Matthew 5:1-7.29 Introduction To The Sermon On the Mount

Well, a good question to ask at this point, especially with a break of three weeks, would be this: What has been Matthew's purpose in the account of the life of Jesus Christ that he has endeavoured to set out and give us as led by the Spirit of God?

We have seen, convincingly, I hope to you, that Matthew is presenting Jesus as the Christ. This means Jesus as the Messiah. That is the term. Jesus as the anointed one of God, who is of all eternity, He is of all promise and prophecy that was made concerning the seed of the woman who was to come and be the crusher of Satan, who would be the one who would free God's people from their bondage to sin.

Matthew does this in the way he introduces Jesus in Matthew 1, where he says, "the record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah". Then he says, "the son of David, the son of Abraham". Abraham and David are these two key figures in the life of the nation of Israel and Old Testament history. By linking Jesus to these two particular figures, Matthew is showing his readers, particularly as written to a Jewish audience, that he is driving them to this fact that Jesus is the promised one. He is the one that you have been waiting for God to provide.

We've been looking recently at Genesis 12 in our midweek Bible study, and there we're getting into the life of Abraham. Abraham was, of course, from a family that was based in this city of Ur in Mesopotamia of the Chaldeans, a huge super city of the ancient world. There was prevalent the worship of this moon god that they had called Nanna. God takes this man named Abraham and he draws him out of the pagan city. God reinvigorates his original promises already made in his covenant of grace that he would provide blessing and he would provide salvation through what he would do with Abraham and his seed to all the world.

That Jesus is the son of Abraham means he is this one, this one who has come to bring blessing to all the world. And that is accomplished, of course, through the preaching of the gospel. Matthew has convincingly shown us that Jesus is such a one. And so, because the king has come—that's the link to David—his kingdom has come near.

Of course, this is what we find in the gospel of Matthew with the teaching of John the Baptist and with the teaching of Jesus himself. They are concerned with showing us that the kingdom of God is at hand. We find this in Matthew 3:2, the preaching of John the Baptist, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." We find this same reality in the teaching of Jesus as well. He says in Matthew 4:17, "From that time, Jesus began to preach and say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"

So the king has come, and the kingdom too is near. This is the accompanying message to the presence of Christ in the world. This Sermon on the Mount is going to be intimately connected to our understanding of the kingdom of God. We will look at that a little bit later. This sermon will flow out of what has already come in Matthew's gospel so far.

Now we understand that the king is here. Now we understand that the kingdom of God is near. In Matthew's gospel, this will be the first of many great discourses, where we have the king providing teaching for those who are going to be members, who are going to be a part of this kingdom of God.

So this Sermon on the Mount, as we are here, I trust those who profess faith in Christ, the Sermon on the Mount will truly reveal our hearts concerning Jesus. There are many people who would perhaps be willing to understand, "Yes, Jesus is the promised Messiah. He's the king; the kingdom of God has come near." But when we delve into the Sermon on the Mount, do we find hearts that are opening up to what it is saying to us? Are we willing to yield ourselves to the teaching of this king, who Matthew has shown to us has come in power and authority from God, for he is in fact the incarnate God himself? The Sermon on the Mount will reveal our hearts in this way.

It is also worth noting that the Sermon on the Mount is an important transition point in the Gospel of Matthew. You will notice there is going to be a distinctly different sort of reading now in Matthew's Gospel. We have had narrative, moving from one event to the next to set the context, and now we are going to have an extended period of actual teaching. This is going to mean that we will have some preaching and teaching that is a little bit different from how we have been progressing in Matthew so far.

This is the first block of five major teaching discourses in the Gospel of Matthew. They are marked out in the Gospel by this little phrase that we find repeatedly, as we found at the end of chapter seven, "when Jesus had finished speaking". We find that five times in Matthew's Gospel: in 7:28, where we just read it; in 11:1; in 13:53; in 19:1; and in 26:1. Five blocks of teaching that Matthew will include span across the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew has already established Jesus' divine authority, and now we will see Christ teaching as no other man can or ever has. As we read, their understanding was that Jesus was teaching as one with supreme authority and not even as their scribes.

