Introduction
Introduction to Sermon on the Mount
Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.
His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. Matthew 5:1–2
The Sermon on the Mount is very special to me because Jesus’ teachings took me out of religious bondage. Those who sat Jesus feet during the Sermon on the Mount were worn down, living under legalistic demands of the Pharisees. For many years I walked under similar harsh legalistic demands of modern-day Pharisees, I lost the delight of my salvation and wallowed in years of shame, walking on a religious treadmill trying to earn God’s Love. Read details in my Masked to Truefaced story.
Jesus’ teachings were radical. He taught that righteousness goes above and beyond the law and encouraged his followers to be salt and light providing illumination for a lost and dying world. Instead of teaching on getting on the performance treadmill to become more righteous he taught our lives are transformed— by the inside and out. His grace and love restored my joy and introduced me to a life worth living.
The Sermon
The Sermon on the Mount is in Matthew chapters 5–7. It is the best-known sermon of Christ. It was not like sermons of today. Jesus spoke His words outside, rather than in a building. He sat among the people not behind a pulpit. He dialogued, blessed, and encouraged the people.
Chuck Swindoll explains more, "He taught rather than preached. His message had substance that called for action. Rather than relying on a series of emotional exhortations, He delivered teaching that was systematically and logically arranged. But make no mistake, His presentation was neither laid-back nor lacking in force. He taught them “as one having authority” (Matt. 7:29).
He blessed and encouraged rather than rebuked. Most sermons are more negative than positive, more like scathing rebukes than affirmation. Not this one. With beautiful simplicity, using terms any age could understand, Jesus brought blessing rather than condemnation. No fewer than nine times, back-to-back, He used the same phrase: “Blessed are those . . . ,” “Blessed are you . . . ,” “Blessed are these. . . .” Having endured a lifetime of verbal assaults by the scribes and Pharisees, the multitude on the mount must have thought they had died and gone to heaven. A pinch of positive blessing does more for our souls than a pound of negative bruising...With penetrating power, Jesus exploded the brittle veneer of Pharisaic hypocrisy and explained the essence of true righteousness. 1
Context
In Mathew 3 Jesus was baptized, in Matthew 4 the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. Jesus triumphs over Satan, then returns to Galilee to begin his ministry and calls his first four disciples (Peter, Andrew, James and John). Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (4:17). Jesus spends more of his ministry talking about the kingdom of heaven than anything else (we will be studying this in-depth).
The Sermon the Mount begins with the Beatitudes—this will be our focus for lessons two though nine. Then we will study the details about the Kingdom and learn the benefits of citizenship in the Kingdom. We will learn about the Kingdoms’ principles, priorities, practices, and perspectives. We will examine the Lord's prayer in lessons 19–22.
- Beatitudes (5:3–11)
- Lord's Prayer (6:9–13)
- Golden Rule (7:12)
This class is so timely as the world faces a pandemic, recession, and unrest. The world is coming to an end as we know it. What better way to face these critical times than to focus on the Words of Jesus. When we learn to allow God to direct our paths, he will do a work in our hearts that Jesus taught in the Sermon the Mount: we will be able to respond to the evil with love, fight hatred with forgiveness, and repay evil with good.
The Importance of the Sermon on the Mount
Oswald Chambers said, “The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His way with us.”
William Jennings Bryan, a radical Christian politician of the early 1900s said, “If we desire rules to govern our spiritual development we turn back to the Sermon on the Mount.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “I doubt if there is any problem in the world today -- social, political, or economic -- that would not find a happy solution if approached in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount.”
Philip Yancey said, “Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.”
Missionary Heidi Baker wrote, “…the Sermon on the Mount is God’s formula for revival. The Beatitudes are His recipe for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on the earth as it is in heaven.” 2Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Humanly speaking, it is possible to understand the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. But Jesus knows only one possibility: simple surrender and obedience - not interpreting or applying it, but doing and obeying it. That is the only way to hear his words. He does not mean for us to discuss it as an ideal. He really means for us to get on with it.”
Webster dictated his own epitaph on the day before his death. It includes the following" “The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a mere human production. This belief enters into the very depths of my conscience. The whole history of man proves it.”
The Sermon on the Mount is Intimidating
Rolland and Heidi Baker are missionaries in Mozambique, Africa. Heidi has written several books. In Compelled By Love: How to Change the World Through the Simple Power of Love in Action, Rolland wrote the following in the foreword:
“The Sermon on the Mount is intimidating. Scripture and a standard of perfection I usually saw as unrealistic and unattainable. Probably like most believers, I never expected to see very much fulfillment of it in the lives of leaders and ministers, much less in my own circle of experience. In fact, it was discouraging to ask teachers I knew too many questions concerning the Sermon as I was so often told to be practical and that these teachings don’t quite mean what I thought they meant. Perhaps no scriptures have been “watered down” as much as these, so grand and glorious is the picture they paint of righteousness in the power of the Holy Spirit, sustained by the unquenchable, everlasting, burning flame of the life of God Himself…
Now, twenty-seven years later, we have seen a fulfillment of the Beatitudes in our lives among the poorest and most unlikely people we could find on Earth. And in these years, we found that, for the most part, we were not the teachers. Instead, all this time, God has been teaching us what we still lacked, and He has done so through the meek and humble vessels He prepared for this purpose. Finally, at this stage of her calling in Him, Heidi has gathered, preached, and written the stories of how, by His Spirit, God has incarnated the perfections and beauties of the Beatitudes among the people He has chosen for her calling—the destitute of Africa.” 3
(Watch this video for more about Heidi Baker's ministry)
In The Christ of the Mount, Stanley Jones gives this summary on Jesus’ mount teachings:
“The essential difference between Phariseism and the teaching of Jesus is just here: One was devotion to an idea: the Law; the other was devotion to a Person: the Gospel…
Come to that with the legalistic mind and it is impossible and absurd; come to it with the mind of the lover and nothing else is possible. The lover’s attitude is not one of duty, but one of privilege.
Here is the key to the Sermon on the Mount. We mistake it entirely if we look on it as the chart of the Christian’s duty, rather it is the charter of the Christian’s liberty— his liberty to go beyond, to do the thing that love impels and not merely the thing that duty compels.” 4
The Lessons
I pray that the importance of studying Jesus’ teachings will be a priority in your life for the next 31 days. This is a self paced class so you can skip and catch up as needed but try to commit to reading and praying about the daily verse each day. It will change your life. God’s Word does that.
The main thing I hope we all come away with in this class is that it is Jesus’ love who that transforms us, not set of principles or rituals to observe. Once you grasp this concept, you can find rest in him; in the kingdom of meekness, of patience, and love.
BIble Journaling Options
Once you read though the lesson do one of the following:
- Write the verse in a notebook and make notes
- Highlight the verse in your Bible, write notes
- Make a Memory Dex Card (use the freebies or Bee-Attitudes kit)
- Optional: decorate your notes or card with stickers or doodles
- Use free Bible Study tools to look up anything you question
- If you prefer a worksheet approach you can download the Key Worksheets here
- Share your work in the Facebook Group
- You can ask questions or leave comments below.
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