The Discipleship.ca Podcast
Join us, Steve and Teresa every Tuesday and Thursday (and some times Saturday), as we explore issues surrounding the discipleship journey that all Christ followers are on. So many things go in to the on-going sanctification of believers and that can be overwhelming. Our hope is to provide resources, encouragement and at times guidance to fellow believers is a way that is helpful, and relevant. We hope you can join us, and we hope you find this podcast helpful in your discipleship journey.
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Saturday Mar 09, 2024
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Steve: Hello, welcome back to another episode of Discipleship .ca. My name is Steve, and with me today is Teresa. Thanks for joining us as we have another discussion with the hope and the whole of encouraging you in your daily walk of faith and journey towards Christ's likeness as we explore scripture, faith, and Christian life as well as talking about what Jesus is teaching us on our journeys of faith.
Teresa: You know, it's kind of like when you get going and you're preaching and you just get going faster and faster and faster and faster. And there are times like, I feel like I need a sign that says, slow down. This is like, this is not in a hundred mile an hour zone.
Steve: Lawrence at church, he's not, he's not sure that even auctioneers can speak faster than I,
Teresa: You know what I mean? I kind of am inclined to agree with him there. Even this morning, a little bit today is a Sunday, we're recording on a Sunday. And I was like, Oh dude.
Steve: I got away. I got excited.
Teresa: And faster. But he won't look at me while he's preaching, because I guess maybe I make faces or something. I don't know.
Steve: Yeah. Yes.
Teresa: I just look at you…Yes, or maybe if I'm not looking at you, you're you wonder, ‘why is she staring off somewhere?’
Steve: Or you're on your phone.
Teresa: No, I have been good about that lately, yeah.
Steve: I see a lot of things that I just pretend that I don't see.
Teresa: With me or with everybody?
Steve: Everybody.
Teresa: Okay, because I was like, ‘dude’.
Steve: I don't know for those of you that are listening, I don't know how it works for you on a Sunday, but for me on a Sunday morning when I'm preaching (smaller church, one service) I can tell you who was sitting where.
Teresa: Oh, I know. I will tow the line, I behave myself by not even checking the time on my phone, (because that's usually what I'm doing), when you stop talking about me and your sermon illustrations!... Oh, look, that's never gonna happen. What?
Steve: I didn't talk about you today.
Teres: Yes, you did.
Steve: No, no, I talked about, no, I didn't.
Teresa: No, you did.
Steve: What did I say?
Teresa: Really? About seeing me on that first freshman tour and ‘you're gonna marry me’, and someone said, "No way, you don't have a chance with her." You did talk about me.
Steve: Well, I was talking about me.
Teresa: But, I was part of that story.
Steve: True. We've totally digressed. People are listening and they're like what is wrong...
Teresa: Yeah, what is happening to these people?
Steve: Okay, so today we are looking at more of the gospel scenes with Jesus. Last week we looked at the first half of the Sermon on the Mount. Today we're going to look at the second half. It's just this continuing idea that Jesus is talking to the people that have gathered with him there about this desire that God has for us to dive deeper into his word. Because, when we dig into the truth of Scripture, we uncover things that could possibly harm us, in life. There's some warnings there. We see God's clearly pouring out his love and his desire to see us grow through what he's teaching us in the word. We get direction to live life and get encouragement along the way, right? And this is like that in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is taking a bunch of Old Testament teaching and he's bringing it to light under him, which will be then fulfilled a little bit farther again at the cross. So, we sit here looking back at the Sermon on Mount through the lens of the cross trying to figure out, okay, so what's this mean for us today? So it's this thing where it's like some of it is warning, some of it is encouragement, some of it is just straight God pouring out his grace,
mercy, and love on you. Then we've got to sort out what that all means. So today. We're going to run from Matthew chapter 6:19 all the way to Matthew chapter 7:29, but we will skip some sections. Let's look at Matthew chapter 6:19 - 21.
Teresa: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on the earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in inside steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Steve: you're supposed to stop right there. All right, so right off the bat, Jesus is pointing out the things that actually control us.
Teresa: Yeah right right
Steve: Time. What treasure treasure it is, what is it that you fixate your heart and mind on? Our hearts and our minds and our actions will all end up being centered on what we value the most.
Teresa: Yeah. Right.
Steve: So, if you are willing to sacrifice everything for Family.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: Then what you value most is family. If you're willing to sacrifice everything for possessions - you know, you need the newest and the best in the things? The way we live our lives starts to show us what we're actually centering our lives on, and what we value the most. And as Jesus kind of just dismantles all of that in, what, three verses? He says, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be." Now, you have to remember, we've already gone through the Lord's prayer and we've already gone through the Beatitudes. Remember last week where we talked about how you should live if you want to be blessed by God? This is how you live, right? And now he's saying. “ oh, yeah, but here's the thing. If you get sidetracked by treasure, it's clear that your heart's not in the place that I just told you to have it.”
Teresa: Yeah. Right.
Steve: And so we have this wrestle that we're supposed to be seeking a treasure that should last, because where your treasure is - that's where your heart is. And Jesus wants your heart. So then he just continues on from there verse 22 through to 24.
Teresa: The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Steve: Yeah, that right there, that verse 24 is the one that gets twisted all the time because people will say, and the most popular way to say it in North American lately is there are two dogs at war inside of you or two wolves or two whatever…
Teresa: Right. Right.
Steve: And one is, you know, leading good and one is bad and whatever one you feed is the one that grows, that’s the one that will take over. But that's not actually what this says, right?
