The Sermon on the Mount

I struggled with how thte Sermon on the Mount with in with Jesus’ teachings found in Luke, particularly on the two passages where He was teaching on the Lord’s prayer. In Luke, the prayer is very Holy Spirit-centric, where “our daily bread” is the Spirit of God working in us to provide for us the daily strength, courage, truth and perserverence needed to strive for His Kingdom in our lives. We know this because Jesus follows that teaching with the “ask, seek, knock” where He concludes by saying that God will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.

In Matthew though, there isn’t any explicit mention of the Holy Spirit, and the teachings are all of out order, and so I kept asking myself, “how am I to read this?” As I read/thought/prayed, God started to reveal the flow of the SotM, and I’m beginning to see that they are in actuality, saying the same thing. Matthew 5-6 are a series of paradigm-shifting ethical teachings, where Jesus is trying to direct our attention towards heaven. He’s reminding them that their laws are not scrictly for horizontal relationships, but primarily for their vertical relationship with God. 7:1-6 is a reminder for us to exercise these teachings in our lives before we begin to help others (more on this later). 7-11 is a reminder that God will graciously help us to accomplish these things in our life and 12-14 is simply a pithy statement to summarize chapters 5-6.

Our greatest clue to their synonymity between the 2 Gospels lies in 7:15-20. When Jesus is referring to fruit, He’s referring, not to our ministries and the amount of people that have heard the gospel from our lips, but to the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. See, Chapters 5-6 are, in actuality, a practical portrait of how the fruit of the Spirit is to play out in our daily living. And so in Luke, Jesus is telling us to pray for the Spirit to work in us so that the Kingdom can break forth into this world and in Matthew, Jesus is showing us what it looks like for the Kingdom of God to break forth in our daily living. And so, when we read Matthew 5-6, we don’t simply read it a set of ethical teachings, but as a prayer for the Spirit of God to work these things in our lives. We need to pray for the beatitudes to be real in our lives; we need to pray to be salt and lightl; we need to pray for a righteousness that starts from the inside; we need to pray against murderous anger in our hearts, etc etc.

Back to Matthew 7:1-7 though. God has been placing a weight in my heart for the kids in my fellowship. It dawned on me that the majority of my kids aren’t saved, and that, as their youth counselor, it is my responsibility to preach/share the Gospel to them, but there hasn’t been much change in their hearts. However, I’m beginning to see how God has set His plan in motion for these kids. God is working my sanctification in me in order that I be faithful in bringing His message of reconciliation to them. I’m being rebuked and refined almost daily, and God is pointing out many areas in my life that I need to hand over to Him… and this sanctification is taking place in part because He has sent me to remove the same speck from their eyes so that they can see Jesus.

Love for your fellow man

‘May I stress again: if we ourselves have known anything of the love of Christ for us, and if our hearts have felt any measure of gratitude for teh grace that has saved us from death and hell, then this attitude of compassion and care for our spiritually need fellow-men ought to come naturally and spontaneously to us… It is a tragic and ugly thing when Christians lack desire, and are actually reluctant, to share the precious knowledge that they have with others whose need of it is just as great as their own… There is something very wrong with us if we do not ourselves find it natural to act in this way (evangelize)… If it is the fear of being thought odd and ridiculous, or of losing popularity in certain circles, that holds us back we need to ask ourselves in the presence of God: Ought these things to stop us loving our neighbour? We need to press upon our conscience this question: Which matters more – our reputation, or their salvation?’

- JI Packer (Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God)

This is probably one of the greatest rebukes ever. If I am to claim Christ as my Saviour, the bare minimum response from me should be evangelism… to tell other broken people of my former brokenness… and to lead them to the Healer

Grace

I found myself asking God how He can continue to give me grace even though I continue to stumble… And something from The Knowledge of the Holy hit me like a ton of bricks

That God knows each person through and through can be a cause of shaking fear to the man that has something to hide – some unforsaken sin, some secret crime committed against man or God… and to us who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us in the gospel, how unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us completely… no unsuspected weakness in our character can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us. (AW Tozer – The Knowledge of the Holy)

God knew that I would sin, but He still chose to save me, and not only that, but provide me with the blessing of His companionship… and He did this in full knowledge of my future rebellion. This kind of love made me pause as soon as I posed my question to God. It made me realize how deep His grace is, and how hard it is for me to understand the depths of God’s love for me.

Even though I’ll never fully know what this grace means, I am so fortunate to know of this grace… Thank you Jesus.

1. Exclusivity of Truth

The advantage of pledging to read before I started publishing is that I get to draw from my readings from the past 3 weeks. I was going to start writing about what I learned today, but I felt the need to respond to something that I heard on CBC radio.

They were debating the definition of tolerance and the role it has in society. I was very attentive because their talk shifted to how tolerance means that religions would have to compromise their beliefs for the sake of society. One of the ladies, Gwen, argued for this side, saying that truth is relative anyways and so everyone should be accepting of everyone else’s view.

Ravi Zacharias wrote this:

Truth cannot be sacrificed at the alter of a pretended tolerance. All religions, plainly and simple, cannot be true. Some beliefs are false, and we know them to be false… To deem all beliefs equally true is sheer nonsense for the simple reason that to deny that statement would also, then, be true. But if the denial of that statement is true, than all religions are not true… Truth by definition excludes (Jesus Among Other Gods pg 4-6)

Relativism is one of the biggest enemies of the church today. In society, to be inclusive is ‘in’ and objective truth is ‘out’. Christians are ‘haters’ because we stand for what we believe in. And so, we conform to society, hiding our faith in the closet, so that we do not offend people with the Good News that we love. We buy into society’s message that our Gospel is bad news because we’re in essence telling everyone that they’re wrong, and that’s not kosher. This is the stance that Gwen took, and this is the view that’s killing Christianity.

I learned that relativity contradicts itself, because by accepting every view, it also must accept the view that it is wrong, making the theory wrong. Therefore, I cannot accept the view that a Buddhist’s beliefs are as relevant as my views as a Christian, because one of us (or both of us) is wrong. It’s a contradiction to say that both beliefs are equally right, because their doctrines are completely different. They are not looking at the same thing at different angles (the gospels are a good fit for this analogy), they are looking at two completely different things.

And so, today I learned that objective truth is right, and I learned how to defend the absolute against the relative. And so I will live my faith and live it proudly, knowing that the cross will offend, but it is the more logical route. And now I know how to intelligently convey that thought.

1825

Studies have shown that if you read for an hour a day on a particular subject, in 5 years time you will be in the top 5% of that field. So by investing 1825 hours, you will have trained yourself to become an expert in whatever topic you desire.

I think that its a fair assumption to say that every person wishes for greatness, or at least to distinguish themself from the pack in some way shape or form. I don’t see this as pride (although it could very well lead down that path), but its merely an inborn yearning to maximize the talents given to us so that we can can live full, purposeful lives.

My desire is to grow in the knowledge of God, and along with that, how to respond to Him, and how to express my belief in Him. And so I will put the study to the test by investing 1825 hours so that I can turn my dream into a reality. But knowledge isn’t the end goal of this exercise, because knowledge only puffs up the self. Every hour of study will be preceded by a prayer for wisdom and for love; wisdom to discern means of applying my newfound knowledge, and love because love is the means through which knowledge builds people.

And so, today marks the eve of the journey. Hopefully, in 1825 hours I will have the tools necessary to be an expert ‘people builder’.