The Jesus Manifesto Series

At the age of thirty, He begins His public ministry by having His cousin John baptize Him in the Jordan River. He is then lead by the Spirit into the desert, where He is tempted for forty days. After this showdown with satan, He starts calling His disciples and moves out into the public arena to preach. Matthew ends chapter four with a summary statement about what Jesus’ mission was:

“And He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So Him fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and He healed them. And great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. (Matthew 4:23-25)

That sets the stage for us to turn to Matthew chapter five. We will be looking at verses one and two today and I want to give you an overview of where we are going in the next months.

Jesus’ first sermon

I remember my first sermon. I was twenty-three years old and the pastor at our little chapel couldn’t be there that morning. I was asked to preach. I was terrified and rambled through the text. It was terrible. A friend tried to console and encouragement me. He said, “You’ll get better.” For some reason, this did not encourage me at all!

John Stott said this about the sermon: “The Sermon on the Mountain is probably the best known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguably it’s the least understood, and certainly the least obeyed.”

“Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, His disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying…” (Matthew 5:1-3a)

Jesus was starting to draw crowds wherever He went. If word got out that Jesus was around, people from all over would close up shop and head out to see Him. He was a “magic man.” He could heal and cast our demons. People brought their sick family members and friends. They weren’t sure what He was all about. Some people whispered He could be the Messiah. Some wanted to make Him King. He was a King, just not the kind they thought He was.

Jesus saw an opportunity to paint a picture of what life in His Kingdom would look like. Matthew says that He went up on the mountain. Now this is really a little bit of an exaggeration to call this a mountain. When we lived in North Carolina, I would say how much I loved the mountains. Maxine would always roll her eyes and say, “These aren’t mountains.” We went to visit her father in Colorado, and as we drove from the airport to Denver, Maxine smiled and pointed out the window and said, “Now, those are mountains!”

This was a small hill about 331 ft high, (sermon on the mound?), rising gently away from the See of Galilee. This area was a natural amphitheater in which hundreds if not thousands could easily hear Him.

He sat down. Such a small detail but so important. When rabbis wanted to teach authoritatively, they would sit and their disciples would gather around them. And that’s exactly what happened. But it wasn’t just the twelve. There were many others that were disciples and then, outside of that circle, would have been the crowd.