Why Study the Sermon on The Mount?

A friend raised the question "Is the Sermon on the Mount directly applicable to us today?"  Instead of just trying to answer the question there, I referred him to here, and promised to post a sermon dealing with just that question.  This isn't going to win me any applause from my stalwart Ruckmanite friends, but then, I'm not called to please them anyway.

WHY WE SHOULD STUDY THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT?

MT. 5:1-2

INTRODUCTION:

Given the popularity of the Sermon on the Mount as homiletical material in liberal Churches, my title may seem very strange.   A whole segment of professing Christians would immediately respond with incredulity that anyone would not know that it is obvious that we should.

But some of us have been around a certain variety of extreme dispensationalism  that mocks the very idea that the Sermon on the Mount has anything to do with Christians in this age.  They put the whole of Jesus’ teaching here in a future age, they call it the “Constitution of the Kingdom”, and even go so far as to insist that it is nothing short of the plan of salvation in that future age. 

I won’t call them hyper-dispensationalists, because that’s another sect that’s even worse than them, that they too have problems with.  But just because we can see the most glaring problems with someone else doesn’t mean we don’t have any of our own that we have trouble seeing.  That’s true of you, and it’s true of me. 

Now if you’ve never heard that extreme dispensationalist point of view, you may be at an advantage.  I won’t have to argue you off that position.  The arguments correcting it aren’t hard to find by the way, but we do have a problem letting go of what we have chosen to identify with. 

But I hasten to add that if you have had the Sermon on the Mount used to load you up with standard-fare wishy-washy, goody good Modernist/Liberal moralism, you aren’t going to be hearing that all over again either. 

Now as we can see in the first two verses, Jesus, seeing the multitudes, went up into a mountain and sat down, and when his disciples got around him, then He opened his mouth, and taught them the things that we read in the following verses, which we will be studying together for the next several Sundays. 

I think it should probably be pointed out that this body of truth was not intended for the multitudes, but rather for the disciples.  And if we pay attention, and take it at face value, which we should, and not spiritualize, allegorize or dispensationalize it away,  it’s pretty tough stuff to measure up to .  I fall short of it, and while I can’t speak for you about everything , I have no problem telling you that you fall short of it as well.  And we qualify as disciples.  It is criminal ministerial malpractice to give people the idea that they, or anybody else, can be saved, in any age, past present or future, if they can manage to measure up to the terms of this sermon.  That’s not why it’s here.  But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

The Sermon on the Mount has several divisions, and the first of them is familiarly known as “The Beatitudes”.  Some people that think themselves to be clever are fond of citing that name, and then saying, “Here, Jesus is teaching us what our attitudes are supposed to be – they are the ‘be attitudes’, see?”  Well, that’s not what the word “beatitude” means, and they have nearly nothing to do with attitudes.  But far be it from us to let accuracy and precision get in the way of our cleverness. 

The word beatitude is related to the words beatific, beatify, and beatification.  The first of which means making blissful or blessed, or showing happiness or delight, and beatify, which means “to make blissfully happy” but also can mean “to consecrate or sanctify”, and beatification.  They all have the same Latin root.

So a simple look at the first word in the third verse ought to explain all we need to know about why these are known as “The Beatitidues”, because that word is “blessed”.  Each of these 9 statements begins with the words “blessed are”, and continue to declare some new condition or pre-requisite or gateway to beatification. 

As I teach The Beatitudes, I will do my best to stick with “Blessed are”, and not say “O the happiness of.”  Perhaps you have heard the beatitudes pitched that way.  I can remember somebody or other standing in a pulpit with a cheesy pseudo-spiritual, faux-humble expression of delight on their face and rattling of some syrupy paraphrase that went something like;

“O the happiness of those who know they are spiritually poor; God’s Kingdom belongs to them!  O the happiness of those who mourn; because God comforts them in a special way.  O the happiness of the humble; because they will get what God has promised!  O the happiness of those who want with all their heart to do what God wants, because that will be all they need to be satisfied.  O the happiness of those who are merciful to others; because that means God will be merciful to them!  O the happiness of the pure in heart; because they get to see God!  O the happiness of those who work for peace; God calls them His children!  O the happiness of those who are persecuted because they do all this.  They own the Kingdom.  O the happiness of those that are insulted, attacked, and lied about because they follow Jesus.  Be especially happy, because you are earning a great reward. 

Now I may be exaggerating a little, but that’s the general misunderstanding behind that kind of thinking.  The Bible does not say, “O the happiness of…”  Not even the worst paraphrases and modern perversions like the Good News bible miss it by that much.  And I did hear that in an IFB church, because that’s the only kind I would have been in at that time. 