Teresa: No
Steve: You can't serve two masters. You're either going to hate one or love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other, right? So it's not that one is going to go away. This tension is always going to be there.
Teresa: I love how it goes right to the heart. of the matter. You cannot serve God and money. It's like your two masters could be anything, but chances are money is going to be what the issue is. Chances are, as the Son of God, I'm going to tell you what these two things are. Because I know - I have this educated experience about you.
Steve: And the thing is too, even when it's not money, that is your driving factor.
Teresa: Yeah, yeah, you're motivation.
Steve: For some people they're driving factor is quite literally the amount in their bank
Teresa: Yes, I have heard of that.
Steve: But for some people it's a wealth -adjacent thing, like, I got a better house than you. I’ve got a better car.
Teresa: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Steve: I’ve got better stuff. I take nicer vacations, I live at a different level,
right? All those things, but what is that? Money. Yeah, all right. Like you don't get those things without money.
Teresa: Yeah, no, that's right.
Steve: So Jesus is pointing out pretty much the way that it's gonna work,
Teresa: Right.
Steve: We can't serve both God and money and having money is a real disclosure, like, if we've got people out there that are are on the scale of richer, that doesn't make you more loved by God. Or if you have people on the scale of poor, that doesn't make you despised by God, it doesn't make you more loved by God. But what we do with that treasure that we have is the big question.
Teresa: Where's your heart in this? Yeah, exactly.
Steve: So we're supposed to be careful about what we allow into our sight, in our minds and our sight, right? That's how this starts. The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. And the idea here with your healthy eye is, do you see things for what they are? Money is a tool, right?
There are a lot of things in this world that are good tools, good things to use in life.
Teresa: And necessary tools.
Steve: Horrible masters.
Teresa: Yes.
Steve: And a perfect example is everybody's smartphones.
Teresa: Hmm.
Steve: They can get you a lot of things done in a really short period of time, and they can also gobble up entire days, scrolling mindlessly through social media and /or games or whatever you might do to escape. Great tool, if it's used properly, horrible master if it's not. And there's a lot of things in our world that are that way. The key here is when Jesus says, "It's about how you view things."
Teresa: Right.
Steve: If your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. And then the light that is in you is darkness. How great is the darkness, right? Like it's just like when you lose sight of how this world is actually supposed to work, it can get really dark really fast, because you end up being owned by the things in the world. Which is horrible, right? So right off the bat, there's this little bit of a thing where it's like we should probably avoid those areas that cause us to see things poorly.
Teresa: Right. Exactly, or when we start putting something at a higher level in our life than it should be at, then we need to start dealing with those things.
Steve: So what does this turn into? It turns into guarding our hearts, guarding our minds, guarding our lives from being wooed by the things of the world.
Teresa; Yeah. Right.
Steve: So, if you spend lots of time watching and consuming media with commercials, what are they trying to do? They're trying to woo you into purchasing whatever it is that they're selling.
Teresa: Right.
Steve: Trying to get you to do something different.
Teresa: Some more cleverly than others.
Steve: Yeah, some are really good at it, like those late night infomercials and you just are like, we have to buy stuff.
Teresa: No, I have never. I mean, that's never been a temptation for me.
Steve: We do own a couple things that have come to us by late -night TV.
Teresa: Not because of me, babe.
Steve: No, but we use them. So I'm just saying, I'm just saying that we have them. So we have to be aware of that,
Teresa: Right.
Steve: And not fall into those traps of things that enter into us and kind of sidetrack us with weird endeavors.
Teresa: Right.
Steve: But Jesus isn't done dismantling life for us as we know it. He goes on there to chapter 6:25, 26, and 27.
Teresa; "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Steve: So don't worry okay?
Teresa: Easy right? Okay, I'm not going to worry.
Steve: Reality here is, this bit Jesus is talking about, it's right in the middle of this, and you can't add to your life right? You can't change what you need, there's so many things that we can't do. And Jesus is saying, stop worrying about those things. Right? Like we make plans for the future.
Teresa: Which is not wrong, it’s smart, but trust him. Have your palms open, hands open. Trusting he is leading and guiding.
Steve: Right. So often as we're trying to sort out what is it that God's actually calling us to do, it's this process of trying to figure out what is the right thing to do in the midst of several things that could be right.
Teresa: Exactly. And and even if all of those things aren't wrong but if put all your hopes and trust in those things instead of God, then that's where it becomes that idol. it becomes that master.
Steve: Yeah.
Teresa: Right? Because we all need to eat, we all need to wear clothes . We know all of this, but I think what the point here is, is that's not your focus. That's not what you think of every day. That's not in the middle of driving you.
Steve: There's also the perfect example of clothing. We all need to wear clothes. Well, how much time and energy do we spend thinking about what kind of clothes?
Teresa: Oh, that's true too, not just whatever clothes.
Steve: So we live in Canada, I'm looking out the window, there's snow on the ground. I need different clothes than somebody who lives in a tropical climate, but I also don't need all of the clothes choices that if we were to go to the local mall that are there.
Teresa: You might want them.
Steve: I just need the basics, right? We all just need the basics, but we do spend an exorbitant amount of time thinking about how this will all work together.
Teresa: But I think an image like the heart, it all comes out to the heart.
Steve: And so as you kind of unpack, there's more to this little section here, this don't be anxious or don't worry section that talks about the fact that we can't by worrying add any days to our life. And it gets to the end down at verse 34, we're not actually reading it. So we get to verse 34, it says don't be anxious about tomorrow. For tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient is the day for its own trouble. Jesus is literally saying, “ how about just deal with today”.
