Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5:1 ~ September 11, 2016 ~ Heritage Lutheran Church Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. Well that's it folks. It is the only verse in the sermon text for today. It seems like limiting the pastor to a single verse for a sermon text should a good way to shorten up the sermon, doesn t it? Well don t count on that since one of the amazing things about the Bible is how much it can say with very few words. Today we want to soak in all of what is meant when the Bible introduces one of the most important portions of Scripture, The Sermon on the Mount, with the words: Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. So now let s take this one verse and carefully examine it piece by piece to gain everything there is to be had from the context and purpose of The Sermon on the Mount. We begin with the phrase, Seeing the crowds SEEING THE CROWDS It is clear from the context that it was Jesus who saw the crowds. What did Jesus see when he saw the crowds? The Gospel writers all talk about the crowds. They are a mass of people. But they are different from the disciples. The disciples were Jesus students. They had a purpose. Jesus was their teacher. But the crowds had no lasting relationship with Jesus. They were drawn to Jesus because of the spectacle of his miracles. They were amazed by what he said, so they gathered to hear him because of curiosity; they were not there specifically to learn. Matthew explains the existence of the crowds in the last verses of chapter 4: And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. 1
So the reason Jesus saw the crowds was because he was famous. They were following him around. The Crowd was unorganized. It was without cohesion. It was without purpose except for the eagerness to witness the next miracle. The people in the crowd would not know if they believed in Jesus. They disagreed with each other about what they had seen and what it meant. But the Crowd did generate celebrity and fame. It was both problematic and wonderful. It favored him today, but would jeer him when he was crucified. The crowd meant little about the future of the faith, but it was the field white unto the harvest. From that crowd eventually came the believers that would form the Church of Jesus Christ. When Jesus saw the crowds could he see into the future of His church in the world. I wonder if when Jesus looked at those crowds that day he somehow saw us sitting here in Heritage Lutheran Church today HE WENT UP ON THE MOUNTAIN The second phrase we are considering today is, he went up on the mountain. This is not much of a surprise. This is why we call this section of Scripture the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus made a point of getting to a high place. He went to an out of the way spot on purpose. But what was that purpose? Why did Jesus teach up on a mountain? Why go to the heights in a wilderness? Some scholars believe that the hills above the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee may have had properties that made them a kind of natural amphitheater perfectly suited for Jesus' need to deliver his message to large crowds of people. The gentle slopes provided a broad area to accommodate the masses. At the right time of day, the prevailing wind would have been down the mountain across these slopes. That breeze would have acted as a natural amplifier carrying Jesus voice a surprising distance without him needing to shout. In addition to providing appropriate acoustics, going up the mountain provided a visual focus for delivering the message he had to share. It was kind of like getting into a pulpit. It provided his listeners with a place to concentrate their attention to better understand what he had to teach them. More than anything Jesus decision to go up the mountain is clearly a conscious act on his part to draw his listeners into a more careful and structured environment for learning. He was no longer wandering among them chatting. He was moving into a position where he could teach them important understandings about life in the 2
Kingdom of God. This is the really exciting part of looking closely at the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was offering his listeners and is offering us a very special concentrated set of teachings about life. These are things that we need to know as Christians. AND WHEN HE SAT DOWN Our next phrase for special focus is, and when he sat down. This may make you wonder a little bit. In our culture our teachers stand to deliver a lecture to us while we sit and take notes. Isn t that right? So the thought of having a person sit down to teach is a little foreign to us. But let s imagine that you lived back in first century Palestine. You would be used to a real teacher sitting down to teach. True, when they read from the Scriptures they stood, but when they taught about what those Scriptures meant they sat down. We encounter this exact pattern when in Luke, Chapter 4, when Jesus is visiting his home synagogue in Nazareth. Verse 16 reads: And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. But in verse 20 we find: And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. When Jesus sat down on to preach the Sermon on the Mount, everyone would have known that he was now ready to teach. By sitting in the presence of the great crowd Jesus indicated that now was the time for all to listen to him. He was claiming his right as Rabbi which is a Hebrew term that means teacher. By sitting, Jesus also invited his listeners to sit and make themselves comfortable so that they could listen and learn. That posture of a seated Rabbi with the eyes of everyone fixed on him is the setup we need to be ready to receive the wonderful teaching that Jesus invites us to learn for the spiritual health of our Christian lives. Let s mentally sit down and prepare ourselves to listen and learn from Jesus Christ. As Jesus sits down on the mount to teach and preach about important matters for Christian life, do we understand what our opportunity is? Jesus Christ is the greatest teacher who ever lived. He is the Son of God sent to reconcile the world to the Father. He does this through the words that he spoke, the signs that he performed, and his own death and resurrection. But a vital part of the transition involves a transformation of 3
our minds. That can only happen as we learn about the nature of the kingdom of God. This learning does not save us, but it makes us useful to God s purposes in the World. Jesus saves us by his blood, but his teaching is what makes us into what God needs for his Church on earth. As Jesus sits to deliver the Sermon on the Mount, we have come to one of the greatest learning opportunities in the history of humanity. We too can sit to listen and to learn directly from the Son of God. HIS DISCIPLES CAME TO HIM. So, let s recap what we have covered so far. Jesus saw the crowds, went up the mountain and sat down to teach. Has everyone got that so far? Now we come to the fourth and most important part of today s sermon text. His disciples came to him. Jesus disciples came to him. They followed him up the mountain. They sat down where he sat down. They came to him by physically gathering around him. They also came to him in their hearts through faith. They came to him in their minds by their willingness to learn from him what he had to teach. And they came to him with their lives because they were willing to put into practice the new kind of behavior that his teachings created. The term disciple is a word filled with meaning. At the most basic level it means a person who dedicates themselves to learn from a particular teacher. Jesus disciples are his students. If we intend to be Christian disciples we must become students of Jesus. We need to learn what he has to teach us. We missed the opportunity to sit down on the slopes above the Galilean Sea to hear Jesus in person by nearly two thousand years. But the Gospel writer has taken care of that. He has written it all down. We have all we need to be a disciple. We have all we need to come to Jesus. We have all we need to sit down at his feet and learn from him how to live our lives. We know by faith that Jesus has saved us through the forgiveness of sins. Grace has granted us that so very freely. But do we know what it means to live in that grace day by day? That is what Jesus wants to teach us. His closest followers have gone to great pains to share that with us. When we read the phrase, his disciples came to him, that includes Matthew who writes out for us the very words of Jesus so that we to can come to him and learn from him. We can be true disciples expressing our salvation in a life of discipleship. Living from day to day in the knowledge Jesus wants us to have about how life works and what his Father desires from us. 4
What a great and blessed gift it is to not only have a Lord who saves us, but to have a Lord who wants to teach us what that salvation means for everyday living. I invite you to reaffirm you re decision to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Join the other disciples. Come to Jesus on the Mountain. Learn from him how to live your life as a Christian. I assure you, it is the opportunity of a lifetime as together we will join the other disciples to listen and learn from Jesus Sermon on the Mount. The cross is full. The tomb is empty. Jesus is alive and leading us out to go, make, baptize and teach disciples. Let us take up our cross and follow him. 5