Sermon on the Mount Overview l Voddie Baucham

Well, today is a bittersweet day. If you have been with us for the last several months, you will recognize the bitterness of this day. The bitterness of this day is that we are not going to be looking into the life of the man who, I hope, has become our, our dearly beloved friend, Abraham. It has been several months now that we've been preaching through the life of Abraham, and we have come to the end of the life of Abraham. So, therein lies the bitterness.

However, it is, as I said, a bittersweet day. And the sweetness lies in the fact that now, for the next several months, we will spend our time in The Sermon on the Mount. We will look at Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, and look at this most in-depth teaching, this most in-depth message that we have from our Lord and Master Jesus Christ here in The Sermon on the Mount. We, we will delve into subjects of all sort as we wrestle with The Sermon on the Mount.

But my job today, um, is twofold. Number one, to set the tone for us and give us an overview of this next preaching segment. And number two, also to offer us a sort of theological foundation from which we can understand what we are about to hear over the next several months.

First, let me say a word about why we preach the way we do. Now, many of you already know this, but that's okay. We can't say this enough. We, we practice systematic exposition. And there are two words there that are, are meaningful. And there are a lot of people who practice exposition or expository preaching. Um, to expose it simply means to take out of. We come to a passage of scripture and we take out of it what it is there and present it first of all to ourselves and then to you. So, in, in the simplest and most basic terms, that's what it means to do exposition.

Systematic exposition is a bit differently. Expository preaching is merely taking a passage of scripture in its context and preaching that passage of scripture in its context, as opposed to something topical where we would take, um, multiple verses or portions of scripture and put them together in order to make a comment about a certain subject or topic. Thus, the name topical preaching.

Now, we don't argue that there is never, um, that it's never appropriate to do topical preaching. For example, if we were doing a doctrinal study, if we were, instead of going through the life of Abraham or going through The Sermon on the Mount, if instead we were looking at the doctrine of Christ, and let's say we were to preach a series of messages on the doctrine of Christ, then we would be topical because we would take all of the key passages and key verses that teach us about the doctrine of Christ and build those together in our messages. And there may be times when we do that, and that is completely appropriate.

However, there's a difference between a topical series that is doctrinal in nature and a topical series that is felt needs and man-centered in nature, which is what we object to. And so, you may hear topical messages on the doctrine of Christ or the doctrine of the church, but you won't hear topical messages on six ways to have a happy life and five ways to reduce stress and so on and so forth, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. Okay? So, there's a difference.

What we practice here is systematic exposition. And what that means is we do expository preaching, but we do it systematically through portions of scripture. For example, we went through Genesis 1 through 11. That was a portion of scripture that we taught through systematically. Now, before we did Genesis 1 through 11, we did the gospel of Mark. Before we did the gospel of Mark, we did Ephesians. Okay? And so, systematically, we're preaching through the scriptures.

What you'll notice there is that there's a pattern. We started with an epistle, then we went to a gospel, then we went to the law, Old Testament. So, we went New Testament, New Testament, then Old Testament. Went to law, then we came back and we went through John, or with Mark, an epistle, came back to the Old Testament. Then we went through First John, an epistle, came back to the Old Testament. There's a pattern there. There's an intentional pattern there.

We believe that God has called and commanded us to teach the whole counsel of God. We have to preach the Old Testament. We have to preach the New Testament. Not only that, but in the New Testament, we can't just preach the Epistles because that's just, that's cherry-picking for preachers. That's the easiest preaching there is in the whole Bible, especially the Pauline Epistles. Paul, just, he's a preacher, and the stuff that he writes is just preachable. You can go to a passage in Pauline scripture and it just falls into three or four points. They're just right there, you know, and you just walk through that. It's cherry-picking. That's the easiest exposition you'll ever do is preaching Pauline Epistles. All right? And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But you can get real lazy preaching through Pauline Epistles all the time.

The other thing is, we need the Old Testament as much as we need the New Testament because we know that Jesus himself said that the entire Bible is about him. So, we have to preach Christ from all of scripture. And that's what we've been attempting to do. Let's preach Christ from all of scripture. So, as we looked at the life of Abraham, it wasn't just, "Here's five things Abraham did, therefore you go and do them so that you can be more like Abraham." It is, "How do we see Christ in the life of Abraham?"

So, systematic exposition is about a balanced diet. By the way, you may not know this, but we use the same approach for our scripture reading in the mornings. So, we don't just read New Testament and in Old Testament, but as we read through, we're about to finish Revelation. And before we read through Revelation, I believe we did John. So, we did a gospel. Now we did a Pauline epistle. Um, I believe we've read through, does that say Revelation? I meant Romans. Romans. We're at the Romans. So, we did it. We did a gospel. We did an epistle. Before that, we had done, um, Revelation, I believe. You know, so now we're probably gonna, I mean, we're through Acts as well. So, we'll probably go read through another gospel at this time or something. But the whole idea is a balanced diet for us to hear the word of God.

When it comes to the Old Testament, we're in Jeremiah. We'll be in Jeremiah for a while, reading a chapter a week. It takes almost a year to read through Jeremiah. Okay? So, it will be a whole year reading through Jeremiah. Well, after we've read through Jeremiah, we've read through one of the prophets. We've also also read through one of the books of the law. We'll probably go to some wisdom literature and we'll preach through some wisdom literature. Okay? So, let me go, Proverbs or Psalms or something of that nature. Song of Solomon. No, not with the little ones in here. We may read some of Solomon with, yeah, yeah. Never mind. All right. And so, again, a balanced diet of the word of God. So, you, you see that more readily as we read through these books in our New Testament reading, in Old Testament reading, because we do that a lot faster than we preach through these books.

But so now, we've been through the life of Abraham after having gone through First John, after having gone through Genesis 1 through 11, after having gone through Mark, after having gone through Ephesians. We're going to come back and we're going to pick up with Isaac and we're going to go through Isaac's life after we've done The Sermon on the Mount, which gets us back into gospel again. And we'll go back and we'll do Isaac's life. And then we'll come back and we'll probably do, I believe it's the book of Acts we've talked about or something we talked about. But again, we, we talk about our preaching schedule years in advance because it takes years for us to do all of these things and to do them well. So, that's why we're doing what we're doing. That's why we're in this book, and we're going to go back to another book, and we have Old Testament, we have New Testament. The whole idea is to give a balanced diet and to demonstrate the fact that Christ is present in all of scripture.

Now, having said that, we're coming to The Sermon on the Mount. And I want you to understand not just what we're going to be teaching, but why we're going to be teaching it, and the theological underpinnings for what we're going to be teaching. Now, The Sermon on the Mount starts in Genesis chapter 5, or Matthew chapter 5. Now, in order for us to understand The Sermon on the Mount properly, it'll probably be good for us to understand what happened before that in Matthew chapters 1 through 4.

