EP 86: Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount Series {Matthew 5:1-2}

John Stott opened his book The Message of the Sermon on the Mount: Christian Counter-Culture with this sentence:

“The Sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguable it is the least understood, and certainly it is the least obeyed.”

As believers, we know parts of this Sermon preached by the greatest preacher who ever preached quite well. Jesus tells us in the Sermon not to be anxious, to put the kingdom first, and not to lay up treasures on earth.

The Sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguable it is the least understood, and certainly it is the least obeyed.

There are challenging texts to put into practice like loving our enemies and if our right-hand causes us to sin to cut it off and throw it away, and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

~ Matthew 5:1-2

In our time today, we're going to work through Matthew 5:1-2 and discuss an overview of the Sermon. Over our time together we will work through the whole sermon in Matthew 5-7.

I know as Christians, we all desire to see changes in our homes. We want to keep killing sin that is in our hearts and lives. We want to live a life obedient to God's Word. We want to understand what it means to continually die to self and live to Christ. All scripture is valuable, and every teaching that we find in the Sermon on the Mount we see in the New Testament epistles.

These are important truths that need to capture our hearts and rule every aspect of our being as we walk in the Spirit.

So, as we begin this very long series together, I pray we would remember this statement from Martyn Lloyd Jones, “this is how the Christian is meant to live.”

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Show Notes:

“A man may play a piece of great music quite accurately, he may make no mistakes at all. And yet it may be true to say of him that he did not really play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. he played the notes correctly, but it was not the Sonata. What was he doing? He was mechanically striking the right notes but missing the SOUL and the real interpretation. He wasn’t doing what Beethoven intended and meant. That, I think, is the real relationship between the whole and the parts. The artist, the true artist, is always correct. Even the greatest artist cannot afford to neglect rules and regulations. But that is not what makes him a great artist. It is this something extra, the expression; it is the spirit, it is the life, it is ‘the whole’ that he is able to convey. There, it seems to me, is the relationship of the particular to the general in the Sermon on the Mount. You cannot divorce, you cannot separate them. The Christian, while he puts his emphasis upon the spirit, is also concerned about the letter but he is not only concerned about the letter, and he must never consider the letter apart from the spirit.”

~ Martyn Lloyd Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

“Here is the life to which we are called, and I maintain again that if only every Christian in the Church today were living the Sermon on the Mount, the great revival for which we are praying and longing would already have started. Amazing and astounding things would happen; the world would be shocked, and men and women would be drawn and attracted to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
~Martyn Lloyd Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

Jesus is laying before us a standard of living that is counter-cultural to the world in every way.

“God’s own Son delivered the sermon. The greatest Preacher who ever lived preached the greatest sermon ever preached.”
~ John MacArthur, Matthew 1-7 MacArthur New Testament Commentary

“Typically, in the Jewish world, a disciple would voluntarily join a school or otherwise seek out a master rabbi; however Jesus seeks out and chooses those whom he wants as his disciples. A dedicated disciple was generally expected someday to become a rabbi himself, yet Jesus teaches his disciples that he will always be their rabbi and they will have a lifetime of discipleship. Jesus’s disciples are bound to him and to God’s will. They are called to a lifetime of work and service.”
~ Bill Mounce, Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words

“To live by the standards, He (referring to Jesus) gives here is to live a life of blessed happiness. Here is an utterly new approach to living, one that results in joy instead of despair, in peace instead of conflict—a peace that the world does not understand and cannot have. It is a blessedness not produced by the world or by its circumstances, and it cannot be taken away by the world or by circumstances. It is not produced externally and cannot be destroyed externally. The teachings of the Sermon on the Mount are for believers today, marking the distinctive lifestyle that should characterize the direction if not the perfection of the lives of Christians of every age. Unfortunately, those standards do not always characterize Christians. The world’s standards and objectives too often have engulfed believers and conformed them to its own image, squeezed them into its own mold. Jesus’ new way of living comes from a new way of thinking, and the new way of thinking comes from a new life. Here are God’s standards for those created in His own image and recreated into the image of His own dear Son.”
~ John MacArthur, Matthew 1-7 MacArthur New Testament Commentary

“If only all of us were living the Sermon on the Mount, men would know that there is dynamic in the Christian gospel; they would know that this is a live thing: they would not go looking for anything else. They would say, ‘Here it is’ And if you read the history of the Church you will find it has always been when men and women have taken this Sermon seriously and faced themselves in the light of it, that true revival has come. And when the world sees the truly Christian man, it not only feels condemned, it is drawn, it is attracted. Then let us carefully study this Sermon that claims to show what we ought to be. Let us consider that we may see what we can be. For it not only states the demand; it points to the supply, to the source of power. God give us the grace to face the Sermon on the Mount seriously and honestly and prayerfully until we become living examples of it, and exemplifiers of its glorious teaching.”
~ Martyn Lloyd Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount