Sermon On The Mount

The Context of Matthew 5: Christ's Early Public Ministry 0:38

Now, if I was to ask you, the book of Matthew, does anyone know how many chapters are in Matthew? 28. 28 chapters. With that said, guess what? Today's text occurs in the fifth chapter, which is very early on.

You see, if you look in the book of Matthew, you've got chapters 1 and 2. And chapters 1 and 2 deal largely with Christ's birth and the events that followed immediately thereafter. Then you go to chapter 3 and you see Christ's baptism. And then as we saw very recently last week in chapter 4, you get the temptation.

He goes out into the wilderness and He is tempted by the devil. Now, at the end of chapter 4, which we didn't look at last week, after He's tempted, He returns and He commences His public ministry. And His public ministry involves going from place to place throughout the region, traveling and teaching and healing the sick.

So, with that said, He had just begun — at the end of chapter 4, He had just begun His public ministry. Well, today's text occurs at the very start of chapter 5, so it's very early on in His ministry. He hasn't even recruited all His disciples yet. If you look in chapter 4, you'll see He recruited a few of them, a few fishermen, right?

He hadn't even recruited Matthew, the guy who wrote this book, by the time we get to chapter 5 here. Matthew comes later in chapter 9.

Teaching Theological Novices Formed by the Pharisees 1:51

So the point is that everyone He's talking to are brand new to the faith, or at least brand new to what He's teaching. He's laying down information that no one has heard before. So at this point in the Sermon on the Mount, in order to understand it correctly, you have to understand that He's teaching theological newbies.

He's teaching theological novices here. He's teaching fishermen and hurting broken people who have sought Him out, many who have sought Him out just for the miracles, not even for the teaching itself per se. But these were not people who were well-versed in faith. And to the degree they'd heard anything, to the degree they had any understanding of religion, do you know who their primary teachers had been?

The Pharisees. Can you guess how well that teaching had gone? If the Pharisees were your instructor, how well-formed would your faith be at this point? Probably not too much.

So here you have broken fishermen, hurting people, paralytics, demon-possessed people. You have all sorts of folks who have gathered around Him. And among them, there's not really a learned individual to be found per se, or at the very least, there's not many. The bulk of those who are sitting there around Him when He gave the Sermon on the Mount did not understand some of the very things that were going to come out of His mouth.

And we know they didn't understand because if you fast forward to the end of chapter seven, when the sermon's done, He closes the book and He stands up. What happens? We read that they were astonished. The very end of the Sermon on the Mount concludes that people are astonished.

And they were astonished in part because He taught with authority and also because they had simply not heard this before.

Teaching Truth and Dispelling Falsehood 3:19

If you've ever taught, then one of the things you know as someone who's been a teacher is that when you introduce a concept to someone, you really have to do two things. Number one, you have to introduce a concept. You have to teach truth, right? But simultaneously, you have to dispel falsehood.

Because everyone comes to whatever issue you're going to talk about, they already have formed some opinions on it. There's nothing you'll talk about, from religion to politics to finances, that people don't have some opinion upon. The problem is that many of the opinions that they have are ill-informed or just wrong. So when you teach, you have to introduce truth.

You have to say, thus saith the Lord, and point chapter and verse and give the theology. You have to teach truth, but at the same time, you have to dispel falsehood. You cannot believe how much the Sermon on the Mount deals with the dispelling of falsehood, teaching over and against the wrong-headed mentality that the people had.

They had not only bought into a bunch of lies and malarkey, I think that's Hebrew, lies and malarkey from the Pharisees, but they had the culture. They had to fall in the old pagan world around them. When Jesus says, blessed are the meek, this is the most counter-cultural, counter-intuitive thing you can teach.

If someone comes to you and said, you know what, blessed are those who are persecuted. At some level, you go, huh? From one end of this sermon to the other, Jesus is telling people things that rock their world, that rock their understanding of the way that the world works. And that's why, when you fast forward to the end, it says the people were astonished.

The Beatitudes and Their Bookend: The Eight Woes of Matthew 23 4:53

Now, one other thing I'll mention before I get into the Beatitudes. You've probably heard of the Beatitudes before. There's eight of them, depending on how you do the count. I come up with eight.