Now, these statements are the way they are in your A.V. for a reason.  “Blessed are…”  Not “happy are”, but “blessed are” and “blessed” is a perfectly good English word to use to translate the Greek word employed there.   That word basically means “supremely blessed”.  It can mean, by extension, fortunate, well off. 

 

In other words, it is a condition, not a feeling.  I would be sinning against you if I told you that Jesus expected you to be happy about all the painful and difficult things that the Beatitudes speak about when they befall you.   But am telling you the truth that whether you feel like it or not, you are being supremely blessed, fortunate, and getting ahead in God’s Kingdom when they befall you. 

 

And so, let’s put that away someplace safe, alright.  The issue here is not happiness, it is blessedness.  And that then gives us something of a compass to help us navigate through the early stages of the sermon on the mount.  Someone has suggested this outline – or something close to it anyway. 

I.   THE CONDITION OF BLESSEDNESS                       5:1-12

II.  THE CONDITION OF USEFULNESS                         5:13-42

III. THE CONDITION OF TENDERHEARTEDNESS       5:43-48      

I believe it is more correct to regard these as conditions rather than standards.  Standards are something you can choose for yourself, and they don’t change you.  Hopefully, you adopt them because you are changed, or changing.   But don’t adopt them in order to change.  That won’t work. 

But your condition or conditions change because of forces outside of yourself.  God puts us in the condition He wants us in, and makes of us what He wants of us.  It’s a much more effective process, one in which He gets the glory, and we know it.

I.  WRONG WAYS OF VIEWING IT THAT APPLY IT TO THE HERE AND NOW

A.  As if it were a way to be saved. 

If you think the law of Moses was tough, try this on for size.  And then make sure you have a happy attitude while you’re at it. 

Salvation is a gift, offered freely by God, purchased by Christ in His death on the cross, burial and resurrection, and  received by sinners who admit their need and turn from their sinful selves to trust in the righteousness of Christ and His death for them as their substitute.  That’s true in this age and any age yet to come until the last resurrection and the new heavens and new earth replace the current ones.  This is not a plan of salvation.  It is another way of showing us why we need the one and only plan that God

Now it is true to affirm that none of the sermon on the Mount can be “fleshed out” without the aid of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, and an abandonment of our own wisdom and strength.  But Jesus hasn’t even taught on that yet, and won’t until the night before He dies.  Not only is He not saying, “Do this and you will become Christians”, but He’s also not even saying, “Because you are Christians, this is what you should do.”  What He is saying is much closer to this –

“If you think that my expectations for righteousness are lower than those you learned from Moses, or the Pharisees, fasten your seat belts.  You ain’t seen nuthin yet.  I’m setting the bar even higher now than you have ever seen it.”  And, by the way, it is way higher than this.  If you can’t jump the 50’ vault set for you by Moses, then I don’t suppose you can jump the 100’ vault set by me.” 

But you can know that you are getting ahead in my Kingdom when certain things happen to you, because My Father has ordained those things to form you into what you and He both want you to be. 

And as He forms you, you will find yourself getting far closer to jumping that hurdle than you ever got on your own.”

In other words, it is about Christian Sanctification, God’s way, through repentance, confession, and receiving again and again the free forgiveness through the merits of Christ that we all continue to need.

B.  As if it were a way to bring in the Kingdom.

That is the general idea behind the “social gospel” – which is far from dead, by the way.  Post-modern liberalism has taken over where Modernist liberalism left off, and the hip, cool, tatted and pierced seeker-driven, mega-Church, vision-casting, corporate CEO types are beating that drum regularly now.  The snake has shed it’s old skin, but it’s far from dead on a rock. 

They use the Sermon on the Mount to teach the same things that the old school liberals taught – which is that the Kingdom of God can and should be inaugurated on Earth by following it’s principles.  The job of the Church, after what they call evangelism, is to eliminate hunger, build shelters, dig wells, provide medicine and first aid and teach basic farming skills and home-business entrepreneurship to all the suffering hungry backward people of the world. 

It’s supposed that if the Church would just get on the ball, and follow the Sermon on the Mount, then all suffering, disease, war and injustice will be eliminated, and that is what we are to be working towards.

