Mike Bickle provides an overview of the Sermon on the Mount, emphasizing its significance as a roadmap for believers to understand God's expectations for their character and lifestyle. He highlights the importance of the Beatitudes as foundational virtues that lead to a life of obedience and grace, encouraging disciples to not only live by these principles but also to teach them to others. Bickle stresses that the Sermon on the Mount is not merely a mystical ideal but a practical guide for loving God and others, urging believers to resist temptations and pursue positive actions in their spiritual journey. He concludes by reminding the congregation that their commitment to these teachings will have eternal implications in their lives and the lives of those around them.

The spirit of understanding and revelation to touch our heart, strengthen our spirit, as we approach this most significant passage of scripture that your son taught us on the grace of God. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Well, last week we looked at the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, and this session we're going to look at an overview, kind of get the big picture feel, the landscape of the subjects that Jesus addresses in this most significant sermon called the Sermon on the Mount. We're going to stay on this topic for probably several months on the weekend meetings, so just kind of gear yourself and prepare yourself to begin to study this passage of scripture in a new way, in a fresh new look at it. Well, this is a roadmap, these three chapters, to give us the overall sense of what God wants in terms of His interaction with His people. It's the lifestyle, it's the character development that He's aiming at, and so we want to be aiming at the same target that the Lord's aiming at. I've heard over the years people talk about, I want to love God with all of my heart, but it seems a little mystical. I don't really know how to do that. What am I supposed to do in a concrete way to love God with all of my heart, to fully give myself to Him? You know, just cry in worship meetings? Is that what it means to love God? It seems a bit mystical. Well, the Lord Jesus gives us these three chapters to answer in a very practical way what He wants us to do in our quest to love Him with all of our heart. The Sermon on the Mount, not only do we do it, but He wants us to teach it to other people. Now, most of us, our teaching ministry is twos and threes, sometimes tens and twenties, but we're all called to teach the Word, starting in our home and the people closest to us in informal conversations, usually, but it is the teaching of the Word. And the Sermon on the Mount, to do it, but to teach it, to inspire others, is the ministry assignment of every single disciple of Jesus. Somebody says, I want something to really give myself to, to focus on, to make a difference that's radical, something to fight for. I go, there you have it. Study the Sermon on the Mount, seek to completely obey it, best that you know, in every season of your life, and then talk about it continually to other people. Paragraph A, just a review from last week, I refer to the Sermon on the Mount as the constitution of God's kingdom. It's Jesus's most comprehensive statement on how a believer cooperates with the grace of God. The Sermon on the Mount is all about grace teaching. It's grace teaching. Jesus is the best teacher on the grace of God. The reason I say that is, some people say, I'm really into grace. I'm not into that intense stuff, the Sermon on the Mount. And I remind them that Jesus is the teacher of the Sermon on the Mount, and He's really good about the subject of grace. He really knows it well. And review it again from our last session, chapter 5, verse 48. The high point, the main point that Jesus is after is that we would make it our primary life goal to walk in perfect obedience. Jesus said, be ye perfect, be perfect like my Father is perfect. Now, that sounds a bit overwhelming and out of reach. But He's using the word perfect, in our sense, in a relative way. Walk in all the light that you have in every season of your spiritual life. God walks in all the light that He has. You do the same. And everybody can do this. A new believer can walk in all the light that they have, meaning what God has shown them to do. They don't have that much light, but they can walk in all of it. They can actually walk in, verse 48, from the first week of their conversion. Well, if loving God seems a little bit mystical, don't know quite what to do, obeying with all of my heart, exactly what do you want? Break it down, Jesus. Well, He does just that. He gives us the eight beatitudes in chapter 5, verse 3, all the way to verse 12. It's these eight beatitudes, these values, these character traits, they are values, but they're more than that. They're virtues and character traits. They're, that lead to behavior. So they're virtues, values that lead to actual behavior. I reference these, or think of them as eight flowers in the garden of our heart. And the Lord wants all eight of these flowers, these beautiful flowers, to come to full maturity in our life. That's what it means to obey God perfectly, with all, to walk in all the light in reference to these eight virtues or values. Now, the good news is that when God gives us a command, there's always the promise of the enabling, to obey the command. He never commands us to do anything He won't help us do. The point is this, these beatitudes are not out of reach of anybody. The newest believer, they're within reach to walk in them, to the light that God gives in every season of our life. Let's read these eight beatitudes. This is the core message. Blessed are those that are poor in spirit. That's those that have a profound sense of need, poverty of spirit. We'll look at all these in detail in this series in this next number of months. We're going to be focused on this. Blessed are those that mourn spiritually. This isn't mourning over circumstances, but mourning for the breakthrough. Mourning to walk with God in a more, in more wholeheartedness. Blessed are the meek, the humble. Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness. Now this is where pressing into God comes in. Hungering and thirsting, refusing to be denied in our pursuit after the deeper things of God. Now some people, their definition of the grace of God is they don't press into God. They have a distorted message of the grace of God, which is very common today, and that distorted message is increasing. But Jesus taught on the necessity and the glory and the liberty of hungering and thirsting and pressing hard in the grace of God. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those that endure persecution with a rejoicing spirit. So now we know what Jesus is aiming for. We say, okay, we know what it looks like to walk perfectly, to obey God perfectly as our Heavenly Father, to walk in the light. Now the question is, how are we going to grow in these eight? I mean, we got them down. We don't fully understand them, but we got them down. We know where we're aiming. Paragraph B. In a moment, we're going to look at Jesus identifies six common temptations that He wants us to resist. And then He identifies five kingdom activities He wants us to pursue. We need to pursue and resist. There's negatives we resist. There's positives we pursue. Now some camps in the body of Christ focus on resisting the negatives. Other camps focus on pursuing the positives. But when Jesus taught on the grace of God, He said, don't choose between the two. Do them together. There's a pursuing and there's a resisting element of growing in the grace of God. I use the analogy of the garden, the watering and the weeding. For that flower to grow, and there's eight flowers in this analogy, these eight beatitudes, for the flower to grow in a proper way, we have to weed the garden, remove the hindrances. And we have to water the garden, add the nutrients. So there's a removing of the negative, those five things, those six temptations we resist. That's pulling the weeds and driving the hindrances out of the garden of our heart. But then there's the adding the nutrients, those five kingdom activities. Let's look at chapter 5, verse 13. Jesus gave, right after the beatitudes, the next thing He addresses, is meant to be an encouragement. He's saying, these eight, they will, they will, they're costly, they're demanding, they're liberating, they're glorious. Let me encourage you, the Lord would be saying, that the people that embrace these eight beatitudes and pursue them, they will be salt and light. I have a plan to change the whole world. And I'm not going to do it by myself, but rather I'm going to do it in relationship with my people. My people will be the change agents. They will be world changers, my people. And He's saying, I want to encourage you that I have a big plan, a glorious plan, you have a part of it. But for you to have a relevant part in that plan, you have to pursue the eight beatitudes. It's interesting that beatitudes, not interesting, significant I mean, are given in verse 3 to 12. The salt and light promise is right here following in verse 13. Verse 14. In other words, the two are connected. He didn't change subjects. The reason I say that is because a lot of folks, when they talk about salt and light, they begin the dialogue in verse 13, and they need to begin the dialogue with the beatitudes. There is no effective changing of the world apart from people who are pursuing these eight beatitudes. Well, we're salt and we're light. As salt, we make people thirsty for Jesus. Salt makes food taste better and creates thirst. So we, by living the way we live in the eight beatitudes, we make people or people become thirsty for God and hungry for God. God tastes better to their palate, their spiritual palate, when they see the truth through people that are salt. But salt is also a preservative. It stops the encroaching decay of a sinful society. The salt does. But God's people are more than salt. They're light. They show the direction in a dark world of how to please God and what will last forever and what is meaningful and what is truth. The truth about God. But also, light not only shows direction, light is critical to the processes of life. It enhances life as well. So Jesus is saying, I'm going to change the world. You're going to be involved with me. You have a relevant place in this age. But in a moment, he's going to link it to the age to come because the two ages have continuity to them from God's point of view. What we do in this age and how we affect the world literally in the age to come are dynamically connected. But the point I want to stress is that it's people walking in the eight beatitudes that are salt and light. Not just by virtue of being born again, but by being born again and trying to walk out biblical Christianity. Well, the question arises, okay, God, you're going to change the world. You're committed to it. You have a plan. To what degree are you going to change the world? A little bit or a lot? So how intense are you about this plan to transform the planet? Verse 17 and verse 18, Jesus makes it very clear. He goes, don't think I came to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. And what he means is, I didn't come to take the commandments, the moral standards of the law and prophets, the Old Testament, but nor did I come to nullify the promises and the purposes set forth by the Old Testament prophets. Jesus is saying, the same plan that I committed to through the prophets to transform the whole earth, it's still on. You're salt and light. How far will it go? I'm going to transform the entire planet and fill the earth with the glory of God. That's how far it's going. Read Isaiah, the prophet, read Jeremiah. If you want to see how far I'm taking this, the moral commandments, I will fill the earth with righteousness and humility and love in the full sense. But I will transform all of society as well, because it's not just about moral virtues coming to their fullness. It's about the application of them in every realm of society. The earth will be filled with the glory of God. That's what Jesus is saying. He goes, don't think I'm setting aside the Old Testament promises or the Old Testament standards. I will bring them to absolute completion on a global level, and they will be fully and permanently fulfilled. So that's how far it's going. So we're encouraged, okay? Eight Beatitudes. We're going to be useful in changing the world. Eventually, the world is going to be ultimately and permanently and fully changed. Now we're salt and light in this age, and we make a real impact in this age. Though the impact is a small percent, it's real. When Jesus returns, the impact is brought to its full, global, permanent, comprehensive dimension. We won't have full impact until He returns. Some people teach that. That's not a biblical idea, that it's going to get better and better and better, and then finally it will get so good, Jesus returns. Wrong. It's not biblical. We are going