The Sermon on the Mount, Being a Worshiper

[HKHaugan]

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Those recognizable words from the program Star Trek give us a feeling for where the Sermon on the Mount is leading us. If you can see yourself as a spiritual being having a human experience then you are a spiritual being created to explore what lies behind the physical existence in which you find yourself. It starts with the One who came from the reality behind reality, Jesus the Christ, the One through whom all things were made. You are a 'Star ship' with a mission, a lifetime mission, to bring the new life in Jesus and the Body of Christ for those who don't know Him and boldly go where you have never been before. This is the reason for the Sermon on the Mount. It is the launching platform for your personal Star Trek adventure. You may face unseen hostile forces and attacks from unseen quarters but you have the Creator of the universe as your Captain. He is your way, your truth, your life and your mission.

So let's begin. When you are in the Spirit you move at warp speed. In His Word you are instantaneously beamed into His presence in His dimension.

First of all there are nine Beatitudes, nine blessings (God's touches), completely spiritual in nature. But there are 10 Commandments. If the Lord is the fulfillment what about the 10th? We'll get to that. Right now it is the spiritual dimension He is moving us to enter. This is what the Lord is emphasizing, everything starts with God the Spirit creating through God the Son by God the Father. Nothing is conceived, planned and done outside of God who is Spirit (Jn.4:24) because there is nothing outside of Him. Everything in existence both visible and invisible has a spiritual beginning in the spiritual mind of God. Our God has taken nothing and made it something. He holds it all in His mind, heart and Spirit. From the most minute physical cell to the unfathomable massiveness of universal invisible space, everything is spiritually conceived and initiated. Space, time, existence and personal reality are all founded spiritually. The more spiritually aware we are the more we think, grow, feel, see and know. The Beatitudes are Jesus bringing the whole spiritual dimension to bear on each individual mind, heart and spirit. This Sermon is His gift enabling us to open up to the vastness that is God's. The Sermon takes us into the spiritual dimension for which we were created to experience. This world is just the beginning.

But another aspect of this Sermon is it also shows us its opposite reality, evil, sin and their motivator the devil whom Jesus exposed when He was tempted in the wilderness. Here is where the dark opposites in the devil's kingdom, his demons, spirits and anti-God attitudes are exposed by the light of the positive blessings. The opposite of His blessings become obvious.

Sin reduces us in size, being and quality. The more we sin, by being self-centered self-indulgent, the smaller we become. Sin shrinks us through fear, anxiety, distrust, suspicion, pride and greed. This is where aloneness is the condition, the goal of the devil's plan for each of us. The Sermon on the Mount is designed to do the opposite. It reveals God's plan to expand us, to grow us, to fill us full, to fulfill us with His love to increase our size moment by moment. This is what is revealed by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount.

The first thing the Sermon opens us to is the presence of an eternal spiritual kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, a limitless expanse of reality He wants us, His images, stunted in growth by sin, to experience. Its passport is the Word of God.

Second, just as there are seven days of Creation and each one leads to the next see how each blessing builds on the preceding one. They are connected and follow a path, a progressive way to grow spiritually. It's completely understandable how Jesus would choose spirituality to begin with. It covers all reality.

Third, this is personal. Every one of us is unique to God and therefore the world around us. No one will ever be like us or has ever been. That's what makes it so personal. That is how we are to Him. We are His children. We need to keep that in mind which is why I repeat, each of us is unique to Him. Our place in the world is to share that uniqueness and only He is the source to enable our journey.

The first blessing has to do with personal spiritual poverty. It's to get us to realize how unspiritual we are and how much we need to be in the Spirit which is only possible through Jesus. The Kingdom of Heaven is a relationship with Jesus. “I am going to prepare a place for you that where I am you may be also (Jn.14:2).” The Cross was Jesus' means to allow a relationship with Him because He would return through the Holy Spirit into a believer's heart. The Body of Christ is the experience that brings us together in Him, therefore, we are in the Kingdom when He is our personal Lord.

