WEBVTT 00:00:01.604 --> 00:00:01.985 Hey, what up. 00:00:01.985 --> 00:00:02.587 It's Mark Carter. 00:00:02.587 --> 00:00:03.870 I'm the pastor of Fierce Church. 00:00:03.870 --> 00:00:04.892 Welcome to our podcast. 00:00:04.892 --> 00:00:07.229 I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. 00:00:07.229 --> 00:00:16.728 I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. 00:00:16.728 --> 00:00:17.871 Enjoy the message. 00:00:18.539 --> 00:00:24.408 We're going to talk today about having some moral clarity, and we're going to go to a place called the Sermon on the Mount. 00:00:24.408 --> 00:00:25.408 Many of you have heard of it. 00:00:25.408 --> 00:00:30.155 This is Jesus' most famous sermon, the most famous things that he said. 00:00:30.155 --> 00:00:35.642 We're going to take several months actually, and walk through them in a series called the Applause of Heaven. 00:00:35.642 --> 00:00:37.167 I'm super excited about this. 00:00:37.167 --> 00:00:42.326 I have not preached on the Sermon on the Mount, I think in about 11 years, and I was listening to myself. 00:00:42.326 --> 00:00:45.073 I was listening to an 11-year-old message yesterday. 00:00:45.073 --> 00:00:55.165 I was like doggone, Carter, you were so bad, you were so bad, and so I just want, can I, if you were around back then, can I just apologize to you? 00:00:55.165 --> 00:00:57.932 Hey, thanks for sticking with me. 00:00:57.932 --> 00:01:04.388 Man, sometimes I'm just surprised Jesus doesn't throw me out the window or something you know, because I'm like golly, but by the grace of God he stuck with me. 00:01:04.388 --> 00:01:19.390 So we're going to try it again for the next few months Sermon on the Mount, applause of heaven and we're going to understand what Jesus thinks the kingdom of God is and how that's supposed to not only bless us but bless our world, bless everybody around us. 00:01:20.754 --> 00:01:30.947 After World War II people were wondering how is it that the German nation folks that had really been they had a long history of Christianity, martin Luther came from Germany. 00:01:30.947 --> 00:01:36.272 How was it that they gave themselves to murder of the Jews? 00:01:36.272 --> 00:01:38.888 How was it that they caused so much trouble? 00:01:38.888 --> 00:01:47.483 Historians would tell you, many believe one of the things that went wrong was they began to compartmentalize their morality. 00:01:47.483 --> 00:01:53.429 They began to say, hey, there's really two kingdoms and they'd heard this, like Martin Luther himself even taught this. 00:01:53.429 --> 00:01:54.394 There's really two kingdoms. 00:01:54.394 --> 00:01:59.951 There's the kingdom of Jesus and then there's the kingdom of the world, which includes governmental authorities. 00:01:59.951 --> 00:02:08.230 And they didn't really play that all the way out, because they said you should always obey the authorities in the world because they're instituted by God and you should always obey God's word. 00:02:08.230 --> 00:02:21.461 But they didn't really think that out into the 20th century, when the authorities would be getting more and more evil, the appropriate biblical response is to resist evil, tyranny and governments that are doing things the opposite way of God. 00:02:21.461 --> 00:02:36.913 But because it was baked into their thinking, they did not have moral clarity about what to do and so they just, even though they knew it was wrong, they're like well, but it's not really wrong, because I'm doing what my authorities tell me to do and you guys know the effect that it had on our entire world. 00:02:36.913 --> 00:02:42.185 I know that you guys aren't there, but we all can get confused. 00:02:42.185 --> 00:02:50.122 We can all lack moral clarity sometimes, and one of the reasons is the kingdom of this world, the system of this world, the way it's done. 00:02:50.122 --> 00:02:59.490 Out there there's a lot of great stuff that happens, but one of the things it's trying to do it's trying to synchronize all of our brains to its way of thinking and valuing all the time. 00:03:00.681 --> 00:03:12.330 When I was a young man, you know I had never talked back to my mom until I saw my friends talk back to their moms, and being around them put some dissonance in my mind. 00:03:12.330 --> 00:03:15.911 I was like, oh, maybe there are situations where it's appropriate to talk back to your mom. 00:03:15.911 --> 00:03:21.671 I never got high until I saw my friends get high. 00:03:21.671 --> 00:03:23.764 I would have resisted it. 00:03:23.764 --> 00:03:25.243 I would have said man, don't keep that crap away from me. 00:03:25.243 --> 00:03:37.709 But then I saw my friends do it and do it and do it enough, and it became true of me that you know this it's been said take a look at the five people closest to you, because that's who you're becoming, that's what you're going to be like. 00:03:37.709 --> 00:03:43.231 And, my friends, we not only have people around us that don't necessarily want to do the ways of God. 00:03:43.231 --> 00:03:52.643 We have an entire universe in this thing that is preaching to us all day and trying to synchronize our minds to the ways of the world. 00:03:52.643 --> 00:03:59.683 That's what it says in Romans 12.2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 00:03:59.683 --> 00:04:00.586 Through the scriptures. 