So, first, let me give you an overview of Matthew chapters 1 through 4. In fact, let me back up even further and give you an understanding of the Gospel of Matthew. We have four Gospels, and a lot of people run into the four Gospels and say, "Why do we have four Gospels? I don't mean to just have, you know, one Gospel." Well, the Gospels were written by different authors, and they were written to different audiences, and they were written for different purposes. Uh, in fact, when we looked at the Gospel of Mark, for example, we talked about the characteristic of Mark and Mark's favorite word being "straight away" or "immediately." That if we were talking about this in terms of movie genres, that Mark was an action film, you know, that quickly goes from one point to the next. Mark was trying to tell the story of Christ to a particular audience, probably a Gentile audience, in a particular way.

Matthew, on the other hand, is a different writer. Matthew has a different perspective and a different audience in mind. Matthew's audience is a Jewish audience. Matthew's audience is a Jewish audience. So, because Matthew's writing to a different audience, he is writing a different gospel, and he emphasizes different things. For example, John's gospel, way different than the other three. So much so that the other three Gospels are called the synoptic Gospels. Gospels. Kids, you can use your context clues there. Alone. Mom and Dad teach you all the time about your context clues. There's "syn" in there, like synonym, and things like that. So, they're kind of the same. Yes, absolutely. And there's a lot of information that's shared within the synoptic Gospels. John's gospel is much different. He organizes his gospel around seven signs, and his goal is to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah because of the miracles that he performed.

Matthew's goal is to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah because of his fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. So, we find more allusion to Old Testament prophecy there in Matthew than we find in other places because that's what Matthew is all about. In fact, we see that here in the beginning, Matthew chapter 1 and verse 1. Notice what he says: "The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ." By the way, that word that he uses there for genealogy of Jesus Christ actually hearkens back to Genesis, the beginning. The genealogy, the beginning. So, just like John, when he says, "In the beginning was the Word," he's hearkening back to Genesis. Matthew here is also hearkening back to Genesis with what he says.

And by the way, there's some good news here. Remember I said that it was a bittersweet day? Bitter because we've left the life of Abraham? Well, let's not altogether true. The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Now, Abraham, remember we told you the life of Abraham was about Christ. The significance of Abraham was twofold: number one, Abraham being in the lineage of the promised seed, Jesus Christ. And number two, Abraham being this picture for us of justification by faith. So, we see here that Matthew is making a connection between Jesus Christ and Abraham.

Now, in Luke's genealogy, he goes further. Not just the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, but he goes back, the Son of Adam and the Son of God. Why? Luke's trying to do something different than Matthew. Matthew wants to make a very simple point, and his very simple point is this: Jesus is the promised seed. Now, if you've been here for the last several months, you've almost gotten tired of hearing that Jesus is the promised seed. You probably wake up with him and I'm like, "Jesus, prophecy, okay, okay, okay. We've said that over and over and over and over again."

What we see in the Old Testament lineage, what we see in Genesis 1-11, what we see in Genesis chapter 5, in those 10 generations that go from Seth to Noah, Adam's line from Seth to Noah, and ten generations, what's that all about? That's all about the promised seed. What promised seed? The seed that was promised in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, when the gospel is first preached. Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, the proto-evangelion, the first proclamation of the Gospel, says to that old serpent, "I'm going to put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. Your seed is going to bruise him on the heel. However, her seed's going to crush his head." That's the first proclamation of the Gospel. There is a promised seed of the woman who is to come, and that promised seed of the woman is the one who is ultimately going to destroy this serpent. Okay? That's the message.

So, when we look there in the life of Abraham, we're just a few generations away from Noah, who, according to Genesis chapter 5, is 10 generations away from Seth, who's the son of Adam, who gets us all the way back to the beginning. And their lineage is not important because it just gets us to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But it's important because it gets us from there to the lawgiver, Moses, and from there to the King, David, and from there to the ultimate Messiah and King, Jesus. Okay? So, we've left the life of Abraham, but we haven't left his story because his story is ultimately the story of Christ. Okay? Again, Christ in all of scripture.

Then we have the genealogy. So, after this introduction to the promised seed, we have the line of the promised seed. That's in Matthew chapter 1, verses 2 through 17. And we won't read through all of that. We don't have time to read through all of that. Then we have the birth of the promised seed. This happens in Matthew chapter 1, verse 19 through Matthew chapter 2 and verse 12, or chapter 1, 18 rather. And look at it. Look at chapter 1, verse 18. "Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way." What an understatement. Matthew says the whole Bible has been about getting us to this point. I love the way Paul puts it: "In the fullness of time, Christ came into the world, born of a woman, born under the law." In the fullness of time. And here Matthew says, "The birth of Jesus Christ happened like this." After all of that? I mean, come on, man. Can we get just some crashing cymbals and some, no. This is really not about his birth. That's just a small part of it. Jesus didn't come just to be born so that we could finally say, "The promised descendant is here." His name is Jesus because he will save his people from their sin. He's the deliverer. We see the birth of the Messiah there, birth of the promised seed.

Then we see the enemy of the promised seed in 2:13 and following. And here's what's interesting. We've alluded to this before. The gospel is proclaimed. Now, who is the gospel first proclaimed to? It's first proclaimed to the serpent in Genesis chapter 3:15. Jesus is talking to the serpent. He preaches the gospel to the serpent first. In other words, he's not preaching the gospel so that the serpent could get saved. That's not the only purpose of the proclamation of the Gospel. Let me say that again. Salvation is not the only purpose of the proclamation of the Gospel. He proclaims the gospel to the serpent to just announce the judgment that is to come. And unfortunately, for many people, if not most people, that's what the proclamation of the Gospel is. It is a pronouncement of the judgment that is to come. So, he says, "Listen here, serpent, there's a seed that's going to come, crush your head. It's going to be the seed of the woman." So, that happens in chapter 3. What does the serpent work out in chapter 4? Cain kills Abel. Why? The serpent is after the seed. "That's fine, God. You just told me how you're going to try to get me. I know. Okay, I know how to get around it. I'll just kill the seed. If I kill the seed of the woman, I'm fine." That's why the next thing you see is the birth of Seth, the promised seed. Well, then later on, what happens when we get, for example, to Moses? "I know how to get into all of this. I'll just get rid of Moses." Pharaoh will just make a decree and he will kill all of the firstborn sons. Why? The serpent is still after the seed.

