I'll Be Honest

Upon Jesus' discourse in the Sermon on the Mount, He begins to deal with further issues of the heart, the first being 'murder in the heart.' Jesus does not hold back in the slightest when dealing with unrighteous anger and hatred. Four times Jesus warns of hell as the appropriate punishment for such a heart crime. As Christians, we are to avoid at all costs a slanderous and gossiping spirit and strive to maintain unity and love with other believers; it's a matter of eternal life and eternal punishment.

Sermon on the Mount 0016
0:00 - Sermon text - Matthew 5.21-26
0:49 - Why be angry at the preacher if he is simply being faithful to the text?
5:11 - What court and judgment will the angry person face?
12:07 - Did Jesus ever get angry?
14:24 - Don't miss the spirit of the law.
17:26 - The writers of the epistles make it clear that true Christianity is not some oppressive religion.
23:11 - For the Pharisee, it is all rigid motion.
24:57 - Where does the Bible talk about the judgment?
29:13 - What does this mean I can or should not say?
32:26 - Jesus shifts his focus to us not letting anything between others in our relationships.
38:30 - The cowardly are thrown in the lake of fire.
43:02 - Closing prayer.

An essential characteristic of someone who wants to follow Jesus Christ and call themselves a Christian is meekness. When we think of meekness, it truly is a rare quality in this world. Meekness is a death blow to self and to our pride. Meekness is forgiving those who hurt us. In short, meekness is being like the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Christian life is full of paradoxes; one, in particular, is that our lives are full of joy but also full of mourning. Even though we have the joy of Christ and the hope of heaven, yet there are still many things in this life that cause us to mourn. One thing that specifically causes us to mourn is our own remaining sin. These two realities may not seem to go together to the carnal mind, but we’ll never taste the sweetness of God’s comfort if we have not tasted the bitterness of mourning over our sin.

Before we can properly understand the Sermon on the Mount, we must understand the beatitudes; and in particular, we need to understand the first beatitude: poor in spirit. Poverty of spirit is the soil in which all the other beatitudes grow. It's the first truth that must be believed in order to open the door for other spiritual truths. Most importantly, being poor in spirit is the characteristic of those who will go to heaven when they die. Are you poor in spirit or proud in spirit?

Our lives as Christians should be full of activity, but we need the sober reminder that we desperately need God to be the One empowering our activity. Our activity can imperceptibly become something that originates and is carried out by us. But the Bible from start to finish is all about God being the One empowering and carrying out His activity. In all of your labor, is God the One ultimately at work, or you?

The Lord consistently brings us to a place where human resources are insufficient. We realize we cannot, but Christ can, and in our inability, we must team up with Christ's ability, and something will happen.

We're living in very strange and difficult times; times that are going to test the genuineness of our faith. We don't know exactly what God is doing and we don't know how these times are going to end. But one thing we must know is that Christ is worthy of our trust in these providential times that we're living.

When the Bible describes the Devil, one of the chief attributes it gives to him is his power. Christian, remember that in your spiritual battle that you're not facing a lightweight. We're facing the one who the Bible actually calls, "the god of this world." But as powerful as he is, we must also remember that the One who's with us is far more powerful.

Can you wrongly put someone under church discipline? If yes, and you do so, what is the way to undo that?

How should Christians view the speed limit? Is it a sin to go over it? Is what is enforced by the government the de facto law?