If you would please stand one more time at the moment and open to Luke chapter 6. Our scripture reading is in Luke 6, beginning at verse 20. And actually, I'm going to back it up to verse 17, which is going to set the context. Luke 6, beginning in verse 17. And he came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented with unclean spirits, and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him, for power went out from him and healed them all. Then he lifted up his eyes toward his disciples and said, blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. And he spoke a parable to them. Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye. For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. But why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood rose, the stream beat vehemently against that house and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. And please open to Matthew chapter five. Matthew five. Well, with the new year comes our jump back into the New Testament, and specifically our study in the Gospel of Matthew. And we left off, having just finished Matthew 4, with Jesus having begun what is known as his great Galilean ministry, which would last roughly 18 months. Now, the Gospel of John covers Jesus's earliest days of ministry. And then after focusing on Jesus's early life, baptism and temptation, Matthew, though, jumps partway into Jesus' ministry as he starts his work in Galilee, which is in northern Israel. And it's in Galilee that Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John to be his disciples and follow him. In Matthew 4, 18 through 22, we see these men being called. And in the last verses of that chapter, we see Jesus' fame spread all throughout the region as he's preaching and he's doing miracles. He's healing people, just as we read in Luke, which is referring to the same period of time. Crowds who are sick and who are lacking authoritative teaching as they were in those days. They, of course, flocked from all over Galilee to hear him. And not just from Galilee, we were told in Matthew 4 that they came from Syria, which was north of Israel's border. They came from southern Israel in Judea and Jerusalem. They came even from the east beyond the Jordan River. Jesus is getting major traction in his ministry. And Matthew 5 begins with Jesus seeing the crowds of people who have come to hear him and be healed. And he does something, beginning in this chapter, that is going to be one of the most famous moments in world history. So if you look at verse 1 and 2 with me, Matthew 5, and seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, And then for three chapters, he goes on to preach what is known today as the Sermon on the Mount. It is the most famous sermon in the world, hands down, given by the most famous preacher in history, and it holds the key to true biblical Christianity. This morning, we're gonna get acquainted with the whole of this great sermon so that we have an understanding of how its pieces fit together as we begin to explore it together in depth. And this is important because we're going to slowly be walking through the sermon to glean as much as is reasonably possible. I figure we could take the next unlimited number of years and still glean as much as possible, but we want to be reasonably gleaning as much as possible, which is to say, I figure that that will take the rest of our New Testament study this year, which is gonna take us through July, and then we get back into the Old Testament, and then starting in January of 2026 and going through mid-year, that's about how long I figure the Sermon on the Mount will take us. And of course, all of this is Deo Valente, should God will it, because He sovereignly has the rights to overrule any of our plans, but just to be honest about my intentions, that's how I'm seeing it today. And as we study this great sermon, I do want you to get a solid sense today of the whole so that you can make sense of the individual parts. Now, the reason that's important is because I would challenge you to find a sermon in history that has been more misunderstood, misapplied, and misdirected than this sermon. Now, Jesus gives this sermon perfectly But we need to understand it as he gave it, to guard us from some of the pitfalls that have laid on every side of those who have tried to do something with it. There is a right way to approach it, and there's a wrong way to approach it. We're going to talk about the right way today. And so let's begin where Matthew does with a look at the sermon's setting, okay? Let's look at the sermon's setting. There are four brief perspectives from which we need to look at the setting of the Sermon on the Mount. The first of which is to consider the sermon's setting in Jesus's ministry. Where is this in Jesus's ministry? You see, we're studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, and Matthew is not a strictly chronological book. Okay, so piecing together information from all of the Gospels in harmony, Jesus doesn't give the Sermon on the Mount until about 18 months into his ministry. 18 months into his ministry. This is the same time at which he's calling out from the whole group of his disciples, however many there were, he's calling 12 of them to be apostles. He does that here, right when he's gonna give the Sermon on the Mount. Luke tells us that. That's the sermon setting in Jesus's ministry. About 18 months in, and right as he's calling 12 to be apostles. Next, let's consider the sermon setting in Matthew. Okay, Jesus may be preaching this sermon a generous way into his ministry, and yet Matthew chooses for his purposes to put it toward the beginning of his gospel. Why? When we first began our study of Matthew about a year ago, we looked at the fact that Matthew organizes his book roughly around five discourses, five large teaching blocks of Jesus that are interspersed with large narrative sections. The Sermon on the Mount is the first of these five major discourses in Jesus' ministry in Matthew. Each one of those discourses ends with a form of the same words which we see in chapter 7 and verse 28. And so it was when Jesus had ended these sayings. And so it was when Jesus had ended these sayings, you find those same words in one form or another at the end of each of Jesus' discourses in Matthew. That's one of the ways we know what Matthew is doing. But there's more to the sermon setting in Matthew than just the fact that this is the first of five discourses. We have to look at what's happening just beforehand, right? That's significant to why Matthew places this sermon here. What we see in chapter four is Jesus begins preaching on a key theme that Matthew continues to emphasize throughout the whole gospel, which is the theme of the kingdom of heaven. And so if you look back with me at verse 17 in chapter four, he introduces Jesus's ministry by saying, from that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And as Jesus is ministering throughout Galilee, if you look down at verse 23, Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus was preaching about the kingdom. Now that's a very loaded term. in Matthew, the kingdom of heaven. And when we were back in chapter four, we took a stab at a definition of what is meant by that term. And what we described as a definition is that the kingdom of heaven is the powerful reign of God as King, as King Jesus makes obedient disciples through the gospel from all nations. The kingdom of heaven is the powerful reign of God as King Jesus makes obedient disciples through the gospel from all nations. This is helpful because it helps us to see that yes, even though God is reigned as king forever, there is a sense in which the kingdom of heaven comes with Jesus in a way that Jesus could say the kingdom of heaven's at hand. Why? Because King Jesus had come to live the gospel and then through that gospel convert to himself people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation throughout the world. The kingdom of heaven had come and the reign of God through King Jesus, always through the gospel, had started to begin at this point. And the reason Jesus goes about preaching the gospel of the kingdom with a message of repentance is because it's only by repentant faith in Jesus that someone can enter the kingdom of heaven. Whenever someone announces the kingdom and it's such a good kingdom as the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, the question naturally arises, well how do I get into that kingdom? Can I be part of that? And the answer is yes, repent and believe in the gospel. Which is why Jesus introduces it that way, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. One of the reasons the Sermon on the Mount is set where it is in Matthew is because Jesus is going to show in this sermon what life in the kingdom of heaven looks like. So Matthew strategically places something that is 18 months into Jesus' public ministry here early because he's introduced Jesus' ministry in terms of preaching the kingdom. And he wants to show us clearly what living in light of that kingdom looks like. And the whole sermon for all three glorious chapters digs down deeply into that. That's the sermon setting in Matthew. Third, I briefly want to say a word about the sermon setting in relation to Luke 6, which we just read. The reason our scripture reading was from Luke 6 was because I wanted to read the whole sermon on the Mount to you, and Matthew 5 through 7 was just too long to do in corporate worship. But we could definitely get through part of Luke 6, no problem. Many Bible scholars think that Luke's recording a different sermon than Matthew is, a different moment in Jesus' ministry, although with similarities, especially because Luke 6 says that Jesus came down with his disciples and stood on a level place when he said what he did in Luke 6. However, there's good reason to believe that Luke is actually recording a version of the very same sermon and the very same moment as Matthew does, in Matthew 5 through 7, and many other scholars believe that it is the same sermon. I believe it's the same sermon. The flow of the sermon is the same in both Luke and Matthew. What each of them are doing, Matthew aiming for Jews primarily as his audience, Luke aiming for Gentiles, accounts for the things that Luke leaves out that Matthew includes. And in both Gospels, the immediate context is Jesus in Galilee healing a multitude of people who come to him from the same regions. And the fact that Jesus gives the sermon