I thought he said? Man, that was hard. You say, well, I'm not a preacher. What does this mean for me?
You are an evangelist or you should be. You do teach Awana or maybe we need some extra Awana people. You do have a ministry in Sunday school. You do teach your children, don't you? Well, of course then preach like Jesus and you're going to shoot high.
Doctrine is not a bad term, it's a good term. And look at how doctrinal this is, Matthew 7, 13. What doctrines come to your mind when Jesus is preaching this? Enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction.
There are many who enter through it for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are few who find it. Not only eternal life and death, but now false prophets. And if you don't know good doctrine, you're not going to be able to recognize a false prophet.
Beware of the false prophets. And how do they show up? With 666 on their forehead? No, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. This is Jesus preaching doctrine.
Do you know in Mark chapter 1, it says in verse 22, they were astonished at Jesus' doctrine, our teaching. He was preaching doctrine. They said in Mark chapter 1, verse 27, what new doctrine is this? Sometimes you get those little clay-sized containers and they're full of something called goop or I don't know what it is, it's kind of a glow-in-the-dark kind of slimy, sticky, silly, putty, play-doh-y kind of thing and it just kind of, you put it in your hand and it just oozes through your fingers, but amazingly it doesn't stick to the carpet or walls.
And Christianity without any kind of skeleton, it's just this kind of amorphous kind of goop. And here Jesus is preaching doctrine. That's what we want. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for what?
Lots of things, but for doctrine or teaching. You say, well you know, doctrine divides. As you know, Adrian Rogers died a couple weeks ago, but here's one thing that Adrian Rogers said that I just love about doctrine divides.
It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. Jesus knew doctrine divided. That's the whole premise of the entire sermon.
Here's repentance broadly. You think this way? Don't think that way. Here's God's thoughts. You're influenced by the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees and all kinds of hypocrites. They think religion is external.
Here's the new standard, and it's all internal. One man said, listen, the Christian life, beloved, depends upon your knowledge of God. Did you get that? You can base your whole Christian life and your whole Christian attitude on who you really believe God is.
When you're laying there on your deathbed, and you will, what will you be thinking about? You'll be thinking about doctrine. J. Gresham Machen was dying up in South Dakota, and he was hospitalized on New Year's Eve, and the last thing he did is he wrote a little note to be wired to John Murray, who taught systematic theology at Westminster, and here's what he wrote on his deathbed.
I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it. It gives us security to know what God has done in our place, on our behalf, in our stead, how God was pleased with that and raised him from the dead.
I have powerful temptations in my life. Do you? Will weak doctrines help? No. You say, well, doctrine's going to create controversy. You've got that right, too. Everywhere Jesus went, it was controversy and confronting.
Machen said, if you're going to avoid controversy, you better close your Bible. The thing is, I kind of want to be liked by everybody. As my mom said, it took me to be 40 years old to figure out not everybody in this world likes me.
That's why that book by Ed Welch is so good. When people are big and God is small, or when God is small and people are big, just the fear of man. I love to study Jesus because he just preached the doctrine out and he didn't care who was offended because he knew they needed the truth.
Number four, you should love this sermon because it gives promises of God's blessings. Number one, it was preached by the Prince of Preachers. Number two, it shows Christ's premium on preaching. Number three, it's anything but shallow, rather it's doctrinal.
And number four, you should love this sermon because it gives promises of God's blessings. I mean, think what we've earned. Think what we've merited. Think before Christ what is our standing before God.
And here God gives us promises right from the get-go. Look at Matthew 5 verse 3, what we call the Beatitudes. And you see the first word in your New American Standard, blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the gentle. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. And then there's a promise, a conditional promise, yes, but still there's a promise.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They shall be comforted. They shall inherit the earth. They shall be satisfied. They shall receive mercy. They shall see God. They shall be called sons of God and so on.
What does that word blessed mean by the way? And if you don't remember this now you will as we go through each one of the Beatitudes. The word blessed does not mean lucky. Contrary to the message Bible when it says in Psalm 32 how lucky is the man it's not lucky.
Matter of fact if you say lucky in my presence I will repeat what you just said over and over and over till you realize the error of your ways. It does not mean fortunate. The great God of fortune has been kind to us.
It does not mean, are you ready? Happy. It does not mean that at all. You know what it means? It means something that when you find approval in someone when someone condescends to you and then finds approval of you based on another, that's exactly what it means.
Let me read what D .A. Carson said. I'll skip that. R. Kent Hughes. Contrary to popular opinion, blessed does not mean happy. Happy is a subjective state, a feeling. But Jesus is not declaring how people feel, rather he is making an objective statement about what God thinks of them.
Blessed is a positive judgment by God on the individual that means to be approved, to find approval. Blessedness is not simply a nice wish from God, it is a pronouncement of what we actually are approved.
That is so good. We are approved by God. Sadly, I often want to seek your approval, my friend's approval, the world's approval. I want to find my inherent goodness in that, but here out of anything, God says there is a way to be approved by me.
