Can the most challenging words we have ever read also be the most encouraging? Can a serious call to live an impossible dream not depress us but transform us? The answer to both questions is “yes” if those words are the message of Jesus that we usually call tthe Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5–7.
In our first volume on the Kingdom of God we pointed out that the Kingdom of God was Jesus’ primary message. We described how Jesus announced the in-breaking of God’s future into our present age. We saw it was his plan for the people of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to start living “on earth as it is in heaven.” But what does this type of living look like?
Jesus did not leave us guessing. He delivered what we usually call the Sermon on the Mount or what we think could better be called the Sermon on the Kingdom. We insisted in volume one that the Kingdom of God is not just a future to look forward to but a life to be lived here and now. While the Sermon is not a detailed handbook on every aspect of that life, it is also not a vague statement leaving hearers wondering what they just heard.
In the Sermon are promises about the kind of character God will bless and new commands that are contrasted with their Old Covenant counterparts. In the Sermon we find direction about how to pray and what to be sure of as we pray. Not some announcement of feel-good, self-indulgent religion, the Sermon has stunning words for those who think they are aligned with God but do not really know him. But like Jesus who gave it, the Sermon is full of grace and truth.
Reading the Sermon is not like reading a science book or a tome on the law. What we hear will in large part be determined by the condition of our hearts. Those who read it and are eager to receive the Kingdom will hear a call to a challenging but exciting venture into age-to-come living. Those who want a relationship with God without the Kingdom heart will hear annoying restrictions or find themselves shifting immediately to a myriad of “what if” questions and “surely it doesn’t mean that” replies.
This is why, through the centuries, the Sermon has been ridiculed by some, treated as a wild ideal or ignored by others, and embraced as a way of life by very few. But that, of course, only underscores the validity of the one who spoke these words, for he said that the way is narrow and few are those who find it.
This much is certain: Jesus’ main message was the good news of the Kingdom. After calling people to repent and come to the Kingdom, Matthew’s Gospel gives us the Sermon in which he specifically refers to the Kingdom eight times. The very reason the Sermon seems so unreasonable and impractical to some is that it is describing the Kingdom life—the life of these “aliens and strangers” from the future. These are the people who are living right now as though they were already in heaven or at least as though they are taking all their direction from heaven, and acting as if their citizenship is really there.
Get your copy of The Kingdom of God, Volume Two and join us on an exciting adventure.
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