In his sermon titled 'Life in the Kingdom,' Paul Carrington introduces a new series on the Sermon on the Mount, emphasizing its relevance to heart religion. He begins by reading Matthew 5:1-12 and highlights that the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' inaugural address outlining the nature of life in His Kingdom. Carrington describes the humble and natural setting of the sermon and explains that it marks the beginning of the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy. The sermon is filled with over 30 word pictures from everyday life, illustrating the principles of the Kingdom of God. Carrington stresses that Jesus' message is about the present reality of the Kingdom and the blessedness of its citizens. He explains that the Beatitudes outline the characteristics of those who are truly happy and approved by God. Furthermore, Carrington discusses the Christian's relationship to the law, emphasizing the importance of heart religion and genuine worship. He also touches on the practical implications of living as citizens of God's Kingdom, including being the salt and light of the earth. The sermon concludes with a call to live out these principles, encouraging believers to be spellbound by the wisdom and power of Jesus' teachings.

Good afternoon. This afternoon we're actually going to be beginning a new series in the Sermon on the Mount. Not departing too much from what we were talking about previously about heart religion, but we're going to be slowly going through this glorious sermon on the mount of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So if you have your Bibles at Asset you open up to Matthew chapter 5 and we're just going to read the first 12 verses. Matthew chapter 5.

It says here in verse 1, and seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when he was seated his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, For great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Let's pray. Lord, we come before you here this afternoon. Lord, we thank you. Thank you for your kindness and your instruction.

Thank you for the glorious words that we're about to go through. Lord, we pray that you would root and ground us in your truth. Help us to understand your word and, Lord, to be those who live in the light of it. We look forward Lord to that day when we'll see you face to face. We pray that you would give us strength and encouragement to continue on the race that you've set before us Lord.

We need you at every moment. Lord I need you and we ask you to help us now as we go through your word. Be glorified we pray in Jesus name, Amen. Amen. Well here before us I'm really really excited about this.

We have the opportunity to hear the greatest sermon that was ever preached by the greatest preacher that ever walked on the earth. It's actually the longest sermon that's ever recorded in the scriptures and it's for good reason. It's really the King of the Kingdom. And what he's doing is he's announcing to his subjects what life is like in his Kingdom. It's beautiful.

And so the interpretive grid that we're going to be using as we go through this whole sermon, verse by verse, is really the fact that the kingdom has actually come. Sounds pretty simple, but it's in the present as he's speaking this to his disciples. It's not something that's going to come in the future, though that is true in some ways. It's a kingdom that has already come. And while it's not of this world, it is a kingdom that is in this world.

And what he's doing is it's a king, he's laying out really, you could think of it as a king laying out his constitution. It's his inaugural address of what his kingdom will be like as you become a partaker of it. And it starts with very small beginnings, doesn't it? You've got this, you know, this whole layout is not really in the corridors of power. He's not in the Senate chambers of Rome, but he's on a hillside in the Galilean wilderness.

He's not sitting on a throne, but he's sitting on a stone. And it's not a palace, but it's the open sky that's overhead. It's no luxurious or stately rugs, but you've got grass. No trumpets that are heralding a king is about to speak, but it's breeze and birds all around. It's just a beautiful, beautiful setting, And what's most beautiful is the audience that he chose.

You know, it's not courtiers in attendance from the palace, but men and women from every walk. People that would never really have the opportunity to stand before a human king, an earthly king. But here they are before the eternal king of kings, the ruler of all creation. So it's a beautiful scene that's before us. So what's happening?

What is this sermon on the Mount, this inaugural address? Well, it's nothing other than what Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar when he interpreted his dream. If you remember that situation in Daniel 2, he says, you watched, Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, you watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. And he goes on to say, and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Well, this is the beginning of that.

And what's beautiful about this sermon, especially for you children, but for us older ones as well, what really is so amazing to me is that there's over 30 word pictures that are drawn from everyday life here in this sermon. You've got moth and rusts. You've got pigs and pearls, ravenous wolves and defenseless sheep. You've got a narrow gate and a broad way, lilies and trees, salt and light, birds and fish, eyes and hands, logs and lamps. You've got storms, winds and rain, thieves, officers and judges.