Teresa: Yeah, like - guys today's enough. You’ve got enough to deal with today.
Steve: But in that, you get the basic truth and that's what you can't change.
Teresa: Yeah, just let it go. That is so hard to do though. Like, it's so easy for somebody who actually worries about things. People say, we'll just stop worrying. It's like- okay thanks for that. As somebody who struggles with anxiety… I'm like, “so helpful”.
Steve: In case you've ever seen those social media memes and stuff where, one person is just carefree and doesn't think about the future and never worries, and they marry somebody who is stressed out about everything? That is our relationship and I am not the worrier.
Teresa: Yeah.. Just a constant state of panic over here.
Steve: And it's just one of those things. So for me, it's really quite easy. Like this whole section on my little piece of paper is about 12 words: worry can't add any time. What you can't change: let go.
Teresa: But worry can take time away, because it actually is bad for your health. It is actually hard on your body.
Steve: Totally. I mean, and that's what I think Jesus is teaching us here. That it is a destructive spiral to get into. Jesus is saying don't think past today. You gotta get out of today first before tomorrow is actually a problem, and that's a big deal. That should be a freeing thing for us to realize.
Teresa: Oh it should be.
Steve: Like yes, we've got groceries in the house and there's food for the meals. We know what the the schedule looks like and what days where we have to be when and where and all that kind of stuff, but you know. we're sitting here on Sunday afternoon, Wednesday doesn't matter. What if I don't make it to Wednesday?
Teresa: Okay, that’s kind of a dark thought.
Steve: Well, I could spend a whole lot of time today losing or focusing energy on something far away, or that might not happen.
Teresa: Or even the day might not go how you think it's going to go. So you spent all of that time and focus on something that is for nothing.
Steve: What you can't change, you let go. What you can, you do to the best of your ability and let go of the result.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: Right. So there's this freedom to not stress out over that. And I know it's hard for anybody to do that.
Teresa: It's intentional. Intentional, I think. And yeah, it is hard for those of you that do struggle with any kind of anxiety, then you know it's not just a quick decision that you get to make about it. There's often many layers and many steps involved in that.
Steve: This is that process of preaching the gospel to yourself over and over and over, because who is the one that is sufficient for all of your worries?
Teresa: And that's Jesus.
Steve: That's Jesus. Who is the one that is orchestrating all things for you? For your good?
Teresa: Well, that's Jesus.
Steve: And so by worrying, is it worrying that Jesus isn't sufficient?
Or is it worrying that you're not going to be able to achieve and do what is necessary?
Teresa: I think there's a lot of layers that could be there.
Steve: There's a lot of layers and that's why, but that act of preaching the gospel to yourself is important. That's what I think is in the Sermon on the Mount here. All throughout in little pictures, is preaching the gospel of Christ to yourself, the sufficiency of Him and trusting in that.
Teresa: That's right.
Steve: Okay, so this next section, chapter 7:1-12
Teresa: “Judge not that you not be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you seek the speck that is in your brother's eye? But do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there's a log in your own eye, you hypocrite. First, take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Do not give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs lest they trample them underfoot and attack you. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone. Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets."
Steve: Yeah, that's all we get there. This is traditionally called the golden rule.
Teresa; Yeah, right.
Steve: Treat others the way you want to be treated. That's kind of where this comes from.
Teresa: Common courtesy really, but not so common anymore.
Steve: But it's wrapped up in this whole section of not judging. Don't tell people the problems in their lives when you've got a bigger problem in your life. It's ignoring your own. And just in case everybody's wondering what looks like a speck in somebody else's life, if you've got a speck in your life it's like you're looking past a log.
Teresa: Yeah, yeah.
Steve: Because of perspective, the closer it is to you, the bigger it seems right? So the the thing that you've got to deal with in your life, oftentimes we feel better about it when we can point at somebody else's deficiency, so we judge people. We try to put them in their place. And we try to say, if they would just clean this area for their life, or stop do doing ‘that’, or get rid of ‘this’ habit, or whatever it might be, we start to feel better about ourselves. And it's all in that judging of others, rather than evaluating and dealing with our own lives.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: It's such a common thing. And so even if you look back over all of the stuff, what is the worry? The worry is trying to achieve something that isn't happening.
Teresa: Yeah,
Steve: Lots of times we're worried about the results of things.
Teresa: Yeah, right.
Steve: And it's something that maybe we can control, maybe we can't, but rather than working at it, we worry about it. Or sometimes we work at it and worry about it.
Teresa: Sometimes we do both. I'm great at doing both.
Steve: You go even farther back and become, what do we fixate our minds on? Well, a lot of us fixate our minds on things, and then we worry about when we're going to get them, or why we don't have them, or how are we going to do them.
And then a lot of us look at other people and say, “Man, I wish that you would just deal with your mess because that would make my life easier.” But we're not dealing with our own mess, and then it all kind of snowballs together through this whole section. And this one really just gets wrapped up in: Why are we judging other people rather than dealing with ourselves.
Teresa: Right?
Steve: We're supposed to keep short accounts with ourselves and short accounts with our relationship with Christ. So then we get down to this part, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you. Everyone who asks receives…” Okay well, why do we worry? Well, because we don't have what we think we need.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: Or we're worried about not getting that what is the laying up of treasures. It's trying to acquire what we think we need. What is the judging? It's when we're looking at other people and we want what they have. And Jesus just lays it down and says, just ask me.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: Just ask me for what you think you need. And I'll work with you. I will come in and just like the son that gets bread instead of a stone or a fish instead of a serpent,
Jesus is saying, I'm not going to give you bad things.
