Who Is In The Crowd?

The crowd around Jesus wasn’t a single type of person, and that’s the point. When Jesus climbs the mountain in Matthew 5 and begins to teach, we’re forced to ask a question that can’t be dodged with church attendance or good intentions: where do I actually stand in that crowd right now?

We break the listeners around Jesus into three clear groups. There are disciples and close followers who want to grow, learn, and live for the kingdom of heaven. There are seekers who feel the weight of darkness and know there has to be something more, even if they can’t fully name it yet. And then there are the religious, the ones who keep showing up but stay mostly in debate mode, trying to fit Jesus onto a small shelf instead of honoring him as the sovereign King.

From there, we press into the real issue: compartmentalized faith. Are there “do not enter” areas of your life where you treat Jesus like an accessory rather than Lord over your sex life, your marriage, your work, your money, and your relationships? The goal isn’t shame. It’s clarity, confession, and a fresh step toward surrender. We close with a simple action step: read Matthew 5 and ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal what you’ve been holding back.

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Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning. I hope your Tuesday is off to an amazing start. Thank you for spending time this morning digging into our five-day devo here at Mission Scent that we call Field Notes. Yesterday we talked about the posture of the king. Today we are going to jump into who is in this crowd, though.

Jesus Teaches The Great Crowds

SPEAKER_00 0:22

We saw in Matthew 5, 1 and 2 that Jesus, seeing the great crowds, goes up onto the mountain. He sits down and he gets ready to teach, opens his mouth to teach, scripture says.

Disciples And Followers In The Crowd

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Now in this crowd, we see that his disciples come to him. So we know his disciples are part of this crowd. We know that his followers who have been with him have been following him to this point, and they are coming to speak.

Seekers Looking For Something More

SPEAKER_00 0:52

We know that within this crowd, it's also the people that Jesus has already interacted with, right? It's already the people who he's healed, the people he's taught, the people he's proclaimed the coming of his kingdom to. We call that category the seekers. These are people who are walking around in darkness, but they know there has to be something more to life, and they desperately need someone to step into that darkness with them.

The Religious Heart That Debates

SPEAKER_00 1:23

And then finally, other people that would have made up this crowd would have been the religious people. Think about it, the Pharisees, the Sadducees. These are the people that follow Jesus around. They listen to him teach. They listen to him proclaim the kingdom of heaven. They watch him perform the miracles, but yet they're just there to argue with them. They're just there to debate with them, and they just go through the motions. See, a religious person is someone who tries to fit Jesus into a tiny corner of their own world. They don't look at Jesus and go, you're the sovereign king. They go through all the motions, they listen to all of the things, and then they go, okay, here, Jesus, this is where you fit on the shelf of my life. They treat Jesus as an add-on, going, I'll go to church, but Jesus, don't you worry about my sex life, my marriage, don't you worry about how I run my business, how I interact with others, all of that stuff. That's for me. You just fit right here on the shelf in my life.

Which Group Do You Belong To?

SPEAKER_00 2:32

See, and every time we open the Word of God, every time we gather as a church, every time we sit down to study, we bring baggage with us. So our challenge today is very simple. Of these three groups of people, which one do you fit into? Are you one of Jesus' disciples trying to grow? Trying to sit here and go, how do I continue to advance the kingdom of heaven? Are you a seeker sitting here going, I'm looking for something else? I know there's something bigger and better out there. Or are you a little religious person? Sitting here going, I've heard all the stories, but Jesus is just gonna sit right there on the shelf of my life.

Read Matthew 5 And Respond

SPEAKER_00 3:24

So have we compartmentalized our faith? Are there areas of our life where we have a do not enter sign for Jesus? Where we would treat him as an accessory rather than the sovereign king and lord of everything in our own life. So when we stop and we realize that Jesus is on this mountain for a lot of different reasons, but one of them is to challenge our understanding. It puts it into a different perspective. One of it is to challenge our heart idols, one of it is to challenge who we are. It's never too late to move from one group to another. And our action step today is to read Matthew 5. And when we get done, ask the Holy Spirit to search our heart today and reveal any areas where we are playing the church. Confess that area of your life. And know it's not too late. Know that you can take a step even today to correct that, to submit that to the kingship of Jesus simply by going, Jesus, work in it. So I hope you have a great Tuesday. We can't wait to see you tomorrow morning.