Eight Beatitudes that we're seeing in today's passage. However, have you ever heard of the bookend to the eight Beatitudes? If you go way back to the book of Matthew, to Matthew 23, you encounter something called the eight woes. The eight woes.

You have the Beatitudes, the blessings that start the sermon. But then if you look way in Matthew 23, you come across something called the eight woes. In today's text, we're reading the blessings. In today's text, God is going to affirm godly behavior.

He's going to bless those who do what's right, and that's why it's called the Beatitudes. It's a blessing upon those who hear these words. It's a blessing upon God's elect, His righteous ones. But if you were to go to Matthew 23, He does the exact opposite.

In Matthew 23, we read a series of eight, depending on how you count them, eight woes or judgments that He proclaims upon largely the Pharisees. In the Beatitudes today in Matthew 5, Jesus will say, blessed are the merciful. Well, in the woes of Matthew 23, Jesus says, woe to those who have neglected mercy.

So you can find, it's not a point-for-point comparison, but you can find in Matthew 5, Matthew 23, you can see blessings and woes, blessings and curses. And both passages in Matthew 5 and then in Matthew 23 begin by saying this, that Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to the disciples. Both of the segments open up in the same way.

They're both structured reasonably similarly. With that said, it's a whole lot better to be on the receiving end of a blessing than a curse, and we're going to consider the blessings this morning.

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit: The Kingdom of Heaven 6:29

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

— Matthew 5:3 (NKJV)

All right, let's return to verses one through four of today's text, which are the start of the Beatitudes. Verses actually one through three. Verse one, and seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated, His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and He taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

All right. In the days immediately leading up to the Sermon on the Mount, we already mentioned that Jesus had recruited His first disciples and He began to do various healings. Matthew 4 says that He healed all kinds of sickness and all kinds a disease among the people. Now, as He did so, word spread.

And the reason word spread is because no one was doing what He did. With a word, with a touch, His shadow passing by, people were being healed. And not just healed of like a, you know, a lingering cough or something like that. There was paralytics who were springing up.

There was blind people who now are seeing. There was people who were possessed by demons. And back then, they knew the signs to look out for. Those people were possessed by demons, and Jesus was just casting them out and bringing them back to physical and spiritual health.

No one had done that before. No one. And because no one had done that before, because this wasn't a charlatan, and because he wasn't a fake faith healer, because what he was doing was real and the people saw it was real, they followed Him. Because everyone's hurting and everyone's broken.

And if you're not sick now, you'll be sick later.

The Miracles That Drew the Crowds to Christ 7:58

There was a whole lot of people who had needs, and so they pursued Him wherever He went. They sought Him out. Now, let me ask you a question. Do you think they sought Him out for His preaching, for His teaching?

Well, as I've just hinted at, not really. I'm sure His teaching was amazing. And the end of Matthew 4, it says He went from town to town and He spoke. So I'm sure what they heard was amazing, but it's the miracles that routinely drove people to Jesus.

It's like when you fed people the 5,000 on the hillside, the fish and the bread, right? What happened? Well, they went cruising around the other side to meet Him again because they wanted to be fed. When He did those sort of miracles, people lined up.

But oftentimes when He spoke, that's when people left. Oftentimes when He spoke or taught or preached, that's when people said, all right, I'm out of here. If you're going to give the handouts, I'll take that. But if, man, you're going to preach to me, you can keep that.

You know, Charles Spurgeon, do you know what his nickname was? The what? The gardener, what's he called? The Prince of Preachers.

Man, that's a cool name. The Prince of Preachers. Charles Spurgeon, and the Prince of Preachers. Now, it's been thought that Charles Spurgeon preached to cumulatively maybe up to 10 million people.

And in fairness, especially in the time in which he did it, that's a lot. Of course, he preached all day long throughout the week, but it's said that he preached to 10 million people. The Prince of Preachers, the greatest preacher of the past number of centuries, or at least probably one of the most well-renowned preachers who made 10 million people.

Well, guess what? In our day, we have faith healers. Oh, I don't know. Let me pick Benny Hinn.

You know how many people Benny Hinn says he testified to on his website? One billion. Now, I don't know who's doing the counting, but what I know is this. He's probably not terribly far off, because here's the thing.

You can fill stadiums. You can have people going up and down the block if you promise to swing your coat around and heal them of whatever sickness is ailing them.

