100 Days on Jesus’ Sermon Mount (Day 100)

JESUS as teacher. What do we make of his Sermon?

A sermon that was probably the compilation of most of his teaching — set out conveniently for us in three neat chapters of Matthew’s gospel — was the summation of his teaching ministry, an antithesis of wrongs about real faith, and the greatest contribution, ever, to the ethics corpus.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was his magnum opus. Such a teaching is our Torah — our new Law.

And what would be the effect of our focusing in on such teaching over an extended period? It would have to change us. It would have to.

If you have followed this one-hundred day series, you would have to have been challenged to some degree to change, as God’s Spirit was given charge to reveal.

I have been changed in the writing.

I have come to a place of not just a nominal recommitment to the Lord, but a recommitment that instils what we always desire from a recommitment: I am ready to change.

Only God can lead us to that Promised Land of his equipping for transformation.

Only through God’s Spirit can that metamorphosis take place.

It’s what every ardent Christian prays daily for: to be changed ever anew into the image of Christ that is, each and of itself, a miracle in every way. And that is our prayer: that Jesus’ principal sermon would divide away from us those petty ingratiations that continue to unnerve us; those immaturities of childish faith.

For such a reason Christ’s Sermon on the Mount was given: as a meditation device.

The more we draw away from our busy life and into the precious teaching of the Lord, the more we are renewed in order to make our impact for his Kingdom.

The less we accede to the devices of the world that would act their way over us, the more we are saved for the delights of common spirituality known only in God.

In essence, when we are hid with Christ in God we are happiest and most content.

The Sermon on the Mount takes us there: where we are hidden with Christ in God.

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QUESTIONS in REVIEW:

1.     Brainstorm the items in your desired growth inventory. Growth can seem an overwhelming task. Can you interpret God’s Spirit leading you in any one direction just now?

2.     What one section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount would he have you focus on?

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.