00:04:02.030 --> 00:04:09.730 The world's always trying to conform our brains every single day, and that's why Jesus comes in and man, like a shot, he gives moral clarity. 00:04:09.730 --> 00:04:10.552 That's what he's going to do. 00:04:10.552 --> 00:04:19.286 When we don't have moral clarity, you guys know this relationships begin to break down Not only relationships, but people with power. 00:04:19.286 --> 00:04:24.571 Because there's nothing to hold them back, they begin to leverage their power and they cause injustice for many. 00:04:24.571 --> 00:04:36.353 And when there's no moral framework, even families that are very close begin to fight and deteriorate, and then institutions and society begin to fight and deteriorate and more and more chaos erupts. 00:04:36.353 --> 00:04:47.964 And it just trends that way until a generation says we got to change this, we've got to bring back some moral clarity, we've got to have a framework for what is right and what is wrong. 00:04:49.348 --> 00:04:50.992 And Jesus here's what's awesome about Jesus. 00:04:50.992 --> 00:04:53.185 It'll surprise you a little bit. 00:04:53.185 --> 00:04:56.252 He doesn't come in and say I've got a solution for society. 00:04:56.252 --> 00:04:59.603 He doesn't come in with any campaign slogans. 00:04:59.603 --> 00:05:05.033 He doesn't just say hey guys, here's my eight-step plan to get society back on track. 00:05:05.033 --> 00:05:06.314 That's not what he does. 00:05:06.314 --> 00:05:10.569 He says I have a moral vision and it starts with me. 00:05:10.569 --> 00:05:12.959 It doesn't start with transforming society. 00:05:12.959 --> 00:05:23.052 It starts with me and goes into transforming the humans, the individuals within society, to think like me and feel like me and do what my heart would always do. 00:05:23.052 --> 00:05:33.773 And he paints this beautiful picture If someone were really living under the authority of God all the time, this is what it would look like, and that picture is the Sermon on the Mount. 00:05:33.773 --> 00:05:41.112 That's what we're going to study and what we're going to find out is the true subjects of the King, king Jesus, are becoming something else. 00:05:41.112 --> 00:05:45.271 They're not just learning new rules, they're not just getting some religion. 00:05:45.271 --> 00:05:47.004 They are being transformed on the inside. 00:05:47.004 --> 00:05:54.120 They're becoming a different thing than they were and because they're that different thing, they act differently in the situations that they find themselves in. 00:05:56.425 --> 00:06:02.423 In Jesus' time there was a big question in everybody's mind and it was what happened to the promises of God? 00:06:02.423 --> 00:06:08.047 The nation Jesus lived among it was the Jews, and they'd been through a lot. 00:06:08.047 --> 00:06:10.822 We discussed it in a previous series, the book of Exodus. 00:06:10.822 --> 00:06:13.206 We went through a lot of it and it was a lot about the promises of God. 00:06:13.206 --> 00:06:25.766 It was about the promise of God as hey man, I'm gonna rescue the whole world, I'm gonna create one nation and in that nation I'm gonna teach them my ways of holiness, and then I'm going to bring my Messiah through that nation and that Messiah is going to bless all people in the earth. 00:06:25.766 --> 00:06:26.567 That was the plan. 00:06:26.567 --> 00:06:28.329 There were all kinds of promises attached to that. 00:06:29.410 --> 00:06:33.473 Well, eventually, this very nation it did get raised up, but then it backed away from God. 00:06:33.473 --> 00:06:43.766 It began to do the ways of the world and then God, just like he promised, he decided to kick them out of their own land for 70 years. 00:06:43.766 --> 00:06:46.595 But, like he promised, he brought them back after that period of discipline. 00:06:46.595 --> 00:06:51.846 But then a little bit happened and 400 years went by and no word from God. 00:06:51.846 --> 00:06:52.790 And so all the people are asking what happened. 00:06:52.790 --> 00:06:53.673 I thought we were like on God's program. 00:06:53.673 --> 00:06:54.416 What happened now? 00:06:54.416 --> 00:06:55.742 Where's the promises? 00:06:55.742 --> 00:06:56.964 Why haven't they come to pass? 00:06:57.105 --> 00:06:57.947 And there's one group of people. 00:06:57.947 --> 00:07:02.690 They were like the religious leaders at the time, but they weren't religious leaders like they should have been. 00:07:02.690 --> 00:07:10.877 Okay, they weren't like leaders like they should have been. 00:07:10.877 --> 00:07:12.468 They weren't gentle and filled with love, they were just very narrowly focused on look, you got to get it right. 00:07:12.468 --> 00:07:15.620 And one of the reasons they thought that was because they thought the reason the promises of God had not happened was because people weren't getting it right enough. 00:07:15.620 --> 00:07:17.286 They weren't obeying enough. 00:07:17.286 --> 00:07:21.786 That's why there was this other nation, rome, that really had its boot on their neck. 00:07:21.786 --> 00:07:22.767 They couldn't really make. 00:07:22.767 --> 00:07:25.471 They weren't an independent nation like they were when david was king. 00:07:25.471 --> 00:07:31.283 Their, their, their whole game was hey, let's all just start obeying more and more. 00:07:31.444 --> 00:07:33.069 Well, then you also had the desert people. 