The Shepherd's Heart: Christ Begins with Blessing, Not Conviction 9:47

With that said, when people pursued Jesus, it was largely for the miracles. However, here in Matthew 5, He sits down, which is customary for what teachers did in this day. He sits down, and that's the sign. The teaching is about to begin.

So where does he begin? He's looking at a few of His brand new disciples, you know, some fishermen that don't know their left hand from the right hand. He's looking at this rabble of folks that's really just broken in so many ways. Where does He begin?

Where does He start? Well, He looks out at all these lost, hurting, frail, fallen sheep, and He starts with the words of a shepherd. He starts with blessing. He starts with provision.

He's looking at people who are hurting and broken, and they pursued Him with tear-stained cheeks and great obvious needs. He's looking at folks that are just lost and hurting and broken and wounded and confused, and He starts — rather than immediately convicting them of all the silly things they bought into or whatnot — He starts with the shepherd's heart.

He starts by blessing them. He starts with what we call the Beatitudes, and He starts with this blessing in particular. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The audience that He was looking at were probably literally poor, but more to the point, they were poor in spirit.

He says, blessed are you, for as such as you belongs the kingdom of heaven.

Against Pharisaical Legalism: Christ Is the Gate, Not a Gatekeeper 11:14

Now, let me stop right there. You know, the people who had been in synagogues — never once in their life had they walked in the synagogue and heard anyone, anyone ever say that. The Pharisees were renowned for going in and sitting in Moses' seat, which was, you know, the big kind of lofty seat where they'd sit and expound and the like.

But when they expounded, they tended to put barriers between the people and God. Through legalism, they managed to cast walls before people. They weren't interested in the poor and the broken and hurting. And if you were poor in spirit, if you were hurting and broken, then here's what the Pharisees told you you need to do.

You need to get right with God. And after you get right with God, then, then your future will be better. Then things will start working out. But as long as you haven't got right with God, as long as you're not keeping all these laws, as long as you're failing here, here, and here in your life — in fact, don't even come into the synagogue until you got that stuff figured out.

That's the message they would hear. You weren't worthy until you'd righted your ship, and then you could approach God. And until you did so, don't you bother. Have you ever heard that message?

There are swaths of Christians that preach that exact thing, and it is wrong. The message of the gospel is the message we see when Jesus opened His mouth and said, blessed are you. Blessed are you who are broken and hurting and meek and fallen. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

The Pharisees put the kingdom of God up on a shelf out of reach. And to prove that, remember I mentioned Matthew 23, where He talks about the woes to the Pharisees. In Matthew 23, Jesus says this to the Pharisees. He says, woe to you, you scribes and Pharisees.

You know, the ones sitting in Moses' seat and keeping the people at arm's length. Woe to you. I think in English we lose — the word woe doesn't mean quite what it should. You know, cursed, you terrible goofballs.

Something a lot stronger than that. Woe to you, you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. That word we get. For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.

You neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are coming to enter in. You see that the ministry of the Pharisees and the scribes and the religious elite in Christ's time — the ministry to people in Galilee and Judah and everywhere else — was a ministry where the religious elite would keep the people at arm's length.

And Jesus says, no — woe to you who would dare do that. Woe to you who would shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. You neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go on in. The people had heard countless leaders put walls between them and God.

But here in Matthew 5, when He opens His mouth for His first major teaching segment in the entirety of the book, God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ — He shows up and He tells them the exact opposite message from that which they had heard. In Matthew 5, God tells those broken in spirit that the kingdom of heaven belonged to them.

This morning, there may be some in this room or those that we care about who think that God wants nothing to do with you. Wrong! That's not the message of the gospel. It's not a message of grace, and it certainly doesn't fit with the Beatitudes.

Just as Jesus sat on a hillside looking at a broken, hurt, lost sheep with his arms extended, preaching blessings to them, so is the message of Jesus a blessing to all we who are broken. He does not want to keep you at arm's length. He wants you to come in. Jesus is not a gatekeeper.

He is the gate, and there is a difference.

The Eight Beatitudes and the Doctrine of Redemption 14:27

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

— Matthew 5:4-10 (NKJV)

Let's look at verses 4 through 10. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

You know, I had a teacher at seminary. He was trying to express a very difficult thing about this fallen world in a very vernacular sense, so that everyone in the room could get it. And he said this. He says, look, this world is one big spanking machine.