And it goes on. There's so many things that are just drawn to captivate and say this is what the kingdom of God is like. And so we're gonna go through, as I said, verse by verse. In verse one it says, In seeing the multitudes, there's the Lord. He went up on a mountain and when he was seated, his disciples, they came to him.

And just think of the times, right, that the Lord God had been silent for nearly 400 years because of the heartless religion and apostasy of Israel. And just only recently John the Baptist, he's come on the scene and he's begun preaching, laying out the groundwork. And the Lord Himself has begun his ministry. He's been going around Galilee, he's been healing the sick, He's been calling out to men, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, believe the gospel. And so Word has been traveling all through the region.

Something's different. Something's going on here. And of course you get people from all walks of life coming, some from just pure curiosity, some to be healed. Of course others were true followers, people that men and women who really wanted to know God and wanted to follow this new teacher. And the group that he's most interested in are those, what he calls his disciples.

That's what it says here in verse 1. And as I said earlier, he's about to teach them what life in his kingdom is really all about. He's going to go into heart religion and talk to them about that. What I love about this also is that he went up on a mountain and if you go through Scripture, we don't have time, but if you go through Scripture and all the times that a mountain is mentioned, it's oftentimes not without significance. You know, you can think of Sinai.

And that was the place that could not be touched or even approached. If an animal or anyone even went up on it, they would have to be destroyed. Hebrews says that it burned with fire, blackness and darkness and tempest. But here, his disciples came to him. It's beautiful.

It's a day of glad tidings and the son of righteousness, he's finally risen with healing in his wings. Matthew, he had just in chapter four, he had just quoted Isaiah. It says that the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region in shadow of death. Light has dawned." That's what's happening here in the Sermon on the Mount. In verse 2 it says, then he opened his mouth and taught them saying.

He's about to deliver the most unusual and powerful servant. Even up to this day, it's still unusual what he deals with and how he goes through all these different facets. It's beautiful. And he begins with the Beatitudes, and he ends with a fork in the road upon which all eternity hangs, depending on which path you choose. And so by the time he closes his mouth, he opens his mouth in verse 2, closes his mouth, Matthew ends with this commentary about the multitude.

Says that the people were astonished at his teaching. For he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. You know, you could say, what is the chaff to the wheat? This was something altogether different. And God is now present with them, teaching them.

You know, this is just by way of personal testimony, my first introduction to Christianity was none other than just opening up the Bible for the first time and reading the sermon on the mount. And I still remember that day. I remember exactly where I was, where I was sitting, the chair I was sitting on, and from that time of sitting in that chair and getting up, the Lord, He totally changed me just by reading these words. And I remember it knowing nothing about the Lord, but I remember saying, who is this man? Who speaks like this?

You know, how come nobody ever told me? Here I am 20 years old. And I didn't understand anything about sovereignty or you know God's timing and all that stuff. I didn't none of that, but I remember going through the Beatitudes and saying to myself I'm not like this. I remember when the Lord begins the exposition of the law, and I didn't know too much about the law of God or anything like that, but I remember specifically going through this and saying to myself, I could never do this.

Who could live in accordance with these things? And at the time as I'm doing this, it's exposing my ugliness and my bankruptcy. That's what it was really doing for the first time. But at the same time, even as I was being exposed, I was being drawn. And I found myself saying, I just, I wanna know this man.

I wanna know him. That's how I set it in my mind. I didn't know all who he was in totality but there I was if you want to have kind of a bit of a picture you know I was kind of like peering through the window, but wanting to be inside if He would have me. That's kind of the picture that I found myself. And my hope is as we go through this that we gain a better picture of Christ, His kingdom, you know, our place in it.

But also, also, if anyone here, man, woman, or child, you find yourself looking, from the outside looking in, that you would veer off the broad way and find yourself standing at the narrow gate. He will have you. He will have you. And so I want to start off here. I don't, you know, I was thinking how to do this because it's such a beautiful sermon, but I didn't want to just go verse by verse without giving the full context.

