Life in the Kingdom

Today I'm Renewing Your Mind.

The sermon on the melt. Most resource to chisels here were constantly discovering, but we thought we had reached the softer level with the Christian lives. He teaches us that he wants to go down deeper right down to the ferry heart of our lives and make is really different hello and welcome to Renewing Your Mind as we begin a new week we will always find it challenging to live in a world that's lost it's more how do we stand firm in this cultural drift.

We live countercultural. Jesus tells us in the sermon on the mount be worn though living this way isn't easy.

Jesus is directing us to live in a way that may cost us dearly, but we need to keep in mind what it cost him to live this way, our teacher this week is Dr. Sinclair Ferguson.

I think I was seven years old. I because of a peculiar how to say off the Scottish educational system.

I wasn't being moved up to the more senior class in elementary school I was and I didn't go into the details, but I was a shy youngster. I walked into the room and I find myself facing something other children my age who were all chanting together on the ones that were chanting whether these Jesus went up into a high mountain and he sat down and he opened his mouth and he taught his disciples saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I had no idea what they were doing. I didn't even know that this was part of the text of Scripture, but from seven years of age sound on the Mount twit Sherry, I was forced about time to memorize is been a very significant parts of my Christian life and that's the sound on the Mount Matthews gospel chapters 5 and six and seven we are going to study together but in our first study what I want to do is to introduce the sound on the Mount because Matthew five is not the beginning of Matthew's gospel underfoot going to be able to understand what Jesus is doing here, we must first understand where this fits in with Jesus ministry Jesus been doing before the sermon on the Mount while he had stepped forward at the age of 70 and had been baptized and when he was baptized, his father had used words about him that came from the Old Testament told him that he was to fulfill the role of the suffering servant of the prophecies of Isaiah, but also told him that he was to be the king who was described in the second Psalm, the king, to whom father would say. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and on the striking things about Matthew's gospel. As you probably know is that it both begins and ends with the notion that Jesus is the King the great genealogy that begins Matthew's gospel tells us that Jesus is the descendent of King David.

When the prophecies that are to be fulfilled in Jesus are announced by Matthew. They are prophecies fulfilled the words about the coming king and then Matthew Booth hands his gospel. As you know, with the words of Jesus in which he says all authority in heaven and has been given to me.

So you go into all the world and preach the gospel.

It is message about Jesus, who has come to be king. And so when Jesus appears on the scene and begins to preach what is his message is message. We are told in chapter 4 is the king has come under for the kingdom is near, and because the king has come in the kingdom is near, it is imperative for us to respond in repentance and in faith. And then something very interesting happens. Jesus announces the presence of the kingdom, and then he shows the power of the kingdom you remember how he does this.

There are people who are sick and blind and demon possessed, and Jesus heals them and delivers them.

How was he able to do that. He is able to do that because he has already been in the wilderness facing the evil one overcoming him and in by overcoming off him. He has gained power to set men and women free and to restore them to God's purposes and this is what he begins to do. He begins to us. Why not just show little glimpses of what his final kingdom will be like. Here is a man who has a weathered hand and Jesus restores him.

He was a man who is blind and Jesus gives him sight.

Here's a man who is death and Jesus enables him to hear he doesn't do it to everybody. He doesn't do it universally. It's not that time. Yet, but the kingdom has come in men and women are being restored to God's original purposes, and then he shows the power of the kingdom.

By the way in which he calls people into his kingdom. You remember how we are told in Matthew chapter 4, he comes on those young men who are in the father's fishing business and he summons them to leave their nets and to come to be his disciples because he will make them fishers of men. So he has authority to heal and he has authority to call because he is the king and to the king. Men and women, or allegiance, and before the king.

Diseases will flee, and evil spirits will be banished. In fact, all of Jesus miracles are a little like a momentary flash of light, but reveals to us what his final kingdom is really going to be like Dionysius called his disciples in the sound on the mount. He is essentially saying to them I have transferred you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. That light is not yet fully and finally shining and until that light fully and finally shines you are going to be living in a world that is full of difficulty full of all kinds of spiritual dangers and I want you to come with me.

He goes to the mountain I wanted to come with me. He says so that I can teach you this new life, but I'm calling you to live in the kingdom of God. There is a sense in which we can summarize the first chapter of the sermon amount as we have it in Matthew chapter 5 with the word fulfillment. Jesus is the one who fulfills the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament in Matthew has used a number of quotations from the Old Testament assures that Jesus is the one who brings fulfillment to broken and bruised lie's and Jesus is the one who fills his people fool of life letters live for the glory of God.