And I sat back, and I never heard that before. I'm a theologian, but I understood what he meant. Dear heavens, if you live long enough, this world will take all the things you hold dear and rip them from your arms. If you live long enough, you'll outlive the people that you love.

If you live long enough, you'll lose that which you'd gain. If you'll live long enough, you'll lose your health. If you live long enough, you'll be sitting there laying in a bed, unable to even care for yourself. If you live long enough — this world is a giant spanking machine.

It will take that which we love from us. It will remove the strength from our bones, and in time, what we've lost will outnumber what we still have. With that said, there's a biblical word that's really encouraging. And when we think through that depressing thought — when we think about loss — there's a biblical word that's really encouraging, and it's the word redemption.

Now, when we think of redemption, we tend to think of redemption with regards to our soul. Jesus redeemed me from sin and death, right? I've been purchased with a price — redemption. With that said, the redemption Christ brings isn't limited to our souls, although I'm really glad it includes our souls, but it's not limited to it.

The redemption that Christ brings us is really to the entirety of the created realm around us. There's not a molecule that, in God's time, is not redeemed. It also applies to every precious thing that we've trusted into God, that we've given over to God. Redemption is one of the hinges on which the Beatitudes turn.

No one wants to mourn. No one wants to be hungry or thirsty or be sick. No one wants to face persecution. No one wants to be reviled by anybody.

But if you are, which you will at times, that's just for a season. And in time, God says, I will redeem — all that you've lost will be redeemed back to you, and then tenfold, a million times more — blessed are the poor.

Redemption of the Poor, the Mourning, and the Meek 16:55

Blessed are you who don't have two nickels to rub together. Blessed you who are poor in spirit, who are feeling very down. Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I don't know what poorness looks like to you, but I know what reward sounds like, and the kingdom of heaven itself lays in the balance.

If you are poor today, it won't last forever — and in eternity, which is a long time, we inherit the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, the Beatitudes say, for they shall be comforted. Sometimes we feel that comfort in spots here and now. Many of us are mourning.

If it was long enough, we would do a lot of it. But it's only for a season. In due time, the promise of your maker Himself is: although you mourn now, blessed are you, for you will be comforted, and your comfort will exceed that which you mourn. Blessed are the meek or gentle or mild, for they shall inherit the earth.

Napoleon, Alexander the Great tried to conquer this earth through strength and violence and sin. But God says, you know who's actually going to get it? It's going to be the meek. The meek are the ones that I'm going to give this to.

So in due time, not only will your losses be redeemed, in due time, not only will you have reunion with loved ones and joy to your soul, but in due time, you inherit the earth itself. I don't know about you. That sounds pretty good. Now, imagine that you're part of that audience.

You're there sitting on the mount. You've traveled goodness knows what distance to even be there. This is just some hillside in Galilee. You could have come a long way.

Chapter four said people even as far as Syria were traveling and hearing this news. There were undoubtedly people who had been mourning for weeks and months and maybe years. There were people who were broken and hurting. Remember the tear-stained cheeks we talked about before?

There was people whose bodies were wracked with various diseases. And here, as they're standing there, this one, who not only has the ability to decree this truth, but who apparently has the ability to fulfill it — this one tells you that there are better days ahead, that there's hope on the other side of your tears.

And He told them with a spiritual resonance that cut to the division of soul and spirit. There's no preacher on earth today that can do justice to what this original sermon — this text — meant to those who first heard it. However, its echoes still are relevant to us today.

Blessed Are the Persecuted: The Cost of Confessing Christ 19:17

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

— Matthew 5:11-12 (NKJV)

All right, let's look at verses 11 and 12 now. 11 and 12 are an extension of that last beatitude, the eighth beatitude. Verse 11: …prophets that were before you. All right, back in verse 10, Jesus had said, blessed are those who are persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Then in verses 11 and 12, He expands on that blessing, which is a timely thing, because when He talked about persecution, He was looking at some of the very men that were going to die for His sake. He was looking at some of the very disciples that ultimately would be martyred for their faith.

