(After the Earthquake/Tsunami in Japan) Billions of people are asking, why would a loving God allow such a thing? God didn’t create this, He created perfection. We humans have caused this through our wanting our own way, but just like Adam and Eve, we don’t want to take responsibility for it. …The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” Read Mt 24:4-14.
I’ve been having many vivid dreams lately, which is very unusual for me, but I sensed that God is wanting to address the events in the world in relation to this Sermon on the Mount we’ve been travelling through.
Wars and rumours of wars. Well, we have just been through the most war plagued century in the history of mankind, and this century has started off with a bang as well, pardon the pun. We hear rumours about Iran and other nations with their nuclear zeal and desire to eliminate the infidels including Christians and the entire nation of Israel.
Nations are rising against nations and people are rising against their own governments as we’re seeing in the Middle East today. There are terrible famines and two of the largest earthquakes ever recorded have happened in the last year. The so-called ring of fire is very active. Do you think we are in the beginnings of the birth pains?
There are many false prophets that have risen, just look at two of the fastest growing evangelising religions, Mormons and Jw’s both started by false prophets. Even a so-called Christian leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury said after the great Tsunami a few years ago in Thailand, that “It even makes me doubt the existence of God”.
Doubt? Jesus Christ himself said these things would increase. If anything, all these world events lead to both the coming of an antichrist to stabilize the political and economic chaos in the world, and the second coming of Christ as predicted by all these events.
Now Jesus goes on to say that no one knows the day or the hour I will come so stay awake. These events are wake up calls. Then he says make sure the servants are doing what the master has set them over his house to do when he does come, or else that person will end up in the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Now to me this seems to lead directly into the Sermon on the Mount. What does Jesus hope to find when he comes, knowing now that the time is coming fairly soon, very possibly in some of our lifetimes? He asks in another place, when I come will I find faith in the world, will my servants be taking care of my house as I asked? Well, what is faith? Trusting obedience, exactly what we talked about last week, and today we continue with a new section of the Sermon on the Mount.
Last week we looked at relations with others. As we now begin in chapter 6 we’re looking more at how being a true Christian manifests itself internally in our relation to self and God.
These now are more examples of our thoughts and motives. Martyn Lloyd Jones calls this the most searching and painful chapter in all Scripture, and it’s meant to bring us to be “poor in spirit”, the first character trait in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus begins by telling us that the world is not a stage for Christians. We are not here to look good to others, we’re here to represent Christ. Jesus is saying that we need to do good things for others without making a big deal about it. The only audience we need to impress is the one in heaven. This part of the sermon is expanding on the beatitudes about being poor in spirit, meek, merciful, and hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
I’m not going to go into all these details, but I will lump fasting and prayer and giving to the needy under the heading of acts of righteousness. Then I want to focus in depth on the Lord’s Prayer.
It says beware of practicing your righteousness before other people. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t publicly practice righteousness, the rest of the sermon so far has been saying that our good works should be seen so that others will glorify God. That’s the key.
It says, don’t do it in public in order to be seen by others. In other words your motive should be just to do good things out of obedience to God, not for the praise of others, which is really to please ourselves. Our self should not even be in our thoughts.
Has anyone ever fasted or done a long session of prayer or some other pretty uncommon spiritual act, and you couldn’t wait to tell someone about it? It’s hard to just keep it to yourself, we long for some kind of acknowledgement from people.
But Jesus is saying that if you desire attention for it, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, and in essence you’re showing a lack of faith that God will reward you at some point. Jesus says, people’s praise is all you’re gonna get, you have received your reward.
The Pharisees fasted and encouraged others to fast on Mondays and Thursdays, yet God only required it once a year on the annual day of Atonement. Fasting can have positive benefits but only if it’s done from the devotion of the heart to focus on God.
We must remember that hypocrisy, which is literally acting behind a mask, robs us of the blessings intended for the act, and the reality of our spiritual life. If we are faking it, then our relationship with God will not be real either. When reputation becomes more important than character, we have become hypocrites.
In prayer, the motivation of our heart is much more important than what we say. Jesus gives us his formula for simple prayer to God, and there are basically three components to it, and I think this is also the proper order. Remember Jesus didn’t say pray these words over and over again, he said, “pray in this manner, or pray like this”.
