Jesus' so-called "Sermon on the Mount" ranges over three chapters, Matthew 5-7. In it, we find what might be termed "Christianity's Greatest Hits" -- sayings that are so well-known and well-loved that they've become part of our culture. Take for example:
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
"You are the salt of the earth."
"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."
"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you."
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you."
"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."
Jesus closes His sermon this way, in Matthew 7:24-29, "'Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.'"
Matthew closes the chapter this way, in verses 28 and 29, "And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes."
And?
And, we're used to people who regurgitate Jesus' sayings without even thinking, much less doing them. We're used to people who preach and teach the Word of God like the scribes of Jesus' day -- halfheartedly, ignorantly, and hypocritically, reducing God's boundless love for us to a one-sided, unpredictable, and selectively-applied system of shoulds and oughts that we'd better follow if we want anything out of this cold, remote, angry figure we call God.
We know deep inside ourselves that this version of Christianity is bogus, so what do we do? Do we throw out the preacher? Do we draw closer to God through prayer? Do we expand our biblical literacy? Do we pray for a church where the Word is taught with authority?
No, no, no! We're much too sharp and sophisticated for that. We decide that Christianity itself is bogus. We decide that everyone who preaches the Word is a liar and a hypocrite. We tell ourselves that God has the same, uh, qualities as the liars and hypocrites who call themselves Christians. We blow off the Bible because we believe it's full of lies and hypocrisy. After all, if the Bible told the story of God's boundless love for us, all those lying, hypocritical preachers we never trusted in the first place would be preaching the story of God's boundless love for us.
Man, we're good! We've convinced ourselves that we're compassionate, righteous, straightforward, wise, and loving people by virtue of the fact that we disobey God.
I thought Christianity wasn't about blind obedience.
I'm glad some of you have learned something, but you have to be asking yourselves why Jesus says, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock," You have to be asking yourselves why He says, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."
Well, how does Christianity look when Christians disobey God?
Like a bunch of lying, hypocritical preachers with lying, hypocritical flocks who follow a lying, hypocritical God whose Bible is full of lies and hypocrisy.
Suddenly, following God's commandments and practicing what Jesus preached doesn't look like blind obedience at all. It looks like the wisest, most loving option around, because we've seen how it works when Christians disobey and dishonor God. We've seen the human wreckage that occurs when this calcified disobedience is passed down through generations. More than that, we've felt how such disobedience works, and it hurts like crazy. It leaves us with deep, painful wounds that drive us away from the grace, forgiveness, love, and healing that God has always held out to us.
We were apart from God for a long, long time -- maybe our entire lives. When we found Him, and were washed clean of our sins by Jesus' blood, we felt true joy, grace, forgiveness, love, and healing -- maybe for the first time in our lives.
Maybe we're still basking in that flush of first love. Maybe we're asking ourselves, "Now what?" Maybe -- and this is what I feared when Jesus gave me Matthew 7:24-29 today -- we're already sliding back into sin. Maybe we never fully committed in the first place. I'm told that one of you is preaching the Gospel already, but only from the neck up, and not from your heart. Paul talks about you in Philippians 1:18, "What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice."
Trouble is, you half-baked preacher of a half-baked gospel, you don't need to build Jesus' name recognition. One thousand or so years down the road from Paul, the Jesus brand, if you will, is like the Coca Cola of religion -- everybody's heard the Name.
What is wrong with you? You were raised by two Godly parents. Unlike some of us, you've had a father's Godly example and a mother's Godly advice to draw on your whole life. You were smart enough to know religious hypocrisy when you heard it. But, you got smacked around by worldly-wise haters who scorned your sheltered upbringing. You decided that God was the bad guy, and you let the monster come out to play -- for decades. When you were punished by all those sophisticates you used to smack up to, you stumbled around until you came to this blog.
Now, you mouth the Word without living it, your prospects are brightening, and once again, you're in a position to mislead thousands of people with your empty sloganeering. You just might do it, too. Then, you'll cycle through worldly success based on hypocrisy, a dark and violent secret life, public shaming, and lonely exile all over again. Only this time, you're older, and you may not live long enough to take Jesus to heart. Please stop now, turn away from your sin and toward Jesus. He is your only hope.
Now that I've spent three paragraphs on one person, where does that leave the rest of you? Where does that leave the preacher of the half-baked gospel?
The specifics of those three paragraphs might not apply to you, but you're all in the same kind of danger.
Unless and until you hear Jesus' words and do them, this new-found faith will be just another fad, just a momentary lapse for you. The love, joy, peace, mercy, and forgiveness that God has extended to you will be gone, and you'll be back where you started from.
As John writes, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." (John 3:16-21)
You don't come to the light just by showing up, John says. You come to the light by turning away from your sins. You come to the light by believing in Jesus, who said, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." You come to the light by doing what is true -- not what you can get away with until you have to pull up stakes again. You come to the light by doing what Jesus commands -- not by doing wicked things.
When you put God in charge, opposites don't attract, John says. What you see is what you get.
If you don't believe that God is good and only asks us to do good, then why are you here?
If you do believe that God is good and only asks us to do good, then why aren't you doing His commandments?
If you believe that God's word is more than a one-sided, unpredictable, and selectively-applied system of shoulds and oughts that we'd better follow if we want anything out of this cold, remote, angry figure we call God, then why aren't you doing God's word?
Scared?
Like I said in "Father Knows Best," God's word can come to us outside the covers of the Bible. He can -- and does -- speak to us through the Holy Spirit, giving us commandments that even other Christians will tell us are crazy and wrong. As Peter said when he was arrested for preaching Jesus outside the temple, "We must obey God rather than men."
What has God been asking you to do lately?
You feel like you're the only one, don't you, like there's no other person on earth you can share these things with?
Maybe that's because you haven't been praying for the people to share them with.
I'm going to ask you again today to join me in praying that God will raise up a church for us and unite us in the Holy Spirit. Yes, it's crazy -- as crazy as walking naked and barefoot around Jerusalem for three years. As crazy as marrying and raising a family with a prostitute. As crazy as believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated you, and that you've given birth to the only begotten Son of God. As crazy as believing that, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)
I am asking you to believe that God will raise up a spiritual home for us -- a church -- here and now on this earth. And, I'm asking you to act on that belief.
Here's Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys with "Pray the Clouds Away".
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