A New Way of Life

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, Sabbath, And Telephone
• 2:55 From Games To Courts: Interpretation
• 5:15 Jewish Context And Moses’ Law
• 8:15 Fences Around The Law
• 11:30 Jesus’ Authority And Intent
• 14:20 Heart Transformation Over Rules
• 16:20 Reading The Sermon On The Mount
• 24:30 Beatitudes To Golden Rule

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Good morning. My name is Katie. I am on staff and a member of the teaching team. We're so glad you could be with us this morning. I'm super pregnant, so I'm gonna sit on a stool today. But hey, we're so glad you could be here. If you're welcome, welcome, if you're joining us from the first for the first time. Those of you joining us online, you're an important part of our community. Um, thanks for being with us today. So, one practice that my family has come to embrace over the past couple years, uh really since being at Cross Point has been the Sabbath. Most Friday nights we try to make it technology free, so we do no TV, we turn our phones off, put them in the drawer, and we just spend time as a family together. Um a lot of times we end up playing games, and one game we recently introduced to my kids was the game of telephone. So if you've been a kid ever, you probably know the game of telephone. It's where one person starts out saying something, they whisper it to someone, they whisper it to the next person, and the next person, and so on, until the last person says what they think they heard. And nine times out of ten, it's something totally ridiculous and different than what was said at first. And I quickly realized that in my family it gets extra absurd because my husband tends to distort it to make it say like the most ridiculous thing possible. I don't know if he's trying to do that or if he's just like losing his hearing early, but you could be like, I love chocolate ice cream, and he'd be like, Alabama stole my nice jeans. And you're like, come on, did you really hear that? Um but it's it's a lot of fun, and my kids got a kick out of it. And you know what hit me recently is that actually our US court system operates a little bit like the game of telephone. So I practiced law for 10 years before coming here, and I just had this realization that when when judges are asked to interpret a provision of law, they aren't just looking at the law, they're looking at what all the judges before them said about that same law. So if you have a judge, for example, who's looking at a law that says everyone must drive safely, they're not just going, oh, well, what do I think it means to drive safely? They're looking at the judge before them that said, drive safely means keeping both hands on the wheel. And the judge before that said, I think driving safely means no texting while driving. And maybe one judge said, I think it means driving slow when it's raining outside. So you have all these interpretations that by the time it gets to this judge in the present day, they're having to interpret that law in light of all of the prior interpretations, and then they're adding their own interpretation to the stack. Just like the game of telephone, each interpretation builds on the last. And today, as we dive into our passage, this dynamic is going to give us a picture of what Jesus is doing when he teaches his disciples. Every once in a while you get a judge, and my judge example, every once in a while you get a judge that comes along and says, Yeah, I don't know, all these interpretations seem to have gotten kind of far from where we started. Why don't we take a fresh look at the law and see what it meant meant from the beginning? Why don't we unravel some of these interpretations? Why don't we go back to that original language? And that's what Jesus is doing here. So if you've been with us for any length of time, you know that we've been in a series on the Sermon on the Mount, and we've been here a long time, 19 months to be exact. I went back to back and looked, and it was April of 2024 that we started. Um, so some of you thought this day would never come, but today is our last day in the Sermon on the Mount. Um, here we are. Next week starts Advent, and we're super excited for that. Our passage for today is Matthew 7, 28 and 29, and it comes to us at the very end of the Sermon on the Mount. It says, When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority, quite unlike their teachers of religious law. So if we can leave that up for a moment. Um, last week we finished Jesus' teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, and today we have Matthew's observations of how Jesus taught. So when we look at this verse, it's obvious that Matthew is contrasting how Jesus taught with how the other religious leaders taught, but it should make us wonder how. Exactly how is Jesus different? What does Matthew mean when he says he taught with authority, unlike the other teachers of religious law? And anytime we want to understand a verse, we want to start by looking at its context. We want to say what was happening at the time this passage was written. So first we remember that um Jesus was operating in a Jewish context, right? He was um he grew up Jewish, his family was Jewish, and he was teaching and performing his ministry in a Jewish context. So when he gives the Sermon on the Mount, he's functioning as a rabbi, similar to other rabbis. He was sit and sitting and teaching his disciples about God's law. And we remember that God's law was given to the Israelites 1400 to 1500 years earlier through Moses. So just a quick teaching moment. If you're familiar with the story of Moses in the book of Exodus, you remember that Moses, the Israelites had been in captivity, enslaved and oppressed and exploited for about 400 years. And God raised up Moses to lead them out of captivity into the wilderness, and then eventually they would go into the promised land. But when he delivers them from slavery, he gives them his law as a new way of living. It's almost like he's saying, You have been slaves and you've been oppressed, you've been living as slaves for so long that I'm going to teach you to live now as free people. This law is to teach you how to live