Teresa: Mm -hmm.
Steve: He doesn't actually say he's going to give you what you ask for. He's going to work with you, where you are at, to see what he's at work doing in your life. And that's the reality. This whole thing is about coming through and submitting ourselves to the will of Christ, right? So we seek Jesus always. Our needs are met in him alone. This ask, seek, seek, and knock deal? Growing up in a liturgical church with a big stained glass window was a picture of Jesus holding a lamp, knocking on the door. And it said, ask, seek, and knock, right? That verse was right on the bottom. Now, I wasn't saved, I didn't understand it and I looked at it all the time, you know, this 40 foot tall Jesus or however tall that stained glass window was. That was my first gospel experience. That’s the thing I knew before I knew John 3:16.
Teresa: Because it was in front of you.
Steve: Because it was in front of me. It was right there And this idea is that we come to the only one who can make a difference in this world. To ask him to make a difference in our world.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: Whether that's personal or corporate or communal or whatever way you want to look at it. We are to come to Jesus and go through this process of coming to him and trusting that what he gives us is actually something good.
Teresa: Right, absolutely.
Steve: Okay, last section. Chapter 7: 24 -29.
Teresa: “Everyone then who hears these words of mind and does them, will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” All the way to the end. end?
Steve: to 29
Teresa: “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes.”
Steve: Yeah, not as their scribes. He wasn't just repeating something. He was telling them new things, right? And not that they were new, but that he was coming to change the way it was understood.
Teresa: That's right.
Steve: He came and changed the way it was understood. So here you get down to it and it's kind of a wrap -up. From Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7 is the Sermon on the Mount. I would encourage you if you've listened to the last two weeks and you're kind of like oh my goodness this is good stuff, go back and just read Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7.
Teresa: The Sermon on the Mount is powerful.
Steve: And just imagine Jesus sitting with a great big crowd around him and he's just explaining life to them. Because that's kind of what he's doing here. Like they're saying, "How do you pray?" And he's giving them the Lord's prayer. They're saying, "How are we supposed to live life?" And he's talking about what to do about treasure and worry and all of these things. And finally, he gets to the end and he says, "If you've been listening to me…"
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: And you just... do what I've been telling you.
Teresa: Yeah,
Steve: It's going to be like a house with a good foundation.
Teresa: Yeah, who doesn't want that?
Steve: We all do. You all do, right? And I mean, I've lived in places where, just the bare ground is the foundation. There is no prep done at all, right?
Teresa: Yeah, yeah.
Steve: Currently the house we live in is older, so we have part of our basement as our cellar. Underneath, it's not really living space, but it's big enough that you can go down there. And it's where all the water and heater and furnace and all that kind of stuff are - the mechanical things. Part of it is concrete dug out properly, and part of it is just dirt. A big pile of dirt. So when the snow is melting, water comes into our basement and we have to have a pump that pumps it right back out. That's not the house that He’s telling us to build. He's saying, put it on a rock, a rock that won't be moved. Make sure that you are making this life, when he's using the metaphor of a house, make sure you're making this life to have a foundation that is so secure that you're going to survive the difficulties, because problems... and difficulties are going to come.
Teresa: Absolutely.
Steve: And you just spent two chapters of your Bible, well three chapters of your Bible, telling you what the most common problems and difficulties are.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: This is what you're going to get wrapped up in. Here's what you need to do in response. And now they're not quite, you know, lists for us to follow like checkmarks.
Teresa: Right.
Steve: But they are kind of things for us to read and sort out and think about and go, well, what do I look at? What do I let into my heart? What is causing the darkness? How do I stop judging? What about worry? And all of these things start to lay together and we even skipped entire sections.
Teresa: Yeah, we did.
Steve: We skipped quite a few sections. But when we put God's word as the anchoring and foundational spot for our life, when the tough times come, they're not going to destroy it. Destroy us, because we've got that firm rock foundation that we're building life on. That's why I love the Sermon on the Mount. So if you've got the time, read Matthew chapter five, six, and seven.
Teresa: Yeah. Well guys, thanks for joining us for a conversation today. If you've enjoyed the podcast, you can always subscribe, leave a like, or comment on our social streams, or even tell others about us. We appreciate any help in getting connected to people who are interested. As always, you can find us online at discipleship .ca and on Facebook and Instagram. Have a great day and I hope you can join us next time.
Steve: ‘Till next time.
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
Thursday Feb 15, 2024
Thursday Feb 15, 2024
Teresa: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Discipleship .ca. My name is Teresa, and with me today is...
Steve: Steve.
Teresa: Thanks for joining us as we have another discussion with the hope,
prayer, and goal of encouraging you in your daily walk of faith and journey towards Christlikeness, as we explore Scripture, faith, and the Christian life, as well as talking about what Jesus is teaching us on our journeys of faith.
Today we are talking about, as you're sitting there laughing at me for some reason...
Steve: You are... you are reading the intro with conductor hands. Pointing at me when I have to say my thing, and you're waving into the crowd out here.
Teresa: I do speak with my hands.
Steve: You do.
Teresa: And I emphasize things, but then sometimes I hit the microphone. It makes a loud bang, so I do apologize to you guys.
