Introduction
Read this lesson prior to the first meeting.
The Sermon on the Mount is a discipleship guide to complete surrender and obedience to Jesus as we live his way in the kingdom of God. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39 | NIV) In 1937,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience.”1. In the 1930s, Bonhoeffer served a Lutheran congregation as pastor and stood against Hitler and the Nazis at a time when many other pastors were supporting the Third Reich. One pastor Hermann Gruner, proclaimed to his congregation: “Christ has come to us through Adolph Hitler.”2. The clergy’s misguided enthusiasm stemmed from the country’s economic depression and the hope Hitler could restore Germany to the prominence she lost after the First World War.
Bonhoeffer did not buy into his nation’s group think. Instead, recognizing the threat Nazis posed to his country and its citizens, chose loyalty to Jesus over his nation’s leaders. He banded with theologian Karl Barth, pastor Martin Niemoller and others in opposition to the government. When non-violent resistance proved futile, Bonhoeffer became a double agent who used his position to help Jews escape the Nazis. He was even privy to the plot to kill Hitler, although there is no evidence he was actively involved in its execution. He travelled to the United States, but soon realized he could not play a role in rebuilding Germany if he did not suffer with its people. He returned to his homeland, was arrested in April 1943, and hanged in April 1945—one month before the war ended in Europe.
A decade later, a camp doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer’s hanging described the scene:
“The prisoners … were taken from their cells, and the verdicts of court martial read out to them. Through the half-open door in one room of the huts, I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued in a few seconds. In the almost 50 years that I have worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”3.
While we might admire Bonhoeffer’s moral courage, it is his walk with Jesus as a disciple that should inspire us as we delve into Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. The final instruction Jesus gave his followers before he returned to his Father was to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20 | NIV) Notice, Jesus did not say go and make little Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists or Roman Catholics. He told his followers to go and make disciples.
Jesus asked, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? Luke 6:46 | NIV We tend to allow religion to get in the way of our relationship with Jesus.
Religion is all the things you normally go through to meet God. The Gospel is the way you will see and think after you have met God. The Gospel is the effect of the God-encounter. Religion, though it often stirs desire, is also the most common and disguised way of avoiding the encounter.4.
Rohr went even further with that thought.
“We keep worshiping the messenger, keeping Jesus up on statues and images, so we can avoid what Jesus said. It’s the best smokescreen in the world! We just keep saying, ‘We love Jesus.’ The more we talk about Jesus, the less we’ll do what he said.”5.
We consider ourselves “good Christians” because we are at church every time the doors are open, smugly warming our pews and singing our hearts out. Discipleship is not sitting, listening, and singing. It is going, making disciples and living out our Christian walk with intentionality. We cannot make disciples unless we are disciples. In John 8:31, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.” (NIV) His teaching is the point of this study. For now, we would do all well to wrestle with who we are in terms of what Jesus meant by disciple.
“The secret to understanding the Sermon on the Mount is to understand what Jesus intended when he preached it.6. In this, the longest recorded sermon of Jesus, he answers that question. Noted Bible commentator, R.T. France calls the Sermon on the Mount, “The Discourse on Discipleship.”7. The words Jesus spoke are intended for those who have decided to follow him; those for whom he is both Lord and Savior. To infer that they were intended for the unbeliever would be to repeat the mistake made by those of an earlier generation that concluded the Sermon on the Mount was a “social gospel” that, if followed, would fix a broken world.
The world will not be fixed until Jesus returns. However, “When Christ’s presence (parousia) is experienced, it is the end of the world as we have known it.”8. For his disciples, the end of that world has already occurred. Jesus did not come to simply change hearts by making us into what we should be as his followers, he came to introduce the Kingdom of God. God’s is upside-down Kingdom. The way of the world is power. Jesus’s way is love. His way goes against the popular view of the world and is intent on changing the status quo by the example of Spirit-filled disciples. He prefers obedient surrender to militant activism.
While we eagerly await his appearing, we are expected to live out his teaching.
