Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount now begins to draw to a close.  The main body of his instruction has been completed and for the better part of the last chapter Jesus will conclude with several points of application, invitation and call to decision.  Each laying bare the truth that the road to kingdom living is neither easy or automatic.  It involves a conscious, deliberate personal choice that each of us must make, to enter an intentional way of life that is hard to find, and even harder to live.  And all while the vast majority of those around us, oblivious and unconcerned, are simply on their merry way.  We come this morning to the first of those decision points in Matthew 7:13-14, in a message entitled, “The Road Less Traveled” .

One of the greatest and most comprehensive promises in all of scripture comes smack dab in the middle of one of the most important sections of one of the most important sermons Jesus ever gave. And, significantly, it follows right on the heels of his warning about the two greatest threats to God’s kingdom work, namely, material ambition and judging others (Matt. 6:19; 7:1). Why? Because, as we’ll see this morning, that promise is a direct response and specific answer to both. It turns out that the fear and insecurity that drive our material ambitions, and fuel our judgment of others, find their answer in living out of “The Fullness of the Father’s Faithfulness”, the categorical and unequivocal promise that Jesus affirms in Matthew 7:7-12.

As we saw in Jesus’s searching words, there are three choices that make exclusive claims upon us and determine the fundamental trajectory of our lives –– where is our treasure, what is our vision, who is our master. But that raises some important questions. What exactly causes us to want to store up treasure on earth? What makes our life oriented toward greed and covetousness? Why would we willingly submit to the slavery of mammon? In the verses that follow Jesus goes deeper, from the symptoms to the diagnosis, to the true spiritual cause, and importantly, the true spiritual cure for those choices. Addressing the specific soul care that is needed if we’re to be truly free, and truly flourish. This morning we’ll consider that much needed prescription in Matthew 6:25-34, in a message entitled, “Curing the Soul of Fear of Want”.

In our journey through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we come to the vital subject of the Christian’s relationship to material wealth and ambition.  There is no other area of the Christian life in which we are more dexterous in our attempts to straddle the fence, then in our efforts to satisfy both our spiritual and material longings and aspirations.  In fact, whole facets of Christian teaching have been developed, which not only condone, but even encourage, the supposed biblical basis for the pursuit of material wealth.  But you don’t have to be long into a study of the kingdom of God before you run head on into clear indications of a fundamental incompatibility between kingdom living and material ambition.  And even more significantly, clear assertions of the fundamental inability to live for both.  Nowhere are the exclusive claims of the kingdom of God more clearly articulated and strongly asserted than in the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:19-24, as we’ll see this morning, in a message entitled, “Two Treasures…Two Visions…Two Masters”.

On two different occasions during his public ministry Jesus gave very specific teaching on prayer, imparting to us what has come to be known universally as The Lord’s Prayer. Given both the rich resources and long tradition of prayer contained in the Old Testament, not least the Psalms (the prayer book of the church), he must have considered this prayer an important and needed addendum. Why? Why would Jesus give us this particular prayer? Well, as we have seen, that rich and long tradition of prayer didn’t necessarily keep prayer from devolving into either public spectacle or mechanical repetition, even among his own people. Given that concern, why this unique prayer? Conspicuous for its brevity, a mere fifty-seven words, and yet remarkable in its comprehensiveness. What help and spiritual benefit did he intend for us to derive from it, and how? In Matthew 6:5-15 we’ll consider the meaning and purpose of our Lord’s most important words, in a message entitled “A Framework for Kingdom Prayer”.

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”.