The Kingdom Citizen and Humility: Sermon on the Mount Part 1

Welcome back to the podcast that is out of the caskey center. It is to win the mini podcast and this year this fall and spring semester. We want to do something a little bit different. What we want to do is have those conversations with various ministry leaders, incredible testimonies. We just want to have some conversations with folks that we think guys in our churches will be interested in hearing and being a part of. But we also want to take some time and just walk through the word. I am a preacher, those who know me know that I am a preacher. I teach preaching here at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and have been for longer than I thought I would be, but it is amazing the opportunity that I get to teach preaching and the opportunities that I have to preach. And I wanted to walk through a passage. Now part of this is always the goal of helping our pastors, helping those who are serving in our churches see and understand even more what we mean by expository preaching. But also there is this sense where I want to help those who are preaching through a series or preaching through a certain book or preaching through a passage. If you feel God or since God leading you to preach on the same passages that maybe I can help you in guiding and thinking about ways or avenues you can go when you study. So this academic year, we're going to journey through the Sermon amount. It is probably my favorite sermon series in terms of just continuous what we would call systematic exposition, meaning you're walking through an extended parickopy or you're walking through an extended passage of scripture, be it one Bible book or in this case three chapters. And you take it sequentially, you take it in order, you begin with verse one, you go all the way through the end of the chapter. And that's what I want us to do. I want us to walk through the Sermon on the Mount. I want you to be encouraged by the Sermon on the Mount. I want you to be challenged by the Sermon on the Mount. And I want you to also get a sense of what it looks like to walk through in systematic exposition, a particular passage. And the great thing about this is even if I do a terrible job, even if I preach it terribly, it is still the greatest sermon ever preached because it is the Sermon preached by none other than the the best preacher who ever did it. And that's Jesus himself. So we will begin with a little background on the Sermon on the Mount just so we can get a running start when we dive into what we understand to be the Beatitudes. I want you to think about the Sermon on the Mount as it is these Sermon that characterizes what it looks like to be a follower of Christ. It is the Sermon. It is the passage. These are the passages that help us understand what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of God. And in these Beatitudes, we see the distinguishing marks of a follower of God. We see the distinguishing marks of a follower who is a part of the kingdom of God. And we recognize early on that the kingdom life is the blessed life. The kingdom life is the blessed life. Now I want you to think about some of the most famous speeches. Some of the most famous speeches that we would say change the world. I mean, you could Luther's 95 thesis. It wasn't a speech. He was attempting to start a discussion about and with the Catholic Church. His goal was not necessarily to break away from the Catholic Church. That is certainly how it ended. But you think about when he posted that 95 or those 95 thesis on the castle door at Vittenburg, what an opportunity that would change the world. I think about the Magna Carta and how the Magna Carta changed the world in terms of individual rights in the kingdom. Think about the Declaration of Independence, the establishment of what we understand as freedom. The Gettysburg address. You have a nation who's been at war that's been tearing itself apart. In Abraham Lincoln delivers a speech that offers and would promote healing for a nation at war. You think about Martin Luther King's, I have a dream speech. There's a reason that that's one of the most famous speeches where there is this rejection of external factors as a priority for judging someone that we are to judge not based on external factors. We are to judge based on one's character. It's individual judgment and it's based on that individual's character. So there are reasons that these speeches or these writings have resonated and reverberated throughout history. They truly have changed the world. Well, there is no sermon. There is no speech that has had more of an impact on the world than the sermon on the mount. So I want us to take it in a sense, discourse by discourse or episode by episode, but we are taking it based on Matthew's approach as one discourse rather than a collection. Now, we're going to divide it up or we'd be here for a really long time, but we're going to take it as one discourse, not a collection, but we're going to break that into multiple sermons, multiple Bible studies, multiple episodes for our purposes. So we begin just in understanding the proper interpretation of the sermon on the mount. And that might shock you and say, "Well, what do you mean proper interpretation?" And forgive me for a little background work. This is not typical. If I are when I'm preaching through the sermon on the mount, I don't overwhelm the listeners with a whole lot of background study. I want them to understand how to understand the sermon on the mount, how to interpret it, but my goal is not to teach a class on the background of the sermon on the mount. But for our purposes, and because of a podcast, and we can break it into multiple episodes, I think that it's helpful for us to think through the interpretation. Now, to help us with that, one of the helpful tools that we have for properly interpreting the sermon on the mount is just comparison. We can look at how it has been interpreted throughout history. For example, Aquinas taught that the sermon on the mount did not apply to every believer. He saw two levels in the sermon on the mount. One was stricter than the other. And this was seen in the clergy, and this was seen in the monastic orders of the medieval church, that there were two levels. There was an expectation that was higher for some than for others. Martin Luther, he interpreted the sermon on the mount to be the quote unquote school master or tutor or servant that's referenced in Galatians chapter three verses 23 through 26. This was the law leading people to grace, meaning or translation. He saw the sermon on the mount as putting before the viewer, the listener, the reader as something that was impossible for them to live up to. Therefore, they needed Christ because they couldn't live up to the law that is articulated and laid out for us in the sermon on the mount through Jesus. Now, in a Baptist, they interpreted it very differently. They interpreted it, interpreted it in the radical way of retreating from the world, which means they are not involved in politics. They don't take oaths, which, by the way, comes from the sermon on the mount. They're not involved in politics. They don't take oaths and they become pacifists. Now, as we walk through the sermon on the mount, we'll be reminded of why they don't take oaths and why they would believe pacifism is the right approach. So how are we to understand this? Well, we understand this in light of the kingdom. The kingdom is the area or realm over which the king rules. That's a basic and general definition. I prefer my definitions to be simple and to the point, to be helpful. So a kingdom is an area or a realm over which a king rules. And Jesus is describing the kingdom life. He's describing life in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven, as I said in him, the kingdom of God is the place where God rules. It is the place under which is the rule and the reign of God, or God is ruling and reigning over this particular sphere. So it is the rule and the reign of God. Again, a very simple understanding, a very hopefully clear understanding of what we mean by the kingdom of God. It is the rule and the reign of God. And the kingdom of God was Jesus' central message. You can see this in Matthew 4 verse 23. Now, when Jesus in Matthew 5 verse 1, it says he sees the crowds and he went up on a mountain side and he sat down. And his disciples came to him and he began to teach them. When it says there in verse 1, he went up on the mountain. It is an exact parallel to the Septuagint rendering of Moses going up the mountain in Exodus chapter 19. And rabbinic tradition expected the Messiah to remind people of Moses. So when Jesus goes up on the mountain and takes his seat as the rabbi who is teaching, there is this sense where the people are thinking, oh, wow, this seems familiar. This seems familiar. And it says that he opens his mouth, which is a Hebrew idiom for the announcement of an authoritative teaching. So you read verse 1 and you recognize this is the king beginning to explain what it's like to be a part of his kingdom. He is one that reminds them of Moses, which means there is a messianic sense to what he's doing. opens his mouth, which means he's about to teach and preach with authority, which is, by the way, how it ends in Matthew 7, that they were astounded and amazed at his authoritative teaching. Now, when we think about this and we go back and consider the nation or the people that would comprise Israel, while God ruled over the whole earth. I think we would recognize that. The Psalmist would say that. God ruled, God rules over the whole earth. When you go back to the Old Testament, he ruled in a special kind of way over the nation of Israel. However, his rule was only partial. His rule was imperfect, and we see that in their constant rebelling against his rule. And the prophets longed for the day when God's rule would be more fully realized by the whole world. They looked forward to the day when God would visit his people as the God who comes. And understanding that when he comes, he will bring redemption to the world. Well, in Jesus, what we are seeing is the God who comes. He would put it another way. In Matthew 1 verse 23, he is Emmanuel. God with us. Jesus has come and his coming is inaugurating