in Luke 6 on a flat place doesn't at all mean that he's somewhere other than the mountain that he's on in Matthew 5. Why? Well, that leads to our final perspective, our final perspective in the sermon setting, which is it's in Galilee. It's in Galilee. Jesus is in the hilly country near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. If you go on Google to images and look up the Mount of Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount Galilee, you will see pictures of the kind of hills that Jesus was preaching on and the traditional site that the church largely believes the sermon was preached at. And it's set traditionally on a large hill, which would be considered a mountain in that region. Now, for the, you know, 14, 13 and a half years prior to moving here, I lived in Washington State, and the hills of Galilee would not qualify as a mountain in Washington, but they did there. And there, Jesus would have gone up on that hill, prayed all night over his choice of his apostles, as Luke records, then come down, healed the multitudes that had gathered there. And then he goes up a little ways and sits down, overlooking a large group of people that were on a relatively flat place on that mountain, and given to them the Sermon on the Mount. This, in fact, would have been the perfect setting for Jesus to preach to so many. He would have been up on a slope, seated, looking over out of a flat place, preaching to this crowd. And that brings us to the sermon's preacher. Who is it that has the audacity to do that? He's not one of the recognized leaders of Israel, and yet he's speaking with a kind of authority that we're told at the end of Matthew 7 is going to astound the masses. Well, that's because this is Jesus Christ. And the way that Matthew sets up the sermon in verses one through two is loaded with meaning. Let's look again here at these verses. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them. Aside from all that Matthew has shown us about Jesus in the first four chapters, he is signaling here the significance of this preacher. by saying that he sits down and that he opens his mouth and teaches them. Now, that's easy for us as 21st century Americans to just like read over, but this is significant. Now, I'm up here preaching to you standing and you're sitting. And a few of you are thinking, amen, right? You have a stand already in enough in the service. And that's the way Christians do it now. We've done it that way for centuries. But Jewish rabbis in Jesus' day, when they were formally teaching, they would sit. Their students would stand. Jesus is sitting as the rabbi of Israel, God's rabbi, God himself in the flesh. And the phrase, he opened his mouth and taught them, is a Jewish phrase that means what happens next, pay attention. These are really important words. This is more than just a passing address that Jesus, having healed so many, one of his disciples leans over and says, yeah, rabbi, it'd be good to say a few words. He's like, okay, let's have a toast, you know? No, Jesus is giving authoritative teaching as God in the flesh, the teacher of Israel. But beyond the wording, the way Matthew furthers his purpose in the gospel is to show to his Jewish readers some other very significant things about Jesus. The way that Matthew sets up the sermon is meant to send off flares in our minds of something we have already seen, starting in chapter one, and that is that Jesus is the greater Moses. Jesus is the greater Moses. From the very beginning of this book, Matthew has taken painstaking care to show us that all of history coalesces on this man, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. He is the nexus of the Testaments. He is the hinge on which the Old Covenant and the New Covenant turn. He is the one that all the law and the prophets anticipated and all of the New Testament authors exposit. Jesus here in the Sermon on the Mount is going to masterfully show the heart of God's law while preparing his people for the New Covenant that would be inaugurated in his blood just 18 months later. Jesus does this as the new Moses who goes up on a new mountain to give a new law to the true Israel. Jews and Gentiles who would become the church of Jesus Christ who turned to him in repentant faith. He is going up on that mountain the way that Moses went up on the mountain. He is seated to give the law authoritatively, the way that Moses would give the law to God's people. And he's doing it to God's people. The true Israel, the church, would be comprised of Jews and Gentiles who turned to him by faith. And this is not a surprise. Moses himself had set us up for this. He had anticipated this and told Israel explicitly that it would happen. In Deuteronomy 18 and verse 15 he said, And then in verse 19 he said, Which is why the Sermon on the Mount ends the way it does with Jesus saying, whoever hears these words of mine and does not do them, I'll tell you what he's like. A man who built his house on the sand. He will not be able to withstand the judgment of God. I am the prophet, hear me. Hear me and it will go well with you. Do not hear me and it will not go well with you. He is the new Moses, the greater Moses. And he's speaking God's appointed law word as God's appointed prophet. Now, this