Sermon On The Mount (Week 5)
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SERMON ON THE MOUNT (WEEK 5)
John 1:14,16-18 NIV: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth… 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Hebrews 4:12 NLT: For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.
“When Jesus deals with moral evil and goodness, he does not begin by theorizing. He plunges immediately (Matt. 5:21–44) into the guts of human existence: raging anger, contempt, hatred, obsessive lust, divorce, verbal manipulation, revenge, slapping, suing, cursing, coercing, and begging. It is the stuff of soap operas and the daily news—and real life. He takes this concrete approach because his aim is to enable people to be good, not just talk about it. He actually knows how to enable people to be good, and he brings his knowledge to bear upon life as it really is, not some intellectualized and sanctified version thereof.” –Dallas Willard
Anger reveals what we love, whether rightly ordered or disordered.
“When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains.” –Tim Keller
What produces anger and lust within us reveals what we believe will make us happy, whole, or complete. The thing is, we get so caught up in either keeping or breaking the commandments, either from God or ourselves, that we lose sight of the true beliefs behind those commandments.
John 1:12 NIV: Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—
Jesus wants us to truly know our innermost desires and beliefs so that we can turn to Him for that which only He can give.
“O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom. – Book of Common Prayer