00:07:33.069 --> 00:07:33.971 There were a different group. 00:07:33.971 --> 00:07:34.963 They had a different theory. 00:07:34.963 --> 00:07:37.314 Their theory was you know, we're just not. 00:07:37.314 --> 00:07:37.596 We're not. 00:07:37.596 --> 00:07:42.660 We're not isolated from the world enough, we're too interacted with it, so we're going to withdraw into the desert. 00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:43.781 These are people like the essenes. 00:07:43.781 --> 00:07:47.569 They said we just need exclusively, very monk-like focus on God. 00:07:47.569 --> 00:07:49.052 Nothing else, it's only God. 00:07:50.500 --> 00:07:54.184 Then there's the folks called the Zealots and they said oh, I'll tell you the problem. 00:07:54.184 --> 00:07:55.769 The problem is Rome. 00:07:55.769 --> 00:07:58.487 The problem is they're always keeping us down. 00:07:58.487 --> 00:08:00.204 They're taking away our rights. 00:08:00.204 --> 00:08:02.322 They just come in and take whatever they want they rights. 00:08:02.322 --> 00:08:04.024 They just come in and take whatever they want. 00:08:04.024 --> 00:08:04.725 They're powerful and we're not. 00:08:04.725 --> 00:08:05.788 And so what we got to do? 00:08:05.788 --> 00:08:06.988 Baby, look, look, we just got to kill them. 00:08:06.988 --> 00:08:08.071 That's what we got to do. 00:08:09.533 --> 00:08:22.329 But most people, most everyday people, they were just going to work, providing for their families, getting sick, trying to not get sick, get better, doing normal everyday things. 00:08:22.329 --> 00:08:26.327 They weren't famous, they weren't really important to society. 00:08:26.327 --> 00:08:29.807 They weren't like the folks that we think are important today. 00:08:29.807 --> 00:08:30.951 You probably list in your mind. 00:08:30.951 --> 00:08:32.003 Things come to you. 00:08:32.003 --> 00:08:40.168 Here's the important people in the world the Elon Musks of the world, the Taylor Swifts of the world, the people, the movers and shakers. 00:08:40.168 --> 00:08:42.061 These are ones that are very important. 00:08:42.061 --> 00:08:43.725 These people were the opposite of that. 00:08:43.725 --> 00:08:45.529 They're the ones they figured. 00:08:45.529 --> 00:08:46.672 Nobody knows about us. 00:08:46.672 --> 00:08:50.529 Maybe our God cares about us, but we are nothing special. 00:08:50.529 --> 00:08:51.922 Enter Jesus. 00:08:52.664 --> 00:08:53.368 With the Sermon on the Mount. 00:08:53.368 --> 00:09:01.472 And it's really important the way he starts the Sermon on the Mount, because he says blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. 00:09:01.472 --> 00:09:05.147 Blessed are the poor in spirit. 00:09:05.147 --> 00:09:10.772 Blessed are the ones who, when they look at their pockets, spiritually, they say I don't think I have much, I'm not really doing a ton. 00:09:10.772 --> 00:09:17.272 Right, I'm not amazing, I'm not brilliant, I'm not an Elon Musk, I'm kind of a nobody. 00:09:18.134 --> 00:09:19.601 And Jesus says then this is for you. 00:09:19.601 --> 00:09:29.471 If you feel like a nobody, if you feel like nobody sees you, if you feel like, yeah, everyone else is important, everybody else's stuff gets liked, everyone else has, they've got a career. 00:09:29.471 --> 00:09:30.557 That's amazing, everyone else is doing awesome stuff. 00:09:30.557 --> 00:09:37.980 If you've ever thought that this is for you, if you felt like I'm nothing special, great, because that's who the kingdom is for. 00:09:37.980 --> 00:09:40.546 Blessed are the nobodies. 00:09:40.546 --> 00:09:43.510 Blessed are the people that nobody else cares about. 00:09:43.510 --> 00:09:48.767 Blessed are the people that we would overlook because we don't think they stand out in any way. 00:09:48.767 --> 00:09:52.573 Jesus says I came for you, to me. 00:09:52.573 --> 00:09:58.562 You're the important ones, you're the ones who are just ripe, you're ready for the message of the kingdom of God. 00:09:58.562 --> 00:10:00.466 You know you don't have much. 00:10:00.466 --> 00:10:02.772 Therefore, you'll allow me to do it all for you. 00:10:02.772 --> 00:10:12.647 You'll allow me to come into your heart and, from the inside, I'm going to train you to be my subjects in the new and expanding and wonderful and awesome kingdom. 00:10:12.647 --> 00:10:13.311 And so people are. 00:10:13.732 --> 00:10:14.818 Jesus is getting really popular man. 00:10:14.818 --> 00:10:21.443 People are following him around and there's rumors they're like geez, we haven't seen anybody like this since Elijah. 00:10:21.443 --> 00:10:28.626 It's been almost a thousand years since anything like this has happened, and Elijah was cool, but this guy's doing cooler miracles than Elijah was. 00:10:28.626 --> 00:10:36.961 In fact, he reminds me of, he reminds me of Moses, and nobody's more authoritative than Moses, and yet he talks with authority. 00:10:36.961 --> 00:10:41.729 He talks like a Moses or more, I don't know. 00:10:41.729 --> 00:10:45.394 Could it be possible that this is the Messiah? 00:10:45.394 --> 00:10:50.326 That's what they're wondering, and we're going to find out that they're right. 