And so as we come to the sermon the mind that this is the context in which Jesus is preaching the sermon, and within that context, he's wanting to assures the difference between life without Christ on life with Christ. The difference between living for ourselves and living for the glory of God undisputedly through the sermon amount you see how he does this he speaks first of all, about blessings that come to our lives better altogether different from the blessings of the world.

They seem to reverse the standards of the world as we'll see later, he says it's the meek who are blessed and inherently which seems to run in a very countercultural direction to the way in which we automatically think of what we actually usually experience but not the meek shall inherit the it's the ambitious and the driven and the proud and the get out of my way. Who inherently and so he is teaching us, but when the kingdom comes when men and women are restored. Their lives are transformed and they are new and different from those who are around them and then he goes on to speak about the impact of that different lifestyle. You know from what you would think would be an objective point of view. You read the life of Jesus miracles of Jesus, the tenderness of Jesus the compassion of Jesus. The last thing in the world. You would think would happen to such a man would be that he would be crucified, and it isn't it interesting that those Christians, we often don't make the connection to what happened to him with what happens to us. We need Peter's review. He says don't think that something strange to regular people or portion of person. It's completely normal, because you becoming like Jesus. And that means, by definition, your different and so he speaks about the way in which those who are transformed by Jesus will will in a strange way to experience persecution and then he says something was different about my people. It is, but the righteousness of their lives goes down deeper than the righteousness of the scribes and the fallacy we still use that word fallacy, don't we wait we mean somebody who believes that he or she is completely correct as somebody who intimidates silence with the regular with which they keep the law of God and the way in which they make it clear to us that they don't think we are doing. And Jesus says a very strange thing.

He says unless the righteousness of my disciples is greater in the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no place for them in the kingdom of heaven. So not only are the disciples different but there righteousness is different and it goes down deeper and then when Jesus moves on. He's really dealing with a problem, but he knew was in the minds of some of the people who are listening to. They are sitting there saying, but this man has said nothing about God's law does not believe in God's law and in the second half of Matthew chapter 5 Jesus explains the role of the law in the life of the Christian believer and how the Christian believers righteousness really does go down deeper and then he moves into the central section in the sermon on the Mount is the theme in chapter 5 is fulfillment. Jesus fulfills the promises and Jesus fills us through of righteousness than the theme in chapter 6 is father of the teachers is that being brought into the kingdom we've been brought to know our heavenly father and that's the thing that transforms the whole of our lives and that whole chapter 6. As we have it in the sermon. The mind is taken up with the way in which knowing the heavenly father is the key to living in the kingdom of God. It means that our spirituality is just different means that our ambitions are transformed. It means that there is a part is in our lives that we never knew before.

And then when he moves into chapter 7, he begins to speak to these his disciples about the transformation of how they make judgments in life and what it means for them to make key decision and what it means for them eventually to build their lives on our solid rock in the Lord Jesus Christ. The end isn't it interesting that at the end, the response that the people make to the sermon is we have never had anything like this before he speaks is one who has authority and not as the scribes and Pharisees, and you see, even although they couldn't put their finger on why this was the case they had a sense that the king had come, and that the king had spoken on the king had authority. The big question, of course, was how they were going to respond to that authority in the rest of the gospel tells us that some of them responded in faith and others responded in unbelief and disobedience.

So let's look sermon on the Mount does a whole. As we introduce ourselves to. I want us to think for a few minutes now about some of the implications just if that summary of the sermon on the Mount. The first is this the difference that Jesus is speaking about. Must have a supernatural origin. I have often found during my Christian life that people will say to me you know I don't really believe in Jesus the way you believe in Jesus but I really love the sermon on the Mount. I am almost weary saying that when people say that it's a clear sign they've never actually read the sermon on the Mount. They may know what they think of as the Golden rule and they especially love that statement of Jesus doing charge/UB charge, but the truth of the matter is that this sermon is apparently the most beloved sermon in all the world and probably the most frequently misunderstood sermon because when you read through the sermon on the Mount. Rather than saying I really love that you find yourself crying out. Lord help me. I don't have the resources to live like that. I don't have it in me to respond to the sermon. Of course it's a very normal thing as people are able to hear the words of Jesus, but their first reaction to it is how I'm going to try and do better wonders of ever experience that you've explained something about the Christian gospel to people and you think you really do know there they are following you through it. You think that they're being helped. And then they thank you for what you've said and say to you, I'm really going to try much harder to be better, thank you so much for speaking to me about the Christian gospel. It saw its own natural instinct that when we see this new life about which Jesus speaks we think, I must try better to get up higher on the truth of the matter is, says Jesus may explain that this new life is not something we can work out. It is something that must come down and have Nicodemus discover this, Jesus spoke to him about the kingdom didn't take and said to him, Nicodemus, you can see our enter the kingdom. Unless you are born from above, unless by God's grace.

