Sermon Starters: Building on Rock (Matthew 7:24-27)

This is the sixth and final sermon to go with my devotional book on the Sermon on the Mount: The Wisdom of Jesus. The devotional goes along with the background book, Jesus: Portraits from the Gospels.


The sermon notes for the previous five weeks of the devotional book are:

Week 1: "The Winner Isn't Who You Think" (Matthew 5:3-12)
Week 2: "Love the Whole Way" (Matt. 5:43-48)
Week 3: "Who Is Your Audience" (Matt. 6:5-14)
Week 4: "True Significance" (Matt. 6:19-24)
Week 5: "Jumping to Conclusions" (Matt. 7:1-5)

Sermon 6: Building on Rock 

Introduction
1. I would begin this final sermon in the series with a recap of the previous five Sundays, a run through the Sermon on the Mount. So the introduction might be a little longer this week than in the other weeks. Resources include Week 6 of The Wisdom of Jesus (94-110) and Jesus: Portraits from the Gospels (71-72).

For the last five Sundays, we have made our way through the Sermon on the Mount. From one perspective, it gives the essence of what Jesus taught about how we are to live in this world. The first Sunday we learned what the values of the Kingdom of God are, and we found out that they are not what we might think. It is not the assertive but the meek who inherit the kingdom. It is not the rich but the poor in spirit. It is not those who dominate but the merciful and the peacemakers.

The second Sunday, we learned that Jesus fulfilled the Law by fully orienting it around God's command to love both friend and enemy. We were to be "perfect" and go the whole way in our loving others. Jesus didn't just raise the standard by targeting our intentions. He shuffled the standard by orienting it around the love of others.

Next we were reminded that God is the one we want to honor us, not other people. And in week four, we were reminded that true significance comes from God, not from the things that preoccupy most people here on earth. Finally, last Sunday we heard Jesus' teaching on not judging others.

2. Most of us know the children's song: "The wise man built his house upon the rock." [sing it if you can] Do you know what it means to build your house on rock? This "almost parable" is part of the conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount. The rock is the teaching in the sermon, and the wise person is the one who builds their life on Jesus' teaching in it. This is also what it means to walk through the narrow gate (Matt. 7:13-14).

Body of Sermon
One idea for a sermon this week is for the body of the sermon to be a series of stories, each of which illustrates building on rock or building on sand. In keeping with the series, these stories might best be illustrations of the basic teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. One after another, perhaps no more than 5 minutes each, these stories might hammer home the content of the series and seal it in a way that will stay on the minds of the congregation for a long time.

The kinds of stories you might tell include:

• A story of someone who was largely unnoticed but Christlike in the manner of the Beatitudes. This person was not considered "successful" by worldly standards, but will be a rock star in the Kingdom of God. This person built his/her house on rock, and it will stay standing when the judgment comes. 
• A story of someone who overcame temptation to harm another or to have an affair or to divorce to get with another person or to get revenge. This person built his/her house on rock, and it will stay standing when the judgment comes.
• A story of someone who prays much or fasts much or gives much, but you might hardly notice because he/she does not do it for show. They do it for God. This person built his/her house on rock, and it will stay standing when the judgment comes.
• A story of someone who had good reason to worry from a human perspective but who demonstrated a calm peace in the middle of a storm of life. This person built his/her house on rock, and it will stay standing when the judgment comes.
• A story of someone who might easily have jumped to conclusions about the motives of someone else but who chose to suspend judgment in the name of not judging others. However, the story turned out, this person built his/her house on rock, and it will stay standing when the judgment comes.

Conclusion
The main content of the Sermon on the Mount ends with the Golden Rule in Matthew 7:12: "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets." Jesus considered the law to love God and neighbor to sum up all of God's expectations of us (Matt. 22:34-40). If we were to love our neighbors and enemies, we would "fulfill" the Law and the Prophets, Jesus style (Matt. 5:17). Our righteousness would then go beyond the scribes and Pharisees (5:20). We would be perfect like our heavenly Father is perfect (5:48). The person that lives this way is building his/her house on rock, and that rock will stand when the judgment comes.