the kingdom of God. And Jesus exercised authority wherever he went. Until he, in a sense, caged it for the cross. He cages his authority for the cross in Matthew 12 verses 28. We see him casting out demons. When he's casting out demons, he announces that the kingdom of God has come. When we put our faith in Jesus, we become citizens of the kingdom of God. We become followers of Jesus. And we are to live as citizens, meaning we are to live under God's authority. And the kingdom is in us. The kingdom is in us. It resides in us. And while this kingdom has been initiated, it's been initiated in the world. It's been initiated in us. It's been initiated through us. The kingdom has not yet been fulfilled. It's not been completed. We see the first fruits, but we don't see the full harvest. Well, the sermon on the Mount describes every follower of Jesus who's a part of his kingdom. And it's showing us what the kingdom citizen should look like. We notice this when it says the crowds. The crowds, the crowds are gathered there at the mountainside and he sees the crowds. So he goes up and he sits down and he begins to teach them. And the crowds are reflecting the crowds of chapter four, verse 25 and chapter seven, verse 28. And these crowds were, as it says, they were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law. Jesus, various circle of listeners at this point, you have the 12 disciples, you have other followers, you have those on the fringes, you have the religious leaders. And this sermon presented the portrait for all of them of what a follower of Jesus should look like. So the life described in the sermon on the Mount describes the kingdom follower. The sermon on the Mount drives the person to the understanding that the type of person described in the sermon on the Mount is also not natural, meaning not of this world. We're of a different kingdom. It's unnatural because it's spiritual. It's a spiritual kingdom. It's a spiritual rule and reign. We cannot manufacture these qualities. Matter of fact, we see the impossibility of living out these righteous demands. We see the righteous standards of a holy God and we are driven to the Savior, the only one who could fulfill the requirements of the law. We are driven to him for our salvation. We are saved and we respond to the kingdom offer of Jesus. We respond to that by following Jesus and approaching life the way the king would have us live, which is the life portrayed in the sermon on the Mount. This is a very unique kind of life. Truly, those who live according to the rule of God look completely different from those living according to the kingdom of the world. And I need to reiterate that. Those who live according to the standards of the kingdom of God look completely different from those living according to the standards of the kingdom of this world. We are to be different. So as we walk through the sermon on the Mount throughout this academic year, we will look at the ways in which our lives should be different than the lives of those under the kingdom of the world. And Jesus is very explicit. He's very clear on how our lives should look different. And the sermon begins by laying out the character of the follower and then follows with the conduct of the follower. So the Beatitudes give us this sense of, this is the inner disposition. This is the character of the follower of Jesus. Followed by, hey, this is what it looks like, lived out in the real world. So what are the character traits? What are these traits that show how we differ from those in the kingdom of the world? It's interesting if I could use an illustration, think of the NFL draft. There are characteristics within the NFL draft that are important. The game has changed so much. It's gone from a run-dominated league where if you had the best running back and you had a decent offensive line or if you had the best offensive line and a decent running back, but if you could run the ball, typically you were going to win the game. Now it's spread out, it's fast-moving. It's a very different kind of game. The game changes. So in the NFL draft, when they're considering the quarterback, the characteristics that are most important change, they've changed over time. You no longer need the six foot five or six foot six guy who's going to stand in a pocket and can fling the ball 60 yards down field. You don't need that guy because the game has changed. Well, the game hasn't changed for us as believers. We are to follow the king. In the midst of a changing world and in the midst of a changing culture, the expectations for kingdom followers, it has not changed. The expectations, they will not change. The sermon on the mount is still appropriate for us today and we need to recognize what God is calling us to do and who God is calling us to be. Now with the remaining time, we start here with the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes, the word comes from the Latin word which simply means blessing and we often see that reflected in the translation. Blessed are, that's typically how it starts, blessed are. And when we think of that word, sadly, because of the health, wealth movement