There are some textual considerations to make. Firstly, the broad structure of the sermon can break down to a great amount of detail, but just to give you a very, very broad structure to the sermon, the first sixteen verses would be under what we call the Beatitudes. This will show that the Christian character, that the life that God's people in his kingdom live is a completely upside-down way of life. That will be, in fact, the title of my sermon next week as we consider the Beatitudes: The Upside-Down Kingdom.

From Matthew 5:17, right through to Matthew 7:12, we will have broadly what we could call kingdom ethics. That is the kind of principles that govern the Christian life. We have a number of well-known sayings to us in these kingdom ethics. You take, for example, Matthew 5:44, where Jesus says, "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." It is these types of kingdom ethics that mark out the Christian from those in the world.

Finally, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, there is a call to enter the kingdom as well. From verses thirteen to twenty-seven of chapter seven, there is a call to enter this kingdom that Jesus has pronounced and is now teaching concerning. There is a call to enter the narrow gate. There is a call which is likened to building one's house upon the rock that it may stand the storms of judgement. Christ will make a passionate plea to the hearer to enter into this kingdom, which he is announcing, which will be to come as we shall see through his own person.

The Timing

Now let's consider a few points from Matthew's own introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. This is found in the first two verses of chapter five. I want you to first notice the timing of the Sermon on the Mount. It says, "When Jesus saw the crowd." This is referring back to the end of chapter four, where, of course, Matthew described Jesus' ministry in Galilee. Jesus was teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. We find that people are coming to Christ and they are experiencing Christ's divine power. Christ is healing people with all sorts of diseases. He is casting demons out of demoniacs. There is incredible supernatural work and power manifest in the life of Christ.

The crowds are coming to Jesus, and we find Jesus even, people are coming to him from outside the borders of Israel, which is significant in the theology of what Matthew is doing. This Christ will be one who is for the Jew as well as the Gentile. People even from Syria, it says, are coming to see and be healed by Christ, it says, epileptics, paralytics, and so on. Large crowds followed him from Galilee. It is in this context we see the timing of Jesus' teaching.

Matthew has established Jesus' divine authority, and now we must see the same emphasis on Jesus' divine teaching. This is the pattern we find in redemptive history throughout the Bible, really. God acts, he moves, then he provides instruction. We see the same with the Exodus in Egypt. For example, God redeems, he acts, he provides the miracle, the salvation, then he will provide instruction and teaching, and he will ratify his covenant and so on. We find a similar pattern here, the timing of Jesus' teaching. But we ought to recognise that this same one who performs these miracles with divine power, we are to see him in the same state of authority as we receive his teaching.

The Location

We also notice the location that says he went up on the mountain. We don't know particularly which mountain this was, probably more of a hill if we're thinking of what we would consider a mountain as we look out at the Hokonuis. Christ goes up a mountain. It says a lot more than simply geography.

Matthew has already showed us, of course, that Christ is to be seen as the new Moses, the new and better Moses, who will lead a new and better Exodus. The Exodus itself that we've considered in the Lord's table was a type of the Exodus that the Messiah would lead in bringing his people out of bondage to sin and death. Just as Moses went up the mountain, remember to receive the Lord, now we find Christ heading up the mountain to give that divine instruction of his own authority.

So there's a likeness there, but there's also a great contrast. I think it's A.W. Pink who makes a number of these contrasts and calls us to consider that, whereas it was God who came down on Mount Sinai to give the law to Moses, now here it is Christ who goes up to give it himself. Whereas at Mount Sinai, the giving of the law was accompanied by great lightning, thunder and noise, here we have Christ seated in a small and quiet voice on the mountain. Whereas at the giving of the law on Sinai, the people were called to stay away from the mountain lest they be struck dead, here we are invited to come, to sit at the feet of Jesus alone and hear his divine instruction. I could say more about what this says to us about the nature of the old covenant and the new covenant. I'll perhaps let you try and make that connection in your mind yourself, but I shall move on.