One way to end the sermon is to challenge yourself and the congregation to do what the pastor in In His Steps challenged his congregation to do. He challenged them to ask themselves "What would Jesus do?" in every decision they made one week. Challenge your congregation this week to ask this same question with the concrete teaching of the Sermon on the Mount in view.

The challenge of WWJD is that people fill in the details with what they think Jesus would do. But the Sermon on the Mount gives us specifics. Ask yourself, "What would the Sermon on the Mount say" about each decision you face? If you make those kinds of decisions, you will be building on rock.

Sermon Starters: "True Significance"

I'm writing six sermon starters to make a sermon series based on the Sermon on the Mount. The first two are:

Week 1: "The Winner Isn't Who You Think" (Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3-12)
Week 2: "Love the Whole Way" (Matt. 5:43-48)
Week 3: "Who Is Your Audience" (Matt. 6:5-14)

And now a sermon for Week 4: "True Significance"

Introduction
I would start with some story where something is taken to be significant that really isn't. For example, children might fight over something the parent knows is trivial. There's an old Looney Tunes cartoon where Sylvester the Cat is stuck in the house while the family goes on vacation. There are cans of food everywhere but the mouse of the house has the can opener, which becomes the one really significant thing in the house.

There's a scene in the movie Titanic where a wealthy man is trying to bribe one of the stewards with a wad of money, but the steward knows he is going to die. The money means absolutely nothing.

Matthew 6:19-34 is about what is truly significant. It is not what you see around you, the treasures of earth. And the things that should worry you are not matters of your body. The things of greatest significance are heavenly things.

For background, see the devotionals for Week 4 in The Wisdom of Jesus (pp. 60-76, "Trusting the Master") and the material in Jesus: Portraits from the Gospels (pp. 67-71).

Body
1. Status Non-Symbols
If you read what Jesus says in Matthew 6:19-24, what is insignificant? Money and possessions. Like so much of Jesus' teaching, he turns our worldly common sense upside down. Our first instinct is to treat those with lots of wealth as special. We have a tendency to envy the person with the car, the nice house, the nice clothes, the nice shoes.

There are similar distractions we might mention like fame or status. We prize the football star, the movie star, the famous politician. In the church we might prize the large church pastor, the church leader, maybe even a college professor. But status means nothing in the kingdom of God. The least in this world is great in the kingdom of God.

What does your eye look for? What lights up your insides? Is it the new car? Is it the promotion? In the light of eternity, these are completely trivial things. Any number of stories and illustrations could be made, from high school status to the lives of the rich and famous in the media.

2. Passing Worries
Jesus moves in Matthew 6:25-34 hits closer to home. We all realize that money means nothing if there is no food to buy. We all realize that you would give anything for a coat if you are freezing to death. If you are in a life boat on the ocean without water, you would give a 100,000 dollar car for a drink of water.

In these verses, though, Jesus says that even needs like food, water, and clothing are things that we should not worry about. They too are passing things in the light of eternity. And, more importantly, they are things we can trust God for.

Christians worry. It is human nature, to be sure, But it is a point of inconsistency. If we really believed, if we really trusted God, we would not worry. We would trust that he is in control.

There's that great quote--"Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference." It could be a sermon series in its own right.

I think about the joke about the man hanging from a branch on the side of a cliff. He yells up, "Is anyone up there?" God responds yes. What do you want me to do? "Let go," God says. The man pauses, then finally says, "Is there anyone else up there?"

Give examples of trusting in God for our basic needs.

3. True Significance
Jesus tells us that what is truly significant are the things that last, the eternal, and the things the last are the things associated with God and his kingdom.

It's not that we are not living now. It's not that we are just waiting to die or for Christ to return. There's an interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 3 that I like, even if it may not be correct. In this interpretation, people are not working because they are waiting on Christ's return. Jesus is not telling us to waste our lives while we wait.

We can live for what is eternal now, even while we wait for Christ. What is eternal and heavenly? God and Christ, for one. Being God's servant is more significant than being king of the world. Pick any king the congregation might know--Alexander, Caesar, Xerxes. The servant of God will live forever. They are nothing.

People are eternal. We all have an eternal destiny. An investment in a person can yield an eternal result. That's an infinite return on your investment. Better than any financial deal you might give as an example.