First, just acknowledge who he is. Remember that when you pray you are literally in the presence of the creator of the universe. Think about what he deserves. Often we will have more respect when we talk to important people on earth, than to God. Let’s approach him at least on the same level we would the queen, or our favourite athlete or movie star. He is the name above all names.
This is a Christian prayer because we are the only ones that can legitimately address God as our Father. Jesus is saying always start your prayer with adoration. Notice how it even addresses the trinity. Hallowed be the Name, remember that’s what the Jews actually called God the Father.
Then, your Kingdom come, this refers to Jesus, and your will be done on earth, referring to the Holy Spirit who empowers his earthly children to fulfill God’s will. We’re also asking that His name be hallowed or revered by all people. That is our primary goal, that all people would come to see and Know God as we do, and worship Him.
Now, we ask for his will in the world as it is in heaven. We know this is what we’re going to get anyway so why not acknowledge that. This may be the toughest part of the prayer like it was for Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prays as he is sweating blood facing torture and death on a cross, “If this cup can be taken away from me, please do it, but not my will, yours be done.”
We must try to remember to include this in our prayers, because if we get right to thanking Him and making requests, we are focussed on ourselves in prayer more than Him. Remember who we are praying to.
Only then do we start asking for the things he has already promised, basic provisions for life. Material necessities including food, forgiveness, and power against the Devil and temptation. Notice also these are not just personal prayers. Everywhere it says we and our, and us, reminding us that we are part of a larger body and we all need these prayers.
Let’s quickly look at this one about forgiveness. Why do we need to continually ask for forgiveness when we have already been forgiven for all sin forever? Remember when Jesus washed Peter’s feet and Peter said, “Then wash all of me Lord”.
Jesus said I don’t have to you are already clean, but your feet do pick up some dirt along the way. That’s what this is getting at. God knows what we need, he has forgiven our sins, but he wants us to come to him continually for relationship, and our feet still get dirty in our Christian walk. It’s kind of like he gives grace in instalments so that we come back and see Him. Knowing our nature, if we got it all at once we would take off and not come back to Him. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t take all our sin away at once.
We humans have this selfish tendency to get what we need from our parents, ignore them while we enjoy what they give us, and then only come back to ask for more when we run out. But he actually wants this, so he can be with us.
The first two parts of the prayer actually prepare us to pray for the right things. We have focussed our attention on who He is, and what His will is, then we will likely pray for what is his will when we make our requests. That is when our prayers will be answered.
Then if you recall the talk on being pure in heart, Jesus addresses integrity and sincerity in this little addendum after the prayer. We can’t pray for something for ourselves when we’re not giving it to others. If you haven’t forgiven someone, you think God’s just going to overlook that and pour out his forgiveness on you. Don’t even bother, because all you’ll get from him is a smack upside the head.
John makes it very clear that if we are out of fellowship with our brothers and sisters, we are out of fellowship with God. We don’t need to read this appendix to the prayer as earning the right to pray by forgiving others, that privilege is part of our inheritance.
But why would God grant a prayer to someone who is praying in sin? That would dishonour his name and encourage sin. Think of it not only as getting an answer to prayer, but being the kind of person God can trust with an answered prayer.
Then we get to one of the more famous passages in the New Testament about focussing your eyes on the right things, “Do not lay up treasures on earth, but in heaven, because where your treasure is there your heart and desire will be also.” This, along with the talk about anxiety clearly corresponds to the beatitude about purity of heart and seeing God.
This is really a continuation of the previous passage. We can certainly get lots of praise, notoriety, and material possessions here in this life by doing what the world values. But God speaks of rewards in heaven as well. We don’t know all what they are, and our faith may be weak enough that we’re not so sure they’re going to be as good as what we can get here and now.
But, Jesus says, you need to have the kind of faith that even if you get nothing on earth, if you have focussed on doing God’s will, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, you will be very pleased with what you get in the next life. Those are the things that will last, after all everything you obtain in this life will be gone, probably most of it before you even die.
He talks about the eyes, meaning in this context that our attention can either be focussed on the things of earth or the things of heaven, one brings light, the other brings darkness. It’s hard to function effectively if there’s no light for you to see your way.
