There is a logical connection between our last topic, the Proclamation of the Kingdom of God in Jesus' ministry and the next one that is the Sermon of the Mount because the Sermon of the Mount is the ethic of the Kingdom describes the way we live if we are under the rain or living in the Kingdom of God. Now the Sermon of the Mount is presented rather logically at the beginning of Jesus' ministry to beginning of his public ministry. It takes place says Matthew, after Jesus returned to Galilee, that implies that Jesus was elsewhere. As we said last time he was having a quiet ministry of a few healings and a few encounters with people in the South and then he returned to Galilee, determined to beginning to begin his ministry there. We have a couple of themes already identified that connect as well with the ethic of the Kingdom. The one is the identity of Jesus. Jesus is the king of the Jews, the son of David, Emmanuel one, greater than John, the beloved son, and he is also the king, the one who comes proclaiming the rule of Christ. Second, there is the theme of conflict established as well. Herod has attempted to kill Christ and as we see over in the Gospel of Luke there is also the reception Jesus gets at his first Sermon. He is going to be cast off a cliff at the end of the message. So not everyone is listening with favor to what Jesus has to say, but when he does speak he speaks to those who are even, we might say, the least likely. It begins with those who are in Galilee, the ones who are, as we've seen perhaps, highly Hellenized. I showed you before. I will show you again the influence of Hellenism. There is a synagogue. It looks like a Greek building. Everywhere you go, you see things that look Greek, that look pagan because that's what it was. It was a pagan land in many ways, not fully but largely. Galilee of the Gentiles. Galilee was also not only a place of spiritual poverty but a place of physical poverty. Jesus began his ministry among the poor. He came to pronounce, as we'll see later, the Gospel for the poor, released for the captives. Now you may not see that so clearly right away in the Gospel of Matthew but you have to realize that when Jesus healed people, when he healed the disease, paralyzed, demonized, he was healing poor people. There was no healthcare system. If you were paralyzed, I guarantee you were poor. Maybe a very few exceptions. If you were born a very wealthy family. There were not many wealthy families. If you were demon possessed, if you were gravely ill, you didn't have much. Jesus began his ministry, not with the upper middle class, not in the safe suburbs. He began his ministry with the poor. That's where he turned first. The people came to him in throngs. They were drawn by his miracles. They were attracted by them and they also thought that it must mean that he's not just a miracle worker but as even Nicodemus said, no one could... We know that you're a teacher from God for no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him. So they came to Jesus because he alleviated their pain but they also came because they thought this must be, or at least it may be, something much, much more. But Jesus never intended to heal all the sick of Israel. In fact, on a number of occasions, he leaves people who are sick to go on and do something else. His goal was to introduce people to the reign of God. We might say that his healings garnered their attention but then once he got it, he moved on to other things. What we need to do for a little while tonight is to think about how we should read, how we should understand the sermon on the Mount as a whole. What the sermon amount as a whole is, is a description of life in the kingdom. Now, it says, if you look at chapter 5 verse 1, that when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down and his disciples came to him and he began to teach them, saying, to whom did Jesus speak? He spoke to his disciples and that's crucial for understanding the sermon amount. He did not come just to teach absolute anybody. He separated out those who were his disciples, or maybe more likely, those who were interested in becoming his disciples, or interested in taking the first steps toward being a disciple and he spoke to them. They keep going for a little while, see a hand. There are other views of this matter and there are qualifications to be made. There are a variety of ways of looking at the sermon amount and it's partly because the sermon amount is a difficult piece of the Bible to read. Do you agree with me on that? Do you disagree with me on that? On one way that the sermon amount is the easiest thing in the world to read. You just read it. Less sort of the poor in spirit. There's the kingdom of heaven. That's clear, isn't it? You wear the salt of the earth. Do not murder. Not only don't murder. Don't be angry with your brother. Easy to read. Absolutely clear. Don't do these things. Do those other things. What's the problem? Why is it difficult to read? Because it's so clear. That's why. There's no mistake. You can't explain it away. There it all is and it's impossible. What people wrestle with is not the content of it, not the excellence, not the clarity. What they wrestle with is the impossibility of it. We probably would be happy if Jesus had said simply, don't murder and let it go with that. But He doesn't. He says, don't murder. Furthermore, don't be angry with anybody. Furthermore, somebody else is angry at you. You go be reconciled of them. Furthermore, somebody