He was looking at many perhaps on that mount who ultimately would be persecuted for what they heard that day and what they would later repeat. And so He looks at sheep that He knows are going out amongst the wolves, and He says that when you go amongst the wolves, and when they come against you for having the will to repeat what I've told you, when they come against you for having the will to proclaim that which I've proclaimed to you — when they do so, remember, remember: blessed are you.

Now, in our own day, not every believer will lose their life for their faith. I would hope it's not true of those in this room. Not every believer will lose their life for their faith, but even in our Christianized culture, whatever that means — even the Bible Belt, and even our Christianized culture — you can lose your job, you can lose your friends, you can lose more if you dare to raise the flag of King Jesus.

There's a cost with being a visible ambassador for a reviled and hated king. The more you are a visible ambassador for a king that the world around you hates — even in a Christianized culture — the more heat you will draw. It's inevitable. It follows as the night does the day that you will face this sort of persecution.

Now, because that's true, and because you know that's true — because you know what would happen — if you just started calling up friends and neighbors and knocking on doors in your own neighborhood, if you started going to the job and you start proclaiming loudly and proudly your faith in Jesus Christ, what will happen?

You know what will happen. Some will receive that well with amens. Others won't speak to you again. Others will revile.

No Private Faith: Called to Carry the Cross Publicly 21:44

And because that's true, what's the temptation? The temptation is to take that which we believe, keep it in our prayer closet, so to speak. Say, I have a private faith. And guess what?

Having a private faith, when we buy into that canard, when we buy into this idea that we can have this private faith, when we do that, it doesn't bring any heat against us, but it also doesn't fulfill this idea that we're called to be ambassadors. You're not just called to be a Christian in the sense of professing your belief in your prayer closet.

You are called to be an ambassador. You're called to be a priesthood of believers, and the priests did what they did in a public setting. The whole picture of Jesus carrying a cross — and when He says you have to carry your cross too — is this idea that you have to carry a visible manifestation of your faith out into the public circle.

That's what the cross was. When you bore a cross through the town, it was this idea that your guilt was visible to all who saw you, and when you were raised up — you're raised up and you're mounted upon your guilt. Well, many of us in our age, we avoid that. We don't want to carry our cross, because we really don't want people to filter who we are through what we believe, because they might not like what we believe or they might not believe the same thing.

And so we go into our prayer closet and we say, I have a private faith. Well, here's the thing. Isn't Christ worth standing up for? What did He say?

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Isn't His sake worth it? You know the answer. Now, face value, being persecuted doesn't feel that great.

Doesn't feel like any blessing. However — however — if you're being persecuted because you dare stand for your king, Jesus will not forget your fidelity or your friendship to Him, and your reward will far exceed your losses. That's what we see here. Rejoice, be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

Salt and Light: Transforming the Fallen World 23:44

All right, let's look at our final verses now, verses 13 through 16. Now, these are not by necessity part of the Beatitudes, and yet it's a singular sermon, so it does flow. The context of the first 12 verses does have bearing in what he says next, and I think it's relevant to what we've studied in the past bit here.

So verses 13 through 16, he's still talking to the people, and He's probably looking at His disciples in the eyeballs right now. And He says this, He says, You are the salt of the earth. This idea that we're supposed to have some effect in the world around us. You are the salt of the earth.

But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It's then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that's set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but upon a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

And so let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. All right, as I said before, the first 12 verses, the Beatitudes — but here in verses 13 through 16, He builds on this idea that we're called to embrace the persecution that by necessity comes to those who raise the flag of Jesus.

And He says the kingdom of God relies upon people doing that. The kingdom of God is not like salt with no flavor. You put salt with no flavor on your steak — does it affect the taste of the steak? No, it's worthless.

Shouldn't even bother. Throw it down. It won't do you any good. Trod it underfoot.

What is salt supposed to do? Let me stop here to tell you something that some people are already aware of. I am just a terrible, terrible cook. I am terrible.

Obviously, that's not a shock to some. You know, I can mess up even the most basic things like grilling burgers. I can have people come over and watch me grilling and just look at me and just shake their head and, you know, grab the spatula. And my wife — you can ask her about this — she doesn't trust my barbecuing skills to this day.

I've been doing it for a while. We did the Foreman grill, which probably didn't help my skills improve. But, you know, if I cook up burgers on the grill, I put it on the plate, she'll go, oh, it looks good. You know, I feel good inside a little bit.