Steve: Full disclosure there has only been limited editing ever on on the podcast and most of it has been when Teresa has banged the microphone
Teresa: Or said something I shouldn't
Steve: Blown my eardrums out because it's so loud and I'm the one listening through a headset so that I can hear what's going on in the recording
Teresa: Thank you for doing that by the way
Steve: And one time when she was a straight -up heretic
Teresa: Oh! No! I don't think it was a straight -up heretic I was… well, I guess you either are you aren't.
Steve: But I only took out five seconds. 5 seconds and it fixed it.
Teresa: What was it? I forget what we were talking about. I Said something and I was like - I can't say that, you have to take that out. I didn't, it was a half thought in the middle of something.
Steve: In the middle of something that was directly opposed to orthodox faith.
Teresa: Because I couldn't finish my thought and then I was like, you have to take that out because that's going to be really bad.
Steve: So, there you go.
Teresa: Anyways.
Steve: That's how we end up with it.
Teresa: We are all human.
Steve: So when I laugh at Teresa, it stays in there.
Teresa: Yes, anyways.
Steve: Hey, yeah, so we're talking about the beatitudes today.
Teresa: Great.
Steve: And I don't know when you're listening to this, but we are coming towards Easter and just by God's providence, the book that I'm working my way through lines up almost perfectly with Easter. So, I've been just randomly jumping around grabbing the ones that I like, but we're working through the whole book. And now that we're coming down to it as we get closer to Easter, we're going to start moving towards the Easter stories. The Passover stories that are in the Gospels.
So excited about that. But today comes one of my favorite sections. The sermon on the mount, and it's broken down into two sections. So this week we're gonna look at the Beatitudes and about salt and light, and then next week we're going to look at the ‘don't worry’ passages, and those kinds of things.
So it's pretty cool, but reality is if you think about life, here's the thought to frame it up for us. There are three kinds of people in the world. Do you know what kinds of people they are?
Teresa: Three, you said?
Steve: Three.
Teresa: Like, where are we going? You need to give me some kind of context. I did. I'm not reading your notes.
Steve: There's those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who have no idea what just happened.
Teresa: Oh, I see.
Steve: And as we look at the sermon on the Mount, here's Jesus, the one who makes things happen.
Teresa: Yes
Steve: Talking to the disciples who are watching what's going on, and also speaking to the crowd who have no idea what's going on. Like, this dude just feeds us and does miracles.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: We're not really sure what's going on here, and what happens in life is, as you can actually look at life, and I know this is kind of a comical way to say it, but you can look at life in in the way of all of those three are around us at all times. And the funny thing is we all kind of have this kind of tick inside of us where we want to live lives that actually matter.
Teresa: Yeah,
Steve: Like we want some kind of thing left behind. Whether that be family legacy, where you've got like lots of people that come after you. Or some kind of maybe financial legacy where you your children's children's children can live on the wealth that you have acquired and amassed, and you're doing that, or you literally built something and you want your name on it.
Teresa: Right
Steve: Or whatever it might be. We have that
Teresa: There's a driving force.
Steve: People will go to crazy extremes in life to acquire meaning to what we're doing, or to acquire love. To either have things that we love, or to be loved by someone. So here Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, sits down with a bunch of people and starts to push in on the way that we're supposed to live life.
Teresa: Right
Steve: What is it supposed to look like? And when we find our relationship in
in Jesus, that's when life starts to really actually have meaning. There's an internal nature to it, there is this longevity that we understand the things that we do here in life in Christ's name actually have repercussions into all eternity. And so meaning starts to become something that is really easy to find in life with Christ. And as we learn how to live life with Christ, life just keeps getting better and better and better, right? So we kind of wonder what he has to say.
So we're going to look at Matthew chapter 5:1- .
Teresa: Ohhh, let's go to Matthew. Guys, let's go to Matthew. I was in Mark and I was like, that's interesting. We're talking about demons. That's interesting.
Okay, I'm there. Matthew 5, Sermon On The Mount. So Jesus is saying this to quite a crowd of people.
Steve: He's got a crowd of people. Matthew chapter 5:1-5.
Teresa: Right. “So seeing the crowds He went up to the mountain and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the king kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
Just to five, right?
Steve: Just to five.
Teresa: There you go, that's five. It keeps going, I love the beatitudes.
Steve: Yeah, we're going to take them three at a time.
Teresa: Okay, I love that.
Steve: For three pods, because there's a few. So right off the bat, right? You understand that Jesus is starting to say, hey, if you're like this, you are blessed.
Teresa: Yes. Yes.
Steve: So this means you live with God's favor on you. That's the basic way to understand that, but verse 3 starts right off: ‘poor in spirit’. It's that moment when we know that we're nothing without Christ. Then our our hearts become pliable to God, we actually put ourselves in a spot where being poor in spirit is not a bad thing.
Now that kind of means that we are fixated on God. We want what he wants, so our spirit is not the one that is driving the show. We're allowing, in our lives, our submission to God, is driving the way that we live. When our hearts become pliable to God, he changes us and then we're able to actually see and build the kingdom for His glory, right? So that's the poor in spirit. We don't have that proudness. We don't have that. We've become humble. We've become submissive to God. Even though we may not be a submissive personality, we've done that in ourselves.
Teresa: It's an intentional giving up. Right now, I just started a small book by Tim Keller, called, ‘The Freedom of Self -Forgetfulness. I think that's what it's called. Yeah, so our son was reading it, and thought it would be good for me to read. But I wanted to read it.