suing you go be reconciled to them. It just keeps getting worse and worse. In fact, it gets all the way to the point that He says, you shall be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. That's when we know we're in trouble. That's when you need a theologian or a pastor, a preacher, a book of Bible information to come along and tell you. We see that word perfect as the word tele-os and that word really means mature or complete. You don't really have to be perfect. But then I say that's a big relief because I don't have to be perfect as my father in heaven is perfect. I only have to be as mature as he is. And that's and as complete as he is and that's so much easier for me. The problem with the sermon amount is not that we can't understand it, we can't do it, we can't live it. And so people have tried to find ways to understand this very, very difficult body of teaching. And I want to run through them with you just briefly. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church said this is a description of the councils of perfection. That is to say it's for those who aspire to a higher level of righteousness like the monks who take the vows of chastity and poverty and obedience. They don't get married for the sake of the kingdom and they sell all their possessions and give them the poor. Most people can't handle that. But for those who can, the sermon amount. Technical term, too tiered ethic. One for the ordinary Christian, another for super Christian. Luther, Martin Luther, said a couple things about it actually. The first thing he said is this applies to Christians in their private life, but not their public life. In our private life, we turn to the other cheek. But some Christians are magistrates and there you can't turn to the other cheek, there you have to slap the other cheek. And so as individuals, yes, personally our personal piety. I'm simplifying greatly here, forgive me. Those of you who are Lutherans. Is there any Lutherans here? I know I'm simplifying. But in our secular life, in our personal spiritual life, yes, but in our secular life, no. We don't turn to the other cheek. We may have to lift up a sword. The anabaptists of the Reformation and others who take the Bible very literally say, this is just something you have to do. And if it means you have to leave the world to do it, then leave the world. If it means radical pacifism, then radical, if it means never entering military service or never entering the judicial branch of your society or never taking an oath so you can never enter the army for that reason either or not taking an oath when you're in a court case or not taking an oath entering government that way, then you just have to leave all the government. Very literally, world flight, some people would call it. Some later Lutherans, and a lot of people since then, have thought it was a good idea, believe that the goal of the sermon amount is to drive us to despair. I don't know, I could sound funny, but I don't really mean there's a joke. It drives us to the gospel. You read it, you say, woe is me, I am undone. And you read on. And you read on. And at the end of the story, the Christ has said, do all these things, dies for our sins, and then rises. And that's the solution to the sermon amount. There's a lot of truth in that. I don't think it's the whole truth, but I think it's a big part of the truth. Of course there are some people who say, as one of our presidents Harry Truman said, I am a Christian in the sense, this isn't the quote, but many people say, I'm a Christian in the sense that I follow the ten commandments and the sermon amount. Now I'd say they're probably being presumptuous. But what they mean is, those parts of it that are accessible to me that I can accomplish, I'll try to, you know, do on the others as you would have others do unto you. And don't hate other people. And don't resist an evil person if you can help it be, be peaceable. I think that there's some truth, especially in the view, the Lutheran view, that it drives us to Christ, but I think it's also true that they're closing the text as to the riddle about how to take the sermon amount. And the chief clue is something we've already read. It's in Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 and 2, to whom is the sermon amount given? It's given to disciples. Therefore the view that it's only for super Christians is can't be true because it's given to anybody who is sitting listening. And the view that it's simply a moral standard, we should go try to obey, isn't vowed because it's for people who know they can't obey. It's for people who acknowledge Christ as their Lord and King. That's who it's for. It's not for people who hope to get in. It's for people who are in. Now the qualification is very important, and that qualification is in Matthew chapter 7 verse 28. At the end of the sermon amount, just so we're not simplistic here, it's not simply for disciples, it's primarily or essentially or truly for disciples. At the very end of it, the very end of the sermon amount, Jesus finishes 28 and it says the crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had authority and not as their scribes. Now what does that mean? It means that if the sermon amount is top of the sea of Galilee and there's a probable place which I've visited where it actually took place, it's on a sloping hill. And so Jesus probably went to the mountain and called his disciples, but I mean if he's speaking loudly and there's