Truth is eternal. People forget knowledge, but that which is true is not passing. Jesus is the truth.

Conclusion
Are you living for what is truly significant? If you were to add up your values and the things you are living for, what is your net worth? It's not how many stocks you have or how much you have invested. How much do you have invested in God and Christ? How much do you have invested in your family and others? Are you laying up treasures in heaven or treasures on earth? Are you worrying about the kingdom or the earth?

You might close with either a positive or negative example of either investing in heavenly things or investing in passing things.      

Sermon Starters: Who Is Your Audience? (Matthew 6:5-14)

I'm writing six sermon starters to make a sermon series based on the Sermon on the Mount. The first two are:

Week 1: "The Winner Isn't Who You Think" (Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3-12)
Week 2: "Love the Whole Way" (Matt. 5:43-48)

And now a sermon for Week 3: "Who Is Your Audience?" (Matthew 6:5-14)

Introduction
I might start with an illustration where someone appears to be talking to you but is obviously really talking to someone else. Do you have a personal story or know one about, say, a young woman talking to another woman, but really is wanting a young man to overhear that she is not doing anything Friday night? You could use a story from history, literature, or the Bible.

Perhaps there is a scene from a movie. In Harry Potter: The Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter is invisible and Hagrid says loudly, "If anyone wanted to find some stuff, all they would need to do is follow the spiders." The other people in the room can't figure out what he's talking about because he's not talking to them. You could even start the sermon with this clip. Another possibility is to begin with a funny skit.

Now give the context of Matthew 6. You will find background material in this week's devotional in of The Wisdom of Jesus (pp. 30-41), as well as pp. 67-71 in Jesus: Portraits from the Gospels.

Body
1. We get authenticity today.
... especially people under 40. Our parents and grandparents more or less trusted politicians, pastors, and important people. You can no doubt find many examples of this fact to introduce the concept.

For example, there was incredible outrage among the American public in the late 60s and early 70s at vets who protested the war, even though they were the ones who had actually experienced what was going on. To find that Richard Nixon had lied and actually done the things of which he was accused was a horrible shock to the American people.

Now, it seems like the opposite party wants to impeach every President. We have come to expect scandal. We assume that the squeaky clean exterior of public officials--including pastors--is not what it seems. We are cynical. We almost assume that what you see is not what you get when it comes to people in the public eye. This is a change in our culture.

Matthew 5:20 is key literary background to our passage today: "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." This would have terrified a first century Jewish audience. Today, we assume the Pharisees were unrighteous hypocrites. They would have assumed they were the ones most righteous and closest to God. For background on the Pharisees and Jesus' opponents, see Jesus: The Mission, pages 105-22.

2. Who are you praying to in prayer?
Have you ever heard someone praying and they said things that wouldn't make much sense if they were talking to God? Have you ever heard a pastor give a lesson to the congregation in a prayer? "Lord, we know that..."

I was in a service recently when the background music cut out in the middle of the prayer and the person said, "And, Lord, we know it's distracting when the background music cuts out in the middle of prayer." Everyone laughed. It's not necessarily bad to do these things--prayer in those situations is a corporate prayer, so it is reasonable that the pray-er help facilitate bringing the prayers of everyone there to God.

But I realized at one point that most of my prayers were self-talk, that I was more talking to myself than to God. And there are those who still are trying to impress others when they pray publicly rather than talk to God. Who are you praying to in prayer?

I'm assuming that the preacher will flesh out this concept with examples that would be meaningful to the local context.

Matthew 6 gives several examples of individuals who did religious things for show rather than for God. First there is the religious person who gives so that he or she can be seen giving (Matt. 6:1-4). We are most honored by God (blessed) when we give without anyone knowing. Also in the chapter is the person who fasts or sacrifices so that others will see and they will get "street credit" (Matt. 6:16-18). But the key instance has to do with prayer (Matt. 6:5-15).

3. How to pray.
As the background material indicates,

• We do not pray to inform God. He already knows everything.
• We are incompetent pray-ers. The Holy Spirit has to help us out (Rom. 8:26).
• Praying helps us. It is more for us than for God, although we owe God our praise.
• Just maybe, God sometimes lets our prayers determine how he acts in history, how he interrupts the flow of time.