Steve: I've read that before and Keller's whole premise and that thing is it we find a sweet spot with God when we actually forget who we are,
Teresa: Right, right? right. Because we also think of ourselves more than we need to.
Steve: That's being poor in spirit. We don't feel the need to be the one who's driving the bus, so to speak, or running the show, or however you want to phrase it, right? And we actually take our lives and orientate them towards God for His glory and His kingdom.
Teresa: Right.
Steve: And that's when we're blessed.
Teresa: That's right, that's right.
Steve: The second one, verse four, is when we realize, so verse four…
Teresa: Oh, “blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” So there's this grieving, mourning.
Steve: When you realize you can't change yourself or others, we actually are called, like that's a mourning that we have. So I'm reframing these a little bit.
Teresa: A little bit.
Steve: Right. Because there's …
Teresa: Which is interesting, yeah.
Steve: People who mourn, and ‘Blessed are the people who mourn’. If you've lost someone and it hurts. You love them that much. But deep that deep thing, like you've got somebody that you think about on a regular basis and care about even though they're gone. Blessed are you because you've got this soft -carrying heart.
Teresa: Right.
Steve: But in our lives, right? When we realize that we can't change others, particularly after reading the poor in spirit, now we're into the blessed are those who mourn. You realize that there are people that won't humble and submit themselves, and you mourn them while you still have the opportunity to talk to them.
Teresa: Yeah
Steve: It's just Jesus who comforts us, God will pour out the blessing, you'll be blessed by God when you mourn and I think it means also for the ones around us. Recently, and I talk about this a bit, I am a chaplain for a local hockey team of young guys that are trying to get to the NCAA in America to play hockey for on scholarships. I had one of them ask me at the last chapel, am I afraid of death?
Teresa: Like, you personally?
Steve: Me personally. Am I afraid to die? No, it's not the end for me right? But I'm terrified of death for people who I don't think know Jesus, because it's the end for them. And that's what has helped me to think of looking at the beatitudes this way, because there's a mourning there. I don't want unbelievers to be confronted with death because of the way they live, because there's already a mourning if you're going to live your life hardened to God. First you're cutting off his blessing, you're not going to walk in it, and that eternity with God is gone from you.
So blessed are those who mourn, who understand there's...
Teresa: And in that, it's only Jesus that can comfort, because there is no comfort outside of him.
Steve: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So verse five.
Teresa: It says “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Which is interesting, I think. I don't know what other translations are. Is it always meek? Because in our society, being meek is not something that is a good quality for somebody to have, it's not viewed as a positive thing.
Steve: Yeah oftentimes. No, and I mean meek and mild, right? That's the way they want to, and that doesn't mean doormat, right? But that's the way we've got to use it in language.
Teresa: That’s the way we view it though…
Steve: So this meekness, the inadequacy that we have, that we see when we're meek. We generally shrinking back because we're not overly confident, or we're not overly boisterous. We're resting in ourselves and that drives us back to God, because we're not trusting in ourselves. We're not trusting in the strength of ourselves.
So the word meek, right? Sometimes it's proud, sometimes it's haughty, arrogant, like those kinds of things, that would be the opposite. If you were to pull that back and you think about it, when we step away from that and we have the humility or the meekness that doesn't trust in ourselves, we're being driven back towards God in faith for those of us who understand who Jesus is, right?
And then Jesus says, "We're the ones that are gonna inherit the earth." Well, what are the boisterous, loud, arrogantly proud people of the world doing? They're trying to take the world.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: Like they want. They want everything.
Teresa: Yeah, well they want all eyes on them. They want all the glory, they want the attention…
Steve: They want the world.
Teresa: Yeah
Steve: It doesn't matter where you live, if you think about like Hollywood, or if you are in in Asia, you think of the film industries that are centered like in Mumbai or any of the places that have big entertainment centers - well, what are all those people doing? They're flaunting the way that they are taking wealth out of this world.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: And here Jesus is saying, “No”. When we pull back and we don't trust in our own abilities, but rather have that meekness, that humility towards God, then we actually are going to inherit the thing that all these other people think they're going to get forever.
Terea: Right.
Steve: We're going to get it, all of it.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve: And that's a fantastic thought.
So then that brings us to Matthew chapter 5: 6 - 8.
Teresa: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
I love that one.
Steve: Yeah.
Teresa: I don't know who's pure in heart, but I love that one.
Steve: Yeah, Jesus is pure.
Teresa: Jesus is pure.
Steve: Jesus is, so when when you know verse six says “Blessed are those
Teresa: “who hunger and thirst”
Steve: I should have probably written these down.
Teresa: Which is quite funny to me that you didn't because you’re usually pretty good. I’m kind of enjoying this…
Steve: And then I sat down to record
Teresa: without your bible.
Steve: I don't even have a bible in front of me, I just have a sheet of paper. I'm a disaster.
Teresa: You're just a hot mess today, babe.
Steve: Pretty much.
But when we're humble, right, and we develop a hunger to know who God is, then he promises to actually fill us.
Teresa: I do, I love that.
Steve: I mean, a perfect example of this, is this podcast.
Teresa: Right.
Steve: We're doing this, not because we thought anybody would listen.
Teresa: Actually, it's sometimes surprising that people do.
Steve: Yeah, we sometimes are confused as to why you're all on this journey with us, but you are. So that's okay.
Teresa: And we're thankful.
