Responding to the Present Kingdom of God

Intro to the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5-7

March 16, 2008

Building our own kingdom vs. living for the King

Mistakes regarding the Sermon on the Mount

What is it about?

            The presence of the spiritual reign of Christ; the counter-cultural ethics of the kingdom.

            What is the kingdom?

            Total sovereignty (Matthew 28:18; 1 Cor 15:25)

Specific sovereignty (Luke 17:20-21; Romans 14:17; John 18:36)

Bird’s eye view of the Sermon of the Mount (With Thanks to William Hendriksen)

The Gospel of the Kingdom

            This is a vision of what our Lord intends for us to become.

The Citizens of the Kingdom

            Their Character and Happiness                                  (5v2-12)

            Their Relation to the World                                        (5v13-16)

The Righteousness of the Kingdom

            It is consistent with the OT                                        (5v17-19)

            It is contrasted with current understanding                 (5v20-48)

Loving God above all

            Devotion of heart, not mere ritualism                         (6v1-18)

            Rivals to this affection; Money, worry…                     (6v19-34)

Loving Your Neighbor

            Righteousness between men                                       (7v1-12)

Exhortation to enter into the kingdom 

Beginning of the Way(7v13-14)

            Progress in the Way                                                   (7v15-27) 

Response of the Hearers                                                         (7v28-29)

Application:

The Sermon on the Mount

            The Sermon is found in Matthew’s Gospel towards the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Immediately after his baptism and temptation he had begun to announce the good news that the kingdom of God, long promised in the Old Testament era, was now on the threshold. He himself had come to inaugurate it. With him the new age had dawned, and the rule of God had broken into history. ‘Repent,’ he cried, ‘for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Indeed, ‘He went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom’. The Sermon on the Mount, then, is to be seen in this context. It portrays the repentance (metanoia, the complete change of mind) and the righteousness which belong to the kingdom. That is, it describes what human life and human community look like when they come under the gracious rule of God.

            And what do they look like? Different! Jesus emphasized that his true followers, the citizens of God’s kingdom, were to be entirely different from others. They were not to take their cue from the people around them, but from him, and so prove to be genuine children of their heavenly Father. To me the key text of the Sermon on the Mount is 6:8: ‘Do not be like them.’ It is immediately reminiscent of God’s word to Israel in olden days: ‘You shall not do as they do.’ It is the same call to be different. And right through the Sermon on the Mount this theme is elaborated. Their character was to be completely distinct from that admired by the world (the beatitudes). They were to shine like lights in the prevailing darkness. Their righteousness was to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, both in ethical behaviour and in religious devotion, while their love was to be greater and their ambition nobler than those of their pagan neighbours.

– J.R.W. Stott