We consider the posture of Christ; we find him sitting, don't we? This is more than simply a comment that Matthew makes concerning how rabbis in Jesus' day would teach, how they would sit and people would sit around and listen. There is far more to it than that. It denotes Jesus' authority; it denotes that he is sitting as a king, he is sitting as the judge issuing the divine law, as it were.

The Hearers

Finally, we see the hearers. It says that the disciples came to him. You see, the primary audience, and this is going to be important for us as we're going to develop this a little bit more this morning, is for disciples. Oh yes, the crowds will be there, and later in chapter seven it says the crowds were amazed at his teaching, but Christ is pursuing the believer. He's pursuing you and me with this very sermon this morning. It is primarily for believers, not the general populace, though they were present.

There are a couple of notable points of controversy, very briefly here. There's debate over whether the Sermon on the Mount here in Matthew's Gospel is the same as what Luke has called the Sermon on the Plain. In Luke 6:17-49, the Sermon on the Mount is about three times longer. The question is, some people say, "Well, is this the same sermon, the same event that Luke is recording, or is it a different event with the same material?" Because a lot of what Luke has is much the same material. We don't need to get into the particulars of that, but I do take it that these are two different sermons given in different contexts. Jesus, as an itinerant preacher, reused a lot of his material and a lot of his teaching. So it's not unlikely that we would find that.

That is one notable point of controversy. Another question concerns how to correctly apply the Sermon on the Mount and to whom. This is another point of disagreement in church history. One error that I would point out is that some disregard the Sermon on the Mount and say that it is for a future people at a future time in a millennial kingdom, as goes the theology. Now, I've got to be very careful with labels, as always. This is an old classical dispensational view. It's not very common today, but there was a time when it was very popular to understand that the Sermon on the Mount can basically be skipped over for the Christian, and they would say, "Well, this isn't actually relevant for the Christian church at all. We can skip over it because it's for a future people and Jews in the millennial kingdom". This is what they would say, and I would reject that teaching.

Another error would be that some people would read this, and this would be the social gospel or the liberal view. They would take it that these moral maxims given in the Sermon on the Mount are really the sum and essence of all there is to know about Christianity in the sense that they make it out to be a way to be saved. You can understand how they get this. I mean, look at verse five of chapter five, for example, "Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth." Now, if you were to read this Sermon out of context and make that to mean whatever you want it to, you would be taking it as a way to be saved. Gentle people, good people, well-meaning people, people who are merciful, verse seven, people who are pure in heart, verse eight. This is the essence of what it means to be a Christian. You see the problems that we're going to face if we take that view.

It's Application

So that would be another error. And so let's move into now the Sermon on the Mount and its teaching and use and more. This will use up the remainder of our time. I first want you to understand that this sermon is applicable to the church today as it was to its first hearers who received it from the Lord. The key will be, as I mentioned earlier in my introduction, that we need to understand the kingdom of God properly to frame the sermon within. If we understand what Jesus means when he says the kingdom of heaven is at hand, then we will understand where this sermon falls into place for us.

Now, as a definition of the kingdom of God, I actually heard a better definition last Sunday at the church where Caitlin and I attended in Ashburton. The kingdom of God is that realm where God rules and relates to his people. If we can hold that in our minds concerning the kingdom of God, we're well on our way. That realm where God rules and relates to his people.

This makes it what we call a realised eschatology. Eschatology is a word meaning end things or end times. When people talk about eschatological views, they're talking about views of how things are going to pan out at the end. We need to understand that when Jesus comes announcing the kingdom, there is a very real sense that there is a realised eschatology. In other words, eschatology isn't something that's all placed at the other end of history. It's something which is very much real now. There is a realised eschatology because the king has come. He has announced the inauguration of his kingdom. He has died, he has risen from the dead as the first fruits of those who will follow him. Now there is a life of great abundance to be lived as we await the hope of his final return and the consummation of that kingdom.