Now, in Matthew, we see Herod. And what does Herod decree? The same thing that Pharaoh decreed: kill all the firstborn male children. Why? Because the serpent is after the seed. So, it's interesting, we get to the life of Christ, and we're still in Genesis. Amen. By the way, that's what helps us to interpret Genesis. What's Genesis about? Genesis is about all this stuff right here. Genesis is not just about legalisms and moralisms. Genesis is about how God gets the promised seed. And so, we see that there.

Then, in chapter 3, we see the forerunner of the promised seed, the announcer of the promised seed. Well, why is that important? Well, because at the end of the Old Testament, we are told that there's going to be a forerunner who will announce the coming of the promised seed, and the spirit of Elijah. He's going to go out and do that in the wilderness. And now we have a guy who has the same diet as Elijah, the same type of ministry as Elijah, and he is pronouncing the coming of the Messiah. So, we see that in chapter 3.

Then, in chapter 4, verses 1 through 11, the Messiah, the promised seed, goes through the same thing that he went through when he was still in Israel. Let me say that again. Okay? The promised seed has been born. Now, in Matthew, where's the promised seed before? Earthly speaking, humanly speaking, we know Jesus is. And again, the pre-incarnate Christ has always existed. But we're talking about this physical seed. He's 100% man, he's 100% God. We understand that of his nature. So, where's the promised seed? Well, first, the promised seed is there in Seth. Then the promised seed is there, you know, down to Noah. Then the promised seed is there in Abraham. Then the promised seed is there in Isaac. Promised seed is there in Jacob. So, the promised seed goes to the wilderness for 40 years. Well, when Jesus is born, where does he go? To the wilderness for 40 days. Why? Because the wilderness wandering wasn't about Israel. The wilderness wandering was about Jesus. That's why again, Christ says he's in all of scripture. 40 years they wander in the desert. 40 years they wander in the wilderness. The promised seed is born for 40 days. He wanders in the wilderness for 40 days. And then what happens? There is a showdown between the serpent and the promised seed. You guys see how good this is? Showdown right there in chapter 4. God's made a promise. He proclaimed the gospel. First one he proclaims the gospel to is the serpent. Tries to kill the seed again and again and again and again and again. Can't do it. So, if I can't kill the promised seed, I'll corrupt the promised seed. So, he tempts him in the wilderness. Jesus is tempted in every point, as we are, and yet without sin.

After that, we see the ministry of the promised seed, chapter 4, verses 12 and following. What is this about? Well, if you look in your Bible, you'll see all of these quotations from the Old Testament. How are we going to know the Messiah when he shows up? We're going to know the Messiah when he shows up because of the ministry that he does, because of the things that he does. And the blind will see, and the lame will walk, and the mute will speak. These are the things that the promised seed, that the Messiah, is going to do. So, in chapter 4, verses 12 and following, we see him doing those very things. And at the end of that, we get to chapter 5 because the other way we're going to know the promised seed is not just through his ministry, but through his teaching. And that brings us to The Sermon on the Mount and the teaching of Christ.

Now, in order for us to grasp this, there are a couple of things that we're going to have to be clear about in order to understand The Sermon on the Mount. Because we've talked often about how difficult it is to preach Christ in the Old Testament, to preach the gospel even when we're on in the Old Testament, because what we usually want to do is we want to go and do character studies in the Old Testament, and we want to say, "Here are the character traits that these individuals in the Old Testament had. You work real hard to have these character traits." We've talked about that and how important it is that we recognize that we're called to preach the gospel. Amen. The Bible is about Christ, not about you working hard enough to be like Christ, which you can't do.

Well, if you thought it was hard in the life of Abraham, would you see how hard it is in The Sermon on the Mount? Because if we're not careful, we get to The Sermon on the Mount and here's what we do. There's a list of rules. There's law. Jesus is even elevating the law. Old Testament law said this, I say that. You thought the Old Testament law was hard to meet? I got a law that's even harder for you to meet. The Sermon on the Mount is an introduction to Christian ethics. An introduction to Christian ethics. And in order for us to understand Christian ethics, we must understand the Christian gospel. We have to get it. We have to understand that the gospel is about a pronouncement of the work that God has done in Christ. It's a pronouncement of the coming of Christ, the life of Christ, the ministry of Christ, the proclamations of Christ, his death, his burial, his resurrection and ascension, and his coming again. It is the pronouncement of that good news, the pronouncement of that message. Man has a sin problem. There is but one answer, and that answer is the person and work of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel that we proclaim.

Unfortunately, we are hardwired for works righteousness. We're hardwired for works righteousness, especially in this culture. Man, what, you know what, what it means to be an American, or at least what it used to mean to be an American, was all about rugged individualism. Pull yourself up by your own. Okay? We know these things. I'm looking out for number one, just worried about me, myself. Okay? We're Americans, man. We're hardcore. Not only are we Americans, but we're out here toward the West, where rugged individualism was born. Who went West? The most rugged of the rugged individuals. I'm going out West to stake my claim. I'm going out West to make my mark. I'm going out West to be dependent upon myself. Just me, my rifle, my horse, and we're gonna make it. So, rugged individualism. The further you go West, the more deep-rooted rugged individualism is. And here in Texas, the Lone Star State, are you kidding me? We're about as rugged and individual as they come. And as a result of that, here's what we do. When we come to the Bible, we look for rules that we can keep so that we can be identified as rule keepers. And if we're not careful, that's all The Sermon on the Mount will be: rules that we can keep so we can be rule keepers. Keepers. Or the flip side, rules that other people aren't keeping that we can become informed about so that we're just when we condemn them. If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. Okay? That's all we get. We get here and we say, "See, see, he's not righteous. She's not righteous. So, so right here, they don't live like that."

So, we need to understand something about the gospel. We need to understand something about justification. We need to understand something about sanctification, so that we can then understand Christian ethics. Understand that justification is a declaration that God makes of our righteousness. It is a declaration that God makes of our righteousness. Justification is not something you or I achieve. Justification is a declaration made by God. And we don't understand justification that way. That's why we always like to ask questions that begin with this: "Can a person be a Christian if they dot dot dot?" We love that question. "Hey, can a person be a Christian if they..." You know what? I love when people start asking me a question like that. You know, "Can a person be a Christian if they..." I stop them right there. "Wait a minute, don't finish your question. Let me answer your question before you ask it. If what's about to come out of your mouth is something other than, 'Can a person be a Christian if they are not completely trusting in justification by faith alone, by grace alone, through Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, and understanding that from the scripture alone?' If anything else is about to come out of your mouth, the answer to the question is yes."