as my people, no longer living under the burden of slavery, but living holy, set apart for the flourishing of the nations. This is how you are to live as my people. So here we are now with Jesus all these years after Moses, and the Israelite people are still living under that same law. They're still studying and teaching and learning that law and wanting to be faithful to the way that God gave them all those years ago. But in many ways, the law that they were living under and the way they understood it was very different from the law that Moses had given them all those years ago. Much like the game of telephone, every generation of religious leaders had added their own interpretation to the law. You have interpretations, explanations, clarifications that were passed down, expanded, debated, layered on top of each other, all until those original commands God gave them became buried under a mountain of human commentary. Out of a desire to protect God's law, it's like they built a fence around it. But they didn't just build one fence, they built fence after fence after fence, and all those added rules ended distorting the very thing they meant to honor. It's like if the judge in our example said, in order to make sure you really drive safely, I'm just gonna prohibit you from bringing your phone in the car altogether. We're gonna make it illegal. Just leave it at home. Let me give you just one example. One of the Ten Commandments given to Moses was, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. So God gives them the simple, beautiful invitation to rest and not to work one day a week. But by Jesus' day, the religious expert had identified 39 specific categories with literally hundreds of sub-rules about what counted as prohibited work. So they had rules about how you could lift, how far you could walk, how much food you could carry, even a rule that prohibited picking up your child if they were carrying a coin, but not if they were carrying a stone. The rationale being that if they were carrying a coin and they dropped it, you might be tempted to pick up the coin because you want it, and then that would count as prohibited work. So a command that was meant to bring rest and delight had become something that people were just afraid to break. And this happened in so many areas of the law. Instead of God's law being a way of life for a people who were liberated by God, people meant to reflect his character in the world, it became a system that created a ladder of moral superiority. It was rigid, it was burdensome, and for many people it was just impossible to measure up. Those who couldn't keep up were weighed down with guilt and shame, and they were treated as outsiders. So Jesus steps into the world in that context. A world where God's good law had been buried under centuries of interpretations, and Jesus does something different. Jesus teaches God's law to his disciples, but he doesn't just add one more interpretation to the stack. Rather, he teaches as though he has the authority to go back to the heart of God's law. Think of all the times in the Sermon on the Mount where we heard him say, You've heard it said, but I say to you. We have plenty of examples of him of him doing this. He's saying, I know what you've been taught, I know the layers of interpretation that have been given to you and handed down, but I'm bringing you back to what God intended all along. And here's the thing: when the religious leaders heard him doing this, they accused him of violating the law. They said that he was undermining and breaking the Torah. But in reality, he was recovering the heart of it. Remember in Matthew 5 when he says, I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writing of the prophets, I came to accomplish their purpose. He was saying the point was never to give you a rule book that created spiritual hierarchies where a few feel superior and many feel like they'll never measure up. The point was never to divide the world into insiders and outsiders based on external behavior. The point, rather, was always to form a people who were embody God's own character: people of mercy, justice, compassion, holiness, humility, and love. And that's why Matthew tells us the crowds were amazed. It's because Jesus wasn't just interpreting the law that Moses gave, he was actually speaking with the authority of the lawgiver himself. Moses delivered the law, but Jesus intensifies it, he internalizes it, and he fulfills it as God in the flesh. And even the setting of the Sermon on the Mount, as Matthew kind of paints this picture, has echoes back to Moses delivering that law back on Mount Sinai, sitting on the hillside, the crowds, the teaching, it all kind of harkens back to that giving, giving of the law 1,500 years earlier. Only this time the lawgiver himself is speaking. The religious teachers in Jesus' day focused on external behavior, checking the right boxes and avoiding the wrong ones. But Jesus goes after the heart, the place where real transformation happens. He did that for them 2,000 years ago, and he does the same for us today. When we follow Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, we don't just try harder to obey God's commands as the Israelites were doing. Rather, we are changed into the kind of people who want what God wants. Our hearts become aligned with his heart. This is the new way of being human that Jesus opens up to us. It's a way of living that cuts against everything else we're tempted to believe. And it's made available to us through his spirit. So that's our bottom line for today. Jesus offers us a new way of living and being in the world. This is the way of Jesus we've been learning about for the past year and a half. It was a new way of life for his followers at the time, and it's a new way of life for us today. Through his sermon on the mount, he's inviting us into a total paradigm shift that will change everything. We're gonna take the rest of our time today and do something a little different. Um, I'm going to take the rest of our time and read through the text of the Sermon on the Mount. We've gone through it kind of in a deep dive, passage by passage, week after week. Um, and now we're going to read