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Salt & Light a City Within a City Jesus' Sermon on the Mount

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Salt & Light a City Within a City Jesus' Sermon on the Mount Salt & Light A City within a City Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount – Part I Matthew 5:13-16 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16 (NIV) 4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 8 Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. 9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord. 10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:4-14 (NIV) This morning we are starting a new series looking at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, entitled A City with a city. As I shared during prayer time on Wednesday evening, that passage from Jeremiah 29 spoke to me during my three month sabbatical. Jeremiah 29:11 has long been one of my favorite verses in all of the Bible, For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Is it a favorite of any others here this morning? But during my sabbatical I became keenly aware of the context in which we find that verse. God’s people of Old Testament times, the Israelites, had been sent into exile to Babylon, to live amongst a people of mostly no faith, or at least certainly no faith in the one God, Yahweh. God tells his people to go and live among them, settle down there, build houses, plant gardens, get married, have children, even grandchildren, increase in number. Not only that, but he tells them to seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Then the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.” Well, how long does God say our life here on earth is supposed to be? We find that answer is Psalm 90, v. 10: The length of our days is seventy years – or eighty if we have the strength, yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. As Christians, God’s people today, the New Testament times, we are called to live in exile, amongst a people of mostly no faith. Yet, God calls us to seek the peace and the prosperity of the city of which he has sent us, to be a City within the city. One of the big questions for us is how does God want us to do that? Do we set ourselves apart from the city, something like the Amish and other closed Christian communities have done, or do we assimilate ourselves in the city so much so that you can’t even tell where the one city leaves off and the other starts up, like many other Christians have done? The answer to that is neither. As disciples of Jesus he calls us to something else and he lays out his plan, or his blue print for how we are supposed to live as his disciples in his Sermon on the Mount. How many of you here this morning remember back eight years ago when I returned from my sabbatical and I had memorized Jesus’ entire Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, chapters 5-7? I am glad there are still some that remember it because I didn’t do that this sabbatical Which means it has been more than eight years since we looked at this passage as a whole. For some, eight years might seem like a long time, for others you might be questioning why we are looking at it again. Well this is a very significant passage for followers of Jesus. It is Jesus’ longest teaching session recorded in the Bible. The earliest Anabaptists and Mennonites were often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount people because they tried to live out the entire teaching in every area of their life. There is a pretty good likelihood that they looked at this passage at least annually. The earliest Mennonites and Anabaptists held Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount to be that one passage of Scripture defining their faith, along with the need for repentance (Matt. 4:17), the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37-39) and the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19). Last Sunday we celebrated Easter and Jesus’ resurrection, the capstone of our faith as Christians. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection God offers believers new life. But not just eternal life in the life to come, eternal life which begins here during our time on earth as well. The new life which God offers us through Christ begins right here and right now. The apostle Paul tells us in his second letter to the early Christians at Corinth: “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV) So, was Paul lying when he wrote that? How much sense of that exists among Christians today? Why is it that Christians in America, or for that matter Christians in most of the western world, look pretty much the same as non-Christians? Why is there so little difference? I would make the claim that not only did Paul expect a difference, Jesus did as well. That is what his Sermon on the Mount is about. Many Christians throughout the centuries have believed that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, is kind of a utopia, an ideal which we can’t live out during our life here on earth, even after we are “born again.” So they conclude that Jesus must have meant most of it for the life to come. But they do so at their own peril, for Jesus warns at the end of his sermon, Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven but only the ones who do the will of my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21) and that we must build our house on the rock (Matthew 7:24- 27): The rock being Jesus himself and the teachings of Jesus. But, and this is a big but, the teachings of Jesus, just like the teachings of Moses, otherwise known as the law in the Old Testament, do not save us, all they are is fruit that the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives. I mentioned last week in my Easter message that Mahatma Gandhi, the great political reformer from India in the early – mid 1900’s followed many of Jesus’ teachings in his Sermon on the Mount but he never accepted Jesus as the Messiah, the Savior of the world. For him Jesus was a great prophet, a great teacher, but that was it. Throughout the centuries and today many have believed the same. But Gandhi was a very unique individual. Somehow Gandhi seemed to be able to live out in his life many of Jesus’ teachings, that is not the case for most people. If Jesus is not our Savior and Lord, and we have not been born again, regenerated by the work of the Holy Spirit, then we might as well throw Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount out the window because all it is going to do is frustrate us. Oswald Chambers, the great Christian leader of the 1900’s who is credited with the book and devotional “My Utmost for His highest” says this about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “If Jesus is a Teacher only, then all he can do is tantalize us by erecting a standard we cannot come anywhere near.
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