The Gospel will always insist that means and ends must be in complete agreement, or the final end is always polluted. There is no way to peace; peace is the way. There is no path toward love except by practicing love. War will always produce more war. Violence can never bring about true peace. Much of the content of the Sermon on the Mount has to do with this agreement between means and ends.”9.
As we begin our study with what has come to be called the Beatitudes, it is important to bear in mind that each build upon the one that it follows. They were intended for disciples of Christ–not the “crowd” to whom Jesus often preached.
The New International Version of the Bible translated the first word of each sentence as “blessed.” That word “blessed” in verses 3-11, makarios in the Greek, usually describes a person who is favored by God, which makes them “happy” in some sense.10. “According to the Scriptures happiness is never something that should be sought directly; it is always something that results from seeking something else…. put happiness in the place of righteousness and you will never get it.11.
France12. observed that “happy” is an unfortunate translation because of the psychological implications of the word. He asserts “blessed” also falls short because it carries too theological a connotation. He opined “fortunate” came closer, but it implied an element of luck. Finally, he concluded, “To be congratulated,” was better, although it did not really convey the Evangelist’s intent. The Hebrew word, ʾAšrê, seems to do a much better job of conveying what Jesus meant. It describes the happy state of the one who lives wisely;13. true happiness and flourishing within the gracious covenant God has given.14. “The true blessedness of the saint is in determinedly making and keeping God first.”15.
The rationale or underlying motive of the Sermon on the Mount is God’s love16. and our response to it. The demand for the true sacred, absolute and ultimate God-centeredness, is at the heart of Jesus’s teaching.17. The Beatitudes find their root in biblical Wisdom literature, especially the Psalms18. and become increasingly difficult to achieve as we proceed down the list.19. A.W. Pink posited they must be taken as a composite picture of the true Christ-follower against which we should compare ourselves.20. We are to exhibit all eight characteristics in some measure. Obviously, this does not square too well with the contemporary, “John Lennon” notion of Christianity that “love is all it takes.”
Once we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus, the real work of becoming a disciple begins. Who we are is defined by who we are in God’s sight. And that is a process. “It is to be kept steadily in mind that in those Beatitudes our Lord is describing the orderly development of God’s work of grace as it is experientially realized in the soul.”21. What we will be studying over the next several weeks is hard stuff. But if we approach it with an open mind and willing attitude, the Holy Spirit will lead us where we need to go. The one abiding method of interpretation of the teachings of Jesus is the Spirit of Jesus in the heart of the believer applying his principles to the particular circumstances in which we are placed.22. Similar to the first five Commandments, verses 3-6 focus on the proper attitude of disciples before God and promise appropriate blessings on those who respond as he desires.23.
Discussion
- Who are you and why did you decide to participate in this study?
- What does the word “disciple” mean to you?
- What do you believe stands in the way of going and making disciples?
- Do you agree with Rohr’s conclusions regarding means and ends? Do moral ends justify immoral means?
- Is it possible to always keep God first? What might that look like in daily life?
Footnotes:
[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone, 1959), Kindle, location 847.
[2] Mark Galli, 131 Christians Everyone Should Know, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2000) p.378.
[3] Ibid., p.380.
[4] Richard Rohr. Jesus’ Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount (p. 109). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition. ”
[5] Ibid, p.45.
[6] Ibid., p10.
[7] R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2007), 153.
[8] Rohr, 48.
[9] Rohr, 27.
[10] D. A. Carson, Matthew. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Rev. Ed (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), Location 6103, Kindle.
[11] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959-60), 63.
[12] France, 161
[13] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 44.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 1995), Kindle, Location 199.
[16] Ibid., 184, Kindle.
[17] Rohr, 23.
[18] Carson, Matthew, Location 6076, Kindle.
[19] Lloyd-Jones, Studies, 53.
[20] A. W. Pink, An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, Arthur Pink Collection, Book 22, Faithful Classics (Prisbrary Publishing, 2012), Location 199, Kindle.
[21] Ibid., Sermon, Locations 347-58, Kindle.
[22] Chambers, Studies, Location 109, Kindle.
[23] Charles H. Talbert, Matthew (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic), 77, Kindle.
12/05/2022