Well, it will take more than us living it to change the world in any significant way, and we still have a long way to go before we can say with a straight face that we’ve mastered the material.  After that, we have to get the greedy capitalists, the tin pot dictators, the totalitarian Marxists, and the Islamofacists in line.  And then there are everyday, run-of-the-mill jerks, abusers, sociopaths, deadbeats, bullies, boors, con-men, cheats, fly-by-nights, and every other sort of covenant-breaking, kingdom-draining sinner you could add to that list. 

No, the Kingdom will have to arrive through some other means.

II.  WRONG WAYS TO VIEW IT AS THOUGH IT HAD NO APPLICATION IN THE HERE AND NOW

This would result in studying it through the wrong lens, or else just not studying it at all

A.  REACTION TO LIBERAL OVER-USE

With all the Modernist/Liberal misuse of the passage in the past, and Post-Modern/Liberal use in the present, there comes a tendency to aim for the ditch on the other side of the road. 

But the excess and the inaccuracies of others should never drive us to wrong conclusions or actions in the other extreme.  So we should not avoid it because we are afraid someone might be reminded of liberalism.  If we treat the passage properly, they will not be. 

B.  HYPER or EXTREME DISPENSATIONALISM

This approach tends to not bother with trying to wrestle with the indictments and demands of the Sermon on the Mount; “Because it’s not for this age anyway.”  That allows for all the tricky and knotty passages to be handed off like a hot potato for somebody else up there in the future to worry about. 

In case I haven’t made myself completely understood, let me just say here with the greatest possible clarity, that I utterly reject the extreme and ultra-dispensational view that this message was strictly the Nation of Israel, and has nothing to do with the people of God in this present age. 

Those that hold the “Constitution of the Kingdom” view basically explain it all away like this. 

“Here’s what happened ‘

a.    Jesus showed up, and began to teach about His Kingdom, offering it, and Himself to Israel, if they would only believe on Him as the Messiah, it would all kick in shortly.  So far, I agree whole-heartedly.

b.    The Jews did not believe His teaching, rejected Him, and called for His execution.  Absolutely true.

c.    Subsequently, the Kingdom was postponed, and the Church Age came in to effect, and all Kingdom truth, all Kingdom manifestation is “not yet”.  There is no “already” about it.  It’s all awaiting the Second Coming.

d.    When the Lord does return, the The Sermon on the Mount will be the terms by which everyone alive will have to live, or else go to hell immediately.  Salvation in that coming age will be obtained by obedience to the terms of this sermon. 

Now if you have already realized that nobody will be able to pull it off, you are supposed to not worry, because the devil will be tied up during that time, and therefore it will be much easier to keep the law perfectly then than now.   But if the devil is tied up during that time, I wonder who will then be behind all the mischief and evil spoken about in this same sermon, that believers will have to contend with.  Once again, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The extreme dispensational position places all of this teaching in the context of an external physical visible future Kingdom, and nothing more - period, exclamation point. 

But any reading of the text unobstructed by that interpretation being imposed upon it will show that Jesus is not at all dealing with any such thing.  In fact, He addresses not the outward, but the inward life throughout.  In other words, He’s talking far more about the “already” than the “not yet” dimensions of the Kingdom. 

Now Jesus preached the gospel of the Kingdom as “at hand” to be sure, and He certainly was talking about the complete, including the physical fulfillment of the Kingdom, not just the already, spiritual fulfillment.  But He also preached against the current Jewish understanding of it, which was exactly that outward, collective, material Kingdom view, with little or no regard for the inward, personal, spiritual side of things.   Instead, Jesus pointed out that that the Kingdom of God was “within you.”

I appreciate the perspective of A.W. Pink here;

“The older we grow, the less do we approve the drawing hard and fast lines through the Scriptures, limiting their application by insisting that certain parts belong only to such and such a class, and under the guise of “rightly dividing” the Word, apportioning segments of it to the Jews only, the Gentiles only, or the Church of God only.  Man makes his canals rigidly straight, but God’s rivers wind in and out.”  

 CONCLUSION:

There are some very good reasons to study the SOTM,…

 TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE REAL NATURE OF BLESSEDNESS

 TO BRING CONVICTION OF SIN

 TO ACCENTUATE THE NEED FOR HOLY SPIRIT FILLING 

 TO BECOME BETTER WITNESSES

…but we will save them for another time.  For now, I need to close.

Thank You Father for these truths laid out for us by Your Son, our Savior, and for Him fulfilling all of them perfectly on our behalf.  On our part, may we take each of them to heart as we study together, repent of our sinful failure, resolve to not be content to remain the same, and seek your grace and power to become more of what you would have for us to be in Christ.  For it is in His precious Holy name we ask this, Amen.