A person can be a Christian if they, whatever. The only thing a person can do and not be a Christian is not come to God through His Son Jesus Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, and understanding that from the scriptures alone. Can a person be a Christian if they kill somebody? I don't know. Ask Paul when you get to heaven. Ask Moses. He's a murderer too. Well, well, can a person be a Christian if they, what about homosexuality? Can a person be a Christian if they struggle with homosexuality? I don't know. We can ask Paul that one too, because in First Corinthians chapter 6, he gives us a whole list of things that people were before they were washed and sanctified. Homosexual is one of them. Here's why we like to ask that question. We like to ask that question because we do not understand the doctrine of justification. A person is a Christian because they've been justified by God. They have been declared righteous by God. Well, yes, but what if they sin? News flash. Who told you you don't? Amen. Yeah, but you know what I mean? Yeah, I know what you mean. You mean the sins that you happen to not commit. Ever notice that people don't ask that question? You know, "Can a person be a Christian if they dot dot dot like I do?" No, it's always about stuff that those people do. "I've heard about a person who did so and so. Can that person be a Christian?" Listen, if you could think what you thought on yesterday, say what you said on yesterday, do what you did on yesterday, and still have hope of heaven, of course a person can do whatever that is out there and still be a Christian. You're a ranked sinner from the word go. You're justified not because of your own internal or inherent righteousness, but because of the righteousness that is imputed to you, and it's Christ's righteousness, not your own. It is an alien righteousness. It is an alien righteousness. Okay? Understand this doctrine of justification. That's how we're saved. That's how we're saved. Through justification by faith alone. Only by faith. Not faith and, not faith plus, but by faith alone. That's all. That's all.

Well, yeah, well, what about, what about, what about, what about, what about? You know, all these things. And, you know, can we just live any way we want to? I didn't say that. But that's the doctrine of sanctification, which is evidence of justification, not a means of justification. Let me say that again. Sanctification is evidence of justification. It is not a means of justification. Well, what's the difference? The difference is, if I believe sanctification is a means of justification, then I answer the question, "Are you a Christian?" like this: "Yes, I'm a Christian because I don't..." Whatever. Sitting in a service once, listening to a testimony, and this man was giving it, standing up, and he was giving his testimony and going on and on. And I, you know, I was relatively new to the ministry, and I was uncomfortable. You know, but I'm like, "Okay, it's, it's testimony." But I really couldn't put into words why I was uncomfortable. And I was sitting with a man who's kind of a mentor to me at the time. And this guy's standing up there, and among the things that he talked about was how, how God had delivered him from alcoholism. How he fell on his knees, prayed to receive Christ, asked Jesus into his heart, and from that moment to this, he's never had a taste for alcohol again. And I'm sitting there, and I'm kind of going, "Wow, that's pretty interesting. Doesn't happen like that for most people." Um, although he kind of presents it as though it's supposed to. Most people, if you struggle with alcoholism, you come to faith in Christ, you probably still struggle with alcoholism, a little less as you grow in grace. That's this process called sanctification. Okay? But I didn't know. I'm sitting here, maybe I'm just being judgmental or whatever. This older, sage minister kind of leaned down and he said to me, "Interesting, isn't it? Makes you wonder, did God deliver him from alcoholism, or did the devil just trick him into trading pride for alcoholism?" "I don't drink anymore, but I'm so proud, I stink to high heaven, but I don't drink anymore. Don't even have a taste for it." "Good for you." And there are a lot of people out there, they think they're saved because of what they don't do anymore, or because of what they do. "I have my quiet time regularly." "Good for you." "I do this, I do that, I do the other regularly." "Good for you." But when you stand before God, if you stand before him with quiet time and witnessing and not drinking and so on and so forth, what you will hear very clearly will be, "Depart from me, I never knew you, you worker of iniquity."

Let me say something to you. There are people who outwardly do a whole lot better than you do who are going to go to hell when they die. And there are people who outwardly do a whole lot worse than you do who are going to go to heaven. Sanctification is a process. It is evidence of our justification. It is not means of our justification. We must understand that. We have to understand that. We have to grasp that.

Listen to this. This is from the Belgian Confession, and they put this so well: "We believe that true faith, being wrought in man by the hearing of the word of God and the operation of the Holy Ghost, doth regenerate and make him a new man, causing him to live a new life and freeing him from the bondage of sin. Therefore, it is so far from being true that this justifying faith makes men remiss in a pious and holy life, that's so far from true." If you're truly justified, you're going to be sanctified. Sanctification follows justification as inexorably as growth follows birth. Kids born, kids going to grow. It's going to happen. May not get as big as everybody else. The kid's going to grow. It's gonna happen.

So, to answer the question, "Well, does that mean we can just live any way we want to live?" No. You don't understand justification. Nothing could be further from the truth. If we are truly justified, that's the only way we have access to a holy and righteous life. Sanctification grows out of justification. It's the fruit of justification. Think about justification being this seed that's planted, and sanctification growing out of it. It's going to happen.

Listen to this: "That on the contrary, without it, that is, without true justification and true sanctification, without it, they would never do anything out of love to God, but only out of self-love and fear of damnation." Let me say this. Here's the Belgian Confession just said, "Without true justification and true biblical sanctification, the only things we will ever do, we will do either out of pride or fear." If you don't understand justification, you will go through The Sermon on the Mount finding things for yourself to do out of pride and fear. That's all you got. Without justification and sanctification, that's all you got. All you've got is pride and fear. "I do this, this, this, and this so that I can say this is what I do. I don't do this." "This is so that I can say it's not what I do." That's pride. It's rank pride. Or it's fear. "I'm scared of not going to heaven when I die, so I worked really hard to find the things that I'm supposed to do so that I don't get to heaven." And God says, "Yeah, you missed one." That's a complete lack of understanding of the doctrine of justification. It's a complete lack of understanding of the doctrine of sanctification. "By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast." There's pride. Boasting's gone. It's absolutely gone.

I want you to see something here. Look with me in the Book of Romans. Romans chapter 3. This is an extensive passage, but we have to get this if we're going to understand Christian ethics and The Sermon on the Mount. We have to. We've been through this before, and we'll probably be through this again and again, and not no, probably, we will be through this again and again and again and again, because we are hardwired for works righteousness. Okay? We're hardwired for legalism, every last one of us. We're hardwired for going to the scriptures and doing one of two things: either in pride, finding the stuff that we do and saying, "Yes, you see, I'm a Christian because I do." Or finding things that we don't, and out of fear, promising that we will. That's why most services in most churches, you know, what do we do? What do we do at the end of it? You know, give people a chance to come up and run and cry, you know, "I feel guilty, I wanna rededicate my life." That crawls all over me. Makes me want to spit every time I hear that. "Rededicate my life." Can I tell you how doctrinally corrupt that is? Number one, the act of going up and rededicating my life. First of all, that's not what we're called to do. We're called to repentance and faith, not rededication. Secondly, the act of rededicating my life means that what I did at first was not repent and place my faith in Jesus Christ as the only ground for my salvation, but I dedicate, dedicated myself to trying as hard as I could to live like He wanted me to live. That's not true justification. So, using the term "rededication" actually undermines the very doctrine of justification itself. It's corrupt. It's corrupt. You don't go to heaven because you dedicated your life to Christ. You go to heaven because you were justified by the finished work of Jesus Christ, and His finished work alone.