to have great advances in society in terms of God's power affecting the world, but simultaneously the darkness will get darker while the light gets lighter, but our impact is real. And it's substantial. It matters. But then there's a continuity to the impact we make in this age to what Jesus does in fullness at the age to come, when everything promised in the Old Testament Law and Prophets comes to pass. Top of page two. Well, the disciple says, I love it. I see the connection of the eight Beatitudes to salt and light, and I see how far salt and light's going. It's going to fill the earth with the glory of God. Everything that's promised will come to pass. Awesome. Here's my next question. The disciple might say, Lord, what do I have in this? I want to be a part in this age, but I want to be a part also for billions of years in this great, global transformation and this glory of God filling the earth. I want to roll, not just my 70 years on the earth. I want to roll forever in this. And the Lord will say, good. I have a great world-changing plan that's eternal, and you have a role in it. Well, what degree can I be involved? And the Lord's answer, verse 19, you get to decide the level that you want to be involved. It's up to you. According to our responsiveness in this age, we will have our function in the age to come will be linked to our responsiveness in this age. So he goes, it's your call. How involved do you want to be? I want to be involved as much as you will involve a human being. Okay, good. Well, you know how to do that, don't you? Well, how, Lord? Verse 19. He says, whoever, this is anybody, this is people in the kingdom, the people of God. Whoever breaks the least of these commandments, and it goes on to say, and teaches other people to break them. That man, he's still born again, still in the kingdom, but he'll be least in the kingdom in the age to come. But if a man, a woman, a boy, a girl, if they do and teach these commandments, they'll be called great. Now in the age to come, we will all be loved equally. We will have equal significance in love from the father, but we will have varying prominence and function and authority and measure of glory. So equal significance, varying in function and glory, and it's all related to what we do in this age. Verse 19, Jesus says, if you break these commandments, now these commandments in this context, he's talking about the eight Beatitudes. Many people in the name of the grace of God teaching, which just means kind of chill out, be irresponsible with their life, live undisciplined and claim grace. Jesus said, if you live that way and you minimize these commandments and you teach others to, you will be in my kingdom, but you will be least. But if you go the other direction, you do them. I mean, you set your heart to live those eight Beatitudes, but more than that, you take a stand and teach them. Now, again, most people's teaching ministry is twos and threes, tens and twenties. He said, if you do that, you'll be great. Talk often about these eight Beatitudes. Teach them in informal ways. I don't mean pull out teaching notes and tell your friends, okay, I'm giving you a Bible teaching. I'm talking about have your conversation, formal and informal settings when appropriate in the workplace, in the home, in the neighborhood and social gatherings, just dialoguing about your challenges, your commitment, your excitement, your insights into the eight Beatitudes and what it means in a practical way. Teach them. Now, if you've never taught people these eight Beatitudes, you might be surprised that they're very unpopular and they're offensive to the natural mind, to the, our fleshly mindset. They're very offensive. And so until you start talking about them, you won't know why Jesus gives a premium promise for the people who will talk about him. Most people find it easier to minimize them, which is what he warned and don't do. And to teach others, man, I'm just so into the grace of God. I don't have to hunger and thirst. I don't have to press in with meekness. I don't have to walk in that kind of purity. I mean, he loves me. I love him. That settles it. Jesus said, don't take that approach. Don't minimize what I'm telling you right now, but emphasize it. Go the other direction. Someone says, well, those eight Beatitudes, they don't seem that bad to the natural carnal mind. They are. Just teach it. They're more than poetry. I mean, people love those eight Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit. It's like poetry. It's like, beloved, this is not poetry. This is what Jesus wants us as a practical lifestyle. Say, how could people be upset? I mean, blessed are the merciful. And what, imagine people romanticize about how much they love mercy, because they're picturing some guy in a faraway part of the earth, a nameless, faceless guy they don't know, and they love that poor person. They've never met the poor person. The poor person's never insulted them. They don't know anything about him, but they love mercy and, Lord, I love mercy. It's kind of romanticized. Or the gang leader gets saved. He comes to the altar and everybody cries, thank you for the mercy of God. That's not the mercy he's talking about. Everybody loves that mercy. That's an easy message. He's talking about the mercy of the brother that's on your worship team who's stealing from you and lying about you. The Lord says, give him mercy. Ooh, I don't like mercy. When it affects you, it's like, that's an intense message. Mercy is an invasive message. It's easy to have mercy as long as a person doesn't come near you and steal things from you and lie about you. He goes, that's the arena for mercy. Oh, that's a different subject. This isn't as popular as I thought. These eight beatitudes. Beloved, these eight beatitudes are worth fighting for, meaning learn them, teach them, take a stand, fill the earth with them as much as you have influence. And your influence may be very small, but fill your time and energy up with getting this message out, talking people into it. Look at Roman numeral four. Well, how do we really do these eight beatitudes? Well, I mentioned it. It's the watering and the weeding. It's critical. We have to resist certain things and we have to pursue certain things. That's how we practically respond to be a world changer. You hear a lot these days, be a world changer. People cheer. I want to be a world changer, but we've got to read the fine print, which really it's not the fine print. It's the most emphasized part of the world changing message