This week, we spotlight songs that reflect the themes in the Sermon on the Mount. Nowhere in Scripture will we see a clearer picture of what it looks like to follow Jesus than in these three chapters: Matthew 5-7.
The Jewish leaders focused on following the Law and became legalists. Their zeal was directed at getting God back on their side. Their goal was the restoration of Israel’s preeminence and deliverance from political and economic bondage.
But instead of browbeating his listeners for not following the Law, Jesus invites the crowd gathered on that mountainside to simply follow him.
He opens his sermon with the Beatitudes—inviting the poor, the powerless, the suffering, the disenfranchised, and the mourning to God’s banquet table. He tells those who are being rejected and manipulated by the religious bureaucracy that they are the ones for whom his Father is throwing a banquet.
Christ declares that the self-righteousness of the Pharisees fails miserably. Rather, commandment by commandment, he dismantles the legalism that leads to death and replaces it with the higher call to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God.
It might be tempting to read the Sermon on the Mount and conclude that Jesus was simply raising the moral bar by saying that lust was as bad as adultery and anger as bad as murder. But before God, each is truly as evil as the other. The objectification or denigration of another person is an affront to the Father in whose image they've been created.
By setting the bar impossibly high, Jesus reveals the impossibility of living up to God's standards. He exposes the futility of those who believe that observing the letter of the Law will earn God’s favor as well as the hypocrisy of those who look down on their sinful brethren.
Because God judges our hearts, Jesus proclaims that we are just as guilty of the sins we'd like to do as the trespasses we actually commit. God’s standard is perfection (Matthew 5:48), and if we’ve missed the bull’s eye, then we’ve missed the whole target.
Christ leaves no room for doubt: to be saved, we will need a Savior.
In response, Jesus offers himself as the fulfillment of every jot and tittle of the Law. He calls people away from impersonal religion based on strict adherence to the Law and into a personal relationship with the Law Giver.
Jesus crushes the notion that righteousness before God can be achieved. Rather, righteousness is a gift from God to be received. Christ exposes the nonsense that we can appease God through our works and helps us understand that—because he has already pleased the Father on our behalf—our good works are acts of worship and the fruit of the love his Spirit bears in us.
The Sermon on the Mount is the holy ground where religious people can be transformed from followers of the Law to followers of Christ. As such, we can't revisit these verses too often.
--Click here for more inspiring articles from Discover Worship on the subject of Spiritual Development. Additionally, Discover Worship features more than 70 selections based on the themes and verses in Matthew 5, Matthew 6, and Matthew 7.