The Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount is a Sermon to the heart.  It is heart inspired (from the heart of God), heart directed (to the heart of man), heart appealing (meets the needs of the heart), heart restoring (returns the heart to God’s heart) and heart fulfilling (it offers meaning and purpose for the heart).  It is from the heart of God to the heart of man.  From beginning to end it engages the mind to speak to the heart and calls for a heart response.  It is a challenge calling the heart away from the world back to God and His Word.  

There are four ways to view this challenge:

First, it is a calling.

The calling has three points of recognition.

First, it is a call to man to recognize God.  In Jesus Christ the Father is calling out to the heart to listen to that booming voice that thunders to some and to others is a still small voice in the darkness of whatever cave in which we find ourselves.

Second, it is a call to recognize our humanity.  We are all lonely hearts separated from God and one another by the spiritual blight of sin and its sirens of self-deception and pride.

Third, it is a call to recognize Jesus as the definition of both God’s heart and the way the human heart was meant to be.  He is the definition of the spiritual path back to God, faith.  He is the definition of the will of God, personal love and sacrifice.  He is the definition of relationship, friendship, discipleship.  He is the definition of what it means to be a leader, a brother, a Savior, a Lord and the One who meets our deepest heart needs.  He is the definition of what it means to be a person in every dimension of that word.

Second, it is a calling with a structure.

First, the Blesseds are a ‘new’ Ten Commandments.  Just as the Commandments gave us a set of ethics by which humanity could begin to find its bearings so the Blesseds give the heart a set of bearings to navigate the invisible oceans of lonely personal existence.  The Blesseds do for the heart what the Commandments do for a community. 

Second, the teachings of Jesus after the Blesseds are all extensions of basic themes just as God’s specific Commandments were followed by detailed instructions, history, poetry and prophecy.  After the Blesseds come a series of specific messages to individual hearts.  Jesus Himself then becomes the history and activity of the Blesseds in action.  The rest of the New Testament is a commentary on the ministry of Jesus as carried on by the Holy Spirit among the first generation of believers.

Third, Jesus’ ministry is basically a miniature geographic repetition of Israel and its history.  He begins in the wilderness, moves through the Galileean countryside and then ends in Jerusalem.  He relives the history of Israel from the call to Abraham to Moses to the Prophets.  He lives the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.  He presides as the final priest of the final and complete sacrifice necessary to bring the heart back to God.  He calls, as did the prophets, for Israel to repent and come to Him as the Messiah foretold by the prophets.  As King of the spiritual Kingdom of God, He embodies Israel, its heritage and history, and, as its Messiah, carries His heart and her heart through the spiritual wilderness to perfection through His death on the Cross and His Resurrection to eternity.  So Jesus is prophet, priest and King for a new people who make up the new Israel.  He is also personal Savior, personal Lord and personal Redeemer for each heart in this Kingdom.  

Third, it is a calling to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament center around one figure who is to emerge as “God with us---Emmanuel,” the Messiah, the Christ.  Forty days and nights of temptation in the wilderness (paralleling the Hebrew’s forty years of wandering in the wilderness), facing down satan with the Word of God and emerging with a mission to bring salvation to the lost hearts of men, this was the long awaited Righteous One.  Jesus fulfills the Messianic prophecies, is the “Prophet like Moses”, heals the blind, the sick and the lame and frees the prisoners from sin.  He is the Prophet to, and Savior of, the hear