The Sermon on the Mount, Part 1

In the book of John, there is a story of one of the most interesting episodes to have happened in Christ's life. When a man named Nicodemus came to him at night, kind of a secret disciple of heresy, and questioned him about his teachings. And he said, we know that you are one who's come from God because the things that you do are not possible unless you be one from God.

And he questioned him regarding the kingdom of God. And Jesus made a very famous statement to him in terms of the nature of the kingdom of God in the third chapter of John. When he said to Nicodemus that unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Now, he said, talk to flesh is flesh, spirit is spirit, but you must be able to... you have to be born again. You have to be born from above. You have to have this new birth, this new life. In order to see and understand the things of the kingdom of God. And of course, Nicodemus was confused about that. Unless you think this is a sermon about the subject of being born again, it's not necessarily the case.

I use this episode to introduce a very important concept regarding the kingdom of God and the new life that we have when we come into God's church, when God gives us his Holy Spirit, and we begin our journey toward the kingdom of God. But Jesus introduced something here to Nicodemus that was very important to understand in terms of receiving this new life that starts our journey toward the kingdom of God with the giving of the Holy Spirit and this new life that takes place.

Without that, we cannot begin to understand the matter and the nature of the kingdom of God and especially the things of the kingdom of God. We will fully enter that when we are transformed at the resurrection to spirit beings, but the new life we have been given by the imparting of the Holy Spirit is indeed a foretaste of that kingdom.

And as Paul said in Colossians 1, we have been translated in that sense through that process into the kingdom, though it is not here. We await the fullness of it. There is something about the kingdom of God that creates a tension in life that is very, very important for us to understand. To understand that, I want to take us back to a very famous passage, another one of those famous passages of the Bible in the early chapters of Matthew.

We are going to begin a series here today on the very first recorded message that Jesus gave that we all know as the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount, which is found in Matthew and in Luke, but we are going to focus on Matthew's account. It is found in three chapters of the book of Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7. Here is probably the most famous sermon in all of history.

It is certainly a very foundational matter of the kingdom of God, of the message to a Christian, and of Christ's message to His Church. It is the most basic of teaching. It is the least understood, and it is also the least obeyed, it seems. The message of the Sermon on the Mount. It is a very basic instruction, but not always understood and not always obeyed by people who read it and try to understand it and by us trying to live it.

So today I'm going to begin a series. This sermon today is an overview of the subject of the Sermon on the Mount to introduce it. But I'm going to start a series of sermons that will progress. I'm not quite sure how many I will give on the subject, but several to at least take us through this in a study of a sermon and of teaching that is basic to our understanding the matter and the nature of the kingdom of God and our relationship to it, which is extremely important and extremely valuable in our lives.

This message that Christ gave, this sermon, is really a manifesto of the kingdom of God. If you want to call it the bylaws or the constitution of the kingdom of God, in one sense, that's what it is. It begins in the story regarding the Sermon on the Mount begins in chapter 4 of Matthew. I'd like to take you back into that because it's at the beginning of Christ's ministry.

And it is here that we really begin to understand something that is important as we enter into a study of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 4, we have the story of Him being tempted by Satan at the beginning of his ministry after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. Christ is taken out by Satan in the wilderness, quite likely not too far out from the city of Jerusalem. He's in the area of Judea. There is a wilderness area just a few miles to the south and east of Jerusalem that could very well have been the place that is spoken of here in terms of what is meant by Him being come out into the wilderness. He's taken up into a high place on the temple, shown the kingdoms of the world. And Christ, in a sense, deals with Satan here at the beginning of his ministry. Satan is swatted aside like a fly, like we would swat at a gnat on a summer day. It's a bothersome pesky situation. It's not a matter of Christ qualifying for anything. Christ didn't have to qualify for anything regarding the kingdom of God and His service and His work as God in the flesh. But He deals with this, and then He begins His ministry. Because in verse 17 of Matthew 4, it tells us that from that time, and He goes up into the area of Galilee beginning in verse 12, John was put in prison. Christ departs to Galilee. And He begins to fulfill these prophecies, going back to the prophecy of Isaiah the prophet, verse 14, of a light being shown in the land of Zebulun and Naftali, Jordan of the Galilee of the Gentiles in that area. He begins to preach. And the message that He brought is in verse 17. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe, as Mark puts it. But this is the beginning of His ministry, and He begins to preach the gospel, the message of the kingdom of God. And He says that kingdom is at hand. It was at hand in the sense that He was the messenger of the kingdom, and He was beginning to preach it, as it had not been preached before, and to bring it in person as God in the flesh to earth, to begin His church, to call disciples, to begin this phase of the plan of God.

