Jesus' show-stopping Sermon on the Mount continues with his most challenging command yet: His injunction against retaliation. As his followers, we are to illustrate God's missional heart by responding to evil, not with more evil, but with creative, surprising, and relational love.

Once again Jesus wades into a contemporary debate, this time on the making of oaths. Jesus sees through the practice as a loophole for truth-telling, and calls his disciples to a much simpler way of living: letting our Yes be a Yes, and our No be a No.

Jesus wades into a contemporary debate about the legitimacy and grounds for divorce. This is a challenging topic, and one that can feel distant from the grace of God. But what we see is that although King James' standard is high, his mercy is always standing ready.

Jesus has a high calling for us sexually. How can we possibly attain his intense standard? We both can't, and can. We can't, and therefore need his saving and empowering grace. We can with his Spirit's help.

Jesus dives into the deep end, calling out interpersonal conflict as an issue near and dear to God's heart. If we want to prioritize our vertical relationship with God, then Jesus prescribes making right our horizontal relationships as well.

Too often we get into this mindset that to have a better life, we must be a better person to please God such that he'll improve our circumstances. However, God is much more interested in simply being with us. Our Lord doesn't promise a life with no problems - he promises a life where he is always present. This is the very essence of the good news of the gospel.

The Apostle Peter makes clear that we are called to holiness, but what is it? Holiness requires three dimensions: that we act according to God's character, that we are different from the world we are part of, and that we are together as a loving community. Without all three, our view of holiness is deficient and deformed.

What was Jesus' opinion on the Old Testament? Does he stand over it? Does he sit under it? In his introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, he gives us his posture toward all of Scripture.

Jesus commissions his church to be both salt and light for the world. We are to be different from and yet exist for the world. How do we do this well?

At the outset of Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount, he paints a portrait of a citizen of his kingdom using the Beatitudes.