How To Grow In Kingdom Character Series

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been teaching his disciples the principles for kingdom living. He began with the beatitudes, which describes the characteristics of someone who is truly born again, and they’re progression toward godliness. They come to the Lord poor in spirit, recognizing that they have nothing that makes them worthy of the Lord even casting a glance their way, but they know they desperately need God. So, broken and bankrupt they mourn over their sinfulness and the sinfulness of others.

In gentleness and recognizing their unworthiness, they turn to the Lord and hunger and thirst after His righteousness. Not their righteousness, because they have none, but His, because He will give His righteousness freely to all who truly seek Him. Since they have received His mercy, they are merciful toward others, and in purity of heart, they become peacemakers who not only seek peace among men, but more importantly, they guide others toward the same peace with God that they have.

Then Jesus gave us the key to understanding His Sermon by telling us that unless our righteousness exceeded the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, then we would never see the kingdom of God. In other words, the scribes and pharisees sought after a righteousness that was based upon the works of the flesh, while the citizens of the kingdom would seek God’s righteousness through faith in Christ, not merely performing the outward letter of the law, but living according to the spirit of the law.

In chapter 6 we saw that the pharisees made a show of their religion in order to be seen by others. They would pray, give their tithes and offerings, and fast in such a way that everyone would know what they were doing. They would receive their reward from men, but the citizens of the kingdom would practice their good deeds and almsgiving in secret, seeking only to please God, not man.

And then last week, we learned that kingdom citizens can help others take the speck of sawdust out of their eyes, by first getting the huge log out of our own eyes so that we can see better to help them. Our judgment of others should never be harsh, or in a manner that condemns, but it should come from a place that only wants the best for our brother, recognizing how the Lord has dealt with us so that we can deal with others in the same way. Our sins were great and many and His mercy and grace freed us from our sin and gave us liberty in Christ. This is how we are to deal with others who are struggling—we give to them in the same manner that Christ gave to us.

Friends, everything that Jesus has taught us so far in the Sermon on the Mount has led us to where we are today. God’s standards for living are impossible for us to achieve on our own. For example, how can we love those who hate us so much that their only desire to kill us? How can we be perfect like our heavenly Father is perfect? How can we keep growing in our kingdom character?

Well, according to the Lord, if we want to develop and maintain the kingdom’s standards, then we must ask, seek, and knock…or in other words…

I. We Pray for It.

Mat 7:7-8 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (8) For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

Now, this isn’t the end of the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, but He is winding it down and this is the end of His teachings about the righteousness of the kingdom. But you can’t take what He’s saying here out of context, which many people tend to do. They’ll go to this section and pull it out and turn it into a stand-alone topic or a blank check, so to speak. That if they ask for anything in faith, they’ll receive it. They’ll say that we can pray for health, wealth, and our best life now, and He’ll give it to us.

But is that what He’s talking about here? Remember, He’s still on the Mount preaching His sermon, and up to this point He’s been preaching on the kingdom characteristics His followers should be demonstrating in their lives. Our righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, doesn’t it? Well, how do we do that? How do we attain the high mark He has set before us?

Well, we do that through prayer! If we want to attain to our high calling in Christ, then we will follow His example and pray! Throughout the gospels, we find Jesus seeking solitude so that He can spend time with His Father in prayer. He has given a lot of time speaking on prayer, and He even gave a model prayer for us to follow. And the simple fact that He returns to prayer over and over should give us an understanding of how important prayer is in the kingdom.