June 27, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are going to spend the next two weeks together as a church reading Jesus\u2019 teachings in the Sermon on the Mount! The Sermon on the Mount is the first of Jesus\u2019 major teachings recorded in the gospel of Matthew. In it, Jesus explains the ethics and values of the kingdom of Heaven as opposed to the ethics and values of the world. The values and principles that are to govern our lives as followers of Jesus and citizens of the kingdom of Heaven are wildly different from those that govern the various cultures of our world, including the culture in which we live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the next two weeks, allow the words of the Lord Jesus to challenge the way you think, expose the worldly and idolatrous values and desires of your heart, and transform you to live in the new way that He has laid before us!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this passage Jesus gives His followers two warnings: we are to vigilantly guard against false prophets or teachers, and we are to carefully examine our own lives and hearts. Jesus\u2019 teaching in v.15-20 is an extension of His teaching in v.1-6. As His followers, we cannot have self-righteous and hypocritical attitudes towards others, but, with a healthy acknowledgment of our own sin and need for grace, we\u00a0must<\/em> examine what fruit is being borne in the life of one who claims to teach the truth about God.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must be careful what voices we are allowing into our lives to influence us; Jesus warns us here that there will<\/strong>be many false prophets who will come to us \u201cin sheep\u2019s clothing\u201d, when \u201cinwardly [they] are ravenous wolves\u201d. We must gauge what we hear taught against the truth of God\u2019s Word, and we must look carefully at the kind of life such a teacher is leading to determine whether or not they are true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus\u2019 next teaching is one of the most sobering, terrifying passages in Scripture. It is possible to call Jesus \u201cLord\u201d, to say all the right things and to affirm the right set of beliefs, but not be truly saved. The determining factor here is clear: while obedience is not what saves us, those who have truly been changed and transformed by the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus\u00a0always <\/strong>live changed and transformed lives of obedience.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The primary indicator of true, saving faith is a life of holiness and obedience to God\u2019s commands, a life characterized by submission to the will of God, and without that obedience and submission to God\u2019s will there is no evidence of true faith. May our lives be characterized not only by referring to Jesus as \u201cLord\u201d, but by submitting to Him as Lord!<\/p>\n\n\n\n