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Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 7:13-29
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Jeremy here. We'll get to the sermon cast in just a second. But first, we wanted to give you a quick introduction to a new podcast that we'll be releasing on the Commons Podcast Network this week. This is Between Sundays.
Speaker 2:From Commons Church and the Commons Podcast Network, this is Between Sundays, a conversation we're setting out to have about finding the sacred in the everyday. I'll be your host, Bobby Cycle. For years and years, I have been a fan of podcasts. The voices that come through podcasts have felt like the voices of friends. The stories that are conveyed have expanded my imagination.
Speaker 2:The reflections I've gathered have added so much wisdom, delight, and pure joy to my life. So guess what, you guys? I'm finally doing it. I'm bringing together some of the great loves of my life. Podcasts, conversations, explorations of the divine.
Speaker 2:Along with my friend, Don Petkow, we've recorded conversations with people from the commons community and beyond to explore in this first season, The Creative Urge. You can look for new episodes every other week for the next couple of months. So welcome to Between Sundays.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Welcome today.
Speaker 1:My name is Jeremy, and I had the privilege of helping to lead our team here at Commons. And we really do appreciate you come and worship with us on a weekend. Thanks for being here with us. We don't take that for granted. But particularly today, thank you for participating in our in seat survey.
Speaker 1:I know it's a small thing, but it really does help us to hear from the community on a regular basis that we do our around here, but at the same time, we know that we always have lots to learn, and we always wanna hear your feedback and contribution to what's happening. We are a congregational church, and that means that the community is the church. So we have a board, and we have myself, and we have this amazing staff team, but ultimately this community is and will become whatever we choose for it together. And so things like our annual general meeting are important, but in seat surveys are one small part of that ongoing conversation. However, that said, today we are gonna finish off our series on the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1:I hope that you've enjoyed this one as much as I have. I really have had a lot of fun revisiting some of these passages that often seem very familiar. But my hope is that in going back and taking Jesus at his word on his terms that we can actually come out of this surprised by what he has to say to us. However, today we wrap up the sermon on the mount. Last week, we were talking about asking, seeking, knocking, and I was able to expand on some of those ideas from last Sunday on our YouTube channel this week.
Speaker 1:You can check that out if you're interested in it. But we have a lot of ground to cover today, so we are gonna pray, and then we are gonna jump straight in. God of all blessings, who comes to us, who finds us, who loves us, who welcomes us exactly as we are, might we turn toward your invitation today. Might the words of your son sink deep into our hearts. Might they become more than advice to us, but instead an invitation to real life right now here in the world.
Speaker 1:For those of us carrying hurt and pain and disappointment and shame, Would you help us lay it all down today? May this room be the space where we begin to leave it all behind for good. Right? We sense only your love, your healing, your grace in this moment. As your spirit surrounds us, fills us, becomes us.
Speaker 1:May we be forever altered by your presence. And may we begin down a new path with you today. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Alright.
Speaker 1:We are about to get to Jesus' big climax today. But to do that well and to make sense of it properly, we need to quickly gather up where we've been so far in this series. Because way back at the start of Matthew five, Jesus stands before a crowd drawn from the Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and the region across the Jordan. In other words, a motley crew of rural Jews and religious elites and foreign oppressors and Roman day laborers. And he begins to that group by saying, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 1:Now, we touched on a few of these beatitudes as they're known during the first sermon in this series, and we talked about all of them in some of the supplemental material available on our podcast and our YouTube channel, but the key here is understanding that none of this is anything ever to live up to. This is Jesus declaring the goodness of God to us, Promising the goodness of God come near to us. To the riffraff like the rest of us, Jesus says, you are blessed exactly as you are because God has come to find you. And the thing is, if we don't get this from the get go, then everything that follows will be slightly out of focus for us. Because everything Jesus wants to say here, everything in this sermon is predicated on this good news.
Speaker 1:God is with you. God is for you. God is cheering you on and wants your best because God is always on your side. And the blessings that begin this sermon are not the throwaway, win over the audience filler material. This is actually the content of Jesus' message.
