The Sermon on the Mount
Adult Class-Spring 2004
When Jesus appeared and began to teach, His words resonated with the assembled
crowds. The people came to Him and He taught them things they had not heard, but
which they knew to be true. The centerpiece of His message was the cleansing and
reordering of the heart.
Our lives proceed from our hearts. This is taught in the Bible again and again:
- Genesis 6:5 ". . . every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil all the time."
- Exodus 7:13 "Yet Pharaoh's heart became hard . . ."
- 1 Samuel 16:7 ". . . but the Lord looks at the heart."
- 1 Kings 3:9 "Give your servant a discerning heart . . ."
- Nehemiah 4:6 ". . . the people worked with all their heart."
- Psalm 14:6 "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."
- Luke 6:45 "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his
heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his
heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."
- Acts 8:21 ". . . your heart is not right before God."
- Ephesians 6:6 ". . . doing the will of God from your heart."
The heart is the "executive center" of human life. That is where our choices are
made whether we will do good or evil.
The astonishing thing about our lives is that all our benchmarks of success are
material in nature (how much money we make, the kind of car we drive, the latest
and greatest gadget, the expense and fashion of our clothes), but all our
challenges are spiritual in nature-and everybody knows it. The songs we sing,
the movies we see, the books we read-none of them are about money, clothes, cars
and gadgets. They are about the great spiritual crises and battles: love and its
outworking, the struggle between good and evil, the implications of our choices,
and other spiritual struggles. It is the spirit that animates our bodies and it
is the only thing that matters!
The Bible provides wisdom for life that directly governs the formation of our
hearts-what we might call spiritual formation. The greatest need we have is the
formation of a right heart within us. This is the Holy Spirit's task of
transformation that goes on as we live in harmony with Christ (2 Corinthians
3:18). Our problem is that our hearts have already been formed, usually by the
forces of the world. We need to have our hearts "reformed" by the power of
Christ, nurtured and directed God-ward (Galatians 4:19).
The writer T.S. Eliot is quoted as pointing out the current human endeavor is to
find a system of order so perfect that we will not have to be good. But of
course, many systems will work fine if we are good, and none will work at all if
we are not good! The Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville observed about this nation,
"America is great because she is good. If she ceases to be good, she will no
longer be great." The attempt to have a good life without being a good person is
an age-old pursuit-and a futile one. That's why Jesus brought a revolution of
character. Instead of bringing a new law to govern our outward behavior, a new
system of order, He brought grace and truth (John 1:17).
So, instead of doing the same old thing by applying new precepts, we need to
change our focus and deal with the condition of our hearts and not just our
outward behavior. We will never achieve right hearts before God by imposing new
restrictions, laws, regulations and commands. Jesus did not come to replace the
Law of Moses with a new system of ordinances. He came to fulfill the Law
(Matthew 5:17) and to bring about its fulfillment in us. Only when our hearts
are made right in the sight of God can our righteousness exceed that of the
Pharisees and the teachers of the law (Matthew 5:20). Then our deeds will
proceed from the character formed within us and the good tree will bring forth
its good fruit (Matthew 7:18).
A common business axiom is, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main
thing." It is amazingly easy for us to be distracted from our central focus
while attending to important, but peripheral, details. The "main thing" in
Christianity is not worship styles or traditions or even baptism. Those may all
be important, but the main thing is to be conformed to the image of Christ
(Colossians 1:27). We must keep the main thing the main thing. That change will
only happen from the heart outward, it cannot be forced from the outside until
it penetrates the heart.
When Jesus began teaching, He brought about a revolution of character. His
kingdom truly is not "of this world," since the kingdoms of this world seek only
right behavior. Jesus' words called for a renovation of the heart. On the basis
of our faith in Him, we turn control of our lives over to His will. When we
learn from Him and learn to think like Him and learn to want what He wants and
see the powerful truth contained in His teachings, our character will be
reformed to reflect His. From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus made it clear
that His message is more than ordinary and that it will require dedicated
application. But what He offers is nothing less than a radical reordering of our
hearts that will make us to be like Him from our centers.
That's what the Sermon on the Mount is about.
Discussion Questions:
1. How does our culture betray its spiritual bankruptcy? If cultural problems
are spiritual in nature, why does it keep seeking material solutions? How can we
help people realize that their search for meaning in life is a spiritual one?
2. What has gone wrong in our spiritual formation until now? What evidence do we
see of a corrupt heart within ourselves? Why do we seem to find comfort in the
idea that others also are corrupted?
3. Why is the importance of the heart overlooked so easily? How have religious
people tried to impose Christian conduct by means of legal restrictions in the
past? Why is this doomed to failure?
4. Why is it so easy to replace a focus on spiritual development with a focus on
outward behavior? How, exactly, is Christ formed in us (Galatians 4:19)? What is
the evidence of His formation and our heart's reformation?
5. With so much emphasis in the Bible on the condition of the heart, how did the
Pharisees come to see their obligation as one of obedience to the law? How have
Christians misplaced the emphasis on a right heart? What has been the result in
the religious and secular world of this misplaced emphasis?