The “Except For Me” Bible Study Plan

We’ve all done it: read the Bible while silently hoping there’s an asterisk somewhere that says, “except for you.” As we close out our five-day Field Notes devotional, we sit with Matthew 5 and face the tension head-on, because the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t just inspire, it confronts. When Scripture “bumps up against us,” it reveals whether we’re trying to manage Jesus or actually follow him. 

We talk through why Jesus keeps saying, “You have heard that it was said, but I say to you,” and how he corrects the way religious leaders distorted God’s commands. We use the Sabbath as a vivid example: rest was meant to be a gift that protects people from snapping under nonstop pressure, but it got turned into a burden. Then we flip the lens to today, where we often do the opposite, not by tightening the rules, but by watering down the hard parts until the Bible bends to our preferences. 

From there, we get painfully practical. What do we do with anger, revenge, and our demand for “justice” when what we really need is mercy? The cross reframes everything, because our King chose sacrifice, not payback. We end with a simple challenge: read Matthew 5, pick one difficult command, and live it today, trusting God’s pruning to bring real freedom. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Week Wrap-Up

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, good morning. Thank you for joining us on Field Notes, a five-day devo presented by Mission Scent, where we are following the sermon from Sunday to show us how it fits in through our Monday through Friday. We were looking at Matthew 5, 1 through 2, and today we're wrapping it up. You made it. You're all the way to Friday. By now you have read Matthew 5 at least four times if you've been following along. And

The Asterisk We Wish Existed

SPEAKER_00 0:29

hopefully you have seen that there's some stuff in there that maybe, just maybe, we're not applying to our own life. And we all fall into this trap. We all tend to want the Bible from time to time to say something different than what the Bible actually says. You're not alone in this. Let me encourage you in this that every one of us tends to try to read scripture like there's an asterisk somewhere in there that says except for, and right there is a big picture with our name and our face on it. However, the reality of Scripture is not that.

Jesus Restores God’s True Intent

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Throughout Matthew chapter 5, you've heard this phrase over and over. Jesus repeats this phrase. You have heard that it was said, but I say to you. What Jesus is doing is deliberately correcting the religious leaders who have butchered the spirit and the application of God's laws. For example, God gave the Sabbath because he knew that if we just keep working and working and working, we're just twisting the rubber band, and eventually it's going to snap and it's going to hurt everyone around us. But the religious leaders, they turn this command to rest into a burdensome rule to follow that when you can't take more than 21 steps in a day.

When We Water Down Commands

SPEAKER_00 1:57

And today, in today's culture, we kind of do the exact opposite of what they were doing. They were making the Bible more strict where we tend to water it down. Because we want to read the Bible and we want the Bible to bend to our will. We want the Bible to bend to what we want it to say. We want the hard parts to be a little bit easier. And we want to assume that the commands that are given apply to everyone else but ourselves. We expect the Bible to bend to what we want. But to

Bending To King Jesus

SPEAKER_00 2:33

be a true citizen of a kingdom, to really be in submission of King Jesus does not demand that Jesus bends to me, but that I bend to submit to the king. See, there's going to be places where the Bible is going to bump up against us. Why like I said in the beginning of this, I get it. There are times where I want to just let my anger explode, but I can't. Because my king didn't. There are times when I want revenge, where I want justice, but yet my king was wrongfully convicted, murdered for a crime he never committed. And it's easy to say we want justice when in fact what we want is mercy.

Mercy Over Revenge And Anger

SPEAKER_00 3:25

See, it's very hard for me to understand that my king loved me enough that he came to earth to take my place in death, that he was buried for a crime I committed, and ultimately that he walked out of the grave three days later so that I could have freedom too. The Bible is very scandalous when you really stop and think about what it's talking about. But at no point should I expect my king to bend to me. So our challenge today is to look at your own life and go, where are you trying to get the Bible to bend to your lifestyle, to fit you? It's painful to prune away the things in our lives that don't look like Jesus, that don't bring us to Jesus. But understand this the Bible tells us we're either going to bow to the king or we're going to bow to the king. So whether you do it now or you do it later, you can seek them now and know him as Savior or seek them later and know him as judge. You're going to. So are we willing to align our life with the Word of God? Well, our challenge today is

One Hard Command For Today

SPEAKER_00 4:41

simple. Read Matthew 5. Pick one specific difficult command in there and commit to living it out today. Pray for the courage to be completely open and bend your life to the Word of God. We love you. We can't wait to see you this Sunday, 9 a.m., 8 40 Del Tono Boulevard at Mission Scent.