That would ultimately end the establishment of the kingdom of God on the earth after the work of the church in that age was completed. But it was at hand. And the message, which is very blunt and very profound, is to repent, which means to have a change of heart, a change of mind, and a complete and total refocus on life, which is what repentance means, and which is what is required to begin to understand the truth. And it is to understand and to comprehend the message. Christ began to call people to the kingdom. We go to the feast every year. We observe the Feast of Tabernacles as a foretaste of the kingdom of God. We picture that. We know that through the Holy Days and the plan of God. But we also know that we have our lives to live, and Christ knew what that was going to mean as well.

There is this tension that is set up. Once conversion takes place, once we are called and one repents and accepts the message of the kingdom of God, the kingdom is not here. And yet, we have to live in the flesh, but yet we are called to a higher standard. That's what this sermon enumerates. Some very basic, yet profound teaching about the kingdom that is so important.

There is, as I say, this tension that kind of leaves us suspended between this world and this life of the flesh and the coming kingdom of God. We are suspended between the two. In a sense, polar opposites that attract or create this tension, as you can get at times with the magnetism, that will suspend us between the two.

And we have to live by, and we do live by, the tenets of the kingdom of God. Christ began to go through Galilee. He called, beginning in verse 18 here, he begins to call his disciples, Simon, Andrew, James, and John. In verse 23, he goes throughout Galilee and their synagogues, teaching and healing people that are brought out to him. He teaches about the kingdom of God. He heals people in a very profound way. And many multitudes follow. Verse 25, he begins to attract a following from not just the upper Galilee, but from throughout the land of Israel, Judea, and even beyond the Jordan. Thrones of people come to him. In these early stages, he comes to a point, there is a set day, it seems, that there are a number of people, there are multitudes, in verse 1 of chapter 5. And so he goes up onto a mountain, and he is seated, and he calls his disciples to him, and he begins to open and teach. And here is the beginning of this sermon on the Mount. And it goes for three chapters. And this is what I propose to take some time for, to go through, to help us to focus in on this basic message that is found within the sermon on the Mount from Jesus during this time. There's a lot that we will say about it, and it can be said about it. Let me say one thing about this sermon here at this point, that we should understand, that it was a sermon given in one day. It was not pieced together, stitched together from multiple sermons later on by Matthew or Luke to present this narrative or this fictionalized sermon. The context, the setting, everything presents this as one sermon that he gave.

It's going to take me one more than one to go through it and to talk about it in depth that we need. But understand this as one sermon that he gave. They're on a side of a hill. You go to Israel today, you go to Galilee, and they'll take you to a spot that is the traditional spot for the sermon on the Mount. And they built a big, big basilica there. It's quite a lovely setting. Whether it is or is not, I don't know. I tend to personally don't think that it is. They'll tell you that the area is kind of a...right next to this church, there's kind of a natural amphitheater. And for hundreds of people to have been gathered, and Christ could have spoken without amplification, and he would have been heard, maybe that's the case. Maybe it isn't. I tend to think that there may be other spots that he could have gone to. Regardless, it's not where it was given. It was what was said. That's important to focus on when it comes to the Sermon on the Mount. We don't need to build a church everywhere Christ went, or some miracle was performed throughout the land of Judea. To commemorate this, the commemoration comes in our obedience, in our walk, and in our practice of a way of life, and especially the teachings for this. And he begins this sermon, called the Sermon on the Mount, and he describes life, human life, what the institutions of human life would be like if people came under the gracious rule of the kingdom of God.