So we need to see there is a realised eschatology. The kingdom of God has been inaugurated and simply it is awaiting its consummation at Jesus' return. Just so you know, I'm not sort of making this up. You'll find in the gospels if you read through that Jesus will use this language of this age and the age to come. A very basic structure that Jesus gives us on how to understand how things are working out in redemptive history.

He'll say things like, "In this age, we have marriage and the giving in marriage," but he'll say, "But in the age to come, there is neither marriage nor those given in marriage, but we are like the angels", for example. He gives this basic structure of this age and there is the age to come. That's why Jesus can say things like in Luke 17:20, where he says, "The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed. Nor will they say, 'Look, here it is' or 'There it is.' For in fact," he says, "the kingdom of God is among you." Other translations have "within you."

What I want you to understand is that believers live in this tension of the already and the not yet. It's already that the kingdom of God is inaugurated in the first coming of Christ, but the not yet is that obviously we are still waiting for Christ's second return. So we live in this tension. We live between two ages, don't we? In this inaugurated kingdom.

Therefore, here's the point, here's the crux of the matter: Christians are citizens of this inaugurated kingdom. As citizens of this inaugurated kingdom, the Sermon on the Mount is this kingdom manifesto. It's this, I can almost say this: It's this primary body of Jesus' teaching that will be of critical importance to all who lay claim to being a part of this kingdom, who claim to be citizens of heaven, kingdom citizens.

In a way, Jesus is calling us out of the pigsty when he's giving this teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. He has made us a people who are not to be known as the world is. He's calling us out of the pigsty and says, "No, you are, as my people, to live in such a way as this. What's in the world is not for you." He says, "Come to me and hear my words. Live by my teaching. You are my kingdom citizens." This is what he's saying to us in the Sermon on the Mount. You're different from the world.

This Sermon Is For Christians

This brings us to my next point. I have four points to go. The first point is this: This sermon is for Christians only. I need you to understand that this sermon is not a call to pull up your religious socks. This is not "do better." If you were to, I'd encourage you to go home tonight and read through Matthew chapters five, six, and seven. If you find yourself at the end of that sermon saying things like, "Oh, I really need to do a lot better," well, then you've really missed the point of this sermon. Jesus is not calling us to improve our religious performance. He's not trying to create an attitude in us where we would try to elevate ourselves to God to meet the standard of the Sermon on the Mount and what we see in it.

Rather, we're actually to see that there is something here which is unattainable for us. In fact, one of the responses that we ought to have when we read the Sermon on the Mount is that this righteousness that I read of here is not in me. That I'm really lacking what is the standard that Jesus sets for his kingdom citizens. And that's a good response to have. That's the right and true response to have.

You see, Jesus is giving a sermon here which is not a giving of a new law. Rather, Jesus is affirming and expanding upon the moral law in the Old Testament and taking it to its spirit rather than just to the letter. To explain this, I'll show you in Matthew 5:27. A well-known text to you, Matthew 5:27, Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Here, Jesus is expanding upon what we understand, of course, in the Ten Commandments concerning the law of adultery. Jesus says, "You've heard it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'" A lot of people think, "Oh, I'm all good. You know, I've never committed this sin or I haven't broken this law." Jesus takes it not just to the letter but to the spirit of it. He says, "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery in her heart." You see, he's taking it to the spirit of the law.

Why? To show us just how far short we fall of God's law. That none of us would be able to feel any sense of ease about what we find there. That we are all guilty and condemned in the law. That's part of what Jesus is doing here. He is showing us that there is an unattainable earthly standard of righteousness. In verse 20, he says, "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees," in other words, those who were so dedicated to keeping the law in its every regard, Jesus says, "Unless your righteousness surpasses even theirs, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."