Speaker 1:It's everything else that's exposition. And so from there, Jesus goes on to say, you are the salt of the ground beneath you. You are the light of the cosmos above you. You are loved and you are welcomed and you are meant to change the world for the better. However, in order to do that, you will need to understand the story that you are a part of.
Speaker 1:And for Jesus, that means coming to understand the law so well that the rules and the guidelines and the religious protocol that surrounds you can become what serves you rather than the other way around. For Jesus, rules that shape you and guide you and keep you safe, these are good. But when the rules begin to constrict and suffocate and steal the life from you, when rules stop you from being kind and loving and Jesus like, then they have come to rule over you. And so Jesus says, I have come not to abolish the law but to fill it up. To move it from words on a page that master you to a way of being in the world that you can begin to master.
Speaker 1:And to do that, he begins by teaching us how to pray, how to align ourselves and our imagination with God's. He reminds us not to let worry steal our moments from us, to trust and believe that God really does have our best interest at heart. He teaches us how to judge each other well, not just to ignore each other, but to help each other with the best interests of each other in mind always. He links our connection to God back to our neighbor. He takes our ask and he turned that into an posture of open handed welcome for those left on the outside.
Speaker 1:And then he says, enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few will find it. Watch out for false prophets. They will come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are as ferocious as wolves.
Speaker 1:By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? No. Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree bears bad fruit. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 1:Only those who do the will of my father who is in heaven. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who has built his house on the rock. The rain came down and the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. Rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
Speaker 1:And then the writer of the gospel adds, when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had authority, not as their teachers of the law. That is Matthew seven thirteen with portions through to the end of the chapter. Now, clearly, there's a bit of a shift in tone here as Jesus brings this all to a climax. And so today, we need to talk about apparent versus actual hidden ways, our yes and our no, and the power of resiliency. But today, let's start at the very end.
Speaker 1:Because the writer of Matthew here says that the crowds were amazed at Jesus' teaching for he taught as one with authority, not as their teachers of the law, Now the reason I wanna talk about this is because those two words, and are an interesting pairing here. Grammatis is the single word that's translated teachers of the law in the NIV. Sometimes it will be rendered scribes in your bible, but what it refers to is the religious authority. Now, means power or dynamism or authority, but it seems to me that the writer here has chosen these two words purposefully. Because this contrast here is central to the sermon on the mount itself.
Speaker 1:That real authority comes not from titles and positions and power and privilege, but from the content of our lives as we share them with each other. This week, there was an election. Some of us are still struggling to figure out what happened there, but on Monday, when I picked my son up from school, he said to me, dad, did you know there was an election today? And do you know how people voted? And I said, not yet.
Speaker 1:And he said, well, do you know who I hope people voted for? I thought, oh, okay. Let's see. He said, I hope people voted for whoever mom voted for because she's the wisest person in our family. Alright.
Speaker 1:And he paused and he said, except on Fridays, then it's you. And then he paused again and he said, actually, it's me. Now, this is an ongoing joke in our house that mom is always right except on Fridays. That's my time to shine. But as amusing as this is, there's actually something really profound here.
Speaker 1:That the authority for my son is not the one who can make the best argument, not the one with the most on offer, not the one that appeals to his inherent bias. The authority for my son is the one who has already demonstrated her wisdom and commitment to him already. Now, at Commons, we talk about this using the language of a parent and actual authority. Parent authority is the person with the title or the position. So my apparent authority is bound up in the fact that I have a job as the lead pastor of this church.
Speaker 1:Around here, that doesn't really account for much. What matters is actual authority. Actual authority is the kind that is hard won. It's earned through commitment and relationship. It's demonstrated through trustworthiness.