That's a long way off from the soul that sins will surely die. How do those go together? They certainly do. But what does God think of me? When God sees me now, of course now I am getting farther into the New Testament, but I am in Christ and so are you if you are a Christian, and God finds approval.
You are approved. God thinks of you in a way that says your life is right with me. And here we have promised blessings. And we are going to study the next several weeks these beatitudes and we are going to realize in what kind of person, man or woman or child, does God find approval?
And he lists that in the beatitudes. Did you notice by the way those beatitudes and those lists of approval are very conditional? I can read it this way. Look at 5 .3 for example. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs and theirs alone.
Nobody else's. The only ones who find approval in God's sight are the poor in spirit because they are the only ones who find it. Well, so much more to go. Let's just do one last one. Fifth reason you should love the sermon is that it forces people to look to God for salvation.
The standards are placed so high you can't look to yourself to somehow make yourself feel good and rationalize that it's within myself and some kind of self-actualization table. It sets the standards of the gospel so high, the standards of the entrance to the kingdom so extreme that you have only one response and that's the tax gatherer says Lord have mercy upon me.
I'm a what? I'm the sinner. Look at 5 .20. This is the key verse of all the sermon. This will unlock it all for you is Matthew 5 .20 and I could probably add verse 48. This sermon shows that new birth has to take place because there is an impossible standard of salvation.
Matthew 5 .20 for I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Look down at verse 48. Whenever I preach the gospel to kids I go to Holden Christian Academy or some other school.
This is a verse I always use. How many kids think you have to be perfect to get into heaven? Not one will raise their hand except for the one who wasn't paying attention and they think it's just a call to raise their hand.
There's always a few of those. They're just kind of looking around. How many people think you have to be perfect to get into heaven? Did you know one sin will keep you out of heaven? One sin and only one.
And if we're thinking about the Sermon on the Mount a sin of thought and not just a sin of something that you did but a sin of something that you didn't do for one moment in your life if you haven't loved Jesus Christ with all your heart, soul, mind and strength for one moment if that sin is not atoned for, no heaven.
In Matthew 5 48 Jesus said therefore you are to be as good as your neighbor. Therefore you are to be better than Saddam Hussein. Therefore you are to be what? Perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.
That is just amazing to me. This sermon shows that the standards for the approval of the King, entrance into God's kingdom are set so high no one can attain them. Bell curves don't work. You're not going to go to heaven because you're better than your husband or your friend or anyone else.
I mean we just throw out verses that are totally out of context and thinking that will just be fine like Revelation 3 20. Behold I stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door I'll come into him, dine with him and he with me.
It has nothing to do with how you get saved. Here's the standard of salvation. That has to do with the local church. Here's the standard perfection. That's why Romans chapter 3 verse 19 says when unbelievers have any kind of back talk well I'm pretty good and I kind of kept most of the law and I'm a good person that you don't give them the Savior.
You keep giving them more of the law. I mean can you imagine this statement? Galatians 3 10. For as many are of the works of the law are under a curse for it is written cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and to perform them.
How could we do it? So we need three verses later Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. All these Pharisees and scribes were wandering around saying here's what you do.
Here's how long your beard has to be. Here's how many seeds you need to give. Here's how much money you need to give. Here's how long your robe should be. Here's what your tassel should look like. Here's what you do.
Here are the 600 and so many laws that we do and God said you know what? They're the most religious people in the world unless you're more religious than these most religious ones. Put I don't know who.
Who do you think is the most religious person you've ever seen? Billy Graham Gandhi Buddha anybody. You just put them up there and say you've got to be more religious than them. How much so? How much so higher than them because you have to be perfect as God is.
Almost like in chapter one of first Peter. You want to be holy as God is holy. This gives us more than what we can fulfill. We can't reach up that high. I've met many people over the last 12 years of ministry and sometimes people come up to me like this they'll say I want to get saved and I know I'm going to go to hell if I die tonight.
I know it. I know what God says. I know what my heart does. I know what I think. My conscience is killing me. I've walked the aisle. I've signed the card. I've prayed the sinner's prayer over and over and I just can't get saved.
You know what I do? I say to them the one who holds your salvation is not found in you. It's not found in the preacher. It's not found in your signature. It's not found in anything inside of you. Your salvation is outside of you.
It's extra nos. It's outside of us and why don't we ask the God of all grace and mercy that he might condescend and save you because after all by nature he's a saving God. Let's ask God. How about Nicodemus?
He comes at night. He's the teacher of Israel in John 3. You ever think about this? And basically Nicodemus says I want to go to heaven because Jesus just said you must be born again, right? Would you just leave it at that?
You must be born again or you can't even see heaven. You've got to be born from above. You can't do it. And then what does Jesus do? He didn't even tell him how. Because the natural reaction is if this is the standard and I can't do it on my own oh God have mercy upon me.
What did Jesus say? You must be born again the second time and then he said you want to know how this all happens? See the wind. The spirit of God is like the wind and it blows whichever way he wishes.