00:10:50.326 --> 00:10:51.650 It is the Messiah. 00:10:52.000 --> 00:11:07.192 And so, in light of Jesus' unique authority and, ultimately, his resurrection, the question they're asking the original readers of this see, matthew is the compiler of all these sermon chunks of Jesus's. 00:11:07.192 --> 00:11:09.365 He's putting it in the book of Matthew and he's displaying it. 00:11:09.365 --> 00:11:13.206 Jesus has long been resurrected by now when Matthew's finally putting this together. 00:11:13.206 --> 00:11:15.167 See, matthew was an apostle, he was a teacher. 00:11:15.167 --> 00:11:19.265 He'd been teaching this all this time, and so he creates this beautiful, well-ordered book of Matthew. 00:11:19.265 --> 00:11:38.168 He says I'm gonna put all these awesome sermons that he, and in light of that, I'm going to let everybody know who's alive today and who's alive in the future generations, in light of who Jesus was and in light of the fact that he's resurrected. 00:11:38.168 --> 00:11:39.412 Who should we be? 00:11:39.412 --> 00:11:42.388 What was he trying to get us to become? 00:11:42.388 --> 00:11:45.688 And this is his answer in the Sermon on the Mount. 00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:56.847 And what we're going to find out is it's the nobodies of the world, who will live an unapplauded life right now, who ultimately gain heaven's applause. 00:11:56.847 --> 00:11:59.450 It's the nobodies of the world who will live an unapplauded life right now who ultimately gain heaven's applause. 00:11:59.450 --> 00:12:01.871 The nobodies of the world who will live a largely unapplauded. 00:12:01.871 --> 00:12:05.615 It's not that we'll never be applauded, but the things that we do for the kingdom are not necessarily applauded. 00:12:05.615 --> 00:12:25.567 There's a day coming when they will be applauded, but you know what's trippy, what's paradoxical about it is it will be applauded, but by the time you get there, you won't care for applause, because you'll want all the applause to go to the king of the kingdom, because that's what a subject would want, this kingdom of God. 00:12:26.169 --> 00:12:26.591 What is it? 00:12:26.591 --> 00:12:31.830 It's this thing that in Jesus' time it's breaking out, it's breaking in. 00:12:31.830 --> 00:12:34.495 It's like tidal waves coming through the windows. 00:12:34.495 --> 00:12:39.629 It is the rule and the authority of God in people's hearts that you can't necessarily see. 00:12:39.629 --> 00:12:40.961 They're deciding, they're willing. 00:12:40.961 --> 00:12:42.364 They're not following the rule books. 00:12:42.364 --> 00:12:49.413 They want to be the king's subject and you can't always tell by what they say, because people say a lot of stuff. 00:12:49.413 --> 00:12:54.770 You really can tell by what they do and what they end up doing over the long haul. 00:12:54.770 --> 00:13:00.025 That's who the kingdom is and what living in the kingdom does. 00:13:00.287 --> 00:13:07.332 My friends, we got to understand this because in some ways our world cares about this right now, but not all the way. 00:13:07.332 --> 00:13:17.888 Everybody cares about human flourishing, but do you know, the best way to see humans flourish is for them to embrace the kingdom of God, because the kingdom of God releases people. 00:13:17.888 --> 00:13:19.961 It releases them from selfishness. 00:13:19.961 --> 00:13:24.332 It releases them from having to get their own way and taking wicked ways to get there. 00:13:24.332 --> 00:13:26.143 It's God's plan. 00:13:26.143 --> 00:13:34.244 If people were just acting this way, this is what they would look like, and it would release not only them personally but everybody into a greater level of human flourishing. 00:13:34.244 --> 00:13:43.291 It's causing, it's a seed planted that causes us to act now like what we ultimately, will perfectly act like in the future. 00:13:43.291 --> 00:13:50.517 It means we become and act like a citizen of heaven now, even though it's not obvious that we are citizens of heaven like it will be later. 00:13:51.238 --> 00:13:56.424 Those of you familiar with the Lord of the Rings use a classic illustration here man Aragorn. 00:13:56.424 --> 00:13:58.427 Aragorn is the king. 00:13:58.427 --> 00:14:01.991 He's the king of Gondor, but almost nobody knows he's the king of Gondor. 00:14:01.991 --> 00:14:05.275 He doesn't go around flaunting it, but you know what he does. 00:14:05.275 --> 00:14:13.313 He acts like it in his character, in his courage, in his willingness to lay his life down for others. 00:14:13.313 --> 00:14:19.017 Dude, he's been the king the whole time and then finally, at the end, he's revealed as the king to everybody. 00:14:19.017 --> 00:14:19.840 But you know what? 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:22.748 He was always the king, and that's what God is after. 00:14:22.768 --> 00:14:25.989 With the Sermon on the Mount, he wants later people to say you know what? 00:14:25.989 --> 00:14:27.677 They were really always his subjects. 00:14:27.677 --> 00:14:30.342 They didn't just become his subjects in heaven, they were acting like it. 00:14:30.342 --> 00:14:33.307 To begin with it was just veiled, you couldn't see it. 00:14:33.307 --> 00:14:38.154 But the true subjects of the kingdom, they're in the process right now of becoming something else. 00:14:38.154 --> 00:14:47.878 So when we look at the Sermon on the Mount because we're going to take a lot of time on it, guys I want you to see it as this is the picture. 