So what we're going to try to do is I'm going to fly over different sections and then after that we'll come back and look at different verses as the weeks roll out. But I'm going to start off in verse 3 and not get too much into into the details but what the Lord opens up with, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And you've heard that word, the Beatitudes, but what are Beatitudes? The word just means blessedness of the highest kind. It's happiness.

And he starts off, if you, you know, were to think of how God would start a sermon. Nine times, the first nine verses, he uses the word blessed, blessed, blessed. He's going down. And of all the words at his disposal, he begins with this word. Well, the final word in the Old Testament was curse.

But he begins his ministry with the word blessed. And he says blessed are, not blessed will be, but the state of those who are in the kingdom, blessed are. It's a present tense. And you could ask yourself, how could somebody who is poor in spirit, that means they're destitute of any righteousness of their own how could they be happy you know how is there such a thing as a happy mourner but he says that there is He tells you to rejoice and be exceedingly glad when you're attacked for your faith. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.

And we'll get into what all of these things mean, but I think for now what's really important for us to consider is Who are the saved? The saved are the blessed, the happy. Blessed, you're approved of God. God's face smiles upon you. Think of that.

And in these verses, it's not how to be saved. He's not saying be poor in spirit and you'll be saved, or do this and do that. No, it's nothing like that. He's simply making a declaration of who are the saved. You fall into a trap if you take these opening verses as instruction on how to be saved.

He's not saying that. He's not saying live like this and you become a Christian, but rather because you are a Christian, live like this. Later he's going to tell you how to enter but for now he starts with no commands it's simply what is life like when God takes up residence inside of you and so it's fascinating that he begins with this word happy blessed You know you have to ask yourself the question how much of the world's energy is consumed in the pursuit of happiness. It's amazing. The preoccupation of almost any everyone that you meet.

You know Melinda and I met a young lady not too long ago, and she just said, I just want to be happy. Martin Lloyd-Jones says, happiness is the greatest question confronting mankind. And I think that's true. Everyone is seeking, striving, pursuing in some form or fashion to be happy. You know, I remember years ago we were at the abortion clinic and there was a group of atheists out there that were protesting us.

And it was right around the time that Robin Williams, who was a comedian, he had committed suicide. And I started talking to these atheists about this and asking them the question, how is it that a man that got paid millions upon millions of dollars achieved all sorts of fame to make people laugh, sunk down so deep to depression that he ends up taking his own life. And I still remember all of these atheists, it's almost like the cover came off and all of them started telling me one by one that they're on antidepressants, that they're depressed also, that this is something that is just so common among men. And I think it is the case because happiness is not something that you can just find by getting something in your hands or getting someone on your arm or anything like that. You know, in our world today, there's actually something called a world happiness index.

Have you seen that? It ranks every country, country by country, going down the line. I think Lebanon is the most angry and followed by Turkey and then it goes down to countries like Finland which happens to be the happiest. But what does that mean? Happy?

How do you measure that? You know when you go on Google and do a search, six billion results come back. That means that's what people are looking for. Six billion results. And some of the results that come back, the advice, I was looking at it the other day, one of the advice from one of these experts, turn your search inwards.

That's one. Find a sustaining and satisfying job. That'll do it. Do your best to live in a happy place. Celebrate you.

Don't wait for birthdays and holidays. Meditation. I mean you get some good ones as well that are kind of vaguely rooted in Scripture. You know choosing your friends wisely, be someone who has gratitude or help others, but it's all sawdust and sand isn't it? It can't really do anything.

There's no sustenance for the soul at all. So Jesus, he's driving at something altogether different. So man is gonna spend his whole life in pursuit of happiness. Men will look for it in women and in things, women will look for it in men and things and experiences. Just give me some temporary relief.

Give me some sort of purpose, something to belong to and maybe, just maybe, I'll be happy. But it's also fleeting. It's like a cool breeze on a hot day. Have you ever had that experience? It just comes but then it's gone.

