The Sermon on the Mount

By Jeff Curtis

    Matthew’s Gospel gives the most inclusive account of the teachings of Jesus. At least 60 percent of the book of Matthew focuses on what Jesus taught. It provides us with six of our Lord’s discourses, placed within the five teaching sections. One of those sections is Matthew chapters 5-7; The Sermon on the Mount.

     The Sermon on the Mount is unique to Matthew. Luke includes a Sermon on the Plain that contains similar points, but scholars are not sure that they are the same discourse (Luke 6:17-49). Matthew is the only Gospel in which the scenes of the judgment are depicted (chapters 13; 25).

     When Matthew records Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had just announced to His disciples, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20). His words were a summation of all that would follow in the Sermon on the Mount.

     In the first portion of His sermon, Matthew 5:21-48, Jesus had framed His teachings with five contrasts between what He said and what Jewish traditions had said. In Chapter 6:1-18, the second portion of His instructions in this sermon, He dealt with religious forms and the heart – with true religion as opposed to outward ritual.

     After a general warning in (6:1), Jesus presented three major illustrations: giving (6:2-4), praying (6:5-15), and fasting (6:16-18). One commentator has mentioned that it was common for Jewish teachers to use groups of three examples in the instruction.

     In Matthew 6:19-34, Jesus warned against hoarding wealth instead of trusting in God. His central theme warned emphasized that preoccupation with earthly treasures betrays a divided loyalty, as well as a lack of faith in God’s provision.

     Americans today spend much of their disposable income in treasures that can become tomorrow’s trash. That item we thought we just had to have become a bargain for some treasure hunter in next year’s yard sale. A wise person once wrote, “Americans spend money they don’t have, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like.”

     A lot of people are so overcome by the pursuit of material wealth they don’t enjoy what they already have. The obsession with material possessions is captured by a bumper sticker that reads, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” But we all know that “you can’t take it with you when you go.” Paul wrote, “For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it” (1Timothy 6:7). Some of the Egyptian pharaohs were buried with their wealth in the great pyramids so that they could enjoy these possessions in the afterlife. Instead, their wealth has become the property of looters, archaeologists, and museums in generations that have come after them.

     Our focus must not be on accumulating worldly possessions, but on building up the kingdom of God and helping others. By using our blessings from God for these purposes, we can lay up treasures in heaven. If our treasure is on earth, we will not make preparation for heaven: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Then we will lose the eternal happiness found in heaven. How sad it will be on the day of judgment to find our accounts marked “insufficient funds” or “account closed.”

     As Christians, our allegiance is to Christ. We cannot serve Him and wealth at the same time. Once a person has become a slave to his material possessions, he has crowded Christ out of his life. Christ cannot dwell in a heart that is full of material things. A choice has to be made. If we want to be with God eternally, we must choose to serve Him and His righteousness over sin and our possessions.

     Finally, Paul says this; “¹⁶ Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? ¹⁷ But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. ¹⁸ And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:16-18). 

Memorials

by Jeff Curtis

     In Genesis chapter 23, Sarah dies and Abraham established a permanent memorial for her. He didn’t simply want a resting place for her body, a place that easily be forgotten by future generations. Instead, he bought a piece of property that had a cave on it – a permanent burial site that his descendants would always remember as the place where the mother of a great people lay.

     An important part of biblical faith involves memorials to people that God blessed and used in history to fulfill His purposes (Hebrews 11). Believers should be encouraged to remember and recommit themselves to the faith of our physical and spiritual ancestors. Nothing is wrong with having a burial plot with a marker to identify the site where a loved one is buried. It is a way of honoring those who have gone on before us. It is a way to honor the life they lived. It is a way to remind us who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. This is especially true if the deceased was a faithful child of God, as was Sarah, because it encourages us and gives us direction and purpose in life.

     Memorials in the Bible were not solely to exalt people. Even the “heroes of faith” (Hebrews 11) sinned and fell short of God’s will for their lives. David, for example, has been identified as “the greatest saint and the greatest sinner in the Bible.” Seventy-three psalms are attributed to him, but so are the sins of adultery and murder (2Samuel 11:2-4; Psalm 32; 51). Of the apostles Paul is singled out often as the one who did more to spread the Gospel than any of the others. While that may be true, it is his quick temper that caused him to part company with Barnabas, his former co-worker, rather than share the second missionary journey with John Mark; who had turned back from their first journey (Acts 13:13; 15:36-41).

     The most meaningful memorials in the Bible were not limited by time or tied to special places. To the contrary, they involved acts of worship in remembrance of the great and mighty acts of God that stirred believers’ hearts to gratitude and led them to praise Him on special days and in meaningful ways.

    The deeper significance of a memorial observance is found in the Passover and the following week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread, both of which were simply referred to and “Passover” by the first century. Moses instructed the Israelites about the Passover observance, “Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand the Lord brought you out from this place” (Exodus 13:3). He went on with further admonition; “You shall tell your son on that day, saying, “It is because if what the Lord did of me when I came out of Egypt” (Exodus 13:8).

     In a sense, Christians do the same thing in worship, by memorializing the cross of Christ. In a sense, we were all there because His cross was really our cross. We were the ones who deserved to die; but He took our place, bearing “our sins in His body on the cross” (1Peter 2:24). He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). This is why Paul could say to the Corinthians, “Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed” (1Corinthians 5:7). He told the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20).

     The same principle is true regarding the Lord’s Supper. It is a living memorial to the body and blood of Christ, which Christians in all places are to observe until the end of time. In the upper room, the Lord took the bread and said, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). Then He said of the fruit of the vine, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28).

     When Christians partake of the bread and fruit of vine, the past sacrificial offering of the body of Jesus on the cross and pouring out of His blood for the remission of sins are reenacted in the present.

     In a dynamic way, the past becomes present in the hearts and lives of God’s people; it molds and shapes us so that we live in hope and expectation of the future coming of the Lord and our resurrection unto eternal life.