of salt and light. It's the eight beatitudes. Jesus didn't hide it in a corner. Being a world changer starts with changing our own heart. Then what we experience, what we pursue, what we go after, we give to others and we bring them on the journey with us. What we're challenged by, what we're intrigued by, what we're perplexed by, we share that journey to influence them to go on the journey of filling their life with these eight beatitudes. Well, what are these six temptations? And we're going to look at each one of them in the weeks to come with a little bit of detail. And each one of these six has many levels of expression from the very beginning level, like anger. Anger goes from the initial having a critical spirit and being defensive. That's the beginning stirring of anger all the way 25 steps later to murder. And Jesus has angers all of that. So there's many levels to each of these six, not just kind of the superficial look at it. He said, resist anger, resist adultery, or the spirit of immorality, resist the temptation to disregard the sanctity of marriage. Loyalty in relationships is where this thing breaks down to, even beyond the marriage. It's the virtue of loyalty in relationship starting at the marriage covenant, when times are good or times are bad, not disregarding what God says about that covenant. And then it will affect all the other relationships because something happens in us when we fight for loyalty, when we don't feel like being loyal. It affects all of our relationships in a positive way. The temptation of making false commitments. Jesus said, let your yes be yes. Don't oversell yourself. You know, the guy says, I'm committed to this and that. Everybody goes, wow, he's such an amazing brother. He's so cool. He gets the applause. He is so committed. But the next three months, he doesn't follow through. Jesus said, don't do that. Resist that. Because it's falsehood. And he said, live in truth concerning your words and what you say. Resist the temptation of retaliation. Then the most difficult, I believe, of all six of these is the final one. The inactivity when we are mistreated. I believe this is the most challenging to our flesh. Like in chapter five, verse 44, Jesus said, bless your enemies, love your enemies, bless them and pray for those who spitefully use you. Now we can get to a certain place in the grace of God where we don't fight them back. We don't answer insult for insult and we don't attack them when they attack us. And that's good. And we decide, wow, what a victory. I'm just going to be quiet. The Lord says, no, that's not good enough. You can't just be quiet. That's the problem. That's a, a passive distance, a passive distance from your adversaries. No, I want you actively loving them. Okay. What? Bless them. Oh, okay. Lord bless them. No, no. A little more detail than that. Do good to them. Like you're being like, give them money and open doors for them. Like what? Pray for them. I remember, and we're going to break this down the days to come. It's way better to have kind of a sense of victory. And it is a victory to not answer back or not to attack back. I mean, that is such a sense of victory. The Lord says, you're not even halfway there. I actually want you to actively engage in blessing them. I mean, there's nothing that's more like God than this. That's what he even says. You'll be called sons of God. You'll be called like your father who does this. This is my nature. I remember the first time some years ago, thought, you know, it's what it says. I'll do it. So I closed my eyes and prayed, Lord, I ask you to, uh, bless. Well, don't give, don't bless him too much because Lord, he'll start thinking that everything's okay. And you know, everything's not okay with this guy, but he needs to know it. So if you overdo it, Lord, it's going to mess up the whole thing. You know, Lord whispers, you know what? I don't remember exactly what I said, but now bless him, Lord, give him favor and find it. Don't give it to his kids, not to him. It will bless him if his kids get it. That's it. That's good enough. It was hard. I mean, it's easy to underline it in your Bible and talk about love your enemies, bless them and pray for them, but not to actually ever do it. It is a violent, hard exchange to do this with truth. Jesus said, if you pull those weeds out of the garden, you will remove hindrances and the flower of those eight flowers will grow. Then he brings it to a conclusion to a head here in verse 48, paragraph C, be perfect as your father is walking all the light as he does beloved. There is a moment in a believer's life who goes on to know the Lord. I mean that many believers are 20, 30 years later are living in the same superficial place in the grace of God. They were 20 years ago. Many I've seen that many, many, many, many. I'd even say it goes far to say the majority of the people that I've known that were on fire for five or 10 years, they, for the last 10 or 20 years, many of them are just stuck in a superficial experience of God and they're okay with it. But if you're going to really go on to know the Lord and really press in, there's a day, there's a time when the light goes on and there's a moment where this verse becomes literally your life vision. I'm really going to do it. Not talk about it, not sing about it. Well, yeah, that's okay. It's good to talk and sing about it. I'm actually going to seek to obey God with every area. For real, my time, my money, my words. Literally, I'm going to do this. Beloved, when that light goes on, it will shift something in your inner man and it will set you on a different mindset. You'll read different things. You'll talk different conversations. You'll study different things. You'll focus on different things. You'll have a different preoccupation on the inside, even though you loved God even before that. Roman numeral five. Well, it's not enough just to resist the negative. We have to pursue the positive. So Jesus gives five kingdom activities to serve, to give money, to pray, to bless our adversaries in the fast. Now here in chapter six, verse four, he said, when you give your charitable deeds, now the charitable deed has two dimensions. There's a dimension of the act of serving. The deed, it's a deed that's done, but there's a dimension of it being charitable as well. There's an economic dimension as well. Now this doesn't just mean the work you do in the outreach to the poor. All of your service, whether you're giving money or you're giving the time and energy to serve is charitable deeds, not