Sermon on the Mount, Triplet of Hypocrites

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us all the instructions we need to live life in his kingdom. The problem is we don’t usually follow it! At the end of the sermon he says that the wise person will HEAR and DO the things that he says and will be like a person…

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount Jesus has given basic instructions for kingdom living.  The principle of Ask, Seek, Knock is all about persistence and aligning yourself with what the Good Father wants for already – to give you good gifts.

Our brother, Reggie Byrd brings the word from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount – judging is something that Jesus not only cautions against, but condemns. It is not our human responsibility to judge or condemn others, but to discern with others what God says is good.

After telling his followers how NOT to pray, Jesus tells them how to pray by giving us the prayer we now call, “The Lord’s Prayer.” This prayer was never meant to be said in a rote way, but rather as a pattern for prayer, a model for us to pray. Enjoy this brief teaching on…

First century Jewish people saw three things to make them righteous: giving, praying and fasting.  Jesus uses these three as examples of what hypocrites do to show off their righteousness.  As is consistent with Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount, He tells us that we must get to the heart behind the issue, to…

Jesus makes the statement that he fulfills the Law and Prophets and then proceeds to give examples as to what he means by that. Certainly his list of laws is not exhaustive, but they do give us a peak into Jesus’ politic on how to encounter humanity and set us apart from our neighbors.  Jesus…

Later in Matthew we see Jesus being accused of trying to abolish the law and the prophets of the Jewish faith. But near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tackles this accusation head on by saying not only that he did not come to abolish it, but he actually fulfills the law…

Everyone has an idea of what being #blessed means to them. The Hebrew people of Jesus’ day also had an idea what being blessed means as well, it was to be wealthy, healthy, powerful and popular – which sounds a lot like what it means today as well. But Jesus turns upside down the concept…

As the foundational treatise for Christianity, Jesus gives his earliest followers, and us, the heart behind the “Law” that enables to follow Jesus as he personifies the law. Before we begin this series, we find basic elements of the sermon to be helpful in understanding the depth and breadth of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.