Steve: And we are thankful for you. And what it is, though, is we wanted to have a reason, on a timeline to dig into things that we've wanted to dig into. And so it was framed around discipleship because there's a lot of things that we can figure out and do. Teresa wanted to work through some book of the Bible in a chronological, page by page kind of deal, so that brings us the Psalms on Tuesdays,
Teresa: Right.
Steve: And I wanted to do a whole bunch of different things, so these gospel scenes, they're not new to me, I've been a pastor for 30 years on and off. They're all things that I've heard before, but we hunger to learn more. We're called to do that, and God promises that He's going to bring us satisfaction when we do that. We will be filled. That hunger will be satisfied in Him.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: So it's amazing. Verse seven.
Teresa: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy."
Steve: Yeah. Again, when we show compassion and mercy, it's not because typically in ourselves that we are here.
Yeah, I know. She's looking at my notes. Just relax, I got it. When we show compassion and mercy, it's not because of who we are in our nature. It is not that way, almost no one has that as their standard thing. We're always quite often concerned about ourselves. If you see some sort of situation going on and we don't care
to intervene. If you had compassion and mercy, you would stop at every car accident to make sure everybody's okay.
Teresa: I mean some people do and some people do if they're they're equipped To deal with it.
Steve: Or yeah, if you see somebody distraught, you can't help yourself but get involved. It's not the normal thing for most people.
Teresa: No, it's not.
Steve: But here we are told that if we live that way, if we show compassion, then God pours that out on us.
Teresa: And it might not be that the people around us are merciful to us, but God is saying he will be.
Steve: He will be yeah, and then we get to verse eight.
Teresa: “Blessed are the poor pure in heart for they shall see God.”
Steve: The pure in heart. As you said earlier, who is pure in heart? and there's not many.
Teresa: Yeah, no. It’s not something that is natural to us.
Steve: And you think about it, right? Think about it. Scripture tells us that David is a man after God's own heart. Super problematic.
You know, the adultery, murder, all sorts of things.
Teresa: All of the things, yeah.
Steve: You know, but here God is saying, blessed are those who are pure and heart.
How do we get there? Only through Jesus. It's only when Jesus works the transforming power of what he has done for us on the cross and his death, burial, and resurrection. And the Holy Spirit is working in our heart, we are moved towards purity. And it's only as Jesus gives us His righteousness and takes our iniquity, our sin, the result of sin onto himself, that God looks down and sees, what?
Jesus’ pure life and heart. In replace of us.
Teresa: Imprinted onto us. He doesn't see our wickedness.
Steve: And so that obedience becomes more and more natural to God, because we follow closer and closer to Jesus, and we're more and more in tune to the Holy Spirit and what His work is in our lives.
And so then God's blessing pours out, right? Because there is this faithful obedience. And we can't miss in the midst of all this, this isn't like the dream list. Jesus is literally telling a crowd, “Okay, you want to live with God's favour? Here you go.”
Teresa: Here you go, he lays it right out.
Steve: Lays it out. So Matthew chapter 5:9- 12 .
Teresa: “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. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
Some hard words there, like some good words though, like to hold fast and stand firm.
Steve: And it helps us to understand what life is going to be like,
right? So the peacemakers, right? And this is, we're not talking about people who join the peace corps, or are peacekeepers in the military. But literally people who choose to try to live their lives at peace.
You don't fight. You're not divisive You're not quarrelsome. You can find these words in other places, where apostles write in their epistles how you should live, when we go back to the ‘one another's’. This is how we're supposed to live with each other. The peacemakers, we carry the name of God into the world and so we should bring peace to others, in between others, because that's exactly what Jesus did.
He came into this world to bring us peace. And that is so that we can live with peace
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: And so you know, this is one of the hard parts. When you start thinking about people, particularly around churches, it's like, are you combative?
Teresa: Right.
Steve: And if you are, why? Because that’s not the posture that God had. There's got to be this willingness to live at peace with each other.
Teresa: Absolutely.
Steve: Which brings us to verse 10.
Teresa: Yep.
Steve: Which is, “Blessed are the...
Teresa: Yep, blessed are those who are persecuted.
Steve: Persecution. Yeah.
Teresa: For righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Steve: Yeah. How in Jesus annoys Satan.
Teresa: Just put it out there. Just throw it out there.
Steve: That's just how it is. And that means Satan is not happy with, if you follow Jesus, you.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: And that means that spiritual warfare follows. Do I think that there is a demon behind every problem that every Christian has? No, sometimes we're just dumb and do stuff on our own. We make mistakes or we make bad choices or whatever it might be.
Do I think that there can be spiritual forces at work in our lives? 100%. And I think we have to remember that. Jesus himself says, "When this happens, it's actually, you're going to be blessed by it. This is a process that we have to walk through and understand how to live out in a way that brings God glory, because this is part of his plan for our sanctification, being turned into Christ, Christlikeness, brought that way.
And the reality is that God is in control. He will deliver us from that. So even when we have those moments where there's spiritual opposition and spiritual forces in our lives working against us, God is going to deliver us through and pour out blessing on us yet again.
Teresa: Yet again.
Steve: Yeah.
Teresa: And then 11 and 12, it does start with a blessing.
Like blessed are you and others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, and then, rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Steve: Yeah, if you go look at the prophets, they all get a raw deal a lot of times. And people didn't want to listen to them and they thought they were crazy and weirdos But I do love them. Jesus says we're like them.
Teresa: We're like them, but, great is your reward in heaven. Like, hold on, hold fast, stay focused, eyes on me.
Steve: Before that, when people are insulting you and spreading lies about you and maligning you and persecuting you, you're supposed to have joy. Rejoice.