But I'm watching out of the corner of my eye, and she'll get out the knife, and she'll cut right in the middle of the burger and kind of pry it open a little bit to look inside. You know, it's pink in there. With that said, I'm a terrible cook. I am terrible.

I truly am. I'm as bad and worse than what I'm describing. And yet, even I get the importance of salt. Even I get the properties and the characteristics of salt.

Salt is good. It gives food flavor. It's the most basic ingredient. What is the number one thing?

You eat something, you order something at a restaurant, and you say, ah, it's pretty good, but needs what? Needs salt. Number one phrase if it comes out of people's mind. Salt gives flavor.

I don't know how it does so, but it gives flavor. Furthermore, salt preserves from decay. And you can see a spiritual connotation there. Salt gives flavor, and it preserves food from decay.

It also prompts us to thirst. Now, there are whole sermons — whole sermons — on these characteristics, on how salt and light — and light — apply to Christian ministry. But the main point is this. The main point that I think Christ has here is that salt — salt transforms the environment in which it is placed.

Salt doesn't conform to the taste of the food, but salt transforms the food so that it tastes better. And that's what Christianity is supposed to do as well when seasoned upon this fallen world. Salt's supposed to change. Light is supposed to change.

You turn on a light, it's supposed to illuminate that which was previously darkened. Now, what if you have salt that doesn't taste any different, or flip a switch and nothing happens? Well, Jesus is saying that's the sort of Christianity nobody needs. It won't effect any change in the world around us.

So, verse 14, he says that salt is, by necessity — it transforms, so does light. That light is supposed to transform the world around us, and we as Christians are supposed to transform the environments in which we've been placed.

Leavening the Community: Would the Church Be Missed? 27:44

All right, as we wrap up this morning, let me give a final thought. Here in Gulfport, there's a lot of churches. Now, I haven't tried to count them, but there's a lot of churches, and many of them are wonderful. Full disclosure, God's doing a lot of wonderful things in churches other than ours.

Many of the churches in our communities are wonderful. Now, there's others that may have stepped afield from doctrine, and I would probably not smile on them quite so boldly. With that said, what if? What if tomorrow — just say any five of them, pick five — any five churches just closed their doors or disappeared altogether?

The churches were gone. Would it have any difference to Gulfport? If you're walking in Walmart, would people be happy? Would people be sad?

Would they even know the difference? One day and one weekend, one month and one year — and would they even know the difference, that the churches had ever been there in the first place? What do you think? Light is meant to illuminate.

Salt is meant to flavor. If you remove salt and light from the environments in which they've been placed, it should cause a discernible difference in that environment. In the same way, when you add salt, when you add light, it should cause a discernible difference in the environments in which it's been placed. In your kitchen, think of how many lights you have in the ceiling above you.

In your kitchen, if even one of those bulbs goes out, do you notice? I know I do. I'm a little OCD in that, but nevertheless, you'd notice. And you'd notice why?

Because suddenly it's dimmer. Suddenly it's not as bright as it previously was. Now, if a single bulb in your kitchen can shed a noticeable light, then the collective wattage of the churches in Gulfport, including ours, should make such a profound impact that if they were gone, you would notice that they had disappeared.

As a church, we are supposed to do something that extends beyond the four walls of the body. As a church, we are supposed to leaven the environment and community in which we've been placed. And that's why we do things like missions. That's why we do things like evangelism.

That's why we do things like mercy ministry. We do things to take the hope that is here — the hope within the four walls of the church — and share it to leaven the culture and society in which we've been placed, just as salt and just as light does.

The Great Commission: The Kingdom Grows to Fill the Earth 29:56

When Jesus was preaching the Sermon on the Mount, He was preaching to His disciples. He was preaching to those who were hurting, and He encouraged their hearts, and He gave them promises of a great future that is beyond. But He also reminded them of their obligation to take that same hope out in the world when they went down from the mountain, to share what they had heard.

The objective of the kingdom is not to remain small like a mustard seed. The objective of the kingdom is to grow until it fills every scope of the earth. And that's what He closes the book of Matthew with, the Great Commission, to go and fill all the earth, to make disciples of all the nations.

This sermon, this sermon, which was the first in the book of Matthew, the first time He opened His mouth and begins to preach, was a means unto that end, and we'll consider it more as we work our way through this gospel record. Let's pray.