In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses the three practices or disciplines that form the foundation of the spiritual life: giving, praying and fasting. And giving, remember, referred specifically to giving to the poor. Those were foundational to the righteous life of Judaism, and they are foundational to kingdom living. Jesus did not negate them, in fact he assumed that we would do them. He doesn’t say, If you give to the needy, he says when you give to the needy; he doesn’t say if you pray, he says when you pray; he doesn’t say if you fast, he says when you fast. His concern was not if we do them, but how and why we do them. It is the second of those that we return to again this morning, when you pray, by way of Matthew 6:7-9, in a message entitled: “Going to School on Prayer”.

Matthew 6:5–8

First meeting at new location – Lincoln Public Library.

Motivation for ministry matters, it matters greatly. Not just what we do – but the important question of why we do what we do? As Jesus continues to expound the foundational truths of kingdom living, he turns to that crucial subject by way of three specific examples which constitute the three principle disciplines of Christian living: giving, praying and fasting. As it turns out, each of those simple and most basic practices of faith can easily be more about what we’re getting than what we’re giving. It is the first of those we’ll examine this morning, by way of Matthew 6:1-4, in a message entitled “Making The Case for Anonymous Giving”.

The six startling contrasts Jesus makes between conventional religious beliefs and practices and the standards of kingdom righteousness, the “You have heard that it was said, But I tell you” section of the sermon, come to a climax and a conclusion on the subject of loving our enemies.  The early church father John Chrysostom considered these words to be “the very highest summit” of Christian character, conduct and virtue.  As we have seen, the Pharisees had a particular knack for narrowing the meaning and scope of God’s commandments, going so far as to even significantly reduce the obligation of the second greatest commandment, to love our neighbor as ourself.  But Jesus had an equal knack for cutting through the fog of disinformation and revealing God’s true purpose and intent, as we’ll see again this morning in Matthew 5:43-48, in an urgently needed message entitled, “We Have Met the Enemy…And He is Our Neighbor”.

As Jesus continues to elevate the personal standards of behavior that should characterize those who have entered the rule and reign of God, he turns his attention to the important subject of truthfulness in speech. Evil entered God’s good creation through a lie, and it wasn’t long before lying became common practice for those navigating life in a fallen world. In distinct contrast to God and God’s nature, who is truth, and who places a premium on absolute truthfulness. But surrounded by a world in which falsehood and dishonesty are so prevalent and pervasive, it is easy for God’s people to be lulled into apathy toward the inherent evil and destructive consequences of deceit, rather than standing as beacons of light and truth in a dark and dishonest world. Like so much of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:33-37 comes as a wake-up call, in an important message entitled, “Let Your Word be Your Word”.

Having elevated the standards of kingdom righteousness to include the realm of thoughts, desires and attitudes, Jesus now turns the spotlight on several specific personal standards of behavior.  The top of the list being the question of divorce and remarriage.  Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, the Pharisees took a line of interpretation on an Old Testament regulation that actually resulted in an extremely lax view toward the permanence of marriage.  For all practical purposes, not much different than our modern judicial practice of no-fault divorce –– at least from a male perspective.  It was a standard entirely in keeping with the on the ground realities of marital life.  Jesus’s response came like a sudden crash of thunder.  In fact, so startling that even his disciples suggested that perhaps it was best not to marry.  We’ll look this morning at his important words, in Matthew 5:31-32, in a message entitled, “A Marriage to Last a Lifetime”.

Jesus unmasking of the superficial standards of what passed for righteousness among the rank and file of practicing believers of his day, continues.  Having exposed the attitudinal sins of anger and hatred, he now turns to the hidden realm of the thoughts and desires of the heart.  What someone has aptly described as your private world. It is an area of our life usually reserved only for ourselves, completely unknown to anyone else, and therefore seldom acknowledged or discussed.  But as we’ll see this morning, Jesus took direct aim at that last bastion of secretness, openly exposing it for exactly what it is, in Matthew 5:27-30, in a message entitled, “Straight Talk About a Pure Heart”.

Having dispelled any notion that he was somehow about lowering God’s standards of biblical truth or righteous living, Jesus immediately set out to show exactly how the righteousness of the kingdom surpasses the righteousness of the Pharisees. He addresses six areas of Christian living, each beginning with the words, “You have heard that it was said…but I tell you”, as he takes on the superficial teaching of the Pharisees in order to get after the true meaning, purpose and intent of scripture. In other words, getting to the truth of scripture. We come to the first of those this morning by way of Matthew 5:21-26, in a message entitled, “Getting to the Truth of Anger and Hatred”.

Audio File Only, Recorded 4/11/21

It is sometimes mistakenly assumed that if the church is to be a welcoming place for sinners, then we’ll need to loosen up our standards. Especially when it comes to the matter of scriptural content and lifestyle expectations. That in order for us to be welcoming we must also be affirming. Given the nature of the clientele that Jesus tended to attract, combined with his uneasy relationship with the religious establishment of his day, you might have been tempted to assume that he was soft on scripture and tolerant of permissive living. But in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus himself went out of his way to dispel any notion that his kingdom’s invitation to the sin ravaged and religiously marginalized was in any way a lessening of God’s standards of either truth or righteousness. There is no clearer statement to that effect in all of scripture than Jesus’s words in Matthew 5:17-20, as we’ll see this morning, in a message entitled, “Raising the Bar on Kingdom Living”.

The disciples who gathered with Jesus on the mountainside that day, listening attentively to his sermon, were few in number, limited in resource and possessing very little in the way of power or influence. Yet Jesus made a stunning declaration: they and they alone were the world’s best hope . And not by somehow laying hold of the world’s levers of power and influence, but rather by simply being who God called them to be and doing what called them to do. That might seem hopelessly naïve and unrealistic in a world of high tech and social media, but it is at the very heart of the truth of the kingdom of heaven. This morning we’ll consider what it means for Christians to be salt and light in the ever increasing secular environment in which we find ourselves, by way of Matthew 5:13-16, in a message entitled “Christian Influence in a Secular World”.