The Sermon on the Mount
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The Sermon on the Mount

Lead us not into temptation

Today’s passage: Matthew 6:9-15 How people communicate can tell you a lot about the kind of relationship that they have with each other. If they barely talk, you know that something is wrong. The same is true if one only sees one party talking and not giving the other a chance to speak. During his sermon on the mount, in which Jesus was describing the life fully committed to God and His kingdom, Jesus spent a bit of time teaching…

Forgive us our sins

Today’s passage: Matthew 6:9-13 I pity you. You’re pitiful. You’re so pitiable. Stop for a few seconds and think about what those words make you feel. Chances are, you’re first reaction might not be positive. In our culture today, the idea of being pitied is one that isn’t much appreciated. We assume that for somebody to pity us, they must think of themselves as being superior to us. We can equate pitying someone with looking down on them in pride.…

Your Kingdom Come

Today’s Passage: Matthew 6:10 Last week, we started looking at the model prayer given to us by Jesus as He taught the crowds around Him in Matthew 5-7. As in everything, there was something different about Jesus when it came to praying. He spent a lot of time praying. But I don’t think that prayer was ever a duty for Jesus, the way we sometimes think of it. When Jesus prayed, He was talking with His Father. He was speaking…

Fasting

Today’s passage: Matthew 6:16-18 In our journey through Jesus’ sermon on the mount, the last few weeks have focused on Jesus’ warning that we not do our acts of righteousness in order to get human praise. If the good things we do are not done for God, then we shouldn’t expect God to stand in the way of what we really want: the praise of people. But if we do our good deeds in secret – so that they are…

Praying to Impress

Today’s passage: Matthew 6:5-8 Last week, we continued our exploration of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, considering what kind of person a “kingdom of God” person is. At the end of Matthew 5, Jesus said that we – his disciples – should be perfect as our Father in the heavens is perfect. But immediately after urging perfection – for that is what a person wholly made like Jesus is like – Jesus saw fit to warn us…

Jesus, Righteousness, and the Law and the prophets

Today’s passage: Matthew 5:17-20 God is King, and life in his kingdom is the best life there possibly can be. It’s a life that is perfectly in accordance with God’s will; in God’s kingdom, everything is exactly as God wants it to be. As creator of all that is, God is sovereign over all that is – he alone has the right (and the capacity!) to rule everything. The bad news of the Bible is that we humans reject God…

Salt and Light

Today’s passage: Matthew 5:13-16 God is king, and in his kingdom, things are the way that God wants them to be. Which, since God is God, makes God’s kingdom the best place for us to be. God is love, and his kingdom is a place of love. God is perfect, and his kingdom is a place sans any sinfulness or brokenness or imperfection. It’s a place where there are no tears, where there is no danger, and where there is…

Made Fortunate by God

Sermon passage: Matthew 4:23-5:12 I love attending men’s breakfasts. True, when I’m waking up at some unearthly hour my first thought is not one of joy. Yet that tends not to last too long: it’s great hanging out with my brothers in Christ, discussing life together, praying together, and thinking through our devotion together. Oh, and the breakfast… that’s quite nice too! But a while back I did something rather silly: I rocked up at a men’s breakfast sans my…

The Light in the Darkness

Sermon passage: Matthew 4:12-25 Matthew 4:12-25 One of the things Taryn and I did on our recent holiday to New Zealand was to visit a weta cave in Zealandia. The cave was actually an old mine tunnel, cut into a mountain. Taryn, her brother Nathan and I slowly made our way into the tunnel, using the torches on our phones to try and avoid the wetness in the middle of the tunnel floor. Coming from the brightness outside, the tunnel…

Dealing with Temptation

Sermon passage: Matthew 4:1-11 Do you ever find yourself tempted to do something which is wrong? What is it? Why is it tempting to you? Is it wrong in and of itself, or would it only be wrong depending on specific circumstances? When do you feel the lure of temptation the most? When are you most likely to give in to temptation? How do you feel when you experience temptation? Temptations are only tempting because, at some level, we think…