INTRODUCTION:
1. Reviewing Last Weeks Lesson
2. General Information about SOM
3. Outlining the Sermon
4. Is SOM for This Age? If so, why?
I. REVIEWING LAST WEEKS LESSON
600-300 BC, an axial age when human kind was searching for meaning. Plato (429-347 BC) wrote The Republic, a study of the human soul and of the condition in which that soul must be in order for human beings to live well and manage what is right. The condition was called by Plato dikaiosune {dik-ah-yos-oo’-nay}. The Septuagint, the OT translated into Greek used dikaiosuneto translate the Hebrew word for “righteousness.”
To simplify the definition we might say that {dik-ah-yos-oo’-nay}
dikaiosune is “true inner goodness” or “moral excellence” and also “righteousness” in that sense.
There are at least four “high demand verses,” verses that demand true inner goodness, moral excellence of the believer in the SOM.
For I tell you that unless your righteousness (dikaiosune) surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven (5:20).
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (5:48).
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness (dikaiosune), and all these things will be given to you as well (6:33).
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (7:12).
FLIP CHART: Refer to our graph of the week before with the four “High Demand Verses.”
As a class we graphed the level of demand in these four verses.
BELIEVERS THREE FOLD SOURCE OF DIKAIOSUNE
ACTIVITY: USE THE FLIP CHART. Have the class tell me where each stanza fits as a “source of righteousness.”
1. IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS (MATERNITY)
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (II Cor. 5:21).
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty or my glorious dress
‘Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
No condemnation now I dread,
Jesus, and all in Him, is mind;
Alive in Him, my living head,
And clothed in righteousness divine.
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown through Christ my own (C. Wesley)
He washed the bleeding sin wounds
And poured in oil and wine;
He whispered to assure me,
“I’ve found thee, thou art mine.”
I never heard a sweeter voice;
It made my aching heart rejoice.
2. INFLOWING RIGHTEOUSNESS (ICU)
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5).
As rays of light from yonder sun
The flowers of earth set free,
So life and light and love came forth
From Christ living in me.
Stand then in his great might,
With all his strength endued;
And take to arm you for the fight,
The panoply of God (C. Wesley)
And would’st thou know the secret
Of constant victory
Let in the Overcomer
And He will conquer thee.
They broken spirit taken
In sweet captivity
Shall glory in His triumph
And share His victory.
The Sun or righteousness on me
Hath rose with healing in His wings,
Withered my nature’s strength; from Thee
My soul its life and succor brings;
My help is all laid up above;
Thy nature and Thy name is love.
3. LEARNED RIGHTEOUSNESS (REHAB)
Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly (I Tim. 4:7).
To keep your armor bright
Attend with constant care
Still marching in your Captain’s sight
And watching unto prayer.
He who would valiant be ‘gainst all disaster
Let him in constancy follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.
Take my will and make it Thine,
It shall be no longer mine;
Take my heart, it is Thine own
It shall be Thy royal throne.
II. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT SOM
READ FROM STOTT’S COMMENTARY: John Stott starts his commentary on SOM as follows: The Sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguably it is the least understood, and certainly it is the least obeyed. It is the nearest thing to a manifesto that he ever uttered, for it is his own description of what he wanted his followers to be and do” (Stott, pg. 15).
The phrase, “The Sermon on the Mount” to describe the sermon recorded in Matthew 5-7 was coined by Augustine, the church father who lived in the fourth century AD. FF Bruce, one commentator referred to it as “The Teachings on the Hill.”
The Location: SHOW THE OVERHEAD PICTURES
The Mt. of Beatitudes overlooks the four-mile long Plain of Gennesaret, an area famed for its fertility. Josephus said this plain was the location of “nature’s crowning achievement.” Several times the New Testament records that Jesus was in this area including when he healed the multitudes here and faced Pharisaic condemnation for ritual impurity (Mark 6-7).
The suggestion of this hill for the location of the Sermon on the Mount is a good one. Once known as Mt. Eremos, this hill is located between Capernaum and Tabgha and is just above the “ Cove of the Sower.” This spacious hillside provides much room for crowds to gather, as evidenced by preparation for 100,000 Catholics to observe mass nearby with the Pope’s visit in March 2000 (it rained and fewer came, but the space was available).
Date Delivered:
We don’t know the exact date but according to Luke it was after his baptism, temptation in the wilderness and rejection in Nazareth. He had already called his first disciples. He had healed the paralytic (the one they let down through the roof) and also healed lepers. So he was known as a healer by the people and already crowds were following him. We know that the sermon was delivered rather early in his three years of ministry.
The Audience:
We read in Luke, “A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and be healed of their diseases (Luke 6:17-18). Matthew writes, “Now when he saw the crowds he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him …” (Mt. 5:1-2)
READING: The Sermon is intended for believers and believers only. Martin Lloyd-Jones writes: I never discuss any particular injunction of the Sermon with a person until I am perfectly happy and clear in my mind that that person is a Christian. It is wrong to ask anybody who is not first a Christian to try to live or practice the Sermon on the Mount. To expect Christian conduct from a person who is not born again is heresy. The appeals or the gospel in terms of conduct and ethics and morality are always based on the assumption that the people to whom the injunctions are addressed are [born-again] Christians” (MLJ, 23).
