Introduction
How do we approach walking out the “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5,6, &7)? Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Yet when we look at these three chapters, they appear to us to be the hardest requests God could ask. Not only does God request these of us, He requires these be fulfilled in our lives. What is it that we need to understand about the death and resurrection of Christ that will enable us to boldly and confidently walk out the “Sermon on the Mount,” even as we fail while trying, time and time again?
Outline
1. What is the Law?
2.Purpose of the Law
3. We are Bound to the Law
4. Death Through Baptism
5. Life Through Christ: Alive to God
What is the law?
The law defines God’s perfect requirements of man. Man is to be holy and acceptable in His sight. God is Holy; therefore in order for us to be pleasing in His sight we are to be holy also. If we are not holy in God’s sight then we are not pleasing to Him. (Romans 8:8)
Purpose of the Law
Lev. 11:44 For I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy.
Matthew 5:48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Romans 5:13 For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed (assigned) when there is no law.
Romans 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
1 John 3:4 Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
A. God is Holy. He is totally above and beyond anything we can comprehend or imagine. He is perfect in all His ways, and therefore, requires those who dwell with Him to be just as He is, absolutely flawless.
B. The purpose of the law is to assign our lawlessness (sin) to us. Man becomes held accountable for every commandment he breaks because he now knows what is expected of him. God gave man the law so that man is now without excuse of his trespasses. When we know, we can no longer claim ignorance.
C. The Law is the LORD’s perfect expectations of the human race. It is given and man is now condemned in his sin before God, and an atonement is now needed for reconciliation.
D. The “Sermon on the Mount” adds no new commandment, but exposes the intended depths of the old commandment. It shows that the law never applied only to the external acts of man, but in fact it judges the even the heart and secret motives that drive us.
We are Bound to the Law
Romans 7:1-3 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress…
A. Paul compares our relationship with the law to a relationship of a wife to her husband.
B. As long as the husband is alive the woman is bound by law to him. But if the husband were to die, then the woman is free to marry whomever she wishes. However, if her husband is alive and she marries another man she is considered an adulteress.
C. So also with us, as long as we are alive we are bound to the requirements of the law. In keeping every commandment and walking perfectly we earn eternal life. However, if we fall short of perfection, we are considered adulterers and deserve the punishment of an adulterer.
Death Through Baptism
Matt. 5:18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
A. Since the law will never perish, it is we who must die to it.
Romans 7:4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another–to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.
Romans 6:4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
B. We die to the law through our marriage to Christ, which is the baptism into His death to sin. We unite ourselves with Christ on the cross, and thus we die to sin. Dead men no longer sin.
C. In our marriage to Christ (baptism into His death to sin) we obtain grace for the law’s requirement. We become one with Christ, and God then sees our sins, but also sees Christ’s blood which sets us free. We are never exempt from the requirements of the law, but through our baptism into the death of Christ we become one in His death (to the power sin had over us through the law) and resurrection (life in the newness of Spirit). Christ Himself provides the requirements of the law for us. This is what grace is, and this is how we become free of the burden of the law.
Romans 6:6-7 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
Life Through Christ: Alive to God
Romans 6:10-14 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
A. Grace imparts to us the desire to obey and the ability to obey. Because the heavy yoke of the law is taken off of us, as it is fulfilled in us through Christ, and we now move forward in the freedom of grace, without condemnation. We now have the ability to pursue the outworking of the law in our lives, without carrying the heavy burden of our inadequacy to do so.
B. We receive grace from God so that we can pursue Him boldly, not so we can back off.
Filed under: Sermon on the Mount