Speaker 1:It's the kind that never assumes that anyone ever has to buy into it. It's the kind that gets up every morning ready to earn it all over again. And I am fascinated by the fact that the divine would choose the path of greatest resistance when it comes to God's authority in the world. That when God wanted to speak to humanity, God choice chose the voice of one without any apparent authority. Like, no credentials, no privilege, without any of the assumptions of clout that come with certain markers that we cling to.
Speaker 1:In other words, God earned the right to speak to us. And that in itself is a remarkable statement about where God thinks authority comes from in the universe. There are all kinds of theologies that in the end seem to come down to God is bigger than you and God is more powerful than you and God will do terrible things to you unless you submit. Therefore, you should worship God because God demands it. And yet to me, that seems inherently opposed to the God who would come to us in Jesus devoid of privilege, absent of power, and then work incredibly hard to earn our trust through the demonstration of love in his words and his actions and his commitment to us to the point of the cross.
Speaker 1:And if the idea of God working hard to earn your trust sounds strange to you, I have to say I'm not sure you understand the lengths that God has gone or the love that God has shown or the way that authority actually works in the mind of God. Because fear can force you to do all manner of things, but it will never be generative in the way that Jesus imagines our relationship to the divine. And, when Jesus' words, earn the right to be authoritative in you, I promise you fear will never be the motivation that moves you through the world. And that is the difference between the exousia of Jesus that you feel somewhere in your bones and the insecurity of religious leaders that demand you pay them attention. One is worth your time, the other is not.
Speaker 1:However, if that's the case, then what do we do with Jesus' words to us today? Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few will find it. Now, we read the entire section earlier, and we are gonna work our way through all of it in the time we have left, I promise. But this last section, Jesus gives us here three roughly similar ideas built on three different images.
Speaker 1:A narrow gate, a tree with good fruit, and the house built on solid ground. So let's take them in turn because this is essentially Jesus' pitch that we take seriously everything he has taught so far. And that is actually really important because here Jesus is not so much introducing new ideas as much as Jesus is reinforcing how important everything we've already talked about is. And sometimes what happens is we hear language like broad the road that leads to destruction and all of a sudden we start to think that Jesus has turned on us. That's not really the case.
Speaker 1:Jesus is always for us, always on our side. Remember, Jesus begins this sermon with the declaration that you are blessed exactly as you are because God has come to you. But Jesus also seems to recognize that if you refuse that coming, if we ignore that blessing, if we continue on the road that we have already been on, a road that is shaped by religious rules and hard lines, that road characterized by insiders and outsiders and judgment and worry and competition, then we will eventually find ourselves at a dead end. And this is really my frustration with the use of words like destruction here for apoleum. Now apoleum in the Greek is a noun.
Speaker 1:It's not a verb. It means destruction or rubble or ruin or spoilage or waste. And the problem for me is that destruction in English seems to imply a destroyer. Now, doesn't have to. Right?
Speaker 1:Which is why it's not a wrong translation. I just don't think it's a very good one. Because it's quite clear here that the destruction Jesus speaks of is not something that God does to us. It's what's at the end of the road we choose. Or maybe better yet, it's at the end of the road we don't choose.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting for me because if we back up and we sort of take the entire sermon here at a metanarrative level, Jesus seems to be telling a story that goes something like this. You are blessed because God has come near to you, offering you a new way to move through the world and that new way looks like me. And I will gladly let you in on everything I know because all who seek will eventually find. But the truth is this way, my way, well this way is very easy to miss. And many don't even bother to look for it.
Speaker 1:And that is really a shame. You see, rather than punishment or retribution, the thrust of this narrow road, wide road image for me seems to be the offer of an alternative to the default. In other words, Jesus isn't threatening destruction for anyone. He's offering more than what you already have. How many of you come up from the South to get to church and you cross over the river on Crow Child to get here in the morning?
Speaker 1:And you drive through that mess of construction as the city rebuilds an overpass on the fly. You know what I'm talking about? Well, if you have driven through that, or especially if you do regularly, then you know that the lanes are constantly shifting every day for a couple of months now, and how you navigated that overpass a week ago means nothing for how you do it today. If nothing else, it will keep you on your toes. But that is not our normal experience with wide roads, is it?