00:14:47.878 --> 00:14:51.500 If you're a Christ follower, this is the picture that Jesus is painting you into. 00:14:51.500 --> 00:14:53.143 This is where he wants you to get by his power. 00:14:53.143 --> 00:14:58.494 This is the perfect smile after the braces. 00:14:58.494 --> 00:15:00.144 Right now you have a lot of the braces still. 00:15:00.144 --> 00:15:03.613 You have the trials of life, you have the difficulties. 00:15:03.613 --> 00:15:06.167 That's the braces, but you're going to get there and I'm going to get there. 00:15:06.167 --> 00:15:08.421 And it is not just amplified. 00:15:08.421 --> 00:15:11.346 More laws, more laws added to what Moses said. 00:15:11.346 --> 00:15:18.163 It is Jesus training our heart to think and feel and act from a place that would act like him. 00:15:19.046 --> 00:15:22.902 Now, if we're going to talk about this, we got to talk for a minute about ethics. 00:15:22.902 --> 00:15:33.893 In our time, one of the most popular ways people make ethical decisions we could call it consequential ethics. 00:15:33.893 --> 00:15:36.865 That means they say what's the ultimate outcome? 00:15:36.865 --> 00:15:40.041 If the ultimate outcome is good, that's the one we want to go with. 00:15:40.041 --> 00:15:56.779 So, no matter what we have to do to get there, even if we have to do some things that someone might have one time thought was wrong, as long as it ends up that we can say, well, that's alleviating suffering, then that's great ethics, and it can be. 00:15:56.779 --> 00:16:09.203 There's certainly times where that absolutely works, until you get to times when folks say, okay, well, I'm suffering and I just want to be able to kill myself, or I want you to kill me so I can get done with this. 00:16:09.203 --> 00:16:20.124 And that's where you start to run cross-grain with God's word, because God says I've not delegated to you the task of taking other people's lives, unless you're like a judge. 00:16:20.124 --> 00:16:21.850 I've not given that to you. 00:16:21.850 --> 00:16:23.524 You don't get to do that. 00:16:23.524 --> 00:16:32.945 That's not really ethical, even though it might seem so, because the result you get seems to, on some level, alleviate human suffering Because you can keep on following that. 00:16:32.945 --> 00:16:40.062 Do you know that you can exterminate a nation? 00:16:40.062 --> 00:16:43.171 Based on that reasoning, you say, well, we're all suffering because of what these people did to us in the last war. 00:16:43.171 --> 00:16:46.923 It's their fault, and if we would just get rid of these guys, we'd just gas them all. 00:16:46.923 --> 00:16:51.393 Then we'd alleviate our suffering and we'd be all good. 00:16:51.393 --> 00:16:53.143 You see where that goes? 00:16:53.143 --> 00:16:56.640 Yeah, you can wickedly twist that into a lot of things. 00:16:57.042 --> 00:16:58.004 There's also duty ethics. 00:16:58.004 --> 00:16:59.447 These are very good. 00:16:59.447 --> 00:17:05.491 This is where you're like hey, man, I got to do my duty right, and it's everything from the captain is going down with the ship. 00:17:05.491 --> 00:17:08.263 That's just like it's not written anywhere, but they have to do it. 00:17:08.263 --> 00:17:11.549 Captain, if you're a good captain, if the ship goes down, you're going down with it. 00:17:11.549 --> 00:17:14.654 But it's also an agreement. 00:17:14.654 --> 00:17:16.263 Hey, fulfill your contracts, man. 00:17:16.263 --> 00:17:17.426 Don't back out of a contract. 00:17:17.426 --> 00:17:19.051 What kind of louse are you? 00:17:19.051 --> 00:17:22.229 It's your duty to fulfill your contract. 00:17:22.229 --> 00:17:25.923 Yeah, I mean, that's pretty good, even here in America, because it was so costly. 00:17:25.923 --> 00:17:27.204 Get out there and vote, man. 00:17:27.204 --> 00:17:29.810 It's your duty, right? 00:17:29.830 --> 00:17:35.531 So duty ethics can be very good, but there's something more powerful than that, and it's kingdom virtue ethics. 00:17:35.531 --> 00:17:51.445 It is something Jesus does deeper in the heart, not to give us rules, but to train us to become someone who has a lot of different things going on in front of them, a lot of different moral choices, but because they're operating out of the heart of Jesus, they're able to navigate it. 00:17:51.445 --> 00:17:57.346 Sometimes it's this way and sometimes it's this way, but their heart has been trained to know what God would want. 00:17:57.346 --> 00:18:01.064 They're focused on character, and Jesus is the only one who can do it. 00:18:01.064 --> 00:18:04.988 He's the only one who can perfectly pull off the Sermon on the Mount and he's the only one who can train us. 00:18:04.988 --> 00:18:10.203 So what I'm inviting you into is the mentoring of the Son of God as we go through this series. 00:18:10.203 --> 00:18:17.954 If you're listening, in the future, go ahead and go back some in the podcast and find the beginning of this series and go through the whole thing. 