Sermon On The Mount - Part 2

Matthew chapter 6 and if I was to title my message it would be what is the dominant desire of your heart? It's a question. So the Sermon on the Mount is all about Jesus has been establishing a new kingdom on this earth and the Sermon on the Mount is the the principles for that kingdom's citizens to live by. Basically I guess you could say it that way. You know no sincere seeker after God could read this chapter as my wife shared purposefully, intentionally looking at what Jesus was saying. No one could read it that way and walk away from it holding on to their sin or the love of self, the self-life, the world, all of it. It just wouldn't be possible, not if you're sincerely reading it. And I want to, before we get into it, I want to read this passage from Martin Lloyd-Jones book on the Sermon on the Mount. It's very good and I think it's worth, it's a good way to start this message. This chapter is a very searching one. Indeed we can go further and say that it is a very painful one. It proves and examines and holds a mirror before us and it will not let us escape. There is no chapter which is more calculated to promote self humbling than this particular one. But thank God for it. The Christian should always be anxious to know himself. The natural man, meaning the carnal man, unsaved man, the natural man evades self-examination because to know oneself is ultimately the most painful piece of knowledge that a man can ever acquire. That is a very true statement there and this is right there is putting the finger on why some of you guys argue with your counselors all the time. Because you don't want to face that. And here is a chapter that brings us face to face with ourselves and enables us to see ourselves exactly as we are. But I repeat thank God for it because it is only the man who has truly seen himself for what he is who is likely to seek to be filled with the Spirit of God who alone can burn out of him the vestiges of self. The ultimate choice is always the choice between pleasing self and pleasing God. Martin Lloyd-Jones back in the 1950s. You thought I came up with all this self-life stuff, didn't you? I didn't. And neither did he. It came actually way back probably to the 1800s when they really started talking about it. You know I've known people, of course I've been in ministry now for 36 years, and I've known people that started off well but something went awry. And you look at them 20, 30 years later and they're still back at the starting gate. Or maybe they even have just thrown off Christianity altogether. There's been no real change in their lives and I'm going to tell you why that is. It's because of what I'm just now talking about. An unwillingness to look at yourself and allow the Word of the living God to dissect you and separate what's of the flesh and what's of the spirit and to man up to that knowledge and respond to God. All right, now the simplest outline for this chapter is just to take, you could just basically split it in half. The first half, the first 18 verses, as Pastor Ed was referring to, have to do with the motivating desires that lie behind why we live the Christian life, or at least do Christian things. And the second half of the chapter focuses on what we do with the desires of the flesh toward the things of this world. And the one common denominator in both of these is the word that is not even in this chapter actually, but this word is, I mean it is the foundational thought in this whole 34 verses. It's the word desire. What is the dominant desire of your heart? Jesus wants to know that and he has a right to ask you that. Luke, did you get that? All right, I want to read one more thing. This is something I just recently wrote for a video series we're doing. People are driven by hunger, appetite, and desire. We're driven by the desire for success, the desire for security, the desire for acceptance, the desire for love, the desire for relationships. We crave money, sex, food, enjoyable experiences, and many other things. And as we hunger for these things, we move toward them in the hopes that we will obtain them. This steers the course of our lives and moves us in a definite direction. And so this chapter asks the reader one overarching question. Where are your desires taking you? Now, Matthew 6 has some of the most profound and meaningful and powerful statements in the entire Bible, right here in this chapter. And I'm going to pick out four of these key verses that I'm going to use as, or I believe they actually are like linchpins in this chapter, what Jesus was trying to articulate in this chapter. A linchpin is something that holds the various elements of a complicated structure together. And that's what these statements are. So each, you have a statement and then you have supporting verses surrounding it, either before or after. But the linchpin statement is the primary thing Jesus was saying. All right, so the first linchpin statement has to do with our desire to be seen as spiritual, whether we are or not. We just want people to see us that way. And it comes right from the first phrase of the chapter. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people. Beware of that in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Now in a religious culture, there is a great benefit to being seen as a pious, godly, spiritually minded person, right? There's a benefit to that. People think more highly of you in a religious culture. Now in the first century, you had the Jewish culture and the Pharisees were all about this. That was their entire lives, was to be seen that way. They didn't care about the fact that there was no reality behind it. They were just content to just have that facade and carry that facade around them everywhere they went. But it's not much different, really, in the American community, church, Christian community. Because, I mean, there's a wide gamut of people. There are people who are outright frauds, hypocrites, and there are people on this side who are completely devoted to God and really do live it. And there's a lot of substance behind the image that's out there. And there's people all the way in between, right? But to do righteousness for the sake of being seen by other people as righteous or something is to prostitute that righteousness. Think about it, man. Think about the way you lived your life before you came here. Now the very first word in this chapter is beware. I don't know what your version says. Could say take heed or, I don't know, whatever else. It means the same thing. And I wrote this little blurb. I'm going to read out of sexual idolatry. The best present-day analogy to this admonition would be the warning signs one encounters along a highway. Caution, warning, stop, danger, watch out. Jesus' use of such a strong term as beware shows how extremely hazardous he considered hypocrisy to be. So he wants us to be very careful about this thing, not to exaggerate what we really are like inside, the reality of our spiritual life, not to blow it up and make it more than it actually is. Just be who you are. That's all. Just be. You don't have to be anything other than who you are. But this thing of hypocrisy is a pretty big thing to Jesus, you know. In the next chapter, he's going to describe false teachers as wolves in sheep's clothing, right? I mean, what a picture. A wolf in sheep's clothing. In chapter 23, he's going to use a whited sepulcher that's whitewashed to look nice on the outside, but it's full, it's got a putrefying corpse in it, inside it. He's using that to depict hypocrisy. And in Luke 11, it's seen as a bowl that looks pristine on the outside of it, but it's filled with filth on the inside of it, which is the worst. I mean, I wouldn't mind if a bowl was kind of dirty on the outside, I wouldn't like it, but as long as it's clean on the inside, where the food's gonna be, you know, that's the important part. But it's just the opposite with the hypocrite. They're cleaning up the outside that doesn't matter that much, and in the inside, they're not even concerned about it. And then in Luke 12, it's seen as a poisonous leaven that works its way through the loaf of bread, and the loaf of bread is the Christian community, you know, and it is poisonous, because hypocrisy has a way of just being infectious, because it becomes like a competitive thing, you know, it's all built in pride, isn't it? And pride is competition. I want to be more than you. I want to be better, bigger, badder, whatever, you know, so you get in that thing, in that church culture, where people are trying to outdo each other, so you're making your facade, your image of godliness, bigger and better than the other guy. Any of you ever feel this, sense this in church? Now, Jesus doesn't tell us to quit giving to those in need, to quit praying, to quit fasting. No, he doesn't say that. In fact, he repeatedly encourages us to do these things. Of course, you know, we've got to live righteous lives. He's just saying that when we do these things, make sure that your motives are right, and if they're not right, or they're mixed, which is more likely, if your motives are mixed, then just, you know, repent. Maybe even repent to a person. If you said something, and you knew you were putting on an act when you said it, go to that person and say, you know what, I was making myself look more spiritual than I really am. I'm telling you, you start doing that sort of thing, guys, it has a way of changing you, because you get tired of having to humble yourself to people. It's not fun. All right, there's one other thing I just want to mention in passing before we move on, and that's the subject of rewards. Rewards is a very big thing in Scripture. You know, just in chapter five, Jesus has already alluded to it twice. Rejoice and be glad, you know, if you're persecuted, for your reward in heaven is great, he says. And in verse 46, he says, for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Because even the sinners do that. And then in his, the Luke version, in Luke 6, he says, love your enemies and do good, and lend, expect nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you'll be sons of the Most High, for he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. So what the Lord wants us to walk away from this first section with is the knowledge that our acts of kindness to other people, and when we're interceding for other people, and when we're fasting to get the mind of the Lord on something, he wants us to know that we will be generously compensated when we stand before him. These kinds of things will not go unrewarded, you know, but if you live completely in the realm of your senses, those things are teensy-teensy-teensy. But if you can get yourself to be much more aware of the kingdom of God in the unseen realm, I'm telling you, the rewards that you will receive from the Lord one day will be much bigger to you, and much more motivating to you to get out of yourself and to do something for someone else. And so Jesus is actually commending us, or commending this thought of desiring rewards that are eternal. He commends it. It's a desire that is completely sanctioned and encouraged and even commanded, as we're about to see in his next linchpin statement, which has to do with our desire for the things of the world. Matthew 6 19 to 21, I'll just shorten these first couple of verses to get to the main gist here. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Verse 21, this is our linchpin, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Now, when Jesus is talking about earthly treasures here, he's primarily focused on material possessions and money and that kind of stuff. I mean, that's the primary focus. But listen, when you're using the word treasure, you've got to go deeper than that. You've got to broaden your horizons, because a treasure is whatever you most value in your heart. What treasure did you value in your heart that brought you here? Nobody wants to say, do you? Huh? Well, yeah. Okay, you're a treasure, Reuben. We all value you. At least Jesus does, that's for sure. I know what he's saying. But it's sexual pleasure, right? It's that kind of thing. That was in our minds. Just controlling us, right? Thoughts about sex dominated our hearts and minds, dominated the decisions we made in life, dominated the course our life took, and without repentance, dominates your eternity. Yikes. All right, now just to show you how real this is, we've got two more supporting statements here. Let's follow this up. Verse 22, the eye is the lamp of the body, Jesus says. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. What in the world does that mean? Don't fear, I'm gonna tell you. This word that the ESV translates as healthy, the word is in the Greek is hapless, and this word group actually is, the general meaning of this word group actually is generous, generosity. That's what it really means. So let me give you a couple examples. James 1:5, God who gives liberally, that's hapless. Romans 12:8, Paul urges us to give liberally, hapless. And in 2 Corinthians 9, he talks about the generosity of the Macedonians, that's out of that word group hapless. Isn't that talking about the mercy life, right? That's the life we have been trying to get you guys to buy into, to see the reality of that as being such a fundamental part of the Christian life. Doing for others instead of doing for self. If you have a generous eye, right, is that what it's saying, right? If you have a generous eye as you're going through life, you will see through the lens of unselfishness. You will see the needs of other people, and you will be motivated and compelled to meet needs, and to help other people. Instead of just going through life grasping always for self, and that's what verse 23 is talking about. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? You know, this eye that is bad is a person who's going through life with the lens of self. That's all it means. You go through life, and all you can think about is what I want. What's in it for me? You know, the King James uses a term that none of the other translations I can think of actually use, and it's the term coveting lust. And I know I usually use the NES or the ESV is probably the same. They use the word greed, and it's not that greed is wrong, but it's too confining, really, for what that term actually means. It actually means anything that you are coveting for self. You know, in other words, coveting is desiring in a sinful way, desiring in a selfish way. Not just, you know, there are good desires. It's not talking about that. So here's what Jesus is saying. If you're going through life with mercy in your heart toward other people, you will be full of the light of God. But if you go through life being driven by selfish desires, you'll be full of spiritual darkness, and it will be a dense and profound darkness. You know, guys, and please don't, you know, don't get offended by this, okay? I was there once myself. You show up here, and you've been in this for probably years, right? You've been in this thinking for years. Man, I was the most, my selfishness was so all-consuming, there just was no room for anyone. I never thought about anyone but myself. It was just horrible. It's just shameful and disgusting to me to look back, and I can't imagine that that was really me, but it was me. And I can't get away from that reality. So you guys showed up here in that mindset, and you get here, and your darkness is so profound that it takes you weeks or months before you even start getting it at all. You're so out of it spiritually. And it's kind of what I was talking about when I was saying, what if we were singing that song without being dominated by self? What would it be like if every voice in this place was crying out to God with all of our hearts for the Holy Spirit to fall on this place? Our lives are living proof of the truth of what Jesus was saying in these two verses. Listen to the Moffat translation. The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is generous, this guy really got it. I don't know why the others didn't get it, but this guy got it. If your eye is generous, the whole of your body will be illumined. But if your eye is selfish, the whole of your body will be darkened. And if your light turns to dark, then what a darkness it is. That is literally what Jesus was saying. That's why I read different translations, because, you know, just sometimes different guys get it and other guys don't. Anyway, so this little section here wraps up with verse 24, which really could be a linchpin statement. It is a very powerful, profound truth in and of itself, but it really also supports verse 21. They're coupled together. The one strengthens the other. No one can serve two masters. And I just have to stop here for a second. Okay, this says no one can, but that is for the sake of the English reader, okay? That's not the it says it in the Greek. It really more literally would say man cannot. That would be the more literal way of saying it, because the word cannot in there is the key word. It is an impossibility. And I really, I wanted to just go through and show you some verses that uses that word throughout Scripture. I mean, it's just impossible, impossible, impossible, impossible. Examples. There