thousands of people, some other people are going to start to filter in. And they're going to listen in. It's not really for them, but Jesus is not going to say you can't listen. It's a little bit like a pastor who preaches on the life of the discipleship and he may say, you may have heard this I have and I've said it. If there's anybody in this place that's not a Christian, some of this won't make sense, but if you want to listen in, they hear what it's like to be a Christian by all means listening in. You don't say it exactly that way, but sometimes you say, look, this is not an evangelistic situation. But if you want to listen, go ahead. You've all experienced something like this. You're at the Thanksgiving table and the seating arrangement is done and you are seated next to Aunt Griselda and Uncle Ned. And Uncle Ned, I hope there's nobody in this room, Uncle Ned is an actuary. And Uncle Ned is going to tell you what the probability is that you're going to die in the next three years. And what the probability is that you're going to die in the next ten years and what impact that has on your life insurance plan. And Aunt Griselda collects something. I don't know what it is, but you're not interested in it. The other end of the table, there's a conversation going on about the football game. You're very interested in that, but it's 14 people away. And you're next to Ned and Griselda and that's who you're supposed to talk to. Your ear is not supposed to be down there, but it is. You're listening in. Now that's the way it was. An unbeliever can listen in. It's fine. But properly speaking, it is not for them. And properly speaking, it's for disciples. Now why do I say that? I say it because of chapter 5 verses 1 and 2. I also say it because there are many other clues that Jesus was speaking to disciples. It begins by addressing people who know their need of grace. The first beatitude makes no sense to a second person. The second beatitude, blessed are those who mourn. Really makes no sense. What does it mean to mourn? Sad, weeping, wailing. What does it mean to be blessed? You know what the Greek word, original word is happy. So happier those who mourn, happier those who cry, that makes no sense. To a secular person, we understand happier those who mourn about the right things, happier those who mourn about sin, more about injustice, more about sin in their own life, sin in the world, right? We understand that it is better to mourn over sin than to be indifferent to it. There is a blessedness in grieving over your own sin. It is far better, far more blessed, to grieve over your own sin than to gloat over your own sin. There is far more blessed to grieve over your own sin than to be indifferent to your sin and say, get off my case, leave me alone. I am only human. There is far better to grieve over abortion than it is to be indifferent to abortion. Blessed are those who mourn. But it takes spirituality to understand or to discern that. So the sermon amount makes sense to those spiritual discernment. It also is for those who know God as their king and their father. We are supposed to pray our father who prays our father. Believers. The sermon amount is given to those who fast and pray and give alms to the poor. It doesn't say if you fast, it says when you fast. It doesn't say if you pray, it says when you pray. It doesn't say if you give the poor, it says when you give the poor. Who does those things? Believers. There are the marks of a believer. There are some of the marks. It is not the only mark. In the custom of Jesus day and the culture of Jesus day, those are the three marks of a pious person. And Jesus is interacting with their conception of what a pious person is. So the sermon amount is essentially for believers. The crowds can listen in but essentially it's for those who know God and who know the life of the kingdom. It's for people who want to live under the reign of crisis. For those who are interested in that command that Jesus gives, your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Only a believer is interested in that. Remember, this is not an easy thing, right? To exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees would be to exceed the righteousness of the most holy people around. So there too, it's only those who are interested in the reign of Christ. Furthermore, the sermon amount invites us to pattern our lives after Christ. And who is truly able to pattern their life after Christ? Listen to what Jesus says a little bit later. He says, in a key verse for understanding Matthew 10, 24 and 25, he says, it is enough for a servant to be like his master. I'm going to talk about that verse later on. Crucial verse, it is enough for a servant to be like his master. I would say, if you think about your aspirations, would you agree that it would be enough to be like your master, to be like Christ? If you look at the sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes and description of the blessed person, what you have is a description in large measure, not a perfect description every guard, but in large measure, a description of Christ. Think with me, follow with me through Matthew chapter 5, and we're going to skip the first one. We'll come back to it last because it's maybe the most problematic. Blessed are those who mourn. Didn't Jesus mourn over Israel? Didn't he mourn over them like sheep without a shepherd? Didn't he mourn over their rebellion? Didn't he say, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I've longed to gather you under my wings like a handgatherer's just chicks, but you would not have it. And now your desolation is upon you. He mourned over their sin or rebellion. And so blessed are we, if we are Christ like, if we are servants like our master, blessed are the meek. Wasn't Jesus meek? Didn't he say, or humble same word in the Greek? Didn't he say, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden for I will give you rest for my. Yoke is easy. My burden is light, and how does it continue for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. So if we live the sermon amount, we are living a Christ-like life. The fourth, be attitude. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, surely Christ hunger and thirsted for righteousness. He was righteous, he was perfectly righteous, and he not only hungered for himself, but he hungered for us, that we should be righteous to how hungry it was. He was so hungry that he was baptized, even though there was no ground for him to be baptized, to fulfill all righteousness, to make it clear beyond a shadow without that everything a righteous person would do, he would do. He offered, he went to the temple, he went to the synagogue. He prayed faithfully. The next be attitude. Blessed are the merciful, surely that's a description of Christ. If you ask the question, why did Jesus perform his miracles? Do you know what the answer that is? Why did the gospel say that Jesus performed his miracles? What's the explanation given? Move with compassion. Half a dozen times, saw the blind man, saw the cripple man, moved with compassion, laid his hands, went over to them, called them to himself. Blessed are the merciful because they participate in the life of Christ, the master. Blessed are the pure and heart is the next be attitude. Surely Christ is pure and heart. He even was willing to say, who have you convinced me of any sin? That's a bold statement to make. I'll never make that statement. Unless I want the answer, me, which of course would come rapidly. In fact, he was so pure that when he said that, and John seems like there was no answer, and if you turn to Matthew chapter 26, you can see a small indication of that. Matthew chapter 26, verses 59 and 60, says that when Jesus was on trial and they're trying, of course to find some cause to execute him, they're looking for false evidence because there's no true evidence. They're looking for false evidence against him so they could put up a death, but they could not find any, even though they brought many false witnesses forward. I even understand what's happening here. They want to stay, as one wise theologian has said, just inside the tortured bounds of legality. It's not my phrase, it's somebody else's. They want to achieve just the veneer of legality, just the veneer that we're doing the right thing. And so they've got to come up with some charge that's plausible, and they'll bring anybody in as long as it's close, as good enough, and they can't do it. They can't find one person who can even make a plausible charge. They themselves, even though they're bound on convicting Christ, have to throw out all the evidence. The only way they find to get him is when they ask him, are you the Christ, and he says, yes, pure in heart, no one could convict him of sin. Blessed are the peacemakers. Well, it's true that Christ came to bring not peace, but a sword, because he did not come to bring peace at any price. Although peace is a wonderful thing to this day, we don't pursue peace no matter what. There is a time to fight. But essentially, it wasn't Christ, the peacemaker. First of all, he brought peace between mankind and God, above all, but he certainly also brought peace to people's souls, to people's hearts. And testimony throughout the ages of him making peace between former enemies and members of families and people of different backgrounds, and all sorts of prejudices and stresses that Christ has overcome. Blessed is the peacemaker, and of course, blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. Surely that is a description of Christ. The only thing that's not quite clear, perhaps, is whether the very first be added to describe Jesus. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the king of heaven, and I'm not sure that he was poor in spirit, because to be poor in spirit means to know your own spiritual poverty, your own spiritual deficit, and he didn't know that. But I will say that he understood poverty in spirit. He understood that he ought to come to the poor first, and start with the wealthy and the powerful and the prominent Judea. He started with the poor, the blind, the crippled in Galilee, and he gave himself, I think most gave himself to the nobodies and the nothings and the outcasts of this world. Nothing is prejudiced or had nothing to do with the rich, but he gave himself first to others. Let me pause right there, and I had two questions I put off, the first is John's, and then I put you off a while ago. The question or the comment is, I view poverty in spirit as absence of self-assertion, and that is absolutely true. Dependence on God, not demanding your own way, that is true. What I'll say, you'll hear my nuance next week when we talk about it a little bit more, but I am with you. What I really should have said, and what I believe, pardon me, is that he had most, if not all, sides of poverty in spirit. He didn't have the side of knowing his own deficit. He lacked that self-interest. That