The Sermon on the Mount

Point #1

Last week we looked at a “Core Sample” of the life of Jesus, and saw that “Teaching, Preaching, & Healing”, are what we can expect from the life of Jesus. We briefly explored each of them, and then boiled it all down to explain that everything that Jesus did or didn't do, was for the glory of His Father.

Jesus Christ is a living Sermon, and that Sermon has an outline. He didn't live and speak in unorganized fortune cookie snippets, and He never mindlessly rambled or filibustered to run out the clock. Everything He said, and everything He did was perfect, aiming His words and actions with surgical precision to fulfill what His Father sent Him to Earth to do.

Because of this, what we have in front of us this morning in The Sermon on the Mount, in the words of The Word, is a living Sermon that is able to be explored and studied. 

And because all Scripture is the voice of God, not simply the soundwaves which proceeded from the mouth of Christ…all Scripture is able to be studied and explored. These golden words written for our good and His glory join together and from the basis of all reality. They bring comfort and peace to the afflicted and abused; and they bring damnation and torment to the wicked. And when we as the children of the one true King, go out into battle like so many soldiers before us, doing nothing but speaking the long written down words with equal parts boldness and humility, The Apostle speaks of in 2nd Corinthians 2:15-17 → “For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.”

When we study and explore the words of God, and then let the fruit of that study flow forth from our life, The Saved are reassured of their eternal salvation, and with the exact same words, The Lost are reassured of their eternal damnation. And far be it from us tweak and tailor the Words according to our own thoughts and feelings. We speak the truth of Scripture, and let God do the work within those whom He has chosen and those whom He has not.

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Furthermore, while the words themselves speak of the flowing glorious truth of who God is and what He has done, the manner in which they are structured does as well. As in, the entire Bible has an outline. It can be mapped, and can therefore be studied.

Which means, stay with me here, that not is there eternal comfort in what is written, there is eternal comfort in how it is written as well. In a world of chaos and confusion, where bright and shining lights are extinguished from this life in ways that horrify and trouble us…the truth of God remains unchanging. A sure and steady anchor, unable to be moved by the maelstroms of the modern world, is the Word of God. Look to and read these words you children of God, everyday, but also look at the manner in which they were written.

That is my goal here this morning. We are going to be looking at a Summary of The Sermon on the Mount, and in order to summarize it, we need to look beyond the verbs and nouns and adjectives, to see the outline that produced them. And that outline is nothing apart from the immovable glory of Jesus Christ. 

The Sermon on the Mount is the first of five different Sermons that Christ gave in Matthew, and viewing each of them as a whole, we can see a pattern emerge.

• In His first Sermon (The Sermon on the Mount) in Matt. 5-7, we see Him laying down the foundations of the New Covenant; and in Genesis we see the foundation of the people of God.

• In His second Sermon - Matt. 10: We see Jesus sending out His 12 Disciples; and in Exodus we see the 12 Tribes of Israel being sent out.

• In His third Sermon - Matt. 13: We read about holiness, worship, and parables about the people who belong to God; and in Leviticus we read about holiness, the laws for worship, and what it means to live as the people of God.

• In the fourth - Matt. 18: Christ talks about living in a community of believers, discipline, and wandering; and in Numbers we read about the organization of the people of God, discipline, and wandering.

• In His final Sermon - Matt. 23-25: We have The Olivet Discourse filled with promises of blessings and warnings of judgment, and He promises us His return; and in Deuteronomy we see the same thing. Blessings, curses, warnings of judgment, and a promise of a return for the people of God after exile.

Jesus’ five Sermons in Matthew mirror the first five Books of The Old Testament.

This might seem to be a useless scholastic tidbit of information, and you might even find yourself asking: “So what?” I pray you aren't, but the answer to that question about why it matters that we see this, is because in a world of chaos the human heart longs for structure and order. Peace and calmness. Something that will never change and is able to be wholly relied upon, even to the point of death. 

And the inscripturated Word of God that we have before us this morning is just that. It is a structured, organized account of reality. There is no chaos, there is only order. The Bible was written in such a way that the more you read it, the more you are able to see the beauty of who God is and what He has done, and what He has done is ordered all of reality to unfold according to His glorious purposes. He is still on the Throne of the Universe, laughing at the wicked as they try to raise themselves against Him, while gathering to Himself His children with more comfort and peace than we can humanly process.

Point #2

Taking up the next three chapters (5-7) of Matthew, we have The Sermon on the Mount. It is where we will see the Beatitudes; our status as those within whom Christ lives as being the “salt & light” in the world; we will read about Christ fulfilling The Law, the depth of sin, the actions that will be produced by The Holy Spirit throughout the course of our life on Earth, how to pray, and how to live; but above all, through the course of this longest of Jesus’ Sermons, we will see that the Kingdom of Heaven (His rule & reign on Earth having started) looks a certain way, and those within that kingdom act a certain way as well.