Here's the other problem with the whole concept of rededication: "I tried really hard and I failed, so now I'm saying this time I'm going to try harder." That's not gospel living, people. And I said to myself, first, that's not the gospel. It's just not the gospel. The gospel is about the finished work of Christ. So, as we go through The Sermon on the Mount, this is not about heaping guilt on Christians for not having done enough. It's not. We do that, we completely miss the doctrine of justification altogether. And what we do, we will do either out of pride or out of fear. One of those two things. That's all we got.

So, listen to this in Romans chapter 3. Let's begin in verse 9. Here's the other thing. When we're preaching the law, and we should preach the law, the law and the gospel, we have to. But what's the purpose of the law? Paul tells us in Galatians that the law has two purposes. Number one, the law is a mirror. The law is a mirror. We look into the mirror, and we see ourselves for who we are. We look at the law of God and we say, "Oh, woe is me. I am undone." Or, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among the people of unclean lips." And God comes back and says, "I'm glad you see your lips. I wish you could see the rest of you." Okay? We're ruined from the word go. That's what the law does. That's what the law does. And the other thing, Galatians says, the law is a tutor to lead us to Christ. So, it shows us that we're ruined and undone, and secondly, it leads us to Christ. Here's the problem: if all we preach is the law and not the gospel, if all we preach is the law, "You don't do this, you must do this," then what I've done is I've hardened a sinner and made him more reliant on their self than they were before. I've said, "Here's the law. See how bad you are? You need to go back to the drawing board and you need to try harder." No. It must always be law and gospel. "Here's the law. See how ruined you are. And oh, by the way, I know your first tendency is to say, 'I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna do that.' But before you do, let me remind you, you can't. You never will. You never, ever, ever will. But the good news is, that's why Christ came to die." Law, gospel. So, the sinner comes to the end of himself, not to try harder and rededicate, but the sinner comes to the end of himself and can finally see Christ. God forbid that we should preach through The Sermon on the Mount and ever just give law and not gospel. And I say that for myself and all the other preachers who are going to be joining me in preaching through this. It's not just law, it's law and gospel. The law is a mirror, and the law is a tutor. The law allows us to see that we're ruined, and the law drives us to faith in Christ. And if we don't preach both, we're merely hardening people in their sin, condemning people in their sin. We're just telling them to run faster and faster on the hamster wheel that goes absolutely nowhere. It goes nowhere.

Romans chapter 3, beginning verse 9. And listen to this and think how foolish it is to tell unbelievers to keep the law. "What then are the Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written: 'No one is righteous, no not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.' So, no, we will not be starting a seeker service here. No one seeks for God. The only seeker in the Bible is God. We see that in John chapter 4. He seeks worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and truth. So, I guess I just lied because we do have a seeker service because it's a God-centered service, and He's the only seeker in the Bible. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." Think about that for a moment. No one does good, not even one. Now, here's the response that often comes from people. "Now, wait a minute. There are a lot of people out there who do good things. I broke down one day, and a lost person stopped and they helped me change my tire. How can we say no one does good?" Just hold on, I'll explain that to you in a minute. "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. And their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Now, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight. By works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. None. None. None. None. Not one will be justified in the sight of God because of works of the law. Since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. There's the mirror. The law lets you know you're a sinner. The law awakens that sin in you. Don't believe me? A couple of tests. We're all walking together, strolling through a park on a beautiful, lovely spring day. And as we're walking together through the park, we see bench after bench after bench in the park. We never once have an inclination to touch the bench until we see one that says, "Wet paint. Do not touch." Foreign. What's that? The law awakens sin in you. You didn't even think about it until you find out it was unlawful. You didn't think about it, but as soon as you find out it was unlawful, you just wanted to do it. Why is it that when we're traveling down the highway, okay, and all of a sudden the speed limit says 65, and I'm going 70, 71, and I'm fine. I feel comfortable. 70, 71. I feel good. I'm going fast enough. However, the speed limit now goes up to 70. Now, at 65, I was going 70, and I never thought about speeding up. I felt comfortable. Now the speed limit is 70. What do I have to do? I got to crank it up. 75. About 70 was enough. 70 was enough until they told me I could go 70. Again, if you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. Okay? Anybody feel like crawling under something right now? You're a law breaker. Just embrace it. It's who you are.

But now, verse 21: "The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. That was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ."

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By the law of works? Nope. But by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. Since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? There's the question everybody wants to ask. When you preach the doctrine of justification by faith alone, immediately, immediately, immediately, people still want to start saying, "Wait a minute, are you saying that we can just do anything?" Nobody ever said that. But that's the immediate question. Why? Because we are hardwired for works righteousness. That's why we have to ask that question because the old man in us wants credit. And the biblical doctrine of justification slaps him in the face and says, "You get no credit." And we come back and we say, "Well, well, I got to find a way around that. How about I ask an absolutely absurd question like, 'Well, what if I just go on a killing rampage?' Are you saying that I could still..." That's the old man saying, "I refuse to give up my credit. You got to give it to me. I gotta have it. Give me my credit. I must have something wherein to boast. I have to. I work too hard to become a law keeper for you to not give me credit for it." It's the old man. "By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law." Let me say something to you. You cannot do anything good until you've been justified. Let me say that again. You cannot do anything good until you've been justified.

Let's read these first few verses in chapter 1 again. I'll explain that in a minute. "What then shall we say?" In chapter 4, rather. "What advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? But much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What then? If some were unfaithful, does their faithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true, though every man be a liar, as it is written, 'That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are tried.'"

"What then shall we say in chapter four, rather?" Was gained by...

Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh. For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one whom God counts righteous apart from works: "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin." Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

So what about this Christian ethics stuff? Glad you asked. Back here in The Sermon on the Mount, I want us to get this. And again, we must understand justification. We must understand sanctification. If we don't, we will never grasp Christian ethics. Okay, we won't. We're talking about what makes something just. What makes an action just? Three things.

First of all, let me explain this. Well, I'll explain that later. Let me give you three things. Number one, it has to be a right action. It has to be a right action. And by right action, I mean it has to be an action that is right as defined by God. It has to be a right action. Okay? If God defines it as wrong, it can never be right. So it has to be a right action.