just the outreach to the poor. For instance, our shuttle drivers, I love our shuttle drivers. If they don't, if they all quit right now and you walk back to the Redbridge center, it's cold February morning. You'll realize how charitable those guys are who are driving those buses. All of our services are charitable. The Lord said our charitable deeds, they're in this category. He goes, I want you to do it. Your heavenly father will reward you. He says, verse six, pray, your heavenly father will reward you. Verse 14, forgive. Now this issue of forgiveness, the New Testament, the New Testament scope of forgiveness always includes Matthew 5 44, the blessing of your enemies, doing good to them. It's not just the canceling of the debt of the overcoming the offense of what they did. It never stops. We're saying, okay, we're neutral. I'm not mad. I'm not offended. I've canceled it. We're in neutral. No forgiveness. When Jesus talks about it always means forgiveness to its fullest, which includes includes blessing them. So that's why I put the word blessing our adversaries for 17. When you fast, he didn't say if, he said when. How often should you fast? At every season of your life it may be different. One season you'll fast more than another season, but fasting is part of the lifestyle of New Testament Christianity in the grace of God. Fasting doesn't earn anything. It positions us to receive what is freely given to us. I encourage people just as a just as a target to aim for one day a week. In some seasons of their life they may not do it. Other seasons they may do a little bit more than that. But I say you throw it out there and that's your target. And then again you'll walk it out at different intensity at different seasons. Verse 20, he goes back to the subject he brought up in verse 4 about charitable deeds, the issue of money. When he says you get treasure in heaven he means he's talking about when you give your physical money into the kingdom. You receive it a return when you get back when you go to heaven. Now paragraph B. Spiritual disciplines do not earn us God's love. Jesus wasn't presenting the Sermon on the Mount with the spiritual disciplines suggesting that we earn God's love. It's a very opposite spirit that he presented that in. What we're doing is we're putting our cold heart before his bonfire. He put a cold heart before the bonfire. That frozen heart gets warmed and tenderized. The power is in the fire, the presence of God. The power isn't in putting ourself in front of it. The fire is free. We just got to put ourselves close enough to it by posturing our mind where that the heat of his grace warms our heart. Because many people have the grace of God in the sense they're going to go to heaven when they die but they have such a spiritually dull heart. They have darkness and dullness and such heaviness and lack of desire for God's presence and for his word. And though they have grace in the sense it's been freely given and it's all been given to them but their experience of it is so minimal. So yes, reject doing spiritual disciplines with the wrong spirit. Reject that. Don't do spiritual disciplines giving, serving, fasting, praying with a wrong spirit. Reject the wrong spirit but don't reject the spiritual discipline when you throw out the wrong spirit. It's very common for people to throw the baby out and the bat with the bath water. They're getting rid of the wrong spirit but they throw the discipline away. I've seen many do that over the years. They go, you know what? I was fasting and praying. I was just trying to earn God's love. I'm done with that. I go, good. It's awesome. And what they really mean is I'm done with fasting and praying. I go, no, no. Be done with the wrong spirit not with the practice. This was Jesus who taught the practice. You're not going to do any better than Jesus teaching on the grace of God. So I tell them, I go, let's do it. Let's settle the issue. When you fast and pray, you don't earn anything. Let's take 10 minutes. Let's settle the issue. Don't take 10 years to live in spiritual laziness and lethargy and disobedience to the servant on the mount to figure out what in 10 minutes you can settle. Get rid of the wrong spirit, the spirit of legalism. But don't live spiritually lazy for the next 10 years because you had this awakening that you were fasting with the wrong spirit. Settle it. I've gone to people that sell it right now. I'll tell you, let's take 10 minutes. I'll settle it for you. Don't wander out there with a dull spirit for the next 10 years because now you're free from earning it. Let's look at middle page three, Roman numeral six. Well, there's resisting the negative, the temptations. There's the pursuing the positive, these spiritual disciplines, these five kingdom activities. But now Jesus introduces a third principle, knowing the truth. And I'm using the word confidence. We resist the negative. We pursue the positive and we know the truth about God and the truth about how God views us. That gives us confidence. Because if we don't have confidence, if we don't know what God's like and how he views us, then we're resisting the bad, pursuing the good, but with a spirit of condemnation, a spirit of fear. And we end up with the wrong spirit trying to water and weed that garden, but without confidence that even in our weakness, God enjoys us. He's looking at us. He's responding to us. He's attentive to us. That's what Jesus is saying here at the end of Matthew six. Know the truth while you are resisting and you're pursuing. Hebrews 11, the writer of Hebrews talking to believers who were struggling under persecution, and they were getting weary under persecution. That's the context of Hebrews 11. And the writer of Hebrews says this, without faith, which is that you could use the word confidence, it's impossible to please God. But when you come to God, we're talking about as a believer, they're persecuted believers. When you approach him and your prayer life and your everyday life in God, here's what you must do. You must believe two things. That he is. And you must believe he's a rewarder. You must believe those two things. He is and he's a rewarder. To believe that he is means to believe in the present tense. He's attentive and he will intervene. Believe that he's like listening. He is in the present tense attentive to your life. That's what that verse means. And he will enter and he intervenes. It's his nature to intervene. But there's another thing that we must believe. That he's a rewarder to those that diligently