and the name, it claim it movement, the word blessed has been hijacked. Now, when we think about blessing, some translations say happy and while I understand it and it does mean happy, it means so much more than happy. And everybody wants to be happy and God wants more force than simple happiness because happiness is fleeting. Happiness depends on temporary circumstances, it depends on the events of our life, it depends on the experiences. Blessing and the blessed life is so much more than that which is fleeting and temporary. The person who is blessed is the person living in a right relationship with God. It's a person that's living close to God. It's a person who is experiencing truly the divine favor of God, not in the sense of money and stuff but in the sense of God moving in their life, God drawing them closer to Him in this relationship. Their prayers are being answered, not because they're praying selfishly but because they're praying for things in accordance with not our will but done be done. It's like a child experiencing the favor of their parent not because they're a spoiled brat or because the parent is making them a spoiled brat. It's because the child is an alignment with the parent's desires for the child. So the circle of the mount is the blessed life because we are aligning ourselves with God. We are demonstrating our love through obedience and as we demonstrate our love through obedience lo and behold, we are blessed because God is blessing us with a greater sense of who He is and what He's about in our lives. Well, the formula for the Beatitudes is consistent. The formula is blessed is followed by the character of the blessed person, followed by the condition of their reward. These characteristics should mark every single believer. These are not, I repeat, these are not natural dispositions. These are qualities that are consistent in people who have been spiritually transformed. If you want the characteristics of the Beatitudes you must be born again. If you want the characteristics of the Beatitudes you must be a spiritual person, person having had the deposit that is the Holy Spirit placed within you. Now we move to what I would say is that sort of foundational Beatitude. You can see it reflected in verse three, blessed. are the poor in spirit. And I say blessed in my normal vernacular, I have never in my life said blessed. So as you hear me say blessed, there's just normal for me, blessed. That's how I talk, that's how most people talk. Blessed are the poor in spirit. All right, so we have blessed, then we have the condition there, the character, which is poor in spirit, and then we have the condition of their reward, right? There's is the kingdom of heaven. For our purposes, I wanna combine versus three, and versus five, or the be attitude that is in verse three, and the be attitude that is in verse five. I wanna put these together and just give us that inner disposition, that characteristic. That way we can better understand, I think, the be attitudes for the purpose of application. So verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit. Verse five, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. So blessed are the poor in spirit, for there's the kingdom of heaven, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Now, I would put these together, and I would say the characteristic, or the character of this person, is they are appropriately humble. They are appropriately humble. That's the call, that's the commission, appropriately humble. It doesn't mean one who lacks the spirit, meaning poor in spirit, it doesn't mean one who lacks the spirit, it's an idiom. So figure of speech, best rendered as being poor in spirit, meaning your humble, and your humble with regard to your own capacities. Humility is not falsely putting oneself down, it is not self-deprecation, it is having a firm and solid grasp on who we are and who we're not. In particular, it's humility in relation to God. There is a humble dependence upon God. So one would translate this, or one has translated this, blessed are those who recognize their need for God. Those who recognize their need for God, by the way, they act differently, don't they? They act differently than those who don't recognize their need for God. Isaiah 662 says, "This is the one I esteem. He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word." Poor in spirit connotes a sense of personal inadequacy, to be poor in spirit is to rely on God within the spirit, rather than relying on visible means of support, walking by faith, not by sight. And there are related words that show the serious nature of this word. You can see one in the story of the rich man in Lazarus, which is found in Luke chapter 16. The word used of Lazarus is the same word. He is destitute, he is a beggar, same word that you used here. It's a word that notes the condition of being in serious financial need. You are without, you are a needy beggar. So we are needy for God. It's not about money, it's about God. We are desperate for God. And the opposite of this is pride, which Proverbs 8, 13, God says, "I hate pride and arrogance." It's being impressed with