Matthew 5-7
The Sermon On The Mount
The setting for this sermon: Jesus has been baptized by John the Baptist and has been tempted by Satan in the desert. Now he's calling disciples to follow Him and beginning His public ministry.
And His fame went throughout all Syria ... and there folowed him great multitudes of people ... (4:24, 25).
And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain: and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him: And He opened his mouth, and taught them ... (5:1-2).
Jesus is opening this new chapter in His life. He is attracting multitudes of people who are interested in what He has to say, so He begins by laying out what it will look like when His Kingdom is ruling on this Earth.
The strict morality presented in this picture looks to us to be extremely strident: To even look upon a woman with lust is the same as committing adultery with her? To be angry with a brother is the same as murdering him? How can He say that the thoughts we allow ourselves to think are as evil as overt acts of violence?
I think it is because what we think about, what we focus on, comes from what we believe to be true in our hearts, and it colors our attitudes, which fuel our words and our actions. So it's all connected. We need to examine our hearts to see that what we truely believe really is God's Truth, rather than our own ideas or the culture we live in.
Cultures change and evolve and devolve. God's standards stay the same. So the more evil and wickedness is accepted in the culture around us, the more extreme God's righteousness appears.
That's why we need to "be careful" and "watch out" and "pay attention" to what righteousness is, and what "misses the mark" of perfection. We must constantly be on the lookout for anything in our path that would cause us to stumble. Even a small pebble of delusion can trip us up. Once started on a tangent, the longer we go, the farther we get from where we want to be.
So let's look at this sermon with a mind to see God's reasonable standards.
Jesus starts it with The Beatitudes, the Blessed are's. "Blessed" can be read as "Happy." And the Christian 12-step program called Celebrate Recovery is based on these Beatitudes for healing the serious and damaging habits that people need to be delivered from. So we all need to be healed before we actually enter His Kingdom, in order to live there comfortably, happily.
Tomorrow we'll begin to look at this Sermon to glean what we need to know in these days we are living in now.
O my Father, thank You so much for this roadmap that You have put into Your written Word. Thank You for having Your Spirit remind Matthew of all Jesus said here, so that we can have an accurate picture of Your Righteousness.
Father, help us to order our own lives according to Your love for us, so that we can love one another with Your Love, and live with one another in Righteousness and joy.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