So how should we pray? Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer as a model prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 (it is not the only model but our most prized one). I grew up with A-C-T-S:

• Adoration ("hallowed be your name" - holy, sanctified, mega-special and terrifying is the sovereign God of the universe, who could squash us like an mammoth and an ant; all our prayers must be done in submission to his will--"your will be done.")
• Confession ("forgive us this day" - remembering that we need to forgive the sins of others if we expect God to forgive our sins)
• Thanksgiving (how much daily bread has he given us--every day of our whole lives for most of us. What ingrates we would be if we asked him for things and did not thank him for what he has already given!)
• Supplication (it only makes sense that our requests would come last--"give us daily bread"; "deliver us from temptation"; even these are very important requests, requests that relate to our most basic physical and spiritual needs; we should ask for our wants last of all! God does want to give us good gifts.)

Conclusion
Who is your true audience? Are you mostly interested in what other people around you think or with what God thinks? To whom do you pray? God or those listening in? Who do you sacrifice for--to serve God or to get street credit?

You might challenge them to pray more authentically than ever--to adore God more than ever in prayer... to be honest with God about our failings and pray for the power to change... to thank God for all the good things in our lives and for the bad that hasn't happened, not to take the credit ourselves... then humbly to ask for his help in our needs and desires.

Sermon Starters: The Winner Isn't Who You Think

I'm creating six sermon outlines to go along with a devotional I wrote called, The Wisdom of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount. These also go along with a book I wrote on the special themes of the Gospels.  I already wrote one on the "Be perfect" section of the Sermon.

So here is a sermon starter on the Beatitudes: Matthew 5:3-12.

Introduction
Start with an example where the winner was unexpected. It could be a personal story, an interesting story from  history. It could be a clip or snippet from a movie. I like the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. You would think the rabbit would win because it is faster, but the turtle wins by steady persistence. I have a personal story of running with my son just before he started high school. Although he was able to run a mile faster, I would pass him by the second mile because of steady persistence.

Now give a little context to the Beatitudes. Week 1 of The Wisdom of Jesus is on the Beatitudes (pp. 6-17), as well as pp. 61-63 in Jesus: Portraits from the Gospels. Being "blessed" is honor-shame language. It has to do with being honored more than being happy. And where we will most be honored is in the Kingdom of God, which is already started but will arrive fully after Jesus returns (See Jesus: The Mission, pp. 21-33).

The Beatitudes turn everything upside down. Those who would seem honored now (the wealthy, those with power and prestige) will not necessarily be those "on top" in the coming Kingdom of God. Rather, those who suffer now, will be most honored then, when Jesus comes as King.

Body
1. The Poor are Rich
Several of the Beatitudes indicate a reversal of fortunes in the Kingdom of God. Those whose situations make them mourn now, will find themselves comforted in the kingdom (Matt. 5:4).

In Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount (called the Sermon on the Plain), Jesus boldly states that those who are poor now will be blessed then, while those who are rich now will not be comforted then (Luke 6:20 and 6:24). Similarly, he baldly states that those who are hungry now will be fed then, while those who are full now will be hungry then (Luke 6:21 and 6:25).

Matthew gives the spiritual version: blessed are the poor in spirit (Matt. 5:3) and who hunger for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). In both, those who seem to be "on top" now, because their values are the values of the world now, will not be the winners then in the Kingdom of God. The ultimate winners are those who are part of God's kingdom, those who have a spirit of dependence on him rather than on the world.

Illustration: Bring the point home with an illustration that concretely shows how being on the right team in the long run is more important than being on the team that seems to be winning now. You might give an example of someone who took a chance on a job that involved a pay cut now or a loss of prestige now but that in the long run ended in security. I have a couple illustrations from my father's life, one about changing jobs, another from his army days. You might also use the biblical story of Joseph in Genesis. He endured some hard years of "poverty" but in the end he saved his family and the kingdom of Egypt (Gen. 50:20).

2. The Meek Excel
It is counterintuitive in the world to think that the winners will be those who do not strive to win. Yet Jesus consistently taught that "the last will be first" (e.g., Matt. 19:30). Several of the Beatitudes fall into the category of "those who do not fight to win will win in the end."