oneself. The opposite of humility, being impressed with oneself, prizing oneself, prioritizing oneself, working and maneuvering to always protect oneself. That's the opposite of humility. That is pride, that is arrogance. Or warning others to be impressed with you. Warning others to prize you. Warning others to prioritize you. Or warning others to always act in a way that protects you. The opposite of humility, which is pride, is an inflated view of self. And always an inflated view of self causes a deflated view of God. C.S. Lewis said, "The essential vice, the utmost evil is pride." Unchastity, greed, drunkenness, and all that are mere flea bites in comparison. It was through pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-god state of mind. Well, Lewis had a way with words, didn't he? He went on to say, "If you think you're not conceded, it means you are very conceded indeed." I guess the question for application that we could take heed to applaud our lives today. Do we recognize on a daily, emphasis on daily? Do we recognize on a daily basis that we are desperate for God? Do we recognize on a daily basis our need for God in our life? Now, you combine this sense of humility with verse five's picture of meekness. And we also see this stated about Jesus in Matthew 11. He says, "I am gentle and humble in heart. There's this meekness, this mountainous." And since the Hebrew relates primarily to this social position of a servant or inferior, meaning this meekness is usually left to servants or inferior. Obviously, that was not the intent talking about God. Jesus is not inferior, but Jesus did function as Philippians two reminds us as a servant. He had the title, he had the power, he had the position. However, he functioned not as the position of king and God necessarily how we would understand that. No, he came to serve and he functioned as a servant. Now, if anyone ever had the right and the opportunity to lord his position over people, it was certainly Jesus. But what we see is we see Jesus, we see him doing in the washing of the feet, the most menial task, getting on his knees and picking up the towel. But also what we see in Jesus is not him staying on his knees and washing the feet of the disciples and praise God. He didn't just stay there, but we see him going to the garden of Gethsemane, we see him going to the cross. And we see him offering himself for people. In the best possible service we could ever imagine and could ever hope for Jesus serves us by dying for us, subordinating in a sense all of the power and the authority that he could have unleashed in that moment. And he willingly offers himself so that we might know him and walk with him. That is the picture of meekness. Some have used the powerful description of a thoroughbred horse. If you've ever been on a thoroughbred horse, it is an amazing experience. You know when you're on top of this animal that you're not really in control. You recognize when you're on top of this animal that he could do whatever he wants to do in that moment. However, oddly enough, because you have two leather straps running to a bit in his mouth, you are controlling this powerful animal. It's power under control. God was the epitome of that in the person and through the work of Jesus, power under control. For believers in Jesus, the kingdom life is not a life where we're just walking around with weakness, where we're pitiful, where we're constant victims. No, no, we are the victorious ones. And we have the power of God in our life. We have the power of God flowing through us, but it's a power under which we are controlled. We are under the control of this power and the power is the power of God in our life. We're under His control because what we do, what He says, we live how we want us to live. So the meek person, the mild person, is not this weak and pitiful person. No, it is the one who is victorious in Jesus who is constantly subordinating himself or herself and yielding to the leadership of God. We are saying, not our will, but yours be done, God. In my life, I want to follow you. You are the king and I am your subject. So willingly submit myself to you because I need you, I'm desperate for you. I need you in my life to rule and to reign in a surrender to your rule in your reign, each day and every day. This semester, this academic year, as we walk through the terminal amount, I challenge you to begin to think about your life and just ask these questions, am I appropriately humble? If people look at me and watch me, would they see the marks of a follower of Jesus? Do I look different than my unbelieving or lost neighbor? Do I act differently? And again, today we would ask, are we appropriately humble before the Lord? We need God. We need God. We need God today and we need God every day. Remember that and walk in light of that. This is the one I esteem. He who is humble and contrite in spirit, is what God says. as an Isaiah 66, the one who trembles at my word. As we walk through this hermeral amount, may we tremble at his word. And may we be humble and contrite because of the work of God in our life. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]