Secondly, it has to be done for a right motive. It has to be done for a right motive. And thirdly, it has to be done for the right goal. For the right goal. In order for an action to be ethical from the standpoint of Christian ethics, you have to have right action, right motive, and right goal. An unbeliever will never have the right motive and will never have the right goal. Therefore, he will never perform an ethical action from a biblical perspective. That's why Paul can say there's no one who does good.

Let me paint this picture for you. There's a war going on. And here's the war. And there's a unit. And this unit, in the midst of this war, is fighting a battle. And as this unit is fighting a battle, all of a sudden, a grenade comes. And there is one in the unit who throws his body over the grenade. Now, for the most part, we look at that and we would say that was an ethical action. What if he threw his body on the grenade because he wanted a Purple Heart? He wanted glory for himself. Now, his motives and his goal were completely sinful. Therefore, his action was unethical. What if he's just sick of fighting and he wants to die, and this is a quick way to do it? Now, his motives and his goals were sinful and unethical. Therefore, his action can never be deemed ethical. Do you see what I'm saying? We must have right action, and right motive, and right goal in order for an act to be ethical.

So, as we go through The Sermon on the Mount, here's the picture that Jesus is painting. Jesus is saying, basically, in The Sermon on the Mount, time and time again, you know what? You guys have heard that all you had to do was this action. But I've come to tell you that you do those actions, and your goals and your motives are completely off base. Therefore, it's still not ethical, and it's still not pleasing to God. The Sermon on the Mount is about this: only through the justified and sanctified life can we ever do anything that is ethical. That's the simple message in The Sermon on the Mount. Only through a justified and sanctified life can we ever do anything that is ethical.

Let's look at a couple of these. We, we understand this idea of right actions. It has to be doing what God said. Let's look at right motives. Right motives. Romans chapter 2, verses 6-9: "He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury." In other words, if you're self-seeking, two people do the same thing, but one of them is self-seeking. Gotta have right action, right motive, right goal. Ah, look at Romans 14:23. "But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." If you needed any more evidence that an unbeliever cannot perform ethical actions, there it is right there. Whatever is not from faith is sin. Can an unbeliever who has not placed faith in Jesus Christ ever do anything from faith? No. So whatever he does is sin because he's not doing it from the proper biblical motive of faith. Okay? Which again, is why Paul can say, "No one does good."

From our earthly, human perspective, we see things all the time that are good. Again, that's common grace, folks. Total depravity, radical depravity, doesn't mean that man is as bad as he can be. And we can praise God for that. All right? That's the grace of God. But that does not make his actions ethical. There are a lot of motivations for it, but it's not faith. Philippians chapter 2, verse 3 and 4: "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." If I'm doing it for self-interest and not for the interest of others, it's unethical. Look at another motive. Look at Ephesians 5:21. "Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. As a wife who submits to her husband because she's awed by her husband, committing an ethical act when she submits to her husband? No. She's supposed to submit out of reverence for Christ. Her motives are impure if they are anything other than reverence for Christ. Is a woman who's submitting to her husband just so she can manipulate him and get something from him, performing an ethical action? Is she being obedient? No. "Submit yourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ." Is a child who submits to their parents for something other than reverence for Christ, committing an ethical act? From a biblical perspective, no. It must be out of reverence for Christ.

By the way, all of this stuff that we're learning on The Sermon on the Mount has huge implications for the way that we teach our children. Because for most of us, we're just teaching our children to be self-righteous law keepers who believe in works righteousness. "Do it because it looks good. Do it because it'll embarrass me if you don't do it." Oh, we're building self-righteous law keepers and teaching them to rely on works righteousness as opposed to the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Not only right motives, but right goals. Listen to some of these goals. "So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." Amen. That's a right goal. The glory of God. Why'd you do that? That God might be glorified. That's why. Okay? That's why. Then it was an ethical action. I gave money to the poor, and then I told everybody that I did it. What was your goal? To bring glory to myself because I gave to the poor. Jesus says, "Then you have your reward." Nothing waiting for you in heaven. You got exactly what you were after: people patting you on the back. He talks about this in The Sermon on the Mount. When you fast, put lotion on your face. Don't be all, you know, mopey and everything. People look, "What's going on?" "I'm fasting."

Colossians 3:17: "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Colossians 3:23: "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." To the right goal. First Peter 4:10-11: "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace." Listen to that. It's a couple of goals. Number one, I want to be a good steward of the grace of God in my life. And number two, I want to serve my brothers. "Whoever speaks, as one who speaks Oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." Those are right goals. Right action, right motive, right goal.

Folks, The Sermon on the Mount is not a list of things for us to work hard to do. The Sermon on the Mount is a mirror that reflects to us one of two things. For those of us outside of Christ, it reflects to us that we are rank sinners in need of a savior. And that even our righteousness is but filthy rags in the sight of God. "Yes, but I did ABC and XYZ." Don't care. Didn't have the right motive. Didn't have the right goal. It was sin. It was either pride or fear. So The Sermon on the Mount is going to expose that in all of us. And the other thing is, The Sermon on the Mount is going to show us how desperately we all need Christ.

Now, let me say a word about these two principles, and then we'll look at an overview of what we're going to study. There is a difference between indicatives and imperatives. Indicatives and imperatives. I know it sounds like we're in English class, but this is very important, folks. Indicatives and imperatives. All right. Well, what's an indicative? "This is a chair." That's an indicative. I just told you what that was. I indicated what it was. What's an imperative? "Sit in this chair." I just told you what to do. There's an indicative and an imperative.

I want you to notice something. In the New Testament, whenever you find imperatives, you find indicatives. In other words, Peter says, "You are a holy nation. You are a royal priesthood." That is an indicative. That's who you are. Then he says, "Be holy as I am holy." That is an imperative. But the two of them come together. Can you be holy in and of yourself? No, you can't. You can only do it because of the indicative. It's because of who you are in Christ that you are able to do this. Remember, it's God who works in us both to will and to do his good pleasure. We have indicatives and imperatives.

Now, I want you to look at something. Look at the beginning of The Sermon on the Mount. At the beginning of The Sermon on the Mount, we have there in verse 2, the Beatitudes: "Blessed are those who..." "Blessed are those who..." "Blessed are those who..." "Blessed are those who..." Are they Beatitudes indicatives or imperatives? They're indicatives. But we usually preach them like imperatives. Jesus says, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." And we come back and say, "We've got to be like the people who..." It's an indicative. It's not an imperative. He's painting a picture of who Christians are. Okay? So The Sermon on the Mount starts off with indicatives, not with imperatives.