• The meek will inherit the earth (those who are not pushy will end owning the whole thing, 5:5).
• The peacemakers are like God (instead of those who fight to win, 5:9).
• The merciful obtain mercy (while those who have to inflict defeat will lose, 5:9).
• The pure in heart get to see God (while those with a heart for the world go down with it, 5:8).

You can go any number of ways with these, depending on which one you want to spend the most time on. You won't have enough time in one sermon to linger on all of them. There are any number of illustrations from movies or pop culture, from history or the business world.  You can use an illustration from relationships or politics.

American culture tells us that you have to be assertive to get ahead, that you have to promote yourself to win. There is certainly truth to this. But in God's eyes, winning isn't everything. In fact, winning in this world is nothing. Christianity is primarily about promoting others rather than ourselves.

3. The Persecuted Win
A final theme in the Beatitudes is that those who are persecuted and mocked today will be "on top" in the Kingdom of God. Victor Frankl, a Jew who was in a concentration camp in World War II, came to realize that a person can live with any "how" if he or she has a "why" to live. This makes an excellent illustration or you can come up with another one about someone in the Bible, history, movies, or your experience who endured a period of suffering and persecution only to emerge with honor at the end. For Frankl, he did not give up hope under the Nazis, and he survived his experience where others gave up.

In the same way, while we do not want to ignore the opportunities of the present, we are ultimately living for another time and another kingdom. At times we may feel like we are foreigners in our own country (cf. Heb. 11:13-16).

Conclusion
I was thinking of the Capital One commercial that ends with the tag line, "What's in your wallet?" What are you depending on in this life? What kingdom are you living in? Are you living in the one that is destined to end soon enough? Or are you living in the one that is going to last?

If you started with a particular illustration, you might return to it here as part of the closing and complete the loop. Also you will want to call the congregation to commitment to live as citizens of the kingdom.

Sermon Starters: Love the Whole Way (Matt. 5)

Wesleyan Publishing House had the idea of creating some sermon starter material to go along with some of the devotionals I've written, as well as some of the books on Jesus and Paul I've written. These will be available on their website for anyone who would, for example, want to preach a 6 week sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount.

So I thought I'd create one today on Matthew 5:43-48 with the possible title of "Love the Whole Way." It isn't exactly a three point suggestion, so I hope it passes muster with Lenny Luchetti. :-)

Introduction
1. You might start with a story about someone who did pretty well with something but did not finish or did not go the whole way and thus failed in some key way. It could be an example from sports or history or the Bible. It could be a personal story. It could even be a hypothetical, like a product that was mostly finished but missing some crucial final component.

2. Explain the context of Matthew 5:17-48. See The Wisdom of Jesus, Week 2, and Jesus: Portraits from the Gospels, chapter 4.

Body
1. Jesus calls us to love everybody.

• You don't have to like someone to love them. Love is a choice in this context. When you are faced with Choice A and Choice B, love does the Jesus thing, not the unloving thing. This dynamic is especially important in the special case of the person who has wronged you in a significant way. Forgiveness and love, in this context, are not about feelings. They are about how you act toward others.
• Illustration. Again, you can use a personal story, a story from the newspaper, history, sports, or the Bible. For example, a nice cross reference here is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus picked the "wrong person" to be the good guy in this story. Who is the person you most do not want to "love." That is the person you should picture in this parable.

2.  Examples Jesus gives (sprinkle with your own stories to drive the points home--each of these points could actually be a sermon in its own right, a four week series, for example)

• Hatred: The first example Jesus gives has to do with murder and hatred. It's not enough just not to kill anyone. Going the loving way, going the whole way, means not acting hatefully, not only in our actions, but in the choices of our minds. See supporting material for more details. 
• Sexual Faithfulness: Again, it is not simply enough not to commit adultery. (What is adultery, see supporting materials) Do you commit adultery with your mind? Some would divorce in order to try to commit adultery legally.
• Keeping your word: Going the loving way in truthfulness is not simply telling the truths when you swear by God. It is being a truthful person, someone who is dependable in what they say. This is not a matter of legalism but a matter of being loving with your words. An important example is the person who is unloving while telling the truth--this person also violates the spirit of Jesus here.
• Mercy over justice: It is common to think of these instructions as "making things even harder," but that is not exactly what Jesus is doing. Jesus is not being a legalist with Scripture (see supporting materials). In going the loving way, some of the Old Testament instruction gets shuffled (such as the "eye for an eye" instruction). "Fulfilling the Law and Prophets" (Matt. 5:17) sometimes means making exceptions to the rule. It involves the right priorities, with love as the chief priority.