The second blessing has to do with mourning. We usually think of it as mourning for the death of a relative or friend. But grief is usually for one's self which entails guilt for not having resolved issues that dominated those relationships. It is really a mourning for self, one's guilt, one's unresolved experiences, things we can't change, undo or recover. In everything from physical death, relational brokenness and self unfulfillment, we we will be comforted. When we have become spiritually aware spiritual comfort is right at hand in the Spirit, the Holy Comforter (Gk.-parakletos- paraclete).

The third blessing about meekness is the relational openness with which we approach the world. It is being able to handle every situation from a spiritual point of view. Eternity is the spiritual present when you are a believer. Every situation demands a spiritual response and letting the Holy Spirit guide is being a part of the Kingdom. When we have been spiritually comforted it is easier to face every next moment spiritually patient thus reducing our defensiveness and need to jump to personal conclusions and negative reactions.

The fourth blessing follows with a desire to find out more about how to rely on the Holy Spirit. You hunger and thirst for the best way to be right in every next moment which takes you into the Word of Righteousness, Holy Scripture. There the Holy Spirit opens up the way of being right which is being filled to the full with the Spirit. That is learning more about who Jesus is and letting Him be our mind, heart and spirit.

The fifth blessing is seeing people as images of God in need of the same openness with which we have been blessed. That is what mercy is all about, giving others the room to grow in grace the way we did. Judgmentalism and expectations don't cloud our view of others. When we rid ourselves of the comfortable stereotypes that we lay on the appearance of others or on their cultural conditioned behavior we are moving into their heart neighborhood. We have to let others do the same with us.

The sixth blessing says that after showing mercy we are ready to grow by opening our hearts to the Spirit's purifying work. We can face the fear-based strongholds that we use for security to protect ourselves from past pain and its possible recurrences. We can continue being cleansed through repentance and forgiveness. It's not about being 'gooder' but about being humble before God, not about feeling better about ourselves and our faith, not internalizing how good we are becoming and concentrating on how changed we are from our old life. It is listening to His counsel in prayer and Scripture and making ourselves available to the secular world around us in every next moment. The more we are in the Word, and believe, the more the mind is cleansed. The more we trust Jesus wherever we are with what we learn in the Word, the more the heart is opened to trust. The more we step out in faith toward others, the more the Lord is shared and glorified.

The seventh blessing is introducing others to the Lord's peace we have been given. Yes, purifying the heart increases the awareness of the peace that passes understanding. It is not peace as the world gives, which is absence of conflict, but relational spiritual personal peace that can be felt in the presence of those who have been given it in the Spirit. When people see we don't get easily rattled by their opposition to what we believe they know something is different about us. “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you (Prov.25:21-22).”

The eighth blessing is reading persecution as a blessing. Remember, 'blessing' is being touched by God in a very personal way. Persecution is a sign of an opportunity that the persecutor will be blessed by the peace that we show. Without the peace of Christ that goes before anything we will never respond well to the need of others who believe in persecution as a method of self-justification. Persecution is a symptom of their need to live independently from God and rationalize their hostility. This may be the hardest of the Beatitudes and perhaps the most important after recognizing our spiritual poverty.

The ninth blessing is the false witness others will bear against us because we believe in Jesus. They will gossip, say false things about us, whisper behind our backs and do all they can to make us look bad. Recognizing that false witness has a positive effect is important. When gossiped about it means that what we stand for is being spoken about and therefore publicized. The Spirit can use that to plant seeds in others who are looking for just such a faith as ours. Belief, trust and faith in Jesus puts Him in the forefront of what others see in us. He is the cause of their unsettledness and they don't like that feeling.

But this is only nine blessings to fulfill 10 Commandments. Where is the 10th? If we return to Moses given those first 10 by God who identified Himself to Moses as “I Am” and Jesus said He came to fulfill all righteousness, which only God can do, what is the 1st Commandment? Yes, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me...(Ex.20:3).” Now hear what Jesus said about Himself, “Before Abraham was, I Am (John 8:58).”

Jesus is the 1st Commandment fulfilled. He filled the Law full of the Spirit. The Sermon on the Mount, the fulfillment of the Commandments did not come from outside Him, like with Moses, but from within Him, God in the flesh. He is the bridge between the physical and spiritual dimension. Now we can go where we have never been before in every next moment.

“I love you, Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold (Ps.18:1-2).”