seek him. That not only is he attentive and he intervenes, he remembers and rewards forever. This is a very important part. The subject of rewards was taught most by Jesus than any other man in the Bible. But notice he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. There's a diligence that he's rewarding. He does reward diligence. Diligence does not make God love us. He loved us when we hated him. But when we respond in diligence, he responds with rewards. In this age but primarily in the age to come. Paragraph B. What Jesus is talking about is the necessity of pursuing him wholeheartedness but with confidence especially related to our finances and our possessions. Because that's where people have most fear. That's where the stronghold of fear moves in related to finances and possessions. And that's what Jesus is addressing. Because when we have fear we can't progress in the eight beatitudes in an optimum way. When fear, when we have a stronghold of fear in our life, Jesus is calling us out of the slavery of the fear of not having enough. That's the predominant fear, the fear of not having enough. And Jesus said, I want you to have confidence when you're pursuing me that in the major issue where fear gets a stronghold in the lives of my people, you won't yield to that but you will have confidence that I'm rewarding you and you will have confidence I'm providing for you, that I'm watching. And if you have that confidence, if you know the truth about me, I'm a God who intervenes. I'm a God who rewards. I'm a God who watches. I'm a God who's moved by the response of my people. Well how does it work? Real simple. First God initiates. He stirs us up when we didn't have even a thought of seeking him. He initiates and awakens us. Even as a believer we're stuck in dullness. He initiates. He wakes us up. We go, wow, he initiates. Then we respond. And then he responds to our response. So he's on both sides of our response. He initiates it. We go, wow, I'll obey. And then we obey. The Lord says, good, now I'm going to respond to your obedience. You don't earn anything because he's on both sides of the equation of our response. Paragraph D. Now he promises. He goes, if you'll do these things, if you will make it your life vision, he calls it having a good eye, your life vision, to obey and teach the eight Beatitudes. He says here in verse 22, if your eye is good, he's talking about the eye of your heart. And I have it written down there to explain a little bit. You will have a vibrant spirit. You will be full of life. If you will stick with this, not for a summer, not for a year. You make it a good eye is to have a primary vision to go after this with all of your heart in a consistent way. Yes, we will have failures, plenty of them. But when we fail, we sign back up. He said, you'll be full of life. You'll have a vibrant spirit. Top of page four. Now it changes into, there's a whole other subject that the Lord is now addressing. Because here they are, Matthew five and six, they're ready to go. They're pursuing the eight Beatitudes. They're resisting the bad stuff. They're pursuing, pursuing the right stuff. And they have the knowledge of the truth that God's watching and they have confidence in God. So, and they're going hard and their, their eye is good. They have a clear vision. They're going after this. Now what? Now I believe that one of the primary things that he's doing in Matthew seven, he's addressing how we can be derailed and sidetracked and lose our passion and our pursuit of the things in chapter five and chapter six. Because when we seek to live the sermon on the mount lifestyle, meaning we spend our time differently, we spend our money differently and our speech is different. We talk about different things and we talk in a different way. I don't mean we use confusing language, but we're, we're preoccupied with the details of living this out in our life. And our friends, we talk about these things. Now a person that pursues this, they will create all kinds of relational dynamics around them that are different. You know, in the marriage, if the couple doesn't go together, then there's trouble. One of them says, I want to give more money away. The other one goes, not a chance. In the neighborhood, you know, two neighbors, they're friends and the guy across the street's a troublemaker. You say, well, I want to do good. I want to help them. And your neighbor goes, no way. What are you, weird? I'm not going there. Or you're in the marketplace with a believer. When you start obeying these things in a literal way, it will cause trouble all around you. People are unsettled by this. Now, some people will be encouraged. Others will be unsettled. Dynamics will change in relationships. That's what Jesus is preparing them for. Paragraph B. Now he says right off the bat, he goes, here's what your, what are your number one problems that will derail you in your pursuit, is being critical of a brother who agrees to walk out the Sermon on the Mount, but he has less intensity than you. He has less follow-through than you, and you get critical of him. Jesus says, that will shut you down, actually. That critical spirit will actually put the fire out inside of you. Now, what he does here in Matthew 5, verse 1 to 6, he describes two types of people, and both of them can have a negative impact on the red-hot believer, if the red-hot believer is not paying attention and not alert in his spirit. In verse 5, is the brother with less intensity. He's so close to you in relationship, that he, you can actually pull the speck out of his eye. He's agreeing. He's going to walk in this obedience. The speck speaks of a deficiency in his commitment to God, and he's not living far away. He's right next to you. He's a brother, and he's, you know, he's committed to walking this way, and you're going to help him, and that's good, if it's done in a right way. He's not a stranger. This is a guy that says, I'm going for it, but the thing that bothers you, you get bothered, because he doesn't really want to go for it, and that bugs you. Nobody else is committed but me. Don't get into that Elijah syndrome. Elijah said, I'm the only one committed. Everybody's backslidden. I'm the only one seeking the eight beatitudes. All my friends say it, but they don't do it. The Lord says, don't, don't, don't, don't go there. Don't go there. Now, why does he not want us to go there with a critical spirit? Well, for several reasons, but the one I want to highlight is what, I mean, we can damage and hassle and trouble the