3. This is what it means, biblically, to be "perfect" (Matt. 5:48)

• "Perfect" here is not about mistakes or absolute perfection. It is not about performance. It is about an attitude. It is about acting in a "complete" way. (See supporting materials)
• Illustration: Give a story that captures this principle, especially an example where someone is very "imperfect" at being "perfect."

Conclusion
Virtue is not simply about making the right choices. Give an example of someone who finds something easy. I know people who are thin, but they do not have to exert any effort to be thin. They could overeat every day and be thin.

Virtue is when it takes effort to make the right choices. "If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?" (5:46). As Christians, we do not believe we either have to do it alone or even can do it alone. But we have the promise that the Holy Spirit will empower us to do the right thing, the loving thing (1 Cor. 10:13).

End with a call to commitment and a challenge to live accordingly this week.

#40daybible Day 21 (Matthew 1:1-7:29)

So we begin the second half of this 40 day journey with the Gospel of Matthew. For today's reading, which goes through the Sermon on the Mount, click here.

Reading notes:

• I thought the intro to Matthew here was bold (for the NIV especially) to suggest that the author probably wasn't Matthew but rather someone with extensive training in the Law. Of course the Gospel is anonymous technically. But right or wrong in this case, submission to the Truth requires openness to modifying our traditions, including traditions about the Bible.
• The genealogy of Matthew 1 is intriguing both in its division into 14s (the number of King David's name) and its mention of key women throughout. Each of these women is a testament to how God can use women considered questionable by others.
• Perhaps these women implicitly prepare us for the story of the virgin birth (or more accurately, virgin conception), since Mary would have been looked at with suspicion. 
• The importance of the virgin birth for Christian faith highlights the importance of the church after the New Testament, since the virgin birth receives almost no attention whatsoever in the Bible alone. 
• The most important part of today's reading is the Sermon on the Mount. In my opinion, the key verses of the Sermon on the Mount are 5:17-20. The entire sermon maps out how Jesus' teaching gives the full meaning of the Law, as well as what kind of righteousness God is looking for in relation to the kingdom of God.
• Matthew 5:21-48 gives a number of examples of this full meaning to the Law. It is not merely extending. Jesus gets to the heart of each matter in the light of the law of love. It's not enough not to murder outwardly. The person who fulfills the law of love does not murder inwardly either.
• Similarly, it's not enough not to commit adultery outwardly or illegally. The person who fulfills the law of love does not commit adultery inwardly or legally by getting a divorce.
• However, the last examples in Matthew 5 show that the law of love does not merely extend the OT law. At points it modifies or even reverses it. Jesus models for us that OT commands have to be filtered carefully through the law of love.
• Matthew 5:43-48 pretty much sums up the chapter.
• Matthew 6 shows what it means for your righteousness to surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees.
• Matthew 7 gives the bottom line after hearing the sermon. If you're a wise person, you'll build your house on Jesus' teaching.
• The NIV introduction is probably right that "Matthew" wanted his audience to think of Moses as they read. Jesus has more authority than Moses, and gives the fulfilled meaning of the Law from a new mountain.

Personal take-away:

• Again, Matthew 5:43-48 pretty sums up all of Christian ethics. Love everyone, including your enemies, or to put it another way, "Do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matt. 7:12). You can't trump these verses with other verses. 

The Literary Structure of the Sermon on the Mount

I'll be writing a devotional book on the Sermon on the Mount in the next couple months.  Although the structure of Matthew 5-6 gelled with me a long time ago (rightly or wrongly), it's only been in the last week that Matthew 6-7 have.  Although I use the Sermon on the Mount as an example of how to survey a text, I've always been a little less confident about the second half than the first.