are examples in different ways it's used to show impossible situations. This is impossible, Jesus is saying. Absolutely not possible. Did you guys get that? You got it, okay. Well, I guess I need to read the verse, don't I? No one can serve, a man cannot serve two masters. Now, what have we been talking about here? What are the two masters? Yeah, self and God, right? Not possible. For either he will hate the one and love the other. And you know what? How many Christians, you know, self are, yeah, professing Christians. I don't know they're actually, I don't know the reality, only the Lord knows that. But how many professing Christians get really aggravated when God starts asking something of them? That is, you know, we think of hate as like blistering, venomous, despising of someone. It's not really that way in Scripture. It's meant to show just as an opposite of what real agape love for the Lord looks like. Eventually, I'll read this whole verse. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other. And if you love self, what are you going to be doing with God? Uh-huh, things get kind of quiet now, don't they? Or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Despise means shrink down to tininess. How big was God in your life, really, before you came here? You cannot, there's the word, there it is, I told you, it's there. You cannot serve God, and they have money here, but I'm just going to put self because that is the underlying issue. Can't do it, impossible, yet people insist that they can, insist that they can. So what they do is they just kind of deceive themselves. Really, the reality is they're living for the things of the world. That's where their heart is. That's what they think about all the time. That's what they're devoted to. That's what gives them the most joy. Yeah, they go to church, but really, you know, that's kind of a get out of hell free sort of deal. But really, the reality in their hearts, it's all about what do I get in this world. They're just deceiving themselves, because Jesus says it's impossible. There is no room for compromise in there. You're either going to be totally dedicated to the Lord, or you're going to be totally dedicated to self. It really is supporting verse 21, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Right? Okay, and the third linchpin statement is verse 25. Therefore, considering all that, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. And he's referring to, that's not the word for eternal life, zoe, the life in God. That's not that word. It's psyche, which has to do with your life in this world. Do not be anxious about your life in this world. Now, here again, this is a commandment, just as real as do not commit adultery. But how many of us take it that seriously? Who has ever been hauled up in front of the church, and the pastor says, this person is full of anxiety. We are now casting you out of the church. You are no longer allowed to fellowship here. Well, that sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? We could see it maybe with the guy who's in ongoing adultery, and refused to give up his adulteress. Huh? Mistress, thank you. His mistress. We could see a good pastor, a godly pastor, who actually tries to run his church by biblical principles. I could see, you know, he's gone to the man in private and said, look man, you've got to give this up. You've got to give this woman up. And the guy just kind of blows it off, and then he brings a couple of elders with him, and confronts him again, blows him off again. So he brings him in front of the whole church. Jesus says it in Matthew 18, this is how you deal with someone in sin. Anxiety? Anxiety, it's a form of pride. I'll get into a little more here in a second, but it comes out of a life where it's dominated by self. That's where that comes from. You know why it's important? Why it would be so important if someone was really consumed with anxiety? And I know people, I've known people that are like that. It's because it's an issue of trust. And trust is the other side of the coin of faith. And it's faith that saves us from our sins, isn't it? Faith in what? In a person, right? Not in that I said a prayer 25 years ago. No, it's faith, trust in a person. And that is very real to the Lord. He expects that for us, no matter what we face in life, to trust him to see us through it. Worry is kind of like resentment in a way. Let me explain what I'm saying. Worry is to fear what resentment is to rage. Okay, so if you've ever been in a situation where you were terrified, right? You could compare that to being in a rage. I mean, you're talking about powerful, overwhelming emotions that take you over. I've experienced both. And so when you think about worry as compared to that kind of fear, worry is like fear on a low boil. It's just always there, just eating at you, eating at you. And it really is just mistrust in God. Isaiah said, you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. That's it right there. That's it. When the Lord is big inside of you, when he's real to you, fears, things that irritate you that, you know, back in the day when self-controlled you might have sent you into a rage, maybe they may irritate you a little bit, but you know how to overcome them, that sort of thing. It's the same thing with fear and worry. Worry won't dominate the person who's full of the Lord. Just won't. You know, worry is, okay, worry usually always has to do with the future, doesn't it? And this is what we do. We fantasize. We fantasize in our minds. We create these situations. Of course, we always go to the extreme scenario, don't we? Like, okay, I'm going to, Pastor Steve's going to fess up a little bit here. I don't know why this is. I'm not going to try to figure it out