You can't you can't hold it. It gave you a little bit of relief but it's in the past. Just as quickly as it came, it went. And so most of the pursuits that people have today not only produce happiness, but they end up producing misery at the end of the day. You know, I was reading a statement, I think it was Charles Spurgeon, where he talks about the deceitfulness of sin.

He says that Satan can make men dance upon the brink of hell as though they were on the verge of heaven. This false happiness as men just kind of drown themselves in pleasures but find nothing to satisfy the soul. And so here you find out of all the things that men have been pursuing for 4,000 years up till this point and then will be pursuing from Christ until now, he's saying if you will be truly happy, lastingly happy, happy independent of your circumstances, I will show you." That's what he's saying. And the one who goes on to describe this is the only kind of person who's really happy. He goes on to describe the only kind of person who is actually happy.

And this is really the sum total difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. This blessedness, this happiness. And so in verse 3 to 10, we see kind of the sort of person that the Christian is, defined by these different things. And then in verses 11 and 12, we see as a result of being a Christian, what actually happens to you. Well, he says, blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you.

He goes on to talk about that. But it's the result of what happens as a result of being a Christian in verses 3 to 10. In verses 13 to 16, he outlines our relationship to the world around us where he he says that you are the salt of the earth. He picks on this these two word pictures of salt and light. He says basically at essence how are Christians supposed to function in the society in which they live?

Salt, the properties of salt are primarily to preserve and to add taste. The properties of light are to shine amidst the darkness so that people can see clearly. And that's the job of everyone who names the name of Christ. That's the whole purpose of the church, to shine as a city that is set on a hill. That's really what our design and intention is even as we go, say for example on Tuesday, to bring the light of the gospel and the word of God to bear on the matter of a sodomite parade that's being welcomed.

What the church's job is to stand in the way of such things. It's to serve, it's to do all sorts of things in the world that the world might know that there is a God that they will answer to, a God that they will stand before. And so the opening, what's amazing about this is it's a portrayal of a Christian and what a Christian is meant to be. And now having dealt with character, he's already dealt with character in the first 16 verses, he goes on to deal with conduct. You see that importance.

Just like when you go to Ephesians there's no commands in the first three chapters but as a result of what he said now do this live in this way that's kind of how the Lord has ordered this in terms of the Sermon on the Mount and in verse 17 He begins to outline the Christians relationship to God's law. It's amazing where he says, do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. He begins to now outline the eternal standards of righteousness and explain the spirituality of the law. Six times he says it is written, but I say unto you there's this authority that he's gonna explain the true meaning of what the law was intended all along. He deals with things like murder, adultery, marriage, speech, retaliation, how to deal with your enemies, and nothing, as I said earlier, what happened to me, but I think what the design here is, is that nothing so leads to gospel grace than the Sermon on the Mount, because what does it do?

It reveals the utter impossibility of doing any of these things. I can't do that to not look at a woman, and to lust. My heart is so fallen I'm guilty, but with Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit giving us strength. So it forces you to look outside of yourself to another. It's one of the most evangelistic in that sense.

And what's beautiful is it's not just the law but the speaker is the supply and the source of all the power to overcome. And so what does he do in these few verses in verse 17 onwards? He destroys any notion that the law is not important or that grace simply is cheap and that it overrides any necessity for those who are citizens of his kingdom to keep it. He doesn't do any of that at all. In fact, the rest of chapter 5 from verse 17 all the way down to 48, is him expositing the law and what it really means.

He spends an immense amount of time on that. And then in chapter 6 he goes on and he addresses the inner man and our motives. You know, he's revealing what God has been after all along from the foundation of the world and that is heart. Heart religion, true worshipers, men and women who love him and desire not to just tell me what I got to do. Check off boxes and all of that.

He's not after any of that. He talks about things like praying and fasting and giving, which at this point had been sadly reduced to just things that were done to be seen. Well, he says, you have your reward. You were seen. Good for you.

That was your reward. But in the courts of God, It's not acknowledged at all. And so he's encouraging them, live beneath God's gaze, live for his glory. That's really the essence there. He even teaches us how to pray.