Here's just a thumbnail of how I see the structure:

Matthew 5:3-16 Beatitudes
Kingdom Introduction--presents the values of the kingdom.  It involves some contrasts that will play out throughout the sermon--between now and not yet, between the visible and the heart, between true blessedness and superficial blessedness.

Matthew 5:17-20 Key Verses
These verses are ground zero in the sermon.  They are a general statement that plays itself out in the rest of it in two ways: 1) Jesus, as the new Moses, gives the fulfilled, the complete, perfected, and authoritative interpretation of the Law and the Prophets and 2) that fulfilled interpretation is true righteousness, a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.  These verses also form an inclusio with 7:12, which returns to the theme of summing up the Law and the Prophets with the Golden Rule or what we know from Matthew 22 as the love commandment.

Matthew 5:21-48 The Fulfilled Law
In this series of contrasts, Jesus plays out what he means by fulfilling the Law.  It's not merely the superficial, external rule but the playing out of the love principle in the heart in each area.  In some cases, this shakes up and shuffles an OT law (e.g., eye for eye). The chapter climaxes with the general principle in 5:43-48.  The fulfilled law not only loves ones friends but one's enemies as well.  This is what it means to be complete or "perfect" as our heavenly Father is complete (5:48).

Matthew 6:1-7:12 True Righteousness
This section plays out 5:20 and what exceeding righteousness is in contrast to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.  First, their righteousness is only acting (6:1-18).  It is external rather than a righteousness of the heart.  It is a righteousness for now rather than for the kingdom.  It is a righteousness for the world rather than for God and the kingdom.

They lay up treasures on earth (6:19-24).  They judge others when in fact their heart is guilty of the same things (7:1-6). If they focus too much on receiving honor in the here and now, the visible (remember the topsy turvy values of the Beatitudes), one can also focus too much on the troubles of the visible and the moment.  The worrier is also wrongly focused on the current mourning (cf. 5:4), on the current crisis before the kingdom comes (6:25-34).

So the person in current need, before the kingdom comes, should ask and seek from God, who is a loving Father (7:7-12; cf. 5:43-48).  And we are to be complete as he is complete and do to others what we would wish them do to us (7:12).

Matthew 7:13-27 Be Wise!
The sermon now concludes with several warnings.  The most central one is to be a wise builder.  Someone might hear this sermon and do nothing with it.  That's like a foolish builder.  That person's house will fall.  The wise builder hears the "rock" of the sermon and applies it.

Relatively few will do that.  The gate to life is narrow.  Even some of those who pretend to hear are only faking.  There will be false prophets who, like the scribes and Pharisees, pretend to go along with the kingdom but whose heart isn't really with it. By the time Matthew was writing, this was probably a comment on people in his context.

Finally, like the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25, not everyone who claims Jesus as Lord on the Day of Judgment will make it. Those who are only playing at it will be cast out into outer darkness, even though they may have done spectacular external things.

Treasures in Heaven (Matthew 6)

Treasures in Heaven
Matthew 6 plays out another aspect of the key verses of the Sermon on the Mount: “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20).  If someone hearing this verse actually knew some Pharisees, the verse would have been terrifying.  Really?  More righteous than a Pharisee?  No hope for me!

Pharisees were known for how carefully they kept the Jewish Law.  They were so serious about keeping the Jewish Law that they had developed extremely specific rules that spelled out very concretely what it might mean to keep the Sabbath holy or not to covet.  While it's easy for us to condemn them or dismiss them as hypocrites, we can develop our own traditions about how to keep the rules too.

For example, when I was a young boy, I once visited a church on a Sunday evening that was very strict on keeping Sunday as a Sabbath.  Taking Exodus 20:6 very seriously, they did not believe in working on Sunday.  In the hour before the evening service, I visited a nearby playground and was swinging. An older person came up to me and told me I needed to leave the playground because it was the Sabbath. Her thought was that, for a kid, playing was my work.  I should stop swinging--that is working--because it was the Sabbath.