Content / Purpose:
It is contained in 107 verses in Matthew 5-7. A shorter version of the Sermon is given in Luke 6:20-49, just 29 verses. Most of the Luke version is similar in content to the Matthew version.
John Stott holds that the 107 verses are a concise version of the original sermon. I think the longer sermon / lesson was given over a period of several hours.
Clarence Bauman opens his book on SOM by setting our 19 different and opposed interpretations of it with the statement that it is “an enigma [riddle, something hard to understand] to the modern conscience.” (The Divine Conspiracy, pg. 132).
“The great purpose of this Sermon is to give an exposition of the kingdom of heaven as something which is essentially spiritual” (MLJ, 16, 39).
“The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a great and grand and perfect elaboration of what our Lord called His ‘new commandment.’ His new commandment was that we love one another even as He has loved us” (MLJ, 15-16).
“The theme … deals with the character, duties, attitudes and dangers of the Christian disciple. It is a manifest setting out the nature of life in the kingdom of heaven…. It is not concerned with ethics in general but with discipleship.” (France, 106)
“It is Jesus’ description of what he wanted his followers to be and to do” (John Stott, 15).
III. OUTLINING THE SERMON
Every sermon has an outline. You can follow Pastor Rich Hendrick’s sermons easily because he gives us an outline. Jesus did not give an outline but he certainly did have one. Students of the Bible have studied the content and have come up with various outlines for SOM.
CLASS ACTIVITY (15 minutes): Hand out sheet that includes 5 outlines of SOM. In 6 minutes as a group seek to answer the four questions underlined beside the 5 outlines listed on your table.
1. List verse divisions that are similar in the 5 outlines.
2. List words (synonyms too) that recur often in the 5 outlines.
3. Develop a title other than “Sermon on the Mount” based on the content listed in these outlines.
4. Write below your choice of the 5 outlines the outline your group thinks is best.
IV. IS SOM FOR THIS AGE? IF SO, WHY?
One writer refers to it as an “enigma.” Why would he do that?
It is because some of the sayings in SOM are really difficult to obey. Some of the difficult sayings:
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (5:3).
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 (5:20).
But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment (5:22)
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart (5:28).
But I tell you, do not resist and evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also (5:39).
But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you … (5:44).
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear (6:25).
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you (7:12).
According to early dispensationalism: The Sermon on the Mount was an official proclamation by Jesus of the ethical principles on which his Messianic Kingdom would be founded. In these three chapters the Lord Jesus Christ speaks as Israel’s king. Hence, the ethics of the Sermon are to be applied not to our age, the age of the Church, but to the future age of Christ’s rule. … The early edition of the Scofield Bible says, “For these reasons the Sermon on the Mount in its primary applications gives neither the privilege nor the duty of the church.” (Boice, 9)
QUESTION: Why do we disagree with the position that the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not for our age?
HAVE SOMEONE WRITE ON THE FLIP CHART THE REASONS WHY WE DISAGREE!!
1. If SOM is not for today we must never refer to Christians as the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
2. There is no teaching found in the SOM that is not found in the other parts of the New Testament including the epistles.
3. SOM is an elaboration of the New Commandment that we are to love one another as Christ has loved us.
4. There is no statement in the SOM that Jesus says that it is for the millennial age.
5. Some of the teachings of SOM are not meaningful in the millennium, e.g. persecution. There will be no persecution in the millennium.
6. Jesus demanded these teachings be obeyed by people who were not living in the millennium.
7. Many verses in the New Testament demand impossible standards, e.g. Romans 13:14, “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”
8. II Tim. 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (dikaiosune) …”
9. The great commission of Jesus says, “Therefore go and make disciples … teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Mt. 28:19-20).
QUESTION: How did the dispensationalist fall into the trap of teaching that the SOM was only for the millennium?
READING: There can be no doubt that the commonest cause of all this is our tendency to approach the Bible with a theory. We go to our Bibles with this theory, and everything we read is controlled by it. Now we are quite familiar with that. There is a sense in which it is true to say that you can prove anything you like from the Bible. That is how heresies have arisen. The heretics were never dishonest men; they were mistaken men. They should not be thought of as men who were deliberately setting out to go wrong and to teach something that is wrong; they have been some of the most sincere men that the Church has ever known. What was the matter with them? Their trouble was this: they evolved a theory and they were rather pleased with it; then they went back with this theory to the Bible, and they seemed to find it everywhere. If you read half a verse and emphasize over-much some other half verse elsewhere, your theory is soon proved. Now obviously this is something of which we have to be very wary. There is nothing so dangerous as to come to the Bible with a theory, with preconceived ideas, with some pet idea of our own, because the moment we do so, we shall be tempted to over-emphasize one aspect and under-emphasize another. (MLJ, 11)
SO WHAT????
1. Our goal must be to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, which includes imputed, imparted and learned righteousness, dikaiosune.
2. We need to be wary of any theory that minimalizes the SOM and says that it is not applicable to Christians today.
3. The SOM is important because it explains how the followers of Christ are to live! It is Jesus’ description of what Jesus wanted his follower to be and do!