It's beautiful there too. He says, in this kingdom, now here's something as I was just thinking about this. In this kingdom, God is a father. And he is to be addressed as such. And you say well you've heard that your whole life or for decades but you know there's no other religion in the world And even the Jews themselves never refer to God as their father.

Sometimes we would refer to the fatherhood of God and things like that. But it's a foreign concept to have the creator of all things and then to call him father. This is beautiful. And sometimes these things pass over our heads just because it's so common. But how would the hearers who heard this for the first time, I wonder how they would have responded when he taught them how to pray, Our Father, and he went on from there.

And we'll get into that prayer later on. In verse 19 in chapter 6, he has a word for the anxious and this group of people actually take up the largest section in the Sermon on the Mount. From verse 19 all the way to the end of chapter 6, you have to ask yourself why is that? Well we'll talk about that as we go through detail by detail, but he ends that with a recommendation, really a command. He says but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things, the things that are so worrisome that make you uneasy, all these other things, they will be added to you, but set your eyes, fix your face towards serving God and living in His kingdom.

That's what He's encouraging them to do. In chapter seven, there's an amazing variety. He starts off with the idea of this warning about our tendency to judge hypocritically. In verse seven, he tells us of God's generosity. He talks about asking and seeking and knocking and he compares God the Father to an earthly father and he starts talking about things like if your son asked you for bread will you give him a stone?

How much greater is God? And I think what he's doing here is he's destroying the suspicion that even Eve succumbed to, that God is not good really, or he's holding out on you somehow, he's not really for your good, but here he's saying, no this is who God is, and we're told by the Lord himself to ask great things and to expect great things as well. In verse 13 he talks about two gates and two roads that are leading to two separate eternities. He talks about two kinds of trees that were revealed by their fruit and two foundations, the rock and of course the sand, and those two houses. And I want to just leave us with this thought, you know, have you ever thought about this, that every single one of us is building a house?

You're building a house. And we heard this morning that the rock in this context isn't the Lord Jesus Christ, but he says everyone who hears these sayings of mine, the Sermon on the Mount, everyone who hears what I'm saying or he hears them and does them. It's not only a matter of hearing them, it will determine everything about you. And so keep in mind what he's also saying is that what you're building is going to be tested as well by the winds, by the storms, by the rains that will come. He doesn't say if the rains come but when they come what will happen in your life.

The foundation is revealed for what it is. And so when he comes to the end as I started, you know the people are spellbound. They don't know, they've never heard anything like this. He spoke to them with an authority that they had never witnessed before. And Matthew Henry he says this, the multitudes were astonished at the wisdom and power of Christ's doctrine.

And this sermon, ever so often read over, is always new. Every word proves its author to be divine. And that's my hope as we go through this, that you might have read this and you've gone over it, but I pray that it would become new. Every time I read it, I find something else, or there's just another thought that comes and more appreciation for the one who actually delivered the Sermon on the Mount, this inaugural address of the Kingdom of God. So I pray that the Lord will help us as we go through this and that he would receive the glory that he would be mighty to save and show us with great encouragement what it is to be a citizen in his kingdom.

So let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we can call you Father. Lord, thank you for the closeness. Thank you for the relationship that you've availed through your son. Lord, we thank you so much that you've made us a part of your family.

You've adopted us and made us sons and daughters. Lord, I pray, we pray as we go through these words that dropped from the lips of our Savior, Lord that you would do mighty works in us and through us. You would affirm us in our identity as being citizens of your kingdom. Lord, that you would show yourself strong and mighty to save as well for those who might be peering in from the outside. Lord you alone are worthy of all praise and honor and glory.

Lord make us spellbound, make us those who are astonished at your word every time we hear it Lord that we would draw close to you and have hearts to just resound with praise to you Lord. We thank you so much for hearing us. Thank you for being with us today. Lord strengthen us as we go as we go into this week that you would carry us forward Lord with victory with songs of deliverance on our lips Lord and great power to live the Christian life. We need you Lord and ask you to go with us now in Jesus name, amen.