The Sermon on the Mount 1

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Monday, March 3, 2014   Jeff Lampl

"Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat down”   Matthew 5:1  

“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to fulfill them, to accomplish their purpose”                                                                                        Matthew 5:17  

The “Sermon on the Mount” is the name given to Matthew’s collection of the big teachings of Jesus.  Luke gives a different version in Luke 6.    It may be that Matthew and Luke record two different sermons or that each gives different versions of the same event or that there were two or more events recorded differently or in summary fashion.   However Matthew and Luke recorded them, we can be sure that we have Jesus’ teachings and that Matthew and Luke recorded them in the context that Jesus meant them to be heard.  

At the end of Matthew 4 we read that Jesus healed all kinds of diseases and therefore tons of people followed him.    We read the same in Luke 6:17-19.   It’s exactly what Jesus came to do according to his first sermon in Luke 4:18-19 which he quoted from Isaiah.   

 In other words, Jesus was God having come to earth to set things right.    

This is Good News!    This is where we start.   Jesus came bringing Good to anyone who would receive it.  

Then in Chapter 5 vs. 1, with all kinds of people crowding to him he sits down on a mountainside!!!!!   Only those with authority do that!   In fact most of those present would have immediately connected that action with Moses (think Exodus and the 10 commandments)!  Who does He think he is!    

THEN, he goes about telling everyone that HE has come to FULFILL/ACCOMPLISH everything that the Law and Prophets intended!     THEN he finishes the whole sermon with a story at the end of chapter 7 in which he says HIS WORDS are the rock upon which you must build your life or else you’ll sink!   

WHO IS THIS MAN?    

This is the big question each of us must answer.   If he is who He in so many ways claims to be, simple logic would seem to demand that we not only listen, but that we take the big step of actually believing that what he says is right, and then take the really, really big steps of actually doing what he tells us to do, which, he implies and says in so many different ways, is the Good Life.

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