Speaker 1:How many times have you gone to the mountains on Highway 1 and you lost yourself to cruise control, and you're following along with all the cars in all the lanes driving all at the same speed in the same direction, and you've been lulled into missing your exit. That to me seems more like what Jesus is talking about here. That wide comfortable road that will gladly take you all the way to Destruction and or Kamloops if you're not paying attention. It's kind of the same thing. This is Jesus saying, he is for you.
Speaker 1:God is for you. They are with you. And no matter what you choose, none of that will ever change. But everything that you are offered exists on the other side of realizing that the path you're on isn't taking you where you want to go. And think about all the things that Jesus has already talked about in this sermon.
Speaker 1:All those counterintuitive positions he's taught us. More stuff won't make you less anxious. More admiration may make you more satisfied. More rule following won't make you more righteous. More opinions won't make you more respected.
Speaker 1:In fact, all the things you've always been taught to believe about how the world works, they are far less reliable than you think they are. The exit ramp is always there. If you're looking for it, you will find it, but the power of the ramp is that you have to choose it for yourself. You see, in this scenario, life and ruin are not the things God does to us. They are the choice that Jesus is placing before us.
Speaker 1:There is a life that lives and breathes and moves to the world with grace and peace. A life that aligns itself with divine purpose. A life that embraces our inherent dependence on God and on each other. It breathes in full lungs ready to come alive in any given moment. Or there is a life that slinks back into the greed and despair, the selflessness and worry that comes so easily to us.
Speaker 1:A life that chooses to find its home with all the things that will one day pass away and be forgotten. And God will love you regardless of what you choose, but life is like one highway that's easy to stay on and hard to enjoy. Or it can be like an off ramp that you have to be paying attention for, but once you notice it, it will take you somewhere incredible. And this first image is Jesus saying, please, for the love of God, get off the highway. It's not going where you think it is.
Speaker 1:That's great. But what happens when we actually choose the off ramp? Here's where we get the second image, a tree with good fruit. Now, the language here again is quite pointed. Jesus introduces the second image by saying, watch out for false prophets.
Speaker 1:They will come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they will be as ferocious as wolves. By your fruit, you will recognize them. And the idea here is that even once you choose a new path in the world, next you will need to decide who you pay attention to along the way. Now, wanna get to something here, but first let me say this. The measure of a person is not their sound bites.
Speaker 1:It is the fruit of their life. And there is a place for writers and celebrities and famous preachers and bible teachers. I have a lot of people that I look up to and I learn a lot from at arm's length. But the people who I allow to really influence me are only ever the people that I have enough access to to see up close. Now everyone can't be my best friend and not everyone has the time to mentor me.
Speaker 1:I get that. But if I don't have a sense of the fruit of someone's life up close and personal, off the stage, and away from the lights, their influence over me will always be limited, and I'm okay with that. There's still lots that I can learn from anyone, but the fruit of someone's life will always overrule the eloquence of their words. However, there is another way to think about this here. There is a default wide path in the world that will suck you along and drag you with it if you're not paying attention.
Speaker 1:And then there is a life giving side road hidden in the bushes just out of you. It's there for anyone to find, but you just have to look for it. But with any yes, there will come a thousand nos. And this is really what this second image is about for me. Once you get off the wide road that comes naturally, once you discover this new breath within you, there will always be all kinds of voices that want you to get back on the highway.
Speaker 1:Hear me here. The life of Christ is never about your no. You can never follow Jesus through what you don't do. The idea of following is inherently about moving forward. Every yes in your life requires a no.
Speaker 1:So there's lots of things I'm fascinated by. There's lots of things that I want to learn about, but choosing to be a good theologian means not studying other things as deeply as I might have liked. Saying yes to my wife means saying no to other relationships. Saying yes to my son and my family means, at least for now, saying no to speaking anywhere outside of here at Commons. Saying yes to Pearl Jam means saying no to creed.