He describes through this what one's life would be like, what one's family would be like, what one's plan or tribe or nation would be like, what one's community would be like, what one's whole world would be like, if everyone lived by the principles and the teachings of the kingdom of God. And as enumerated here in this particular sermon. That's, in essence, what it's all about.

And this very profound and simple teaching in many ways, you're like salt of the earth. You're like a light on a hill.

You and I know the precepts and the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, we can rattle them off just like that.

Don't think that I'm come to destroy the law. There's another teaching from the Sermon on the Mount.

If you've heard it said, if you commit adultery, don't commit adultery, but I tell you, if you look on a woman to commit adultery, you've already committed it.

If you don't do it in your heart, you've already done it. We know the Sermon on the Mount.

Living the Sermon on the Mount is a whole other matter. That is the crux. And that creates a couple of questions that I want to answer here in the next few minutes as an overview to the whole subject.

And that is, if it's the least understood and the least obeyed, and yet if it is the basic constitution of the Kingdom of God, and most basic of teaching of Jesus, then is it really relevant to us?

And is it practical for us in the 21st century?

You see, the answer really is yes. The Sermon on the Mount expresses the character of the citizen of the Kingdom of God, and the character of that person in relation to the Father, and to Christ, and to humanity, and to the world. And it is very relevant in this time to us, and it is very practical to everything involving our life if we really understand it.

Can we live it? That's another question. Hopefully we'll offer a solution, or partial solution, or at least the key to the solution by the end of my message here.

But is it relevant? Yes. Let me go through seven elements of this sermon here to show how the message relates to us as Christians, and set this up as an overview of the entire subject for us to understand as we approach the Sermon on the Mount as an overview today. And then we'll come back to each of these and discuss them in more detail in future sermons. But it does relate to us as Christians, and it is something that is very practical and relevant to us in our time today in this modern world. It's not just something given by Christ at that time.

In the first way that it relates, it deals with our character.

In chapter 5, verses 3 through 12, we have the so-called Beatitudes, the blessings that come that are enumerated here. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. And here are a number of blessings that are related that we all know and we are all familiar with.

But these talk about our character. These speak about how we will be blessed if we're poor in spirit, if we mourn, if we are meek, if we hunger and thirst for righteousness. And all of those are alright by themselves. You go through the list. If you show mercy, you'll obtain mercy.

That last one in verse 10 that really kind of is the kicker, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God. A blessing for persecution. Imagine that. How in the world is that a blessing? And why would you even want that blessing? Getting persecuted for the way that you live.

That comes from someone else. That's going to come from outside, in most cases. But it still is a blessing. We'll talk more about that once we get into the subject. But these speak to a character, a basic character that we are and should be as we understand the whole nature of the kingdom of God. And it leads to the second point of relevance to our Christianity, which begins in verse 13.

Because if we're like these others, if we are meek, if we are merciful, if we are a peacemaker, then we have the opportunity more often than not to influence people in a positive way. Which is what it begins to talk about in verse 13 through verse 16. Because here's where he talks about being the salt of the earth and being a light to the world. A light that can't be hid if it's put under a bushel. And I'd like to point out to people when I take them on a tour of the area here, and we talk about the Sermon on the Mount, that Christ very, very capably, ably could have pointed to a city literally on a hill there from the Sea of Galilee, from wherever he gave the sermon.

On the very northern edge of the sea, on one of the furthest mountains off of the Sea of Galilee, there is a hilltop city that lights up at night. And when you're on the Sea of Galilee at night, you can look off to the north and see this city very prominently by its lights up there.

And it was a city that was there during the time of Jesus, and he could very well have pointed off in the distance to that city and said, you are like a light on a hill that can be seen for miles around in the region. But the point that he's making, more than just a city or a peck of salt, is the idea that you influence people because of the way you are. And this is very important.

