Matthew Series Week 6 - You Are’s
The Sermon on the Mount is an undeniably important section of the Bible, with Jesus preaching from the mountain, just as Moses had generations before when he read the law that had been given to him while in the presence of God. But Jesus is not giving a new law or changing anything, but to showing Himself to be the fulfillment of the law (Matthew 5:17). The good news for us in this is that He then doesn’t demand we uphold His reiteration and deepening of the law that as He preaches it here, but that He calls us into His new kingdom and empowers us through new life in Him to reflect Him through our new spiritual birth.
“Too often those characteristics [of the Beatitudes]... are turned into ideals we must strive to attain. As ideals, they can become formulas for power rather than descriptions of the kind of people characteristic of the new age brought by Christ. ... Thus Jesus does not tell us that we should try to become poor in spirit, or meek, or peace makers. He simply says that many who are called into the kingdom will find themselves so constituted.”
Skye Jethani, What if Jesus was Serious, page 17.
Nick pointed out on Sunday that the Sermon on the Mount is not merely new law, but the King sharing His perspective of the values of the Kingdom. The values of the Kingdom are based on grace, not works, because we cannot perfectly uphold the law alone in our sinful state, but Jesus being the fulfillment of the law, gives us, through grace, a new life built upon His victory and no longer our failures. This changes our perspective of the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:1-12) from being a list of to-do’s to being a list of you-are’s.
“Thus Jesus does not tell us that we should try to become poor in spirit, or meek, or peace makers.”
This understanding is solidified later in the New Testament Epistles when the authors are encouraging the believers in the early church that they had all they needed through the empowerment of Christ through the Holy Spirit in them and continuing to sanctify them. Such as, Peter tells us that we have all we need to grow in godliness through Jesus.
“3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” 2 Peter 1:3-4.
But how do we do it, and why? Because it is God’s intent to make us new and form us in the likeness of His Son. This reality of new life is “granted to us” by God’s “precious and very great promises” because it is His intent that believers become “partakers of the divine nature” (v4). This does not imply that we become some sort of deity ourselves, but that God is sanctifying us, or making us anew into the God-glorifying men and women we were created to be. We were created in the image of God, and Jesus Christ is the perfect sinless image of God, incarnated as fully man and fully God, who did what we could not and fulfilled the law, and then granted His victorious status to us through His grace in order to reconcile us to our Creator, and to empower us to continually reflect Him more perfectly.
Paul is reiterating this sentiment in Ephesians 4:22-24
“22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
As believers we’re to live in this new spiritual reality, intentionally putting on the new self, given to us by the grace of God, “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” This new self isn’t dependent on us and our goodness, but empowered by the Spirit in our hearts and minds. So be encouraged, be happy, be blessed, that through our faith in Christ we are not condemned by the law because we are set free in Christ (spend some time reflecting on Romans 8:1-11).
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” Rom. 8:1-2
“The bottom line from the sermon on Sunday was this: Kingdom Citizens are blessed and growing increasingly into the image of Jesus the King. ”
That’s because in Him we have been “granted all things that pertain to life and godliness” and “As partakers in the divine nature, we are freed from the bondage of sin and are now able to glorify our Lord in all that pertains to life and godliness.” [Gospel Transformation Bible]