brother that we're criticizing. That's an obvious reason, but I don't believe that's the reason in focus right here. That is a biblical reason that Jesus and the apostles would address in other places. I believe that when we get a critical attitude towards a brother that's not obeying God and the Sermon on the Mount like we are, the negative is, it changes the conversation inside of you. That's the big problem. Meaning in Matthew 5 and 6, you're talking to God. You're wanting to bless your enemies. You're wanting to do good to the bad people. You're wanting to fast and pray. You're seeking to grow in the eight beatitudes, but the brother who claims to go with you, but he comes up short. That's it. Jesus hasn't addressed that yet. And here you are, you're running well, you're going hard after God and Jesus saying, beware, you get your eyes on him. Instead of talking to me about your life, you'll be talking to yourself about your brother and talking to other people. The conversation changed. I want to be in the conversation with you, the Lord saying, and when you're criticizing your brother, I'm not in the conversation with you anymore. You change channels. You've gone in a different direction. Get back. Talk to me. Verse five, he says, pull the log out of your own eye. He says, talk to me about you. Let's get back in the conversation again. That's when we do so well together. I believe I've seen people going hard after God and they get into, yeah, that guy's not good. He's not, she's not, he's not. They get so preoccupied with the wrong conversation. They're not even having it with God anymore that they actually grow and they lose their vibrant spirit, fall into a dull spirit. Well, verse six is the second guy. This isn't a brother who you're close enough to and you care enough about to pull a speck out of his eye. Verse six, look at this. This is the person. It's an adversarial person. They strongly disagree with you. They have hostility towards you. You give them your pearls. And Jesus said, watch out. They will trample you. I mean, they will speak bad about you and they will try to destroy you. They will trample you. Now, what are your pearls? He's not saying don't preach Jesus and salvation to them. Don't tell them the details of your commitments. Don't break down. I'm giving this much, fasting that much, praying this much, struggling with this, blessing my enemy. This guy will look at you and say, what are you, a crazy man? What are you talking about? You're dangerous. You're deluded. You're off. And he will try to trample you and destroy you. Jesus said, don't say everything that's true about your walk with me that's so dear to you. Don't give it to people who don't value it and can't interpret it in a right way. Well, this guy in verse six is hostile. And again, we'll develop this more when we get there in a few, probably take us a few months to get to chapter seven, but let's go on to the, to the next section. Verse seven to 12. Now this is very interesting because verse seven to 12, at first glance, it looks like Jesus is giving another teaching on prayer. Like he did back in chapter six, verse five to 13, back in chapter six, verse five to 13, he taught on prayer. It had me quite extensive teaching on prayer. His biggest teaching on prayer. At first glance, it looks like he's just teaching on prayer again. He changed the subject because the verse before is a hostile adversarial person wanting to tear your life apart. Now notice the content, the context of verse 12, seven to 12, because understanding the context helps you to apply this, I believe in the most complete way. In verse six, bookend number one, it's a hostile person wanting to tear you apart. Verse 12, look at the other side of this paragraph. He says, therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do to them. In other words, the takeaway point is that you would treat people different. Now that's a strange takeaway point. If he's teaching on prayer, ask, seek, knock, the conclusion of the teaching is, oh yeah, verse 12, by the way, treat people different. I would think if he's talking only about prayer, he would be saying, ask, seek, knock, and trust God more. But he doesn't. Jesus said, treat people different. That's the conclusion of this teaching. I remember when I first began to struggle with this, and I go, what? What? Because you always want to ask, what is the therefore, therefore? Therefore. So I go, Lord, it looks like you changed subjects. And of course he didn't. And I believe what he's talking about is having a God-centered approach to seeking creative solutions to the relational tensions. He goes, when there's the relational tension, don't just your own natural strength and wit and your own finesse. Talk to me. Ask me to help. Ask me to break in. Seek, seek me, but even seek to understand him. Knock, knock on the door of heaven, but knock on other doors. Are there creative ways for there to be redemptive goodness? Come to this person. Have a searching heart to find the creative solution that I will give you if you will make it a God-centered approach. I believe he's talking about solving relationships. The reason it is prayer, and all these principles relate to prayer, but it's more than prayer. The full scope, verse 6, is someone that's about to tear you to pieces. Verse 12, an exhortation to treat people better. It's relational, the context. And he's saying, don't approach relationship conflict solving by your own wit, by your own wisdom. Actually seek and ask me. Ask others. Get counsel. Talk to them. Understand their heart. Knock on open doors and see the goodness that I will give you and what I will lead you in. But it's more complex than just you alone praying, saying, Lord, you solve it. He goes, no, I'm going to solve that problem, but I'm going to use you, and I'm going to use human processes, but I want you to have a searching heart. That's what I believe he's talking about. Paragraph D. Now he goes on, and he seemingly changes the subject. I don't believe he does. I believe he's talking about relationship conflict all the way through this. Chapter 7, from 1 to 20, says in verse 14, difficult is the way. Difficult is the way. Now we know the spiritual disciplines can be difficult without grace, because our flesh says, no, we'd rather just go easy and not press in. And Jesus said, the way is difficult. I don't think he's talking mostly about the difficulty of spiritual disciplines, from Matthew 6. I don't think he's talking mostly about those, but certainly that's included. I