Materialism will enslave your heart, and this is all about the heart. There are people who have nothing who are not in good spiritual shape, and there are people with great wealth who are. But wealth makes it more difficult to serve God. You cannot serve God and Mammon, which means money but also possessions and talents.
Are your eyes on God, or on what you have? Of course it’s much easier to see the tangible, visible things that you can have now, as opposed to the invisible God and his future promises. That’s one of the great Christian challenges, and why idolatry has always been the most prevalent sin.
Interesting now, how he follows all this with a talk about anxiety and worry. What brings on most of our earthly anxiety? Isn’t it what other people think about us, and whether we will have enough?
Our greatest anxiety comes from our pride. Why do you think public speaking is about the most prevalent fear in our society? It’s all about how others are going to perceive us. So he talks about the quest to look good in front of others and the anxiety that can bring, then he talks about stopping worrying about having what we need.
Birds and flowers don’t have anxiety disorders or depression. They’re happy just as God made them, and so should we be. He will provide what we need to survive in this life, and even if he doesn’t, we get to go home to our deluxe condo in heaven if we have faith. You can’t lose either way. God knows all we need and we don’t have to neglect Him by seeking after stuff like the rest of the world does. That simply shows that we don’t trust Him.
Seek God first and live in the moment, or you will be anxious, because anxiety is almost always about the future, and seeking what the world values over God.
Finally He moves into his famous dialogue about judging others, clearly alluding to the beatitudes about being poor in spirit and being merciful. Before we get into it, I just want you to notice that he has just talked about anxiety and the causes of it. Well, if people weren’t so judgmental, do you think it would be easier not to worry about those things?
We judge based on outward appearances, so in essence we have created our own anxiety. These anxieties have become justified because of the way people judge each other. So Jesus is really now giving us a remedy for that anxiety. When we stop judging the outer life, the less people will be anxious about how they look and the status they have.
Besides that, is it appropriate for one sinner to judge another sinner? “Yeah but I just lied a little, that guy murdered someone.” God doesn’t elevate any sin over another so why should we. If we break even a small part of the Law, we have broken it all according to the Bible.
But the real heart of this passage is that we need to focus on our own stuff and taking care of that. Is there anyone more unappealing than the self-righteous person who will never admit they have done anything wrong, but constantly talks about other people’s flaws and mistakes? These are some of the most inwardly anxious people there are.
As long as there is any blemish in us, and there always will be this side of heaven, we are not to judge others. That doesn’t mean we can’t correct them according to scripture, or even discipline them if they’re believers, but judging here is probably best translated in English as “condemn”.
We are not to condemn anyone, that is the place of God and we ought not tread there. Remember we were all condemned by God at one time, and only one person could release us from that condemnation through His mercy. So the opposite of judge here, could easily be mercy, which is undeserved. That which Jesus gave.
Now this section ends with the difficult saying that we shouldn’t give dogs what is Holy or throw our pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. Huh? This kind of just sticks out there doesn’t it.
But I do like how the “Message” bible translates it. “Guard the sacred, don’t reduce Holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant we just end up being cute and inviting sacrilege”. That is the essence of it our language.
So there we have what I call the main dos and don’ts of the Sermon on the Mount. But again they’re all really illustrations of principles. Everything we have heard since the beatitudes, in chapters 5 and 6 have been illustrations of how the sanctified Christian is to behave and think.
Again it’s a giant mirror, and also some very specific criteria for being in the book of life and citizens of God’s Kingdom. What does it mean if we’re anxious, if we lust after things, if we’re bitter toward our enemies, if we make a show of our Christian deeds?
Well, jumping ahead a couple weeks in chapter 7, I think Jesus answers that question very clearly, paraphrasing verses 21-23: “All you did was use me to make yourselves look important. You don’t impress me one bit. Get out of here you workers of lawlessness”.
It’s all about our Love relationship with God. He calls it a Father-child relationship, and a husband-wife relationship in the most ideal sense. Is it that for you? Because none of this stuff means anything if it isn’t. That is what we must strive for, and the only way to achieve it is to know Him intimately as he knows you, and to experience Him, not just know about Him.
Jesus is coming, that seems obvious from the events and attitudes in our world. When he comes, how will he find his servants behaving? Will he find real faith? We have received his grace and love, he can give us nothing more, what are we giving him?