The Bible is a structured, organized account of reality. There are no useless words, filler, or lazy phone-it-in sections. Every syllable of every word, every word of every line, every line of every paragraph and every paragraph of every Book was intentionally breathed out by God (1 Tim. 3:16), will stand forever (Matt. 24:35) and will always accomplish the reasons He had for speaking them to begin with (Is. 55:11).

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So when we read in v.2: “then He opened His mouth and taught them”, we can not gloss over it. And again, the more you dig into Scripture, the more you will see. You will be fed out of the Word in direct proportion to the effort you put into it.

What we have here in Verse 2 is an “echo” of what the Old Testament has long said, bouncing off of the mountains of modernity, and its origin (like all of Scripture) is God Himself. It says this in Psalm 78:1-4 → “Give ear, O my people, to my law; Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. [2] I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old, [3] Which we have heard and known, And our fathers have told us. [4] We will not hide them from their children, Telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, And His strength and His wonderful works that He has done.”

The covenantal promises of God are going to be conveyed to our children and our children’s children, and it will be God Himself, who will communicate who He is and what He has done to every generation. God is the one upon whom is the onus for such a task, and the only thing binding Him to follow through, is Himself. Furthermore, it needs to be said that these Verses in Psalm 78 are a historical retelling by the Psalmist (in this case it is Asaph, not David) reminding the people of God that though they wandered in rebellion, giving in to the dark desires of their hearts…God remains faithful and true. Later in Matthew (13:35), Jesus fulfills the words of the Psalmist when He directly quotes from Psalm 78.

All of that to say, when we read that Christ “opened His mouth to speak” we can understand it to mean that what will soon follow is authoritative, originating from the very heart of God. Next week, and (more than likely) through to the end of this year, we will be in the Sermon on the Mount, and will see this very thing. Authoritative teaching from the heart of God, made audible to us by the Word of God, Jesus Christ.

Point #3

It needs to be said, however, that when this Master teacher called His class to order, it was His Disciples that He called. Yes, by the end of the Sermon on the Mount there are many, many others listening in (Mt. 7:28), all of them astonished by His teachings, but the primary focus of these Lessons were the people that God called to Himself. Yes, there are teachings that apply to the lost, (if you’ve lusted in your heart, you are guilty of breaking the 7th Commandment- Matt. 5:28), but Jesus was speaking to the found. 

Well aware of what He was doing, having decided in eternity past that His Word would transcend time and culture, crossing continents and breaking through any borders, Jesus Christ beautifully braided together words which The Lost take as condemnation, and words which The Found love to follow.

He did this, because the Main Point of the Sermon on the Mount is not simply a moral code by which to live by. The Sermon on The Mount isn’t simply about Social Justice; a guide to ethical behavior; and our inability to break free of the condemnation that our sins have earned us, thereby prompting us to cry out for grace and mercy. Yes, all of those are contained within the Sermon, but taking it as a whole we can see that Christ wove words together in such a way to not only speak to The Lost or to The Found….but to do what His Father sent Him to do.

Let me rephrase that.

The primary focus of Jesus Christ was neither The Lost nor The Found,

but the glory and honor of His Father.

God is glorified in the saving of The Found (Eph. 1:12) and in the damning of The Lost (Rev. 19:3). Which means, that if we were going to say nothing about Christ apart from: “Jesus came to Earth to save the lost” (which is true! Luke 19:10)...it becomes false if we ignore the other things that are true about why Jesus came to Earth.

I understand that this might sound a touch complicated, but a good way to cut through the confusion is to, like a little child, ask: “Why?”.

“Why did Jesus come to seek and save the lost (Luk. 19:10)?” Because His Father told Him to (Jn. 6:39).

“Why is Jesus going to judge the wicked?” Because His Father told Him to (Jn. 5:22).

And when we exert more and more effort into the Bible, and the rich food verily returns to our soul, we are fed with the truth that the bottom-line reason for why Christ did and said everything He did and said…was to obey His father. Period.

We can not sacrifice certain truths about Christ on the altar of “self”, by assuming that we are the center of the Universe. Everything God says, doesn't say, do, or doesn't do, is according to Himself (Eph. 1:11). Jesus Christ is the main point.

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Now, to take that truth about God, and apply it to an overview of The Sermon on the Mount; Yes, He said things that apply to The Lost. Yes, He said things that apply to The Found. But each of those true statements is built upon the Main Point of His Sermon: A description of the Kingdom of God, that started with the Incarnation. 