00:18:17.954 --> 00:18:22.105 We're going to be mentored by Jesus himself and so for this first message we're just going to look at. 00:18:22.105 --> 00:18:23.730 Let's look at the big picture of the Sermon on the Mount. 00:18:23.730 --> 00:18:32.029 Next week we're going to start going in much deeper, but here's what we're going to find as we survey the entire mountain of the Sermon on the Mount. 00:18:32.029 --> 00:18:34.192 I'm going to walk you through some trails right now. 00:18:34.192 --> 00:18:36.434 We're going to say this is what this is going to show us. 00:18:36.434 --> 00:18:40.886 What you're going to find on this mountain, kingdom of virtue is number one. 00:18:40.886 --> 00:18:42.088 It's ideally aimed. 00:18:42.088 --> 00:18:44.554 It's ideally aimed. 00:18:45.319 --> 00:18:50.642 One of the reasons sometimes people get discouraged when they read the Sermon on the Mount is they say nobody can do that. 00:18:50.642 --> 00:18:52.265 That's impossible. 00:18:52.265 --> 00:19:00.189 Man, matthew 5, 48, says but you are to be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect, perfect. 00:19:00.189 --> 00:19:01.913 I'm supposed to be as perfect as God. 00:19:01.913 --> 00:19:05.365 What that is is it's hyperbolic language. 00:19:05.365 --> 00:19:12.184 It is language to stir us up, to say I have to really aim at something powerful, something strong, something specific, something high. 00:19:12.184 --> 00:19:17.891 I have to choose the highest moral space I could go. 00:19:17.891 --> 00:19:24.144 I have to live up to the highest morality I could get to, because if I don't, I'm just going to give myself an out. 00:19:24.144 --> 00:19:27.202 I'm going to say, well, you know, no one can really do it, so that's not serious. 00:19:27.202 --> 00:19:35.522 Yeah, but Jesus is going to say it because he's like yeah, but I am serious, you really need to aim at this. 00:19:35.522 --> 00:19:37.508 You're not going to do perfect, but you still need to try to go that direction. 00:19:37.688 --> 00:19:45.432 And this is really hard, especially, I think, for young ones nowadays, because the world seems entirely built to suck you into compromise. 00:19:45.432 --> 00:19:47.711 It's well, you can just do this, it's okay for now. 00:19:47.711 --> 00:19:49.380 Well, you can just do this, it's okay for now. 00:19:49.380 --> 00:19:57.707 And what we just got to understand is, if we're reading the Sermon on the Mount, if Jesus is coaching us, then you're going to say, yeah, there's things, dude, you just have to be way more aggressive than that. 00:19:57.707 --> 00:20:02.987 You just have to say, no, I'm living up to here and I'm going to do it imperfectly, but I'm still aiming there. 00:20:04.309 --> 00:20:08.260 I'm not going to aim here just because that's what my friends are doing or the world is doing. 00:20:08.260 --> 00:20:13.401 That means I'm going to forgive and reconcile when I'm sick and tired of it. 00:20:13.401 --> 00:20:18.135 That means I'm going to pursue sexual purity. 00:20:18.135 --> 00:20:22.584 When I'm just, I feel like it's everywhere in front of me. 00:20:22.584 --> 00:20:24.778 How can I not give over to this? 00:20:24.778 --> 00:20:32.471 I'm going to resist retaliation, even though TV certainly tells me I should not resist it. 00:20:32.471 --> 00:20:34.957 Youtube certainly tells me I should not resist it. 00:20:34.957 --> 00:20:37.163 I'm going to resist it anyway. 00:20:37.163 --> 00:20:38.693 I'm going to walk in integrity. 00:20:38.693 --> 00:20:43.493 I'm going to live like Jesus is telling me the truth and I shouldn't invest all my resources here. 00:20:43.493 --> 00:20:50.444 I should invest many in helping other people get to heaven by finding Christ. 00:20:51.490 --> 00:20:53.538 That's what it is to aim high. 00:20:53.538 --> 00:20:57.820 It's just saying hey, dude, look, don't settle for the easy road. 00:20:57.820 --> 00:21:00.153 You're going to find the Sermon on the Mount. 00:21:00.153 --> 00:21:01.740 It pops it up there. 00:21:01.740 --> 00:21:05.380 It says go here, here's the aim, go for it. 00:21:05.380 --> 00:21:08.557 Kingdom virtue is ideally aimed and it's also internally aware. 00:21:08.557 --> 00:21:09.943 It's internally aware Jesus is going to talk a lot about the aim. 00:21:09.943 --> 00:21:10.144 Go for it. 00:21:10.144 --> 00:21:11.409 Kingdom virtue is ideally aimed and it's also internally aware. 00:21:11.409 --> 00:21:22.273 It's internally aware Jesus is going to talk a lot about the heart in this Sermon on the Mount, and the thing he's going to keep asking us to ask ourselves is why am I doing this? 00:21:22.273 --> 00:21:25.159 Why am I doing this? 00:21:25.159 --> 00:21:28.765 I'm even doing a rightish thing, but why am I doing it? 00:21:28.765 --> 00:21:32.510 Am I doing this? 00:21:32.510 --> 00:21:33.674 I'm even doing a rightish thing, but why am I doing it? 00:21:33.674 --> 00:21:35.560 Okay, see, I didn't technically commit adultery. 00:21:35.560 --> 00:21:39.111 And she says, yeah, but in the inner person of the heart, internally, you did. 00:21:39.111 --> 00:21:48.055 When you lusted, you say, well, I did give, I demonstrated in front of everybody, I gave a ton and everybody knows about it. 00:21:48.055 --> 00:21:50.682 He says, yeah, but that's why you did it. 00:21:50.682 --> 00:21:53.388 You did it so everyone would know about it. 00:21:53.388 --> 00:22:00.420 But I pray so beautifully, I pray so eloquently in front of other people I'm obviously usually the most spiritual person in the room. 00:22:00.420 --> 00:22:03.559 And she says that's great that you prayed so beautifully. 