This is having a positive influence because of the distinctive character that we have, beginning with what is enumerated in the first set of blessings or the Beatitudes, or as some have called them, the Be Happy Attitudes, which is probably a good way to explain it. I forgot exactly where I read that or who coined that term, but the Be Happy Attitudes or the Beatitudes that are here. But the more we are like that, the more we can influence people. If you just focused on being a peacemaker, how influential could we be in a group of people, in an office setting, in our family, within the Church, if we worked on making peace rather than making strife?

You know, at some point when you're dealing with that subject, you either get to the point where you realize, you know, I need to shut up. I need to get my act together and stop being one who's always in the middle of some problem. By what I say, by what I agitate, by what I emotionally immature are not able to deal with and quit being relegated and always associated with trouble.

Or we finally choose a different friend or group of friends, and we move to a different circle of people because the ones we are always around seem to keep us stirred up with strife, with upset, with anger, whatever it might be.

That's the point of maturity. We can talk about more of that later on, but at some point you either become a peacemaker or you help yourself along by associating yourself with those that are more peaceable individuals, and you avoid those that are given to strife, and a lot of proverbs will talk about that. But when you are, just to use that one, you're able to influence people more than we might think we can. So that's very important, obviously, and relates to our life today.

The third point is it relates to our righteousness. Righteous activity, righteous character. In chapter 5, verse 17, Jesus begins to talk about the law. And he says, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. That's a well's memory verses. We all remember, we've all heard, he talks about the law. He said, heaven and earth will pass away before one jot or tittle, would of the law, till all be fulfilled.

And then in verse 19, he says, whoever breaks one of these, least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And yet, this verse is read so many ways by so many people to illustrate the fact that you do not have to keep the law. That as they will focus on the fact that it is fulfilled, and you get into the idea that Christ fulfilled the law for us.

And he filled it up. And yet, by his teaching here, it is very simple to walk through it and to understand and to see that he was not doing away with the law. But he was, he didn't, he said he was not going to be destroyed. And he shows how that law has a spiritual dimension that has an even greater application and binding upon our lives than we ever imagined.

And if anyone just looked at something as, you know, a cut and dried physical, hard evidence, he's saying, no, there's more than that. It goes into the heart, it goes into the attitude, the thoughts of our mind. That's where it settles in. And with that, he expanded the understanding of the law. And he goes on here, and he gives six illustrations, each one of them reaffirming the law of the Old Testament Scripture. He defined righteousness, he defined Christian character by the law. That's what he does here in the sermon. There's no other way around it. We'll cover that more in detail when we get into it. But he talks about murder beginning in the heart in verse 21.

He said, you've heard it said, you shall not murder. But I say that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the counsel. And so he shows where it begins in the heart and the attitude. That when we begin to think evil, when we begin to have envy, that sets up strife with other people, and our thoughts, that that is in the spirit of murder. And it could ultimately, it could lead to that, obviously, if it just completely consumes a personality and a character, and leads to a derangement that can trigger such actions, yes. You know, that can happen with an individual. But any one of us can be guilty of it in our heart for a moment, for a day, or maybe for a season, if we harbor such feelings toward other people. It's very important to understand what he is describing here, because here he defines righteousness, and what is important for us. He talks about oath, and he talks about oaths, and he talks about marriage. Here, as he moves through this, on down to the end of the chapter in verse 48, and he ends by saying, be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. A note of perfection that he ends with here, in order to understand the importance of the law as a definition of righteous conduct and character. In chapter 6, he moves into a fourth area, which can be described as just basically Christian piety. P-I-E-T-Y, for those of you that are wondering, what's that word? I was trying to think today, 10 or 12 popes that have taken the name Pius. There have been a number of them that have taken that name. It's not necessarily a word that we walk around using on Pius today, or you're showing too much piety in your lifestyle. The terms we use when we get into this area, you're sounding like a goody two-shoes. You're preaching too much, or you're trying to out-righteous somebody. Sometimes we can throw those attitudes out toward people, or we could have them applied toward us, and people think you're a bit overly religious, or you're wearing your religion on your sleeve. That can really make us stand out in a group of people today if we do things that are of a religious nature, in some ways, and especially what we do, being so different than what other people who are spiritual or religious may or may not do, but what he's talking about here are deeds of religious devotion. That's what he begins to talk about in chapter 6, beginning in verse 1, through about verse 18. And what is it he talks about? He talks about charity, verse 2. He said, when you do something for someone else, a charitable deed, don't let your right hand know what your left hand's doing, and your father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Charity, giving, it's an action of religious devotion. He goes on and he talks about prayer, and he gives this classic example of the model of prayer. Prayer is, again, an act of devotion that shows our approach toward God, but it's an action that we do. He talks about fasting in verse 16.