Then look with me. After he finishes the indicatives and the Beatitudes, look at what he does. Beginning in verse 13: "You are the salt of the earth." Verse 14: "You are the light of the world." Is he telling us something to do there? No. He's telling us who we are there. Okay? And it's only after we have those indicatives that we come down and he teaches us about the law, and we begin to see some imperatives. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Which is very interesting. Jesus says, "I haven't come to abolish the law." "I've come to fulfill it." And we take that to mean, "I got stuff for you to do." Huh? Jesus says, "I've come to fulfill the law." We say, "Yeah, Jesus, come on, let's go fulfill the law." "No, no, no, no, no. I've come to fulfill the law." "I know, Jesus, come on, let's go fulfill the law." Okay, wait a minute. Remember, remember when I said you can't fulfill the law? Yeah. Jesus, but come on, my old man needs something to boast about. You see how ridiculous that is?

Then he comes and he shows us a picture of the law. "You have heard that it was said..." "But I say to you..." What's he doing there? Is Jesus trying to make us feel guilty if we've ever said something bad to our brother? Is Jesus trying to say, "You know, you need to be very careful and not say 'you fool' to your brother, because if you say 'you fool' to your brother, then all of a sudden you've committed a sin that is worthy of death"? And then what do we do? We go around saying, "Well, wait a minute, can a person who does that go to heaven?" That's right back where we started, people. That's not what Jesus is saying. Just throw justification right out the window. It's meaningless. It means absolutely nothing. When you get to the imperatives, Jesus says, "Do this." And our next question is, "Oh, does that mean that if somebody doesn't do that, that they're not a Christian?" Forget the doctrine of justification. Just throw it out. Trample it underfoot. And let's go right back to works righteousness again, shall we? Because that's exactly what we just did. Are you guys seeing this? Because we all do it. We all do it. You don't want to hear stuff from when I first started preaching, trust me. And even if you do want to, I don't want you to. Okay? But that's what we do.

And so here, after that, we have this law outlined. And what Jesus does here, beginning in verse 7, verse 17, he makes a statement about Christian ethics. "I haven't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it." This is not about antinomianism. Jesus says, "Statement about Christian antinomianism is lawlessness. There is no law. Just do whatever you like. Do whatever feels good." No, no, no, no, no. Jesus says, "I come to fulfill it." And I'm upping the ante on the law. "You have heard it said, 'Do not kill.' I'm saying, 'Do not even hate your brother.'" That goes beyond just the rule that you thought you've kept.

And what Jesus does in every one of these, with murder, and then with adultery, um, and then with divorce, um, and then, you know, with swearing falsely, um, you know, the eye for an eye, two for a tooth, all of these things. With all of these things, Jesus ups the ante. And he says, basically, "Every one of you is the Rich Young Ruler. And every one of you would look at me and say, 'I've kept the Ten Commandments. I haven't killed anybody.'" And Jesus says to every one of us, whether it's murder, or adultery, or lying, whatever it is, Jesus gives us those examples. And he looks us square in the eye and says, "You think you can look at me and say you're not guilty of this? That's because you don't understand righteousness. You are absolutely guilty of this. You're an adulterer because you've looked at a woman lustfully. And you're just as guilty as a man who's gone to bed with a woman who's not his wife. You're an adulterer." In other words, here in this sermon, in this portion of The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is saying, "Yes, you too need a savior." "All you who point fingers at people who have this, you know, open, outward, gross sin, and stick your chest out because you don't..." Jesus says in this section, "Yes, you too need a savior. Don't you dare think you're any better than those people. Don't you dare think that because you haven't pulled out a gun and shot somebody dead, that you don't need somebody to rescue you and save you, just like somebody who has. Don't you dare think that for a moment." That's what he's doing in this section. That's what he's doing in this section.

Then we get to chapter 6. And in chapter 6, he talks about these outward things that we do. He talks about giving to the poor and being seen when we give to the poor. Talks about fasting and being seen when we fast. He talks about praying and being seen when we pray. Talks about all of these things. And basically says, "You know what? Keep that to yourself. Keep that to yourself." Does Jesus say that there's never to be a prayer that's offered in public? No. That's not what Jesus is teaching. We have examples of such in the New Testament, okay? In the New Testament church, and the Epistles, we have these prayers that were read publicly. So that's not what's being said here. He's talking about our private prayer life. That's what he's referring to. And basically, what he's saying is, if you turn fasting, or giving, or praying, or any of these sort of things into a means by which people can see you and give glory to you, then you've completely missed the boat. You don't get it. You don't get it.

After that, he moves into this section about us having our treasure in heaven and not being anxious for anything. And then we get into chapter 7. And in chapter 7, we look at judging, and judging rightly, judging a tree by its fruit. Now, here's what's interesting. If we're not careful, we get to chapter 7, and this whole thing about judging a tree from its fruit, and we think that chapter 7 is about you and me looking and pointing fingers and things of that nature. But if you remember what we've done with the indicatives and the imperatives, and you remember what Christian ethics is really all about, then basically, here's what Jesus says: "You know what's in a person basically by what comes out of the person." The reason that you know you're a justified person is because of the sanctification that the Spirit works in you, not because of your outward efforts. That's why in verse 23, "Many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? And in your name perform many miracles and cast out demons?' And I will say to them, 'Depart from me; I never knew you, you worker of lawlessness.'" But wait a minute, I did the right stuff. No, you didn't. Right action, right motive, right goal. It's not there. It's not there.

Now, here's what's interesting, and we'll see this when we get to chapter 7. But we think, you know, "You'll know a tree by its fruit." According to verse 23, those are individuals who, from an outward perspective, were bearing fruit that looked pretty good. But that's just to us. The ultimate fruit, only Jesus can judge. We don't know. We don't know. Does that mean we don't make judgments? Absolutely not. We're taught how to make judgments there.

And then, finally, where do we end up? Building your house on the rock. Two types of individuals. Both built houses. One on sand, one on rock. What's the difference between the two? Well, you have to take the whole Sermon on the Mount into consideration in order to understand the difference between the two. On its face, we may think that the difference between the two is one individual took the Bible and used it as a rule book, and built this house based upon the rule book. In fact, you've probably heard it that way, okay? One individual took the Bible, and basically the Bible was his blueprint. The other one, the Bible wasn't his blueprint. The one who used the Bible as his blueprint, that's the one whose house stood. The one who didn't use the Bible as his blueprint, that's the one whose house didn't stand.

Folks, in order to understand what Jesus is talking about with the house on the rock and the house on the sand, you got to go all the way back to the indicatives and the imperatives at the beginning of The Sermon on the Mount. My house doesn't stand because I used the Bible as a blueprint. I can be lost and do that. My house stands because the imperatives that I perform in my life flow out of the indicatives. Because justification is the fruit of my sanctification, and not the other way around. I can be as lost as a goose and use the Bible as a rule book and completely miss the point. It's not what it is. And the fact of the matter is, there are people all around us who are absolutely, unequivocally lost, headed for hellfire and condemnation, and nothing but. But if you speak to them about the gospel, they'll get offended. Why? Because they've been there, they've done that, they prayed the prayer, they asked Jesus into their heart, and now they're onto the imperatives. Never mind that none of the indicatives are true of them.