Speaker 1:And that's a joke from the nineties for anyone in the room who's over 25. But, your life can't be driven by a no. It's not healthy. It's not life giving. It won't provide you with the energy to achieve what you were meant to in the world, but everything you say yes to will require a no somewhere on the other side.
Speaker 1:And when you say yes to the way of Jesus, there will always be voices in your life that want to drag you back into the pursuit of ruin, and you will have to say no. And that's okay. Because there are voices and there are choices that do not deserve to come with you as you grow as a human being. And the sooner you can make peace with that, the sooner you can get on with the work that is ahead of you right now. That brings us to the final image in this sermon.
Speaker 1:Jesus says that everyone who hears these words and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, the wind blew, and it beat against that house, but it did not fall because its foundation was firm. And the end of this series, this is the image we need to hold on to as we leave this and move on to new ideas next week. That over the past eight weeks, Jesus has welcomed us into a new imagination of the story of God. He has taught us about the life that we were meant for.
Speaker 1:Jesus has opened our eyes to glimpse the path on the other side of the road, that glinting gate that we might have otherwise missed. The choice to build a life on these words will still always be ours. And whether we embrace that, ignore that, stutter step around that, or false start with it, Jesus will still always be for us. God will always welcome us and we will always be blessed because that invitation remains with us forever. But what Jesus is talking about here in this final image of his sermon is resiliency.
Speaker 1:Once we choose the hidden path and there's a yes and a thousand nos that come with it, then there is still the continued decision to move in the direction regardless of what life throws at us. Because for me, the hard beauty of this final image is that regardless of where you choose to build your life, the storm still comes and the winds still rise and the water still flows and life still happens to you. Jesus has never believed in the way of escape. He has only ever imagined a way of life that have enough resiliency to continue towards the people we were meant to become regardless of what happens to us. Because despite the wide roads that want to draw us back and the bad storms that batter us and the difficult moments and the terrible heartache that comes.
Speaker 1:For Jesus, alongside all of that, often hidden off to the side just out of view, there is still grace and peace. And joy and celebration and goodness and generosity and sunlight and sand and stars and beauty and people who choose to pick each other up and dust each other off and carry each other forward regardless because slowly we begin to believe what God believes about us. And so when all is said and done, the image that Jesus chooses to land his sermon on is not a fairy tale where everything goes well. It is the image of a life convinced of God's goodness and therefore resilient enough to hold on to that goodness whatever may come. And that is a way that is worth following.
Speaker 1:So may you notice the path that is just outside of your view today. May the yes that animates you and gives you life be supported by whatever knows it needs to thrive in the world. May the way of Jesus take root within you so that resiliency becomes your story in the world. And may Jesus' words to you today become more than good advice. But may they truly shape your way in the world this week.
Speaker 1:Let's pray. Jesus, we hear your words, we take them in, we sift them, and we hope that they will land somewhere deep in our soul. Might you help us to recognize everything that is on offer here. The ability to glimpse a gate just off the side of the road, just out of view, a path that will take us somewhere we've never imagined before. I recognize that the road that we are on as a default, everything that we're taught to pursue in this world, money and power and privilege and everything we think that will make us happy, is actually leading us to ruin.
Speaker 1:And it is grace and peace and generosity and goodness and dependence on each other and willingness to carry each other that will actually fill our lungs with life. Begin in us the process that will build a life, that will remain strong enough to deal with whatever may come. May your grace take root in us. May we follow your path in the world and may that lead us into everything we were meant to become. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Alright. The sermon on the mount. Hopefully, you enjoyed it. Next week, we're gonna begin a new series called making room where we look at hospitality.
Speaker 1:And this week, we are dropping a brand new podcast called Between Sundays. Bobby has been interviewing people in and through the community about the amazing things that they are doing. It's gonna be really cool. Check our Facebook or website for the links there. You can catch the first episode on Wednesday.
Speaker 1:But we will end as we always do with this. Love God, love people, tell the story.