00:22:03.559 --> 00:22:07.855 But it's a lie, because you're really talking to yourself. 00:22:07.855 --> 00:22:13.525 You really just want everyone to know how deep and profound and cool you are. 00:22:13.525 --> 00:22:20.865 And if it's not prayer, it's something else, where you're pretending to be humble but really you're just applauding on the inside. 00:22:20.865 --> 00:22:28.580 And Jesus says I don't want any faking With the Sermon on the Mount, I want the insides to match the outsides. 00:22:28.580 --> 00:22:33.741 And this is what people who are pursuing the virtue of the kingdom begin to figure out. 00:22:33.741 --> 00:22:46.619 Oh, I need to be on guard, not just about what I do, I need to be on guard of what is happening in me while I'm doing even good things, because I can be doing it for all the wrong reasons. 00:22:46.619 --> 00:22:50.018 Many of you remember Lance Armstrong. 00:22:50.018 --> 00:22:53.480 For seven years in a row he won the Tour de France. 00:22:53.480 --> 00:23:05.938 He started this organization called Live Strong, raised a ton of money for cancer research and yet it was found out, even though he denied it for a long time, that he'd been doping through a lot of that. 00:23:05.938 --> 00:23:10.872 He was accelerating via drugs, not because he was really that good. 00:23:10.872 --> 00:23:15.803 And what happened was he came out, he was stripped of all his titles. 00:23:15.803 --> 00:23:17.353 He was banned for life. 00:23:17.353 --> 00:23:19.637 Pretty embarrassing thing. 00:23:19.637 --> 00:23:20.921 I feel bad for the guy. 00:23:20.921 --> 00:23:24.298 I mean, you know, I know he did it to himself, but I'm just thinking about the rest of his life. 00:23:24.298 --> 00:23:24.970 You're living with that. 00:23:24.970 --> 00:23:25.432 That's hard. 00:23:25.432 --> 00:23:28.221 Now imagine what it's going to be like. 00:23:28.221 --> 00:23:29.550 What was he doing? 00:23:29.550 --> 00:23:31.194 He was pretending something was true. 00:23:31.194 --> 00:23:31.896 That wasn't true. 00:23:31.896 --> 00:23:37.657 He was saying my performance is really this, but it wasn't really that because it was helped by this other stuff. 00:23:37.657 --> 00:23:41.835 If that's what happens, even on earth, now that's an extreme example. 00:23:41.835 --> 00:23:43.638 But the world didn't like that. 00:23:43.638 --> 00:23:50.061 If that's what happens on earth, what happens when God exposes all the secret motivations of our hearts. 00:23:50.061 --> 00:23:54.839 What happens when we get to heaven and we're like man, didn't I rock that Lord? 00:23:54.839 --> 00:23:57.994 And he's like no, no, you didn't. 00:23:57.994 --> 00:23:59.895 Let's take a look. 00:23:59.895 --> 00:24:03.438 Let's take a look at the inner monologue that was going on there. 00:24:03.438 --> 00:24:16.603 We got the tape Roll it Because Jesus said everything that's been whispered in the back room it's going to be shouted from the rooftop someday and he doesn't want that to go bad for us. 00:24:16.603 --> 00:24:17.715 He wants it to go good for us. 00:24:17.715 --> 00:24:26.951 So he says if you're going to be my example, if you're going to embrace the virtue kingdom ways, I need you to also pay attention to what's happening here, not just what's happening here. 00:24:26.951 --> 00:24:28.978 The world will applaud this. 00:24:28.978 --> 00:24:36.863 Sometimes nobody will applaud what's happening on the inside, but that's what matters to God, because true subjects of the king are becoming something else. 00:24:36.863 --> 00:24:39.172 I think y'all are still good for one more. 00:24:39.172 --> 00:24:39.573 You think so? 00:24:39.573 --> 00:24:44.887 Yeah, so kingdom virtues are ideally aimed. 00:24:44.887 --> 00:24:48.017 They're internally aware and they're interested in becoming. 00:24:48.017 --> 00:24:50.724 And they're interested in becoming. 00:24:50.724 --> 00:24:55.938 They're interested in becoming, not performing Matthew 5, 44. 00:24:55.938 --> 00:24:58.863 We're going to go through all these later, but just to show you that it says it here. 00:24:58.863 --> 00:25:12.538 But I say to you love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, and that way you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven, for he gives sunlight to both the evil and the good and he sends rain on the just and the unjust. 00:25:12.538 --> 00:25:13.954 Why did he say to do it? 00:25:13.954 --> 00:25:17.259 He didn't say do it because of the consequences. 00:25:17.259 --> 00:25:19.116 He didn't say do it because it was your duty. 00:25:19.116 --> 00:25:25.883 He said do it because it reveals who you are and it practices who you are. 00:25:25.883 --> 00:25:29.759 Do it so that you will be sons and daughters of your Father in heaven. 00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:32.696 Do it because of what it does to you. 00:25:32.696 --> 00:25:41.320 See, there's moral choices that have consequences and there's moral choices that are our duty, but there's moral choices that change us, not just the consequences. 