How do you know someone's truly a Christian? Because of the imperatives or because of the indicatives? Folks, it's because of the indicatives. We grow in our performance of the imperatives. Hopefully, you're doing a lot better today on the imperatives than you were five years ago. Does that mean you weren't saved five years ago? But you are now? Now again, assuming you've been in Christ that long. Okay? If you're a Christian here today, I would expect that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, you'll be a lot further along on the imperatives than you are today. Does that mean you're not truly a Christian? No. It's the indicatives. It's who God says we are in Christ that works itself out, that grows in these imperatives. And by His grace, He grants us both to will and to do His good pleasure. But even that's from Him. So it's not this picture of being saved by grace and then kept by works. We're justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. And here's a news flash: we're all so sanctified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. It's not just my sanctification that is of God. My, my justification that is of God. My sanctification is with God as well.

What does that mean? That I don't have to do the imperatives? No. That means you get to do the imperatives. Did you catch the difference? "I have to do the imperatives" means sanctification by me and my works. "I get to do the imperatives" means Christ has made me a new creature. And because I'm a new creature in Christ, I am finally now, and only now, no longer a slave to sin. By the way, that ought to make more sense to you now, too. Well, how does the Bible say I'm a slave to sin? I didn't just always go around sinning. I did some things that were... Ah, no, you didn't. You were a slave to sin. Everything you did, you did for sinful motives and for sinful goals, even though outwardly it looked better than the way most people lived. Are y'all seeing this?

Now, so as we go through The Sermon on the Mount, we need to come in here every week, gird it up, coming here every week, ready to see both law and gospel. Coming here every week, looking for the indicatives and the imperatives. Coming in here every week, understanding that we're going to see a mirror. And that mirror is going to show us some horrible things about ourselves, and some glorious things about Christ. That mirror is going to show us how desperate we are, and how desperate everyone around us is for Jesus Christ. And if we come away with anything, with anything, anything from The Sermon on the Mount, I hope we come away with this: I hope we can wait no longer boasting. Number one. And secondly, I hope we come away no longer as people who thrust the imperatives on the lost. Let me say that again. I hope we come away no longer being the people who thrust the imperatives on the lost.

So, in other words, we, we say to the drunkard, "Stop being a drunkard." Instead of saying, "You are what you are because of your sin, and Christ alone can deliver you, not just from that sin, but from all your sins." We don't say to the homosexual, "You stop being a homosexual." He can't. Oh, wait a minute. Does that mean that Pastor Votaw believes that homosexuality is something that's biological instead of a choice, and yada, yada? Listen, I don't believe that homosexuality is a choice any more than I believe being a liar is a choice. We're slaves to sin. Our sins just have different titles. Amen.

There's the homosexual. Have to stop being a homosexual before they can be a Christian? Here's my question: Why do we ask that? But we don't ask if the worry, w-o-r-r-y, because the Bible says, "Be anxious for nothing." How come we don't say, "Does the person who suffers with worry have to stop worrying before they can be justified?" How come we don't ask that? Because all of us are guilty of that one. And we're only concerned about the sins that other people commit that we tend to be free of. Does the alcoholic have to stop being an alcoholic before they can become a Christian? Listen to how ridiculous that is. The Bible tells us, "No one does good," and we're slaves to sin. The alcoholic can't stop being an alcoholic. The liar can't stop being a liar. The homosexual can't stop being a homosexual. All of those individuals may get the imperatives and work real hard to suppress their sin and not do those things anymore, but their actions are not ethical. Right? Because they don't arise from right motives, and they don't arise for right goals.

And I'm afraid that many of us, myself included, have been guilty for a long, long time of preaching works righteousness to people instead of the gospel truth. Be told, there are a lot of our family members, and I'm just going, I'm going to say this, I'm going to be finished. There are a lot of us who look at our family members, and we're much more interested in getting them to homeschool. We're much more interested in getting them to go to family-integrated church. We're much more interested in getting them to discipline their children, or whatever, than we are in them getting saved. Because that's how we talk to them about: "You need to do this. You need to do this. You need to do that. You need to do the other." And it just breaks our heart that they don't live the kind of life that we live. But we haven't shared one tear over the fact that they have not been born again. Shame on us. Shame on every last one of us for putting the imperatives before the indicatives, and for actually believing that we're something that we absolutely are not. There is none righteous, no, not even one. You are who you are, indicatives, because of the finished work of Jesus Christ in your life. And it's only because you are who you are that you are able, by His grace, to do what He commands. We get that? We got The Sermon on the Mount.

Let's pray. Father, we confess to you that we are arrogant, egocentric, narcissistic, rule-keeping, works-righteousness, prideful sinners. And most days, instead of acknowledging it, we actually boast about the pitiful things that we think we've mastered apart from Your grace. And then turn around and point fingers at other people who don't have our level of outward conformity. Would You crush that in us by Your grace? Would You allow us to come face to face with Your law and our sin, so that we come to the end of ourselves and see the beauty and the majesty that is only found in the person of Jesus Christ? I pray for those under the sound of my voice whom the enemy has tangled up in knots so much so that they aren't even Christian but think they are, all because of works righteousness. Those individuals under the sound of my voice who work hard to keep the imperatives and perhaps have, have, have, have shaved a few of the rough edges off of their own life by their own effort, and the enemy's got them right where he wants them, because they believe that they are Christian because of the meager things that they've learned to accomplish in their flesh, not realizing all the while that their motives are corrupt, that their goals are bankrupt, and that they have absolutely no share of any inheritance with Christ because their trust is in themselves and not in Him. I pray that today You would bring every one of us to the end of ourselves, that we would grasp biblical justification and biblical sanctification, and completely and utterly reject this pitiful excuse for a gospel that our culture has embraced. And that we might leave here in repentance and faith, faith trusting in Christ alone, not what we do, but what He has already done. And in doing so, may we never ever belittle the imperatives. May we never ever embrace lawlessness. But may we, by Your grace, grow in our sanctification and bring glory and honor to You, as You work in us both to will and to do Your good pleasure. And when we accomplish those things, may we be so careful to give Your name all the glory and all the praise, recognizing that there is nothing good that comes or dwells in our flesh. Everything praiseworthy in us is a direct result of Christ who sanctifies those whom He justifies. May we get this. May we grasp this. May we walk in this. May we rejoice in this, to the glory of our Lord, Master, Savior, and King, Jesus, who is the Christ. Amen.