was your point too, probably some other people were thinking the same thing. What you just said, I have taught publicly, so I definitely agree with you. I just didn't say everything, yes. There's a couple of things, there's a very good question. The question is, how can we, you're kind of saying, I see blessed of the poor and those who mourn them, we'll talk about that more later. But how can it possibly be that you would be happy to be persecuted? Well, one thing is, when the kingdom of the world opposes you and persecutes you, it shows that they recognize you as one of Christ. And if you are one of Christ's, as Jesus says, there is the kingdom, now that's blessedness, that's one. I think we can also say that we can just go a little bit farther down. Another reason why we should be blessed if we're persecuted and insulted is because in the same way they persecuted the prophets who went before you. What he's saying is, you're making a difference in the world. And when you make a difference in the world, it's painful at times. It brings opposition, it brings heavy burdens. It may bring persecution, it may bring, maybe in our society today, it just brings people asking you to do a lot of things and you have no leisure, and that's really not so pleasant. But you're making a difference in the world, and there's a blessedness in that, that the world recognizes the difference you make. Those are good questions. I see one more, I'll take one more, and then I'm going to set up your assignment for next time. Go ahead. You know that could be part of it too, yes. The question is, can poverty and spirit be dependence upon God? And yes, although, again, remember, he's not dependent on God, the reason why it's a little bit tough is because he's not dependent on God exactly the same way we are. Because we're dependent on God for salvation, Jesus wasn't. So I just, you know, you're all kind of, you're saying, gee, Dr. Durran, he's not sure how number one works, and we have some ideas. And that's true, I'm trying to, I'm just trying to say that this is one where there's a little more difference. Nonetheless, here's my main point in this. The ceremony matters for disciples, for believers, whose aspiration is to be like their master. And when you look at the description of it, what you find is the description of a blessed character's description of Christ, who is the goal of our life. Now, I say that I want to set up what we're doing, what you're doing for next week, just a little bit. The beatitudes, the beatitudes are a funny list. We've already talked about how odd one of them is, blessed are those who mourn, but they're funny in other ways too. Happy are those who are poor, happy are those who mourn. That's one funny side of it. Another funny side of it is, are these the traits that you would list if you want to list a blessed character or a person? I mean, forget the ceremony amount and Matthew 5 for a minute, okay? List the traits that you wish you had, or list the traits you wish you had in a friend, or in a neighbor, or your coworker right next to you, or if you like it, the traits you wish your children had, or would be ordinary. Now, don't tell me I wish they would mourn because nobody says that. I've asked many people, what do you hope for your children? Nobody's ever said, I hope they know how to mourn. Most parents, if you ask them, would say, I would hope they would mourn less because we call that whining and crying. All right, what would you seek? What character traits do you admire in yourself or your other friends or your children? Yes. The fruit of the spirit, but now that's good, but I'm going to go sort of one by one, I heard somebody say, honesty. It's going to list the few. Honesty, humility, say it again? Oh, yes. I'm going to take personal, sorry, all prerogative and say reliable. Just one letter shorter. What else? Okay, compassionate. I'll put that. I heard somebody else have compassion. Somebody else said love. They're related to each other. Trustworthy. Character in general. Like rectitude, dignity, that kind of stuff. I'll put that up there. What was the one over here? Trustworthy. Dignity, integrity, trustworthy. Somebody give me one or two more. Tolerance. Okay. Forgiving, that's a good one to have in a friend or in a spouse, want to have that. Okay, that's a nice list. Very different from the list that we see here in the Sermon the Mount. And besides, what is Jesus really saying here in this? This is the question I want to put to you. Is Jesus saying the blessed person has these eight traits, the poor, the mourn, their meek, they don't assert themselves. The hungry and thirst for righteousness, they're a peacemaker, they're pure in heart, they're merciful, and they're persecuted. So are we saying go get those eight traits? Go find them. Okay, your job for next week is to analyze the unity. What does God really seek? And don't look at your syllabus in advance. Figure it out yourself. What is the picture? What is the, you tell me what's the story? What's the picture that Christ seeks in those be attitudes? It's a description of the life, the character of the nature, the constitution of the blessed person. But as you just said here, go get these eight traits. Like we would say here, you know, I want to be more compassionate, more honest, more reliable, more trustworthy. I want to be a Boy Scout, you know, thrifty, wise, and brave. Or is there something else going on here? That's the riddle I put to you. See you next week.