Because Christ spoke in a structured and organized way, and we take The Sermon on the Mount as a whole, we can see penstrokes of authorial mastery. Christ spoke in a way that is able to be studied by others, regardless of the state of their dead hearts or their level of intellect. Simply speaking: Not only is there an outline to the entire Bible, there is an outline to The Sermon on the Mount as well.

That day on the Mountain, the God of the Universe spoke in concentric circles of love and justice, and within the beating heart of the longest recorded Sermon from the mouth of The Word, the hinge upon which the entire Sermon hung, He spoke of the freedom from worry that comes to those who seek after the Kingdom of God as the focus of their entire life (6:19-34).    (You can see the outline of The Sermon on the Mount on the last page)

Jesus Christ, The Living Sermon of God, gave a life-giving Sermon

structured around the freedom from worry for those who

seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Point #4

And again, I would encourage you to ask “Why?”. “Why” does seeking the Kingdom of God lead to life free from worry? Well…lets read together what it looks like to do so, then find the answer after we do.

Matthew 5:27-30 → “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ [28] But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [29] If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. [30] And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”

Going after the Kingdom of God - going after the rule & reign of God in the World, and in your day-to-day life - isn't simply “don't commit adultery”...because you are already guilty of breaking the 7th Commandment when you lusted. Jesus didn't say: “Don't lust”, He said to pluck out your eye or cut off your hand if it leads you to lust. Going after the rule & reign of God in your life looks like making drastic life altering choices to keep your ability to lust away from you. It looks like a willing, volitional initiative to want to live how God tells you to, no matter the cost.

Matthew 5:21-26 → “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ [22] But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. [23] Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, [24] leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. [25] Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. [26] Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.”

Going after the Kingdom of God - Going after His rule & reign in the World, and in your day-to-day life - isn't simply not murdering anyone…because you are already guilty of violating the 6th Commandment if you are angry in your heart at them. Jesus didn't say “don't be angry with them”. He said “go and be reconciled”. Going after the rule & reign of God looks like reconciliation with the person whom you have already killed in your heart. It looks like living out what Jesus did for us at the Cross.

In 5:43-48 He tells us that going after the rule & reign of God isn't simply “not hating your enemies”, that isn't good enough. You need to actually do good towards them. 

In 7:15-20 He tells us that going after the rule & reign of God in your life looks like actual fruit being produced, not simply rotten fruit covered with a wax of good words. 

On and on Christ is explaining what it looks like to go after the Kingdom of God; not simply receiving what you ask for…but acknowledging that God is good and gives good gifts to those who ask Him (5:12). Not simply calling out the sin you see in others…but admitting your own sin (7:3-6). Not simply hearing the words of God…but actually building your entire life upon them…because you know that the storms He sends your way will never be strong enough to topple you (7:24-27). 

“But…” you might be thinking right now, “...how does that produce a freedom from worry?”

Before we answer, however, we would be remiss to not speak of how we can live that way. “How can I do good to my enemies?” “How can I make drastic life-altering choices to keep my ability to lust away from me?”

How can I seek after the Kingdom of God and His righteousness?

The answer to that question, before we answer the first one, is seen in the words of Peter that we looked at a few weeks ago. We cry out, with our words, with our actions, with our very life “Depart from me O Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Lu. 5:8). We scream aloud with every ounce of our black blood “Help me God! I am stuck! I have nothing, and the sin that I hate I keep on doing! Where are you God? I need you! You are so holy, so righteous, and I am a sinner, a man of unclean lips, unworthy of the love of people, and unworthy of the love of You! Forgive me of my sins God, I have nothing left but a cry for mercy. Forgive me of my sins and take my guilt from me.”

And He does.

He forgives us, not because of us, not because we have or ever could earn it…but because of Himself. Because of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ we can be forgiven of the most dark, vile, wicked and evil sins that have ever bubbled up from the dank, doom-filled corridors of our hearts. There is no sin that God is unwilling to forgive, and no child of His that is beyond His reach. 

Have you already done this? Have you already cried out in desperation for the salvific blood of Jesus Christ to drown you in the waves of red which flow from His open back and breakless bones…but the sin you have already been forgiven of has taken the reins of your heart and mind? Are you the Prodigal here this morning? Are you the one that has wandered away from the Ninety Nine? Then turn back, not out of fear or compulsion, but out of desperation. Have you seen the swine’s food and longed for the feast at your fathers? Then…though you may not feel like you were one of those whom Christ called up to the mountain that day in our Verses, know at the bottom of your soul that anyone who goes to Him He will never cast out (Jn. 6:37). 

Point #5

In our final point this morning, before we look at how seeking after the Kingdom of God creates in us a freedom from worry that can transcend every event in our life; I’d like to repeat something; the more we put into our Bibles the more we will get out.