think, through my pastoral experience, because I've seen this so many times, that when people run into relational conflict with people in the body of Christ, they're going hard after God. They're seeking the eight beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and two people raise up within their relational circle, and they charge them, and they say, you know what? You're selfish. You're arrogant. You're in error, and you're stupid. And the guy goes, what? It's not even worth it anymore. I've had this conversation so many times in 35 years of being a pastor. Guy comes in, just forget it. I go, why? You know what? I've poured myself out, and you know what response I get? They just say, I'm stupid. I'm wrong. I'm selfish. Is that all they see? Forget it. I go, forget? What's the it you're forgetting? Just it. I'm forgetting it. You mean, that guy? Oh no, not just him. Another guy, too. There's two of them. Okay. Two of them, selfish, in error, stupid, proud. So you're going to give up your pursuit of God, because two guys tell you this? I mean, there is this exaggerated feeling that's common to everybody. It's an exaggerated sense of peril. Two of them. I go, two whole people? And you're going to throw away your pursuit of God that has eternal ramifications, because two whole people think you're wrong? Yeah, but they're leaders, and they should know better. I go, people, I believe that's part of the narrow way. Staying in it, even in the conflict, because you live this lifestyle. I'm telling you, people within the community of God will stand against you. They don't, this is hostile to the flesh, these atheistic attitudes. They don't, people don't like that. I think it's talking about being exasperated and discouraged. The narrow way is because of the conflict that you have, because all you're trying to do is obey God. Why can't they just leave me alone? They're not going to leave you alone, because you're bugging them. Because when you're just obeying God, they're kind of assuming that you think they should be obeying God like you. And they don't like that, and they feel insulted, and they want to set you right and set you down. And people, I tell you, I find they lose the way easily. Then verse 15, he doesn't change the subject where he went from narrow way, now he's talking about false prophets. He's on the same topic from verse 1 to 20. Now here's the problem. A false prophet is in sheep's clothing in the community of God. Here's the point. They are so blended in, and they have this false, I think the most damaging message of a false prophet is the false grace message in the church. That has so much negative ramification, because it gets the people who buy it into a dull spirit and stuck in darkness in their understanding. And then they're just vulnerable to everything. They're just like, they're just sitting ducks for the enemy to shoot off once they get a dull spirit and discouragement and a heavy spirit. The enemy can pick them off so easy. Now these false prophets, they're false messages. It's not a guy with horns, the false prophet. There he is! How do you know? He's the guy with the horns. No, he's in the midst. He's got probably cool clothes, sometimes a guitar in his hand, and a huge following across the nation, thinking he's awesome and I make a ministry sometimes. That's who the false messenger is. Here's the point. Jesus is saying, when you get discouraged, I mean you're pressing hard, don't be seduced by the easy offer out of this lifestyle. They will give you a broad message. They will give you an easy way, because the false prophet of verse 15 and the narrow gate and the broad way of verse 14 are connected. It's the message of the broad way is the false prophet. He says, don't buy it. So the guy goes, well, you know, I was going so hard for God. Here I was, I mean, I was really making ground. Peril number one, I got into a negative attitude. All the people in my group, no one's seeking God like me. So you lose the conversation. Now you're not talking to Jesus. Now you're just thinking and stewing over how bad everyone is besides you. Peril number one. Peril number two, you're pressing the envelope. I fast, I pray, I give, I give all my money, I do this, I do that. And then the people, they trample you and say, you're into delusion. You're into deception. You're into legalism. And they, oh, okay, that was a bad one. Okay. And so Lord, help me, help me solve these problems. You seek, knock and ask. And so now our heart gets weary and it's difficult. And the Lord say, don't, don't give up. And now the guy comes along the false prophet with the cool clothes and the cool ministry. And he goes, well, you don't need to do that anyway. You don't get oppressed into God. Just chill out and just go the broad way. I mean, Hey man, we love Jesus. What about love? What about grace? He says, don't get seduced. And then he ends the sermon verse 21 to 27. Just look at verse 22. Many, many will say to me on the last day, one day, everyone stands before God. Many who confess the Lord will have walked in the foolishness that he describes in verse 26. They didn't embrace the kingdom, but he says here in verse 25 or 24, he goes, be the guy who does this stuff, who does it. You do it in private, under pressure and the rest of your life. Because here's what this passage is talking about, that our love, genuine love must be proven is genuine. And it's proven under pressure over time. And Jesus is saying like Abraham had to offer Isaac. The Lord is saying, yes, you committed to Matthew five and Matthew six. You weathered the storms of the relational tensions of Matthew seven, but know this, the genuineness of your love will be tried under pressure. So here's what you commit to. You're going to stick with it in private, not just in public. You're going to stick with this thing under pressure, and you're going to stick with these commitments to this lifestyle for the rest of your life. And Jesus says, if you do that, I will call you wise. Right here in verse 24. Chapter five, verse 19, I will call you great. But there's another kind of guy in the body of Christ that doesn't go after this. Jesus calls him foolish, verse 26, and calls him least back in chapter five, verse 19. I don't want to be foolish and least. I want to be wise, and I wanted from God's point of view that my commitment would be esteemed as great. Amen. So that's the overview of the chapter. Now we're going to look at the weeks to come. We're going to break it down piece by piece by the grace of God. Let's stand.