It is really ironic to me now to realize how similar this person was being to some of the ancient Pharisees.  Being so zealous to keep the Law, they played out the rules into every area of life.  The problem is not so much their eagerness to keep God's Law but the fact that for some of them the rules became an end in themselves.  Some of them apparently lost sight of what was much more important to God--loving people. [1]

So to say that you had to be more righteous than the Pharisees would have been terrifying to an average Jew.  Although today we assume they obviously fakers or evil, Pharisees enjoyed great popularity among most Jews. We have to make ourselves feel the shock of this statement.

When we get to Matthew 6, we begin to understand what Jesus is saying.  The righteousness of Israel's teachers of the Law is a this-worldly righteousness.  It is a righteousness for show.  The stereotypical Pharisee Matthew has in mind is an actor, a hypocrite who is playing at acts of righteousness but does not have truly heavenly values...

[1] We should remember that the Gospel of Matthew is probably harder on the Pharisees in its presentation because the community that produced Matthew was probably in serious tension with the Pharisees.  Most experts think that Matthew was written after the Jerusalem temple was destroyed, when the Pharisees were perhaps the only major Jewish group left. With them in power, they became the leaders of Judaism and thus the perhaps main Jewish opposition to Christian Jews.

The Sermon on the Mount 1

The best known of the five big sermons in Matthew is the Sermon on the Mount. We may miss some profound aspects of this grand sermon if we merely think of it as a sermon Jesus gave on one particular occasion. By the time you finish this book, you will hopefully realize that the main goal of the Gospel writers was not merely to record the things Jesus said and did but also to tell us truths about Jesus by the way they presented the things Jesus said and did.

For example, some of the material in the Sermon on the Mount is in both Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6. Now it is quite possible that Jesus preached similar things on more than one occasion, but that is not the best explanation for what we find in these chapters. We have good reason to conclude that Matthew and Luke were drawing on a common source for this material. [1] If this idea is true, then the differences between the two are significant, because they probably represent something Matthew (or Luke) was meaning to say about Jesus.

What is the significance of the fact that the Sermon on the Mount is on a mountain?  Is it merely the fact that Jesus said these words on a mountain?  Or has Matthew set these teachings of Jesus on a mountain in order to tell us something about Jesus? Again, this whole line of thinking can be a little troubling when you hear it for the first time. We are programmed merely to think of the Gospels as historical presentations without realizing that ancient writers felt freer to be creative in the way they presented history than we would expect.

So is it possible that Matthew wanted us to think of another word from God that was given on a mountain in the Old Testament?  Is it possible that Matthew wanted his original Jewish audience to think of Moses and the Law when they read the Sermon on the Mount?  If so, then the key verses of the sermon, 5:17-21, take on a rich meaning.

Matthew 5:17 says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."  Now the Law and the Prophets is a shorthand for the entire Old Testament Scriptures. [2]  But the next couple verses go on to talk about commandments in the Law and the rest of the chapter shows how Jesus fulfills the Law.

The point is that the Sermon on the Mount gives Jesus' authoritative interpretation of the Law.  It implicitly compares Jesus to Moses as the law-giver.  Moses gave the Law.  Now in this sermon Jesus gives the fulfilled Law.  The sermon closes with the people getting the point: "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law" (7:28-29).

[1] Because it was German scholars who first explored this issue, they called the hypothetical source "Q" after the first letter of the German word for "source," Quelle.  Scholars like Mark Goodacre believe it is more likely that Luke used Matthew as a source directly for this sort of material ***. My point in the main text comes to the same conclusion either way.

[2] The three sections of the Old Testament in the Jewish division are the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.  The "Law and the Prophets" is thus a shorthand way of referring to the whole Old Testament by referring to its two main parts.

Structure of Matthew 5

The original "key verses" of the Sermon on the Mount, on which the entire sermon hangs but especially chapter 5, are 5:17-20:

"Do not think I have come to destroy the Law and the Prophets. I have not come to destroy them but fulfill them... unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

The rest of chapter 5 plays this general statement out in its particulars. "You have heard... but I say to you." In other words, Jesus fufills the Law and the Prophets by giving the full story on things they have heard. Chapter 6 plays out what the sermon might mean by a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.

Meanwhile, the Beatitutes and loose exhortations to be salt and light set the stage, set the feel for the sermon as a whole, introducing the emotional tone of the sermon, although not so much the ideological stage.