Matthew: The Good Life

Listen in as we begin the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel and see how Jesus opens up true flourishing in life today.

 

Notes/Quote:

The Sermon on the Mount is:
Good news - God is present, working, and calling His people to life through Jesus
Centered on Jesus - It’s who He is and how He lives. 
All about flourishing - It invites us to the way that life works best
Tension producing - It places us in the already//not yet of the Kingdom

unBeatitudes:
Congratulations to the entitled, for they grab what they want.
Congratulations to the carefree, for they shall be comfortable.
Congratulations to the pushy, for they shall win.
Congratulations to the greedy, for they shall climb the food chain.
Congratulations to the vengeful, for they shall be feared.
Congratulations to those who don’t get caught, for they shall look good.
Congratulations to the argumentative, for they shall get in the last word.
Congratulations to the popular, for this world lies at their feet.

Have you ever met one person who believed and lived by this world’s unBeatitudes and came to the end a satisfied, radiant, wise person?  Even one? - Ray Ortlund

The Beatitudes of Jesus are nothing short of a revolution of evaluation. –Scot McKnight

The terrible, tragic fallacy of the last hundred years has been to think that all man's troubles are due to his environment, and that to change the man you have nothing to do but change his environment. That is a tragic fallacy. It overlooks the fact that it was in Paradise that man fell. - Martyn Lloyd Jones

What is blessing, then? Scripture shows that blessing is anything God gives that makes us fully satisfied in him. Anything that draws us closer to Jesus. Anything that helps us relinquish the temporal and hold on more tightly to the eternal. And often it is the struggles and trials, the aching disappointments and the unfulfilled longings that best enable us to do that. Vaneetha Risner