isn't Jesus just repeating what Moses said. We're going to deal with the law and the Christian when we get into verses 17, 18, 19, and 20 of chapter five. I'm not about to deal with that here. But suffice it to say, he's not just repeating the law of Moses and saying, okay, let's go. But he is speaking God's word, which Psalm 19 refers to God's word as God's law. And it's for the people whom Jesus would gather to himself under the new covenant. This is a new covenant sermon. And this is God's law for his new covenant people. He's giving what Paul would later call the law of Christ, which is the sum total of God's commands under the new covenant. As Moses gave the old covenant, the greater Moses gives God's law word for the new covenant age. And we're going to see how that actually takes everything that God intends for us to glean from the old covenant and apply it as those who are living on this side of Christ. All of scripture is breathed out by God and is useful. Okay, all of it, and Jesus is gonna show us the way. But a little more subtle and still very present is Matthew's goal of showing Jesus as the greater David, the coming king, another aspect of Jesus' identity that we've seen in Matthew. The theme of the Sermon on the Mount is the kingdom of heaven, and as I was thinking deeply this week, I realized, you know, kingdoms need a king. Turns out Jesus is that king. And kings in God's economy have a very unique relationship to the law. They are to be the chief law keepers as examples and leaders to the people of God. Jesus comes in such a way as to show that he is the king par excellence and is going to keep the law in a way that no king ever had. Through his death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus is going to be crowned as king. And it's not insignificant that Jesus' theme is the law that would govern his kingdom's people. If we were to back up in Deuteronomy, a chapter before the Moses deal, And look at what it says about what kings should do. It says, also it shall be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom that the king shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes. So Jesus comes as the king who keeps God's law perfectly, who gives God's law because he is God, and this is how he's able to give us his righteousness in exchange for our lawlessness. He is the king who would keep the law. And so it's no surprise we get to the heart of Matthew 5 and Jesus says, do not think I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. in a way that no one ever could, which is why I came. And because of my righteousness and my death for you, you too can be righteous in the eyes of God and become my people. He is the great king who keeps God's law for the people he saves. He's the greater Moses and the greater David, and he preaches a great sermon. And every great sermon needs an audience. unless you're preaching during COVID, in which case it'll be live streamed. Every great sermon needs an audience. So let's look at the sermon's audience together. And Matthew specifically names two types of people in the audience that day in Galilee. The first of which is the multitudes, right? And seeing the multitudes, Jesus goes up. Now, we know who these multitudes are because we saw them in chapter four. They came from Syria, Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, east of the Jordan, like all over, like these people have gathered and they are the multitudes. Many of them have diseases and they're seeking healing. But from this group of the multitudes, Matthew also specifically homes down onto a narrower group within that multitude, which is the disciples, which is the disciples. When he was seated, it says, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them. It's important that we know that Jesus is not just speaking to the multitudes, he's specifically speaking to his disciples. That easily overlooked fact is an interpretive key to what Jesus is doing in the entire Sermon on the Mount. The them is the disciples. See, there was a tremendous crowd on that mountain that day who were hearing what Jesus said. And his message, though, was intended for those who were his committed disciples. His disciples were the ones who knew that he had the words of eternal life. His disciples had left all to follow Him. His disciples were those who were committed to His teaching. And it is to them that Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount. The multitudes, they came and went. And I'm sure that some of them would respond to Jesus's sermon that day and become His disciples. But the sermon wasn't primarily aimed at them. It was specifically for the disciples. And that was because of the sermon's subject matter. The whole subject of the Sermon on the Mount is life in God's kingdom, is life in God's kingdom. What good is it to aim a sermon about life in God's kingdom to those who are outside that kingdom? No, Jesus is showing what it looks like to respond to Jesus' preaching to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And since Matthew 4, Jesus has been going around Galilee preaching that message. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And the disciples of Jesus are those who respond to that message by turning from sin and trusting in him alone. They're the ones who enter the kingdom by the narrow gate at the end of the Sermon on the Mountain in Matthew 7, 13. The subject of the sermon is what it looks like to be obedient to God's word under the powerful reign of God's king, Jesus. This fact that the sermon is for disciples of Jesus hedges us against the common misunderstandings and misapplications of the Sermon on the Mount. For example, Mahatma Gandhi loved the Sermon on the Mount. He did, he thought it was a perfect example that would set the stage for the peaceful resistance that he and his followers would enact. They tried to apply its ethical teachings all the while rejecting the gospel that's at the heart of the sermon. Now the sermon, this is crucial, it cannot be obeyed as Jesus preaches it without the new birth, without regeneration. without the work of the Holy Spirit taking a heart of stone and making it a heart of flesh. Now as we'll see when we take up the first Beatitude next week, the whole sermon hinges on a work of sovereign grace in the heart. Because if a work of sovereign grace doesn't take place in the heart, then we can't obey God's word from the heart. And if there's anything Jesus is doing in most of Matthew 5, it's showing that God's word cannot be merely externally obeyed. That's just whitewashed tomb business. God's after the heart. People whose personal ethic is the Sermon on the Mount apart from faith in Christ, tragically, they may live a shinier life, but they're heaping up condemnation for themselves in the process. Another common misapplication of the sermon is to see it as a formula for social order. What's your political philosophy? Sermon on the Mount. If we would just do that, if we would make laws that reflect that, we would have a more just society without retaliation, without murder, without adultery, without vengeance. We would be a society that loves our enemies. We don't go to war with anyone. Then the world's problems would be healed. And it's like, that's a great goal. God has a very specific way to talk about how to get there, right? And it's going to require a second coming and whatnot. But society can, if it tries to order itself, like aim for just laws, yes, but aiming at obedience to the Sermon on the Mount as an ethic without the lordship of Christ is an attempt in futility. What Jesus is doing is he's showing life under his reign as the king. You can't have his kingdom without his kingship. And you can't have his kingship in your life from the heart without a new heart. The whole thing is a gospel sermon. But people easily miss that. And they try to do good And all the while, their good works are what Isaiah would call filthy rags in the sight of God. And again, I'm not advocating for an unjust society. We need to form laws that are going to reflect the way God calls the world to work. But he never merely calls the world to work anyway that's not with Jesus as Lord, which is why we have to be about the gospel. The Sermon on the Mount is about life in God's kingdom, and that means it's for citizens of God's kingdom. It does have a function for the multitudes, but it's a function of calling them to despair in their own inability to keep it. It's in calling them to repentance and faith in the one who did keep it, Jesus. The effect of the Sermon on an unbelieving world should be to cause despair at self-righteousness and then a beeline into Jesus' saving arms. And that becomes clear when we look at the sermon's content. We would look at the sermon's content. And here's where we have a high-level, brief overview of three chapters of masterful preaching. Every great sermon has an outline, and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is no exception. So here's the outline that I would suggest to you. It all begins with the Beatitudes and the famous declaration that Christians are salt and light in this world. This is verses 3 through 16 in Matthew 5. And this section deals with a Christian's character, a Christian's character. You see, the name Christian in the New Testament is synonymous with the word disciple. It is a follower of Jesus who's committed to living as Jesus did and taught. And the Sermon on the Mount shows what the life of a Christian is. And it begins with the kind of character that we see in the Beatitudes. The character of a sinner saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. It will become plainly evident when we look at the first Beatitude that it has to be about a Christian's character, which begins with a recognition that we have nothing to offer God, and thus we are poor in spirit, and we need his righteousness. A righteousness that not only saves us, but through which we are also transformed to become more like Christ. The Beatitudes at the beginning protect us from doing anything with the sermon that takes the gospel out of it, both as our source and motivation. The heart of chapter 5 is in verses 17 through 20, where Jesus reveals a Christian's hope and authority, which is Christ himself. I do want to read these verses because they are so pivotal for the whole sermon. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. And we know, right, that nobody enters the kingdom of heaven except by grace through Jesus, another indication that this is a gospel sermon. Jesus comes to fulfill the entire Old Testament and in his perfect life lived under the old covenant under which he was born, he does just that. And in making his people new from the heart, he elevates true righteousness far above the whitewashed tombs of the Pharisees and the scribes as they were teaching Israel to keep a list of rules on the outside all the while having unruly and unbelieving hearts on the inside. Jesus is the one whose righteousness is given to those who hope in him. And those who hope in him live under his authority. It is a life of obedient faith with grace underneath and through it all. Well, what does it look like then to live under Jesus's authority? Well, that's what the rest of the sermon is about for the most part. The major bulk of it from chapter 5 and verse 21 all the way through chapter 7 and verse 12. we see a Christian's righteousness. It looks like keeping what the New Testament calls the law of Christ. And this sets the stage for what Jesus does. Verses 17 through 20 set the stage for what Jesus is going to go do in these next two and a half chapters. Beginning in verse 21 all the way through chapter 7, 12, a Christian's righteousness looks like, in the rest of chapter 5, obedience to God's law word from the heart. Obedience to God's law word from the heart. See, the Pharisees had twisted the word of God. They had made a series of rigorous and burdensome external only rules that they tacked on to what God had given. And then that was what the people thought righteousness looked like, which is why Jesus says what would have been shocking to them Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. And these common people from all over Israel, knowing what the righteousness of the Pharisees looked like, are just like, are you kidding me? Who in the world can get into the kingdom of heaven? How small of a kingdom is it? And Jesus is going to show that the Pharisees got it wrong. But when we trust in Christ, our obedience from the heart lives in light of his righteousness. God's law has never been about mere externals. In both the old covenant and now with the inauguration of the kingdom in the new covenant, obedience to God's commands must be from the heart. And Jesus gets into specifics of what that looks like. And then he turns a corner into chapter six, where he shows us what the true love of God means. Like we saw earlier from Matthew 22 in our confession, love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Everything hinges on these two things. Chapter six shows us what true love of God looks like. And Jesus shows us that by explaining what God-loving giving looks like, how to pray in a way that is born out of a love of God. What God-centered fasting is, contrasted to the fasting that was put on as a show by the Pharisees. And Jesus brings this chapter to a close by showing that the love of God means that he alone is our master. And because he's a good one and we have a good father in heaven, we can actually trust him to take care of us. Which, good news, means we don't have to worry. And then finally, as Jesus gets into the last chapter of the sermon, he explains what true love of neighbor looks like. Briefly, in the first 12 verses of chapter seven. And what he says there is that that kind of love of neighbor is not judgmental. It makes right judgments, not self-righteous ones. It confronts in love and it treats others the way it wants to be treated, the golden rule. And then the final section of the sermon deals with a Christian's calling. A Christian's calling in verses 13 through 27. And that calling begins with conversion. In chapter 7 verses 13 and 14 is the famous call of Jesus to enter by the narrow gate, because that one leads to life. The broad way, which is easy, leads to destruction. Jesus is doing what every great preacher does. He calls his listeners to respond to his preaching and to do so by entering the narrow gate. In other words, he's calling for their conversion as he tells them, follow me. His disciples had already begun that journey. The multitudes needed to. And then in verses 15 through 23, every person who is converted, who is saved by grace through faith in Christ, will also be sanctified. So in verses 15 through 23, Jesus calls his people to sanctification, which just means to become more like Jesus. To increase in practical righteousness. So Jesus famously tells us that only good trees bear good fruit. Bad trees bear bad fruit. You will know them by their fruit, he says about the false prophets. And then in verses 21 through 23, which are, I don't know of more sobering words than that, where Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. Jesus is showing that at the judgment when Christ returns, only those who were truly converted, who bore good fruit as they were becoming more like Jesus, only they are the ones who truly know Christ. And finally, the wise man built his house upon the rock, and the rains came tumbling down, and the floods came up. And I'm really resisting the urge to sing right now. In that passage at the end, Jesus shows the end of the Christian life, which is glorification. He has in mind the flood of the final judgment. He's using the terms flood, the terms of floodwaters. in