00:25:41.320 --> 00:25:44.796 There's evil that I can choose. 00:25:44.796 --> 00:25:50.741 That, yeah, not only did that evil happen out in the world, it changed me. 00:25:50.741 --> 00:25:59.599 See, when I stole that thing, yes, that hurt them because I stole it, but it also hurt me because it makes me a stealer. 00:25:59.599 --> 00:26:03.538 And Jesus is saying I want you to do the opposite of that. 00:26:03.538 --> 00:26:06.337 I want you to be someone who is becoming. 00:26:06.337 --> 00:26:08.036 Many of you are familiar with the story. 00:26:08.036 --> 00:26:13.095 Jesus is watching people put coins into the offering they're offering into the temple. 00:26:13.095 --> 00:26:14.720 He's watching, he even points it out. 00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:16.877 This widow comes along, sticks in two pennies. 00:26:16.877 --> 00:26:18.415 He says, boys, whoa, whoa, whoa, watch this. 00:26:18.415 --> 00:26:20.676 She just gave more than anybody. 00:26:20.676 --> 00:26:30.053 Now, if we were going according to consequential ethics, we'd be like, no, she didn't, that's not going to do anything. 00:26:30.053 --> 00:26:32.642 She should go buy a stick of gum for that and try to survive, because that's not going to help anybody. 00:26:32.642 --> 00:26:40.594 If we were just about duty and said, well, you know, it's her duty to give to the temple, people would say, no, it's not her duty, it's her duty to take care of herself. 00:26:40.594 --> 00:26:41.617 Why does she save her money? 00:26:41.617 --> 00:26:42.359 That'd be her duty. 00:26:42.359 --> 00:26:50.932 But she says there's a higher ethic. 00:26:50.932 --> 00:26:52.034 That ethic is she's acting out of who she is. 00:26:52.034 --> 00:26:52.835 She is a daughter of the most high God. 00:26:52.835 --> 00:26:53.696 She's acting as a truster. 00:26:53.696 --> 00:26:56.221 She's acting as a giver. 00:26:56.221 --> 00:26:56.883 What would Jesus do? 00:26:56.883 --> 00:26:57.770 He would trust and he would give. 00:26:57.770 --> 00:27:03.583 She's acting out of who she really is and that's who we got to be. 00:27:03.583 --> 00:27:05.932 There's a false version. 00:27:05.932 --> 00:27:11.115 Guys, I'm sure you've seen this, but just to demonstrate it, you've been to a doctor, probably. 00:27:11.115 --> 00:27:13.577 They were very smart, but they were kind of a jerk. 00:27:13.577 --> 00:27:18.297 Their bedside manner was horrible and you were like are you a doctor though? 00:27:18.297 --> 00:27:21.796 I know you are, but are you Because you're misrepresenting it. 00:27:21.796 --> 00:27:27.471 Or you've been to, you had a teacher, and that teacher was man. 00:27:27.471 --> 00:27:29.273 Yeah, they were really smart, but they're also really critical. 00:27:29.273 --> 00:27:32.838 They didn't really help you learn, they just protected the knowledge from getting to you. 00:27:32.838 --> 00:27:34.801 They just kind of were disappointed in you. 00:27:34.801 --> 00:27:44.739 Or you had a coach that they knew how to run the drills, but they didn't really care what happened to those young men and women. 00:27:44.739 --> 00:27:47.990 They didn't care about their lives, they didn't care about their character, they just wanted to win. 00:27:47.990 --> 00:27:52.737 And Jesus is saying I don't want that to be true of you. 00:27:52.737 --> 00:27:54.689 I don't want people to say well, I know that they like the Bible or something. 00:27:54.689 --> 00:27:58.928 I never sensed the king in them, though. 00:27:58.928 --> 00:28:02.809 I didn't sense that they would do what the king would do. 00:28:02.809 --> 00:28:08.130 Now, one more asterisk. 00:28:08.130 --> 00:28:10.401 The kingdom virtues. 00:28:10.401 --> 00:28:11.269 Oh, they're connected to the king. 00:28:11.269 --> 00:28:13.317 What's so powerful about the Sermon on the Mount is it's Jesus that's preaching it. 00:28:13.317 --> 00:28:18.497 If it was anybody else, they'd be like yeah, I mean, I hear you, bro, but you ain't doing that, are you? 00:28:18.497 --> 00:28:20.334 They're not fulfilling it. 00:28:20.334 --> 00:28:20.997 They can't do it. 00:28:20.997 --> 00:28:22.336 They can't entirely pull off the law. 00:28:22.336 --> 00:28:23.855 The only one who can do it is Jesus Christ. 00:28:23.855 --> 00:28:24.951 And so he invites us. 00:28:24.951 --> 00:28:26.674 Relationally, he says come walk with me. 00:28:26.674 --> 00:28:28.538 I'll show you how to do this. 00:28:28.538 --> 00:28:32.376 I'll live in you and help you do it, but it's always connected to me. 00:28:32.376 --> 00:28:34.095 It's not a list of chores to go do. 00:28:34.095 --> 00:28:35.098 Stay with me. 00:28:35.098 --> 00:28:39.040 I'll teach you how to be a son and a daughter of God. 00:28:39.040 --> 00:28:40.749 You're not going to be able to do it on your own. 00:28:40.749 --> 00:28:44.432 In fact, he warns them in this very sermon, verse 20. 00:28:44.432 --> 00:28:52.119 But I warn you, unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom of God. 00:28:52.119 --> 00:28:57.826 Everyone who heard that, who didn't think they were all that in a bag of chips just sunk. 00:28:57.826 --> 00:28:59.446 They're like are you serious? 00:28:59.446 --> 00:29:04.432 I have to be better than the Pharisees. 00:29:04.432 --> 00:29:05.674