or explain it, but ever since I came to the Lord, the end times are very, very real to me. Someone once said that prophets see from mountaintop to mountaintop. And so, you know, they see that reality right there. If you've seen Fellowship or Lord of the Rings, and remember how Frodo would be there, and all of a sudden that, what is that hideous thing, Sauron? Sauron. All of a sudden, just right there, you know? That's kind of like what I experience. And so, I'm always, the reality of the very end times, the tribulation period, whatever you want to call it, is like, I live in that reality. And that's partly why I preach and write the way that I do with the urgency I do. But the flip side to it, the part that's challenging for me, is it makes me want to go into fear. You know? I think about the persecution. I read books all the time about people who have gone through such terrible persecutions. Fox's Book of Martyrs and Wormbrand's books and Jesus Freaks, you know, all these books that talk about believers who have been terribly tortured. And I said, why do I read this stuff? I don't know. I think I'm trying to, like, be in the right spirit, but I don't know that it helps me. But it's just, like, so real. So, what I have to do, those of you who deal with worry, this is what you have to do. Take that scenario and put the Lord in it. When I put the Lord in that scenario, the fears subside. And you know what, Lord? You are going to be so real to me when all that comes down. Yeah, I may suffer, but you're going to be so real that the suffering won't matter that much. There's nothing wrong with desiring security. God put that desire inside of us, but he wants us to use it to depend on him as we go through life. That's what it means to trust in Jesus and trying to live life in this godless world. Well, I don't want to say that. It's not godless world. That's not the right way to say it, because God is in this world, kind of. Trying to live in this world system without God being big inside of you is sure to bring you into pagan fretting. All right, so I'm going to wrap up here with my final linchpin statement, which I will set up with the one right before it. So, let's go to verse 32. The linchpin, I mean, this one has to do with the predominant desire of your heart. This is what this message is supposed to be all about. For the Gentiles seek, all right, seek after all these things. Let me just stop there for a second. All these things, I mean, I assumed Jesus was primarily talking about these things that, you know, cause worry, you know, trying to get food and clothing and housing and all that stuff, but it definitely extends to all the things he's referring to in this chapter. That's what pagans do. That's what unbelievers do. They seek after all those things, the things of the world and all of it. And your heavenly father knows that you need them all, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Meaning the necessary things, the necessities. He promises he will take care of us. And isn't it desire that determines what we seek in life? So, here we come down to the crux of the chapter, excuse me. What are we seeking in life? Where are our desires taking us? What desire is mastering our hearts? So, this is a linchpin statement, but it's also a solution. Jesus never commands people to do things or not do things without giving us an answer to them. And this is the answer right here for this chapter. Are you tempted to do your righteousness before others to gain their approval? Seek first the kingdom of God. Are you tempted to make the possessions and pleasurable experiences of this world the focus of your life? Seek first the kingdom of God. Are you tempted to allow anxiety to dominate your inner man? Seek first the kingdom of God. And I just want to point out that that word first, you know what it means? It means first. Wow, that's amazing. It means first. It means primarily. And I think you guys watched the Bonhoeffer movie last night, is that right? I almost used my presidential powers to step in and have you watch the movie that my wife and I watched last night. We watch a Christian movie every Saturday night, and last night we watched A Christmas Carol. And I wanted you guys to watch it because of this service, but I don't want to, you know, I don't know when you guys have watched it last, and I didn't want to get in and mess up their structure they got going on, so I didn't do it. But I'll remind you, I'm sure you've all seen it. What a beautiful picture of repentance. I don't know anyone that has captured it like Charles Dickens did. So you got Scrooge, who's a picture of anyone in the self-life. Okay, maybe an extreme version, but you see the misery that comes with the pursuit of sin and being led by sinful desires. I mean, the man is just absolutely miserable, and he has this encounter, you know, we'll just take those angels of Christmas and all that out of the picture, has this encounter with God, and all of a sudden he becomes the happiest, most cheerful, happy-go-lucky guy you've ever seen. I mean, he's dancing around, you remember that? He's dancing around the room, and got that poor woman, what was she, the maid or something, got her all freaked out. What's wrong with this man? You know, I mean, he sends the turkey over to Bob Cratchit's house, and you know the story, all that stuff. Full of the joy of the Lord. Okay, now here's what I want to say to you guys, especially in the program. What that is all about is an exchange of lifestyles. That's what that story is all about, an exchange of lifestyles. He exchanged a lifestyle of a greedy miser for a life of joy and giving. He went from being a terrible, terrible taker, to becoming a wonderful, joyful giver. That's what you men are here to undergo.