A Mountain-Top View of The Sermon on the Mount--Sermon on the Mount Series

            According to a 2012 report, Coca-Cola is the most recognized brand name on the planet. You can go to pretty much any corner of the world and find a Coke. Their brand is more widely recognized than Apple, McDonalds, Google, Microsoft, and Disney. That’s pretty impressive for a company that sells sugared water!

            Today, we’re going to begin a study of a message from Jesus known as The Sermon on the Mount. I mean no disrespect when I say this, but we could say that The Sermon on the Mount is the “Coca-Cola” of sermons. It is easily the most widely-recognized collection of words in the English-speaking world, and perhaps even beyond that. It contains several of the most recognizable statements in all of Scripture, such as:

• ·         “Turn the other cheek.”
• ·         “Go the extra mile.”
• ·         “Love your enemies.”
• ·         “Judge not, that you be not judged.”
• ·         “Do not throw your pearls before swine.”
• ·         “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
• ·         Last but not least, The Lord’s Prayer, which is recited every Sunday in quite a few churches.

Those statements a very widely known, but several of them are just as widely misunderstood. When we hear a statement frequently, its easy to think that you know what it means even if you’ve never looked it up in its original context. Its like the children’s game “Telephone”—the further away you get from the source of the message, the easier it is for the message to get mixed up.

So over the next several months, we’re going to go back to the source—we’re going to go verse-by-verse through The Sermon on the Mount. But today, we’re going to take a “big picture” look at the sermon as a whole to look at its overall message. Every photographer knows that if you zoom in too closely on one object, it will be hard to see things clearly, but if you zoom out or step back, you can gain the clarity that you’re looking for.

Let’s begin with some basic facts about this sermon…

When did Jesus preach this sermon?

            We can see in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus preached this sermon at the beginning of his public ministry. In fact, we might call it Jesus’ “inaugural address.” In the same way that our presidents make a speech at their inauguration to set the tone for their years in office, this sermon serves to set the tone for Jesus’ ministry.

            Now Jesus had been preaching publicly already, and a summary of His preaching is given in Matthew 4:17—“From that time, Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” That is undoubtedly a summary of the basic message that Jesus taught, but we’re not told anything more about it. That is the same message that was attributed to John the Baptist, so we can assume that Jesus’ sermons had been very similar to those of John—they were basically a declaration that God had sent His chosen servant into the world and was ready to set up the kingdom on earth that He had promised in the Old Testament, but the people would first have to repent of their sins if they wanted to be allowed to live in that kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount, then, is going to be an elaboration on that idea.

Where did Jesus preach this sermon?

            Chapter 4 says that Jesus was in Galilee at the time, which is the region where He grew up. Then Matthew 5:1 says, “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.” That’s why this sermon is called The Sermon on the Mount, because Jesus was on a mountain when He preached it. Now when you hear “mountain,” don’t picture Jesus in rock climbing gear on a snow-capped peak in the Rocky Mountains! Picture an area a little more like the Ozark Mountains, and that will give you a better picture.

            Now why did Jesus go up on a mountain to speak? Its quite possible that he was looking for a place that could serve as a natural amphitheater so that all the people could hear him. Think about it—how would you speak to a large group of people outdoors without the help of a PA system? You would need “stadium seating,” so to speak, so that people could be seated above you rather than being pushed back away from you by the size of the crowd.

To whom did Jesus preach this sermon?

            Chapter 4 states that large crowds had come to find Jesus because they had heard about His power to heal people. To re-visit Matthew 5:1, that verse says, “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.” Now the word “disciple” would simply refer to anyone who desired to learn from Jesus. It is not precisely equivalent to the 12 Apostles, whom we read about through most of the Gospel. This group would surely include people who had already made a commitment of faith to Christ. But among the crowds, some people may have been hearing Christ for the very first time, because at the end of the sermon, Matthew states that the crowds were amazed at the authority with which Jesus taught.

            So what we have here is an audience made up of some people who had already accepted Christ by faith and some people who had not. That will be important to remember as we study the sermon, because we’ll see a few statements that are more applicable to one group rather than the other.