And prayer and fasting, we could add on our own account, perhaps Bible study, or even some of the things that we do as part of our religious worship and our worship of God. On the Holy Days, when we put unleavened bread out of our homes, that's an act of piety, to demonstrate and to teach us a very deep spiritual truth.

But when we do that, when we kneel on Passover night and wash each other's feet, that's a religious devotion that we go through. When we take the bread and the wine as symbols of Christ's sacrifice, that's a religious act that we engage in to show a spiritual truth, but it's a part of our devotion.

Keeping the Sabbath, and assembling on the Sabbath could be said to be the same thing. But these are actions that Jesus begins to talk about, and he strikes at an approach to them all. Don't pray and, you know, having somebody sound a trumpet before you. What does that mean? None of us would ever even dream about that.

We'd have to have that whole ancient scenario explained to us to understand what Christ was talking about. We can do that in the context of another sermon. But he is again striking at a spiritual dimension to giving prayer, fasting, and highlighting that as the real heart, spiritual heart of the issue that's important for a person to know.

It's not just some physical act that you're doing. It is the matter of the spirit behind it. And what is it doing within our heart? Just on the point of prayer, he talks about going into a secret place. And, you know, we can look at that, and I think at times in the past we've placed that in terms of what we do. We will open services with prayer. We will pray over a meal. We will pray before we baptize someone.

And there are certain things that we do in a public prayer. The vast bulk of our own personal prayer is going to be in private and between us and God. But there are times when even collectively the congregation might pray. And if and when that should be done or called upon, it can be completely within the spirit of what Jesus is talking about here. I was telling people this morning when I was a teenager, this goes back to, I think, 1967, when Mrs.

Herbert Armstrong was very ill with, I think it was cancer at the time that she had, eventually took her life. But I remember going to church one day, and the whole congregation being—that was announced to us and we talked about it. But then the whole congregation got down on its knees and prayed. The minister let us in a public congregational prayer for someone. I don't know if any of you were around in those at that time and may remember that. The turners shaking their head over there and Bonnie, it's the grayheads that listen to the congregation that remember that.

But that was done. Now, you may have been at a feast or some other rare occasion where you may have seen a minister ask a very brief prayer for someone who was very sick, and that's been done. I have no problem with that. It may not be appropriate in every case for every request for prayer. But there's a time and place for it that it could be. Sometimes we walk a fine line there in being able to express ourselves openly before one another and our emotions and our deep feelings and a right spirit in a right way.

But Jesus here is giving us a guidelines and a model, but all of it is within the context of religious devotion. And that's very important for us to get a balance on and to know when and how to use that. A fifth point in the relevance is brought up in verse 19 of chapter 6 where he begins to talk about laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

And here he talks about really ambition. Ambition. Ambition is a very important quality for a person to have. To want to accomplish things, to be something, to achieve certain goals in life. Those are very important to have that ambition. And this piete, or I'm sorry, this ambition here is what he begins to talk about in verse 19 where he talks about laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And he begins to talk about an attitude and an approach toward material things. He says you can't serve God and physical. And then he turns around in verse 25 and he says, look, don't be overly concerned about what you eat, what you wear. God will provide. Now, none of this is to be ever taken as an ambition-destroying approach toward life. It's meant to get it all in a proper context.

And what he accomplishes in these verses here is to help anyone get it all together so that we seek first the kingdom of God, which is what verse 33 talks about. We seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And then he says, all these other things will be added. But they will be added in the context of seeking first and having the right principle and the right goal of the kingdom of God and keeping it all in a proper approach and having a right approach to material wealth and possessions.