That's it. Salvation is not from you or of you or compared to your neighbor. Salvation is in God's eyes and it has to be done by God and there's an impossible standard to achieve and this happens over and over and over in this great sermon on the mount.
I love this little poem. To run and work the law commands yet gives me neither feet nor hands but better news the gospel brings it bids me fly and gives me wings. We can't be saved of our own. We can't do it on our own and therefore that's what Jesus is pushing these people to do.
And if you're a Christian it's good for you as well because you remember yes I was poor in spirit and even now I am poor in spirit. I guess I could ask this question as we wrap it up. How do you know you're a Christian?
Are you a Christian? Would I be so naive to think you are all Christians? Do you know the Bible never says to confirm your Christianity go backwards in time you can go back to the cross if you'd like but outside the cross it never says go back to that time where you kneeled down when you went to the front, when you went to the Superbowl.
When I first got here I thought everybody gets saved at the Superbowl. I don't know what they're talking about. They're going to the real Superbowl down south not the Word of Life Superbowl. Yeah I went to Superbowl.
My pastor prayed with me. It never looks to the past. Do you know 2 Corinthians chapter 13 says keep on examining yourselves over and over and over. Salvation is not tied to what you think you've done in the past.
At least in your mind for assurance. It's impossible to be saved on your own is what I'm trying to say. The disciples knew this. Mark 10. The disciples were amazed at his words but Jesus answered again and said to them, children how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. What's that mean by the way? The needle gate? No, that's not impossible. It's just hard. Take a camel, go through the eye of a needle.
They were even more astonished and said, then how can that camel bend down and go through the gate? No, then who can be saved? Jesus said looking at them, with people it is impossible but not for God.
For all things in the context of salvation are possible. You may have been saved in the past when God declared you righteous based on Jesus' work but that's not how you get your assurances going back to the past.
How's your life like right now? Are you acting like a Christian? Are you living like a Christian? How about these verses that are haunting? Pursue peace with all men and without holiness no one will see the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5 .17. Therefore if anyone's in Christ he's a new creature. All things have passed away, behold new things have come. James says, you call yourself a Christian? Prove it. Boy, that's hard.
The great news is salvation is proclaimed to all sinners and for all those who would readily say to themselves, I have no righteousness I have nothing to offer God and God you don't have to God you're not forced to.
God if it's only your pleasure would you save me? I'm a sinner and I can't even get myself to repent. How about when people say, well two homosexuals they're living together, they're engaged in what they do and they come to you and say, what must I do to be saved?
And could you tell them if you stop your sin then God will save you? That's not the gospel. The gospel is, you are slaves to your sin. You must repent, but God will grant repentance for those who are begging for his mercy.
Not based on the begging, but based on the God who gives mercy. I love the Sermon on the Mount because it shows these standards that are so high. You can only play church for so long and then people just give up.
Do you ever wonder why people come to church for years and years and years and finally just leave? Because it's too hard to play church for that long and there's the standard of living a Christian life.
The Christian life is impossible to live without the Holy Spirit. William Gladstone said, one thing I have against clergy both in country and towns, I think they're not severe enough on congregations.
Nobody said amen, sorry. They do not sufficiently lay upon the souls and consciences of their hearers their moral obligations and probe their hearts and bring up their whole lives and actions to the bar of conscience.
That is the kind of preaching I like best. The kind of preaching which men need most, but it is also the kind of which they get the least and in the next two years we're going to see that kind of preaching from our beloved Savior, who's a great Savior of sinners preach week in and week out and I'll make a little prediction here.
I'm not a prophet or son of a prophet. This church is going to dwindle down to 70 during this series or it's going to explode as you grow and healthy sheep reproduce and evangelize because they'll realize how strict the accounting is.
I don't really believe that, but that's just rhetoric. No, this is one of those things where you just go, oh it's so high, God. Why is the bar so low to get in churches? Where's church discipline these days?
Where's dealing with sin? Where's the confrontation? Let's just lower the bar, everybody come in, they can do church. I want the bar so high that only God can get you over that bar and that bar is found in another and his name is Jesus Christ and his matron lay there dying.
He said, if it wasn't for Christ living a perfect life in my place dying on my behalf, God crediting my sin to Christ's account Christ's righteousness to my account raising from the dead, I'd have no hope He lays down his head and dies.
It's this kind of thing we'll see in the Sermon on the Mount in weeks to come. Hold on to your seats. Let's pray Lord, we would acknowledge today that you are the author of life that you give salvation fully and freely and yet, Father, you call people to believe and to repent.
Father, in our hearts, we know that it's a gift. We know that you save people to the uttermost and Lord, there has to be people here, visiting friends, members of the church who need to be saved and I would pray as they learn more about your standards, that in the weeks to come you would reap a great harvest here at our church.
Lord, we long for those people to be in the baptismal proclaiming that you're a great God who saved them and just worshiping you and praising you because of that Lord, would you help us, even this week to realize that we are bought with a price and we are different people and we want to live differently and would you give us the heart of an evangelist that we might preach the gospel to our friends and neighbors in this lost world.
In Jesus' name, Amen.