So what’s the basic message of this sermon? I’ve summarized it in a couple of sentences, and I want to walk through that summary now.

“There are blessings and a rewarding task to be found by accepting my message (5:1-16)…”

            Jesus opens His sermon on a very encouraging note, probably to tell the people, “You’ve made the right choice by seeking me out.” He states that they will find blessings by becoming like Him, although as we’ll see, some of those blessings would not come immediately. He also declares that He is giving them a rewarding task, which is something that all people truly desire in their hearts. We all want to know that our lives are counting for something—that we are pursuing a worthwhile goal that gives us a sense of purpose and fulfillment, and that is what Jesus offers.

So He opens on an encouraging note, but then He sets out to correct their current mindset.

“…but don’t think these things can be found by following the path of the Pharisees. They have relaxed God’s standards (5:19-20) and promoted a misunderstanding of them (5:21-7:12).”

            The Pharisees were basically the pastors of the Jewish people at that time, and the people could not imagine anyone who could be godlier than the Pharisees appeared to be. You may know that the Pharisees had attempted to carefully interpret the commands for living that God had given to Moses in the Old Testament. In so doing, they tried to clarify what it looked like to keep those commands.

            For example, God had commanded the people to rest from their work on the Sabbath day, which was the last day of the week. So the Pharisees established guidelines by which to measure whether they had worked or not. For one thing, they declared how far you could walk on the Sabbath day before your walking turned into work. Obviously, their standard was totally arbitrary, but it gave them something they could measure.

            I think the Pharisees had good intentions for their interpretation project, but what they actually did was relax God’s standards by making them something that only addressed external behavior. That’s why Jesus repeatedly told the Pharisees that they looked great on the outside, but they were rotten on the inside. Thus, they promoted a misunderstanding of what God really wanted to see from His people.

            So Jesus spends the bulk of His sermon correcting this misunderstanding. If you’ve ever experienced a radical change in the way that you think about some issue, you know that such a change can be very difficult, and it can take a lot of convincing. I think that’s why Jesus spent so much of this sermon correcting the people’s misunderstanding.

The Lord then goes on to issue a challenge to the people.

“So now, don’t simply follow the crowd (7:13-14), and beware of those who teach lies in God’s name (7:15-23).”

            Here we find Jesus’ famous statement about the narrow gate and the wide gate, or the narrow path and the wide path. In 7:13-14, Jesus says, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

            Jesus is warning His audience that in order to find life, they will have to make a choice that will set them apart from many of the people around them. A choice like that always has been and always will be a hard choice, and as we’ll see, back in chapter 5 Jesus told the people that such a choice might result in persecution for them.

            So Jesus is very honest with His audience—finding life will require a difficult choice, and it will require them to beware of those who teach lies in God’s name. Jesus is talking about false prophets, the kind of people who were such a stumbling block for the Jewish people in the Old Testament. A false prophet is someone who claims to speak a message from God, when in reality their message is nothing of the sort. Jesus said that such people would come in sheep’s clothing—meaning that they look good on the outside—but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

            This warning emphasizes the importance of being careful about whom you choose to listen to to teach you about the things of God. Today, we can easily access unbiblical teaching on the TV or the Internet—or even in a Christian bookstore! One sad but true reality for Christian bookstores is that they have to sell a wide variety of books in order to stay in business. They literally cannot afford to be too selective with their merchandise because they have to pay the bills. So we cannot assume that everything that wears the label “Christian” gives us accurate teaching about the message of Jesus.

So Jesus concludes His message with this challenge…

“Rather, listen to me and obey my words, and you will find a solid foundation for your life (7:24-27).”

            This challenge comes through the familiar parable about the wise and foolish builders. Let’s read it as we wrap up our time this morning [READ 7:24-27].

            As we prepare to look closely at this sermon in the coming months, let’s accept Jesus’ challenge up front—let’s make it our intention to hear His words and obey them as we learn more about them.