All the more important for a Christian to be able to balance, especially in our present Gilded Age, where we are awash with wealth, as no generation has ever been in world history, and the poorest, as I was saying last week, the poorest among us being wealthier than the majority of the rest of the world's population. And the tremendous wealth that we have in this country.

And what we are able to do and blessed with, the homes we can live in, the things we put in those homes, the things that we can do, it's an amazing thing. And again, it's relevant to us to keep it all in a proper perspective, which is what Jesus is doing here with this.

He moves on in chapter 7, beginning in verse 1, and he begins to talk about that all-important concept of relations, relationships. Because he talks about judging. Bingo, right there. We've all judged, and we've all been judged. He talks about judgment and what this means and how that can, how that is important to get in balance and in perspective, to not be trying to pull the moat out of someone else or the speck out of someone else when we've got a moat in our eye. We've got a very big problem ourselves, and we're worried about someone else's life, and he says that's hypocritical. Relationships. And he talks about this and the fact that once you commit to the kingdom of God, once you commit to the principles of the calling that God has given to us, all relationships change.

Some vary dramatically, even in the early stages. How many people have had the animosity of family because they began to obey God? One of my best friends was kicked out of his home as a teenager when he came into the church. He had to go and live with church members because he was going to keep the Sabbath and the Holy Days and follow this crazy religion. So as a 17-year-old, he was kicked out by his mother who, to this day, will not speak to him.

He's my age, and he's gone through his whole adult life without a relationship with his mother because he decided to embrace the kingdom of God as he came to understand it, as God revealed it to him. How many people have had relationships change? Marriages break up because of coming into the church? Those are dramatic situations, and we can all count those and know those situations. But even through the years, if that's not happened to any of us, if we've married in the church, if we've developed friendships of marriage, friendships of people among ourselves over the years, we can all relate to the fact that even over 10, 20, 30 years of our life in the Church of God, relationships change.

Many factors will dictate that, but old ones will fail, new ones will form over a lifetime. And Christ here addresses very important principles that are important to deal with in those. We're going to be to spend our whole lifetime developing a relationship with God. And that's why he said at the beginning in verse 7, keep asking.

Keep seeking. Keep knocking with God. Don't give up on God. Don't let anything get in the way there. And be careful how we deal with other people. We don't jump to evaluations that are harmful or critical.

And he says to avoid those that are going to hinder us from praying to the Father, and those that are going to hinder us from our walk with God. All of that is part of this here through verse 20, and talking about dealing with individuals and the fruits that are produced.

In verse 21, through the remainder of the chapter through verse 29, he begins to talk about commitment. And this is the seventh element that is important in our sermon being relevant to us in our life.

Commitment. He says, Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, that will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me, in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and done many wonders in your name. And I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me you who practice lawlessness. Antinomianism against the law is what is being described there. He said, depart from me anyone who is like that. This is here talking about commitment. Then he talks about building on a rock so that the wind and the storms and the rains that descend do not wreck what we are building in faith and a spiritual house.

Commitment. You can listen to and you can profess discipleship. But the real proof in our life is the fruit. We can take good notes, notebooks after notebook after notebook full of notes over the years. We can listen real well. We can be at everything. We can go through the motions. We can even go through the motions of religious devotion. But the real proof is in our life. It's in the fruits of our life. Do we mean what we say and do what we hear? Do we mean what we say and do we do what we hear?

This is what he speaks to here in this last element, which is so important to a commitment that endures toward God's kingdom. Because on all of this hangs our eternal life. This was the beginning of his message. In Matthew 4, 17, he says, Repent the kingdom of God is at hand.

Get a different mind. Get a different framework. Let the Spirit begin to work in your heart and in your mind and in your life over a lifetime and get ready for the kingdom of God. This is how the practical day-by-day work will be done. This is what will be required.