a sense representing what will happen when we all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And in that day, those who sunk their roots down into Jesus by faith, shown in a life of obedience, their house will stand. Those who did not will perish. This has in mind the Christian's glorification. And so you see here as the sermon comes to a close, this normal Christian life that every believer experiences, conversion, sanctification, glorification one day. And so that's what's going on in the Sermon on the Mount. That's how the whole thing fits together. There's this magnificent flow of thought beginning with a portrait of saving faith in the Beatitudes, continuing through a life growing in obedience to the law word of God, and ending with a sober call to trust in Jesus and follow him. Every great sermon, though, not only has an outline and an audience, but it also has a point. So what's the point? I mean, three chapters is a lot. Can we distill it down to one main idea that Jesus is getting at? Well, yes, we can. I'm glad you asked. The main point, the sermon's point, is that Jesus is the king who calls his people to live in obedient faith, to his law word from the heart. And that will be shown in true love of God and neighbor. That's the point. Jesus is the king who calls his people to live in obedient faith to his law word from the heart, shown in true love of God and neighbor. And just as there were two groups on that mountainside so many years ago, there are two groups of people here this morning, the multitudes and the disciples. In fact, no matter where you go, unless it's a place that is holy without the gospel of Jesus, there are always only two groups, the multitudes and disciples. Both this morning and as we dig into the glorious details of the Sermon on the Mount over the next several months, which kind of hearer will you be? Because there are only ever two responses to this sermon, both the big picture and in the details. Will you be one of the multitude who's astonished at Jesus' teaching, but nevertheless not following Him as one of His disciples? Or will you be, are you a disciple determined to build your life on the only foundation that will stand in the judgment, which is the foundation of Jesus Christ, His perfect life, His atoning death, His victorious resurrection? He came to die for the sins of his people and called them to follow him in obedient faith. The question is, will we? Do we? If I could get those who are gonna be serving the Lord's Supper to come and sit in the front row. We are coming to a table this morning that is set by Jesus for his disciples. It's a table that is set for those who have heard Jesus' call and entered by the narrow gate in repentance and faith. This is a table for fellowship between Jesus and his disciples and therefore also for disciples with other disciples. And as we sang about the mystic sweet communion in the Church's One Foundation, it's also a table of communion between disciples down here and disciples up there who have gone before. There's no room at this table for division, for squabbling, for pride or bitterness or harbored grudges or unrepentance or fear. Perfect love casts out fear. And this is a table that every aspect of its symbolism points to the perfect love of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is a table for baptized members of the household of God, both weak ones and strong ones, new ones and old ones, struggling ones and victorious ones. If you are not part of the household of faith in Jesus, please do not take this bread and wine as it passes, for your sake. Jesus commands it. If you are part of the household of faith, but you are in settled unrepentance, holding back obedience to Jesus on purpose, please do not take these elements. You do so only to your harm. But before you decide not to take them, do what you did at first when you came to Jesus and repent. determined right now to yield fully to his lordship and then take these elements and be strengthened in that obedience. If you are in Christ and you are determined to follow him in ongoing repentance and faith, take, eat, and drink. But please guard against doing so thinking that you can come because you've got things polished up. That's not how this works. This is for our nourishment so that we would grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus. It's not for those who tidy themselves up first before coming. We don't earn this. We come because Jesus has earned it for us. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us to pray, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Well, friends, we've already received our Father's forgiveness and cleansing as we confessed our sins earlier. And so now it's come to receive physical and spiritual bread from him this day, received by faith with thanksgiving and joy. The thing that binds us together as the family of God in Christ is the gospel. And it's appropriate now for us to confess our common faith together. So if you would please stand, we're going to confess together the words of our faith in the Apostles' Creed. Let's recite this together. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into Hades. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. You may be seated.