The more time we spend listening to the only place where His voice is, the more our own voices grow quieter. The more time we spend reading His voice, the more the voices of the world fall into our peripherals. When we intentionally spend willful, volitionally born minutes and hours exploring and studying His good and golden voice, the less and less power the perverse and putrid voices of our enemies have over us.

Do you see an answer beginning to form? Can you see the pieces of “freedom from worry” there on the table of your mind, ready to be fit into place? Let's keep going.

Now, at first glance, it might seem inconsequential to notice that Christ was on a mountain, giving The Sermon on the Mount. But…I'm pretty sure I've hit the nail of the structure and organization of Scripture enough times, for you to expect where I’m about to go.

In just looking at Matthew, before we look further back, we can see that Mountains are everywhere. Satan’s final attempt at getting Christ to sin…is on a Mountain in 4:8. We have The Sermon on the Mount in ch. 5-7. There’s the Mountain of prayer in 14:23, Jesus ascending a Mountain to heal in 15:29 & 30, The Mount of transfiguration in 17:1-8, and The Sermon on the Mount of Olives in ch.23-25. And Matthew closes out his Gospel with The Great Commission…given on a Mountain in 28:16-20.

Remember what we can ask that will help us cut through confusion? “Why?”.

Why did the Father tell Christ to use Mountains in this way?

Because…God created us with the innate understanding that He is higher than we are (Ecc. 3:11; Rom. 1:19&20), and then He used the physical creation that He built to help us understand it even more. Imprinted into the very souls of every human that has ever existed is the truth that God is higher than us, and then all through Scripture He used mountains to help us understand it.

Where did Noah’s Ark come to rest after God’s judgment? Mount Ararat (Gen. 8:4). Where did Abraham offer up Isaac? Mount Moriah (Gen. 22:2). Where did Moses receive The Law? Mount Zion (Ex. 19:20). Where was David’s stronghold? Mount Zion (2 Sam. 5:7). Where does Isaiah prophesy that God will establish His eternal throne? The New Mount Zion (Is. 2:2&3). How does Daniel describe the Kingdom of God? Like a great mountain that fills the entire Earth. (Dan. 2:34&35)

Who was willingly submerged beneath the flowing and glorious gales of God’s righteous anger? Jesus Christ. Who was the Ram entangled within the thorns? The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World. Who perfectly followed every jot and tittle of The Law? The obedient Son. Who is our stronghold in time of need? Who even now sits upon the Davidic throne of thousands of stars and skies? Who is the eternal King who rules forever in the New Creation? Whose Kingdom has started, and will grow like a great Mountain until it fills the entire Earth?

Jesus Christ is the living Mountain of God, stretching from land to sky, from Earth to eternity,

and it is only through His broken body and shed blood that we are able to ascend to His Father.

When we place the focus of our heart, soul, and strength upon the focus of all reality, a freedom from worry is inevitably produced within your life because you will come to know that He is still ruling and reigning, not according to us the fallen, but according to His own unchanging will.

A freedom from worry is produced in us when we seek after the Kingdom of God, because every worry, fear, doubt, and anxiety is built upon the deepest worry, fear, doubt and anxiety of the human heart…our sin. And when that foundation for worry is eroded away by the blood of Jesus Christ, every other fear that stands upon it inevitably falls. It falls, because when you repented of your sins and believed in Him, you were declared innocent and righteous in the eyes of God, and were united with Him in the same way that He is united with His Father (Jn. 17:20&21). The foundation for every worry (sin) will crumble to dust in your lifetime, because our union with God is unbreakable. God always finishes what He starts (Phil. 1:6), and He promised to make you more and more like His Son (Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10). More like the One who never doubted, worried, gave into anxiety or fear, and trusted His Father with everything in His life…including His life (Matt. 26:53).

Hear me clearly sons and daughters, brothers and sisters; pull from your ears the filth of this World that has silenced His words, and wash the filth of their violence away from your weary eyes…The God of the entire Universe, whose holy fingers are gilded with galaxies and whose royal robe even now drapes over the swirling celestial edges of eternity; this same God, whose neon glowing throne pales in comparison to the incandescent Incarnate Word who sits atop it; this same God who lives forever entwined with your very soul…does not sleep (Ps. 121:4), does not lie (Num. 23:19), does not change (Mal. 3:6), does as He pleases among the inhabitants of Earth (Dan. 4:35), and is currently ruling and reigning over everything and everyone (Acts 7:55&56).

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” ← Matthew 6:25-34

Go after the Kingdom of God and His righteousness with all of your heart, soul, and strength you tired saint. Repent of your sins, knowing that He will forgive you. Ask Him for good and great gifts, knowing that He gives them to His children. Boldly approach His throne, knowing that He will never turn you away. And live a life of such undauntable courage and humility, knowing that the King is still on His Throne doing as He pleases.

Rev. Jacob Marchitell

Sept. 14th 2025