Teresa: But you're doing the right thing. This is confirmation that you are doing what you're supposed to be doing.
Steve: There you go. See, the beatitudes become this laundry list of, if you can submit yourself to God and live this out, look what happens. By the end, you're inheriting the earth, we're living at peace, we've got all these things going on, blessings of God are poured out, and you're going to have a great reward in eternity.
Teresa: Yes. Yes,
Steve: And then it doesn’t quite end there. So we go to verse 13- 16.
Teresa: Okay.
“You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world, a city set on a hill cannot be hidden nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives its light in all the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Steve: Right, and I love that. I've preached this a few times and got myself in trouble from the way that I get all excited, because this is where I said that people didn't give,
Teresa: Oh. Oh, for rats. Oh yes, I do remember that.
Steve: We live in a mountainous area, so you see lights all the time. Like, we can look out our windows at night and you see lights across the lake or up the mountain and you have no idea what's below the light. I basically told the church, ‘you don't care about those lights’. That's not the kind of light that Jesus is calling us to be.
Teresa: Right.
Steve: Just like we're not... called to be, you know, there's that old -school Christian book, ‘Out of the Salt Shaker’, not called to be the salt in the container that does nothing. The two examples that are given are salt and light, and the reality is, its proximity to whatever needs to be dealt with, is when those two things become useful.
Salt has to be poured on to meet the salt in the container.
Teresa: No salt, could you lose that saltiness?
Steve: Yeah, you put it in water, you dilute it, evaporate it away.
Teresa: Oh, but then it makes the water very salty.
Steve: Yes, but see, we put a lot of salt into a little bit of water and think that that's how that's going to work. But if you take a little bit of salt, which is salty in itself, and then throw it into a huge pot of soup, you don't taste the salt anymore. You have to put a lot in there. And that, that's the point. You either need a massive amount of it or it has to be very close in proximity.
You have to get it out of the container the salt is in, and put it where it needs to be. So if you're going to cure the meat, the salt comes out and goes on the meat.
Teresa: And a lot of salt.
Steve If you're going to flavor the meal you're going to put the salt out of the container on the meal. If you're going to illuminate something, the light has to be right beside it. They didn't have LED lights. They had candles. So we're talking about a candle. You want to read a book? The candle is right beside the book.
Teresa: Oh, or you have like five? I don't know how they read with just one. I mean, we are used to more lights.
Steve: They read during the day.
Teresa: Yeah, they probably slept when it was dark.
Steve: So the whole idea here is, here are all these Beatitudes. This is how you should live. But then in the world, we don't live like that. We are…
Teresa: Segregated.
Steve: So that we can be separate. But we are to live close… we're to live like that. So that we are in the world and that we're flavoring and preserving and we're illuminating the world with the truth of scripture, right? Truth of who Jesus is.
And both of those things need to be close to whatever it is that they're working on.
And that's the same thing for us as believers. If we're walking out these Beatitudes, living that way, trying our best to bring glory and honor to God with the things that we do, by day by day
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: We need to be in the community around us so that people can experience that. And that's when things start to change.
Teresa: Yeah.
Steve: So now we're going to jump all the way to the end.
Teresa: I got it Chapter 5:43- 48. “You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. For he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.
Hard words!
Steve: Yeah. So Jesus died for people who hated him.
Teresa: Yes.
Steve: Right to the end of their days.
Teresa: Yep.
Steve: Right? Jesus died for all people. And this is, theologically, you have to decide how the atonement works. And if you don't know what that means, you have to decide how the atonement works.
Teresa: Well, you have to decide where you stand on it. The atonement works whether we understand it clearly or not.
Steve: Whether we understand it, ...
Teresa: Which we don't.
Steve: The basic thought here is, Jesus died and now there's the question of, whose sins does Jesus' blood cover?
Teresa: Oh, I got you. We're not gonna get into this right now.
Steve: Right, we're not gonna get into that. But the reality is, Jesus died, that anybody who receives him as savior would be saved, which means that anybody who could receive him as savior could be saved, right? This is logic. Which means that all those who reject Jesus had an opportunity but rejected him. But Jesus still died for them,
right? But it's just not sufficient for their salvation because they did not accept him.
Teresa: Well, it is sufficient if they were to accept him.
Steve: If they were to accept him. Right, so here we go. There's this hatred in the world that Jesus experienced and he's literally looking at it and saying buckle up like you're going to get the same yeah there are going to be people who are irrationally against us just because we are for Jesus.
Teresa: I like that, irrationally against us.
Steve: Yeah it's just going to be like, “Oh I'm fighting with you because I don't like Jesus. And it's a crazy world, but it does happen.
And the thing is we don't have to like what people do, we don't have to enjoy the way they treat us, but we do have to love them.
Teresa: Yeah yeah.
Steve: So we have to figure out how do we do that? And my basic idea here is, I think we do that by living out the Beatitudes. You know, living those points where you know what? Here is what's going on in your life, this is what the response should be. And if you do that, God will pour out blessing. That's what Jesus calls us to here in these last few verses that we read, is we need to love the people that are around us and that should be the way that we live our lives.
Teresa: Yeah.
Well guys thanks for joining us for our conversation today. If you have enjoyed the podcast, you can always subscribe, leave a like or comment on our social streams or even tell others about us. We appreciate any help in getting connected to people who are interested. As always, you can find us online at discipleship .ca and on facebook and instagram. Have a great day and I hope you can join us next time.
Steve: Until next time.
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024