The spirit comes die wound into your life and gives you a new heart and I find it fascinating that Nicodemus's response to this very loud and that man was, but Jesus, you're telling me that unless I'm born from above. I can see the kingdom of God. But Jesus, I can see that even in saying he can't see it. He doesn't seem to see that it's not in him to see it that God needs to work supernaturally in him and so this is a sermon that underscores for us, but we need a supernatural work of God's grace in our hearts before we can see and understand and her the kingdom about which Jesus is speaking.

The second thing to notice. By way of application is this sermon of Jesus speaks about transformation, a difference, but goes to the very roots of my life and in the course of our study are that I think will discover how Jesus gets dialing into the nukes and commanders of our lives and this is how the Christian life is lived. He is always going down deeper going farther he sold was acting up into the attic and down into the basement and we are constantly discovering this Jesus teaches us here were constantly discovering that we thought we had reached a certain level in our Christian lives in.

Then he uncovers the hidden things he teaches is that he wants to go down deeper right down to the ferry heart of our lives and make is really different in the summer has happened in the evangelical church. I think probably over the last 60 years, something that has never before happened in the evangelical church but evangelical Christians of the gun to say we've got to show the world that were not really so different you know they can lie because because essentially what Jesus does versus the subtext is Jesus talks up our inadequate lives. He makes us happy.

He may even give us health, wealth and happiness of some people upset and this is a word of the gospel that tells us that is not Jesus business Jesus businesses not to talk our lives. Jesus businesses actually to deconstruct our lives and then put those lives together by the power of the gospel in such a way that we would be different enough in our likeness to him that we might get a taste of the opposition that he himself experience. So not only do we need the supernatural work of God, but the transformation but work effect sinners goes down very very deeply for the third thing that we can learn from the sermon on doctors but this difference that Jesus makes this transformation. Jesus marks. But if I can put it this way.

What he means when he says repent is something that is lifelong. Most of you know the story of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the door of the castle traction Wittenberg the first of those species was worse when our Lord Jesus said repent he-man but the whole of the Christian life should be repentance who heard somebody say well I I repented to note 20 years ago.

50 years ago 10 years ago. It's done and dusted know it's not done and dusted for Jesus. It is the whole of the Christian life, and I notice her fourth little application and it's this that this transformation the smoothness. This difference what is the Christian life takes place only when we find ourselves bowing down to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. I remember many years ago hearing a minister say if Christ is not Lord of all men, Christ is not Lord at all. And that's really the mass, the transformation of the whole of our lives so that we know what it is to live with kingdom life in a fallen by his grace. The message of the sermon on the mount really the message of the gospel is transformation. We are pleased to hear portions of Dr. Sinclair Ferguson series, the sermon on the mount this week.

Renewing Your Mind and glad you could be with her straggly web in 12 messages. Dr. Ferguson shows us how Jesus equips us to live a godly life in this fallen world. Let me commit this series to I think you'll find the format is perfect for small group Bible study or even personally school class.

We hope the series finds its way into your church library as well so call us to request this 12 part two DVD set when you give a donation of any amount to look in your ministries. You can reach us by phone at 800-435-4343 or you can make your request and give your give securely online at Renewing Your Mind that work in a Lincoln or ministries relies on the support of a special community of people who pray regularly for the ministry and also give a monthly gift of $25 or more. If you are a ministry partner listening today. Thank you from all of this year it will get here. If you're not a ministry partner but would consider becoming one. Please mention it while you're on the phone and will add you to this very special group of people. Thank you. As we heard today the sermon on the Mount is a rich treasure of instruction from Jesus himself tomorrow. Dr. Ferguson will walk you through a series of blessings known as the Beatitudes, and I hope you'll join us for that Tuesday here on Renewing Your Mind