through the text top to bottom. So we have papers with the whole printout on it. If you didn't grab one, feel free to do that now. They're at a table when you walk in. But I have something to ask of you while we do this. I ask that you remain attentive and open to the Holy Spirit as we read. You can even grab a pen or pencil from the chair in front of you and just make note, like if the Holy Spirit brings something to mind or something sticks out to you, just underline it, circle, highlight a passage, whatever you want to do. Um, just be really attentive to what it is that that God um brings out to you. And then we're gonna take this paper home and use it as part of our action steps this week. And I'm gonna give those to you now so that you can be um thinking about this as we engage the text. So your action step for the week is gonna be just spend some time with God sitting in the Sermon on the Mount. Bring this paper home or sit with your Bible, and then pay special attention to words or phrases that you underline today. Maybe ask God, what do you want me to know about this? And then there are a number of different things you can do to engage that passage. Um, first you can memorize it, it's a really good place to start. If you're a journaler, journal anything you notice throughout the week. I think, you know, God's always trying to get our attention. Journaling can be a really great way to capture that, to pay attention and then to notice and to reflect on it. Um, journal anything that God brings to mind. Maybe there's a specific circumstance where all of a sudden that passage comes to mind. Or like a lyric and a worship song. There are many different ways God can get our attention. Maybe commit to one practice that will help you live out to the invitation from that passage. If it you highlight something on generosity, maybe it's you give something away this week. If it's forgiveness, maybe you take an active step towards forgiving someone. And if you want to dive deeper into a passage, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to the sermon. Remember, we did we've done a sermon on every single passage of the entire text of the Sermon on the Mount. Um, so if something sticks out to you or maybe even confuses you, you're like, what did he just say about divorce? Um go back and listen to it. We have them all on our on our sermon library and our website, and if you can't find it, reach out to the office and we'd be happy to send it to you. Okay, so that's your homework. Um go ahead and grab your pen or pencil and follow along with me while I read. After I'm done reading, we're gonna take a moment and just reflect. We're gonna take a minute or so just in silent reflection and prayer, and then I will close us and we'll uh close in a moment of worship together. All right. Now, when Jesus saw the disciples, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them. He said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Therefore, anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard it said that it was to the people long ago, you shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, Raka is answerable to the court, and anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fire of hell. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them, and then come and offer your gift. Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. It has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made. But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is God's throne, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply yes or no. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one. You have heard it said, an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect. Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be done in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your father who is unseen. Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. This then is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your father who is unseen, and your father who sees what is done in secret secret will reward you. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? No one can serve two masters. You either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin, yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give to dogs what is sacred, do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake. If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? So in everything do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it, but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but in inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, thus by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons, and in your name perform many miracles. Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on a rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house. Yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, not as their teachers of the law. This is the blueprint he gives us for living in the kingdom. This is what it looks like to be a disciple. To the crowd who first heard these words, they sounded radical, subversive, countercultural, and if we are hearing them rightly, they should sound the same to us. These words of Jesus give us a vision of the life he invites us into. A life formed by grace, lived in his kingdom, shaped into his likeness, so that we might bear his witness to the world. So at the end of our year and a half journey through the Sermon on the Mount, I'd like to leave you with a question. What will you do with this invitation? Will you choose life in the kingdom? Will you choose the way of Jesus? The way that chooses God dependence over self reference. Reliance. The way that chooses generosity over hoarding. The way that chooses truthful integrity over manipulation, reconciliation over retaliation, peace over violence, cruciform love over judgment, purity of heart over lust, justice and righteousness over exploitation and oppression. Will you let go of the fruitless task of building your own kingdom and instead give yourself to the building of God's kingdom? This is the invitation for each of us. Join me in a moment of worship as we respond to this teaching as the body of Christ.