But then just in case we thought we would still be okay, you come down to verse 48 of chapter five. Jesus says, "Therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Then we realise we're in big trouble. Jesus demands perfection of his kingdom citizens. Now, what are we to make of that? Those who are to be in his kingdom have to have a perfect, consistent righteousness at all times. Now that's a big problem, isn't it? And that's why the sermon is for Christians only.

You must first come to Christ in faith, believing that you don't have this righteousness in you. You must come to Christ recognising that it is through what Jesus has done for us on the cross where he takes our sin and then he imputes to us his righteousness so that we may live as his kingdom citizens. We live in his kingdom, not with our own righteousness, but with his righteousness that's been imputed to us. We have been declared righteous before God because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross of Calvary. This is the all-important fact.

So when God looks at his people in his kingdom, he does see that they are perfect, but not on the merits of themselves, but on the merits of Christ.

The Spiritual Food Of The True Disciple

So this Sermon, number two, is the spiritual food of the true disciple of Christ. In Titus 2:14, it says, "He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds." You see that? Purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds. This Christian manifesto in the Sermon on the Mount is going to be that for you. It's a guide for those who are zealous for good works in Christ, who desire to live for the King and to his glory and to set aside your own interests and take upon yourself that which Christ would have for you.

Obedience is the evidence of grace at work in your life. Obedience to Christ is the evidence, one of the evidences of grace at work in your life. We must see that while it is faith alone by grace alone which justifies a person in God's sight, faith is never alone and it will produce fruit because of him who gave it. There will be in the Christian a desire to live out what we find in the Sermon on the Mount.

I've illustrated it before, I think, this way. Imagine a young boy whose job it is to go down to the supermarket a couple of times a week to pick up some things that perhaps his mother forgot from the supermarket. The boy grudgingly does this. He never wants to go. He always goes out with his bottom lip sort of drooping and hanging. Then all of a sudden, there's a new girl that begins working on the checkout at the supermarket. He quite likes this girl and he's met her at school before. All of a sudden, the mum notices that this boy is just, he's almost running out to the supermarket because there's this new girl that he likes working at the checkout there so he can talk to her.

It's a poor illustration in a way, but this is what happens in the Christian life. We become eager and earnest about living pleasingly before our God and desiring what he wills for us. It will be the same way in the Sermon on the Mount. If you're a Christian, your heart should be bubbling and overflowing with trying to understand how God wants you to live and so putting it into practice because he has loved you and you understand that what he has done is a supernatural work. He has saved you and he has loved you and he has purchased you for himself that you may live for him and for his kingdom and glory. So this sermon is the spiritual food of the true disciple of Jesus.

A Guide For Our Witness Of Life

Two final brief points. The sermon is a guide for our witness of life to the world for Jesus. We often look far too much like the world. Jesus wants us to live by a counter-cultural ethic because, you see, we are salt and light in a fallen world. In Matthew 5:13, he says, "You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand and gives it light to all who are in the house."

This is how Christ wants his people to be as witnesses for him in the world, and we must not look like the world. The church today looks far too much like the world. In fact, I think it was Sinclair Ferguson who said that unfortunately in the evangelical Christian world in the last 60 to 80 years in particular, there has for some reason been this drive to try to appease the world. In other words, to try to make the world like us by being the same, by not being different. But the church has its power. It has the most effective gospel witness when we look the most unlike the world by walking by the principles such as we will find in the Sermon on the Mount. We are a covenant community under Christ's Lordship. We are to be different from the world.

A Deep Transformation

Final point: in the Sermon on the Mount, we will see here that there is a deep transformation that Jesus is expecting to see in all his disciples. It's a deep transformation. In other words, this will get down into the fibre of all the facets of your life, all the little nitty-gritty details. There is kingdom transformation that must take place in those details. Finally, it is lifelong transformation. It's not something that happens on a Sunday, but every day of the week, there's going to be this continual lifelong transformation into what God would have us as kingdom citizens to shine the light of Christ in the world.

This is just a bit of a summary and substance of what we need to understand as an introduction to kingdom life such as we will find in the Sermon on the Mount.