This is our Constitution. This is our manifesto of the kingdom of God. This is what a person, a citizen of the kingdom of God will be like when it's all said and done, which leads us to the inevitable question, how in the world can we ever do that? How can we walk through Barnes & Noble or the grocery checkout line and look at the covers of most of the magazines that are up there without lusting in our heart?

Or how can we go through a period of time in the church, at school, at work, or whatever, without just getting totally frosted with somebody, angry to the point where we really would like to take the knot behind the woodshed for five minutes? Is it really practical to expect that this teaching can be done in life for anybody? It's interesting when you study what so many of the commentaries say about the Sermon on the Mouth and its application and what people have written about it. One approach to try to dumb down the message of the Sermon on the Mouth to our human level is to say, well, Jesus was just talking about the Kingdom of God.

They thought that the Kingdom was imminent. And so basically, He was just telling them how to live right up at the very end before the Kingdom comes. Kind of like declaring martial law. Suspending everything else and focusing on one aspect of law for an emergency crisis period of time in order to prepare for the Kingdom. That's how one school of thought explains the Sermon on the Mouth, because you can't live like this throughout your life. When I was reading about that, it kind of reminded me of when I came in the church. I should say when my mother came in the church when I was not quite a teenager, early teen, 12, 13.

And I began to hear of the sermons and this idea of a place of safety and tribulation and three and a half years and Jesus returning. Back then we had it all charted out in dates and everything else. And Grayhares will remember that. The White-Haired Gordon will remember that one, too.

And I'm listening to this, and I'm 13, 14 years old, and I'm thinking, hmm, so what do I do? I do the math. Because we were getting close in those years, and I figured, man, I'm not going to have time to do this, to do that, get married, have kids. I'm not going to have time to do, you know, have fun. So I had it all figured out.

I was going to live my life the way I wanted to and then repent one month before.

That's how I thought at age 13. I'm going to do whatever I want to do. Maybe I'll pay lip service to the church, and then I'll really get my act together about December before it all comes together here. Declare of my own martial law and myself. Well, I've got grandkids now and figured out that this is a lifetime commitment.

But how is it that we can do that? Given life, given human nature the way it is, how can this be something that is practical for us to live by? Some would say that the principles of the Sermon on the Mount are not readily attainable, that you can't live up to it. And that may be true, but they are not, nor are they totally unattainable. That's why when I was saying that our calling to the kingdom of God and the life we begin to live suspends us between the kingdom to come, the reality of the transformed life as a spirit being and the kingdom of God at Christ's return, and the reality of living by the kingdom in this present evil world, and the tension that is created in life between the two, suspends us between the two.

What is the key to living and to developing this in our life? The ideal versus the reality, the standards of the kingdom of God being attainable in their life.

The key is only available by and through Jesus Christ.

That's why when Paul said in Philippians 4.13 that I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me, that is the key, that we spend a lifetime working out.

It's not that Christ does it all for us, but we do have Christ's Spirit in us. And that Spirit is to work away at human nature so that gradually over a period of time we don't lust as much.

Our internal mechanisms are not so quick to anger and envy towards something, towards someone else, toward other people, where we become more of a peacemaker and we don't harbor grudges or feelings in our heart.

God's Spirit chips away at that old person through the years, through the challenges and experiences.

And we are hungry and thirsting more for the righteousness of the kingdom of God as we grow older and as we go through the experiences of life.

God's Spirit enables us to do that. What is really being described here is an inner righteousness of the heart.

And it's very important for us to spend some time examining and coming to understand the Sermon on the Mount, the Constitution, the Manifesto of the Kingdom of God, the description of what a citizen of the Kingdom of God will be like.

So we're going to spend some time over the next few sermons, a few months perhaps. There'll be times I'll intersperse other topics. And in between there, it won't be just every sermon on the Sermon on the Mount. But we're going to go through it and examine it and study it as a primer for the Kingdom of God, for those who will be in the Kingdom of God, and those of us who are preparing as kings and priests today in that future role in God's Kingdom. To begin a process of seeing how much of the inner righteousness is being put upon our heart through and by this very powerful sermon that Christ left us to live by, to understand, and to prepare us for His Kingdom.