We are often told in our lives that more is better.  That the goal of our lives should be to climb a career ladder, or at least, to get to a point where we can “live comfortably”.  The problem many of us often face is the reality that “living comfortably” is a moving target.  Once we reach our financial target, it’s easy to see the people living in a financial bracket above us and believe that comfort actually resides there.

That’s why Jesus’ teaching here is so essential for us.  Jesus is pointing out something that we need to pause and really consider.  To Jesus, it seems that money is not a passive tool, but rather, a rival God.  Money, or the love of money, has a way of warping us and demanding more from us.  It’s why we see people compromise morally when money is involved.  It’s why we people arrange their entire lives around trying to find more money.  Money seems to have a way of forcing us, not just to use it, but rather, to obey it.  To arrange our lives around it.  To worship it.

Jesus' point is, if we spend the best of our energy and passion to gain wealth, it ends up owning us. When our lives are absorbed with money and what it can get us, we end up serving it to our own demise.

Anxiety and worry is everywhere in our culture and our society.  It’s important to note that Jesus doesn’t tell us that worry and anxiety are sinful in themselves.  Jesus seems to understand the human condition enough to know that these are not feelings and emotions we can ignore.  Rather, Jesus’ warning seems to center around what we do with our anxiety.

What Jesus reveals is that much of the anxiety we feel is connected to what we believe about God. Jesus tries to reassure the disciples, as they prepare to face worry and anxiety, by giving them essential truths about God.  

Scripture teaches that God’s generosity extends to everyone: “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good” (Matthew 5:45). God is a merciful, forgiving parent who pours out love on prodigal and self-righteous sons alike.

God delights in providing for his children. Jesus uses a lesser to greater line of reason to help his disciples trust in the care of the Father. If God clothes the grass in the field and the birds in the air, God will most certainly provide for his children.

In light of this, Jesus calls his disciples into simple trust. Not trust in our ability to believe, but trust in the character of God.

There might be no other area in our lives where we tend to lean towards behavior modification, rather than deep heart transformation, than when it comes to the area of our bodies and our sexuality.

Jesus brings up the idea of lust and adultery in his sermon on the mount.  While I think many of us understand what he means when he says adultery, we might have to unpack what he’s expressing when using the language of “lust”.  New Testament scholar Craig Keener defines lust as, “the deliberate harboring of desire for an illicit relationship.”

Rich Villodas defines lust as, “having power over another person, for the purpose of using them.”  

Jesus invites his listeners to take responsibility for their lust, as well as learning what it means to have our hearts transformed away from lust.

This is the command of Jesus for all of us in these verses, to see the humanity in people and, even more so, to see the image of God in people, as someone who has value and worth.  When our hearts begin to see people how God intended them to be, we are forming our heart to be ready to fight against lust.

Our words matter.  What we say we are going to do and what we commit to staying away from should carry with them real and meaningful weight in the world.

The challenge we often face when it comes to being clear and having integrity with our words often stems from the pace of life we live. Because of the fast-paced world we live in, we don’t make the space to ponder the words and commitments we make.

Another challenge is our fear of disappointing people.

·Jesus mentions that our lack of integrity with our words leads to us being influenced by the evil one. This might be because if we can’t speak truthfully, we are playing into the hands of the evil one’s character of lies and deception.

Many of us tend to think that it is external factors that make us angry.  At this time, the political tension and online discourse will be at an all time high.  Many of us feel this tension and have an internalized anger because of it.

Jesus quoted the 10 commandments during this portion of teaching.  By doing so, he was showing that many at this time, even religious leaders and cultural elites, seemed to be content to uphold the literal meaning of the law while ignoring how they were violating it in their hearts.

Anger, in scripture, is not viewed as a sinful emotion.  In fact, in Ephesians Paul tells us to “be angry and do not sin”.  The anger that Jesus talks about is not just a momentary feeling, but the ongoing nurture of it.

Jesus is warning about the kind of anger that lives in us that leads to viewing and treating others with contempt.

Jesus invites his followers to consider the ways that we might benefit the world around us. Jesus sees in us as a group of people that can respond to the brokenness of the world in the same ways that he did.  That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, to learn to do what he would do if he were in our life settings, and then go and live that way.

Jesus calls his followers to be salt and light.  Salt preserves and adds flavor. To follow Jesus’s teachings is for the purpose of preserving a decaying world marked by sin, but also a way to bring out the best in the people who live in this broken world. Light illuminates a dark world. It’s how we help people to find their way to God.

We have more to offer the world than we often think.  Fear and uncertainty often hold us back, but Jesus tells us that we have the possibility in us to preserve, to call out, and shine light on a world that is desperate for it.

Jesus teaches us what righteousness looks like in his kingdom. In a culture that centers so much of what we do on being seen, these words should be striking to us. Our cultural currency is likes and shares. It is easy for these concepts to spill into our pursuit of the way of Jesus, trading a deep intimacy with God and a desire to serve others for a cheap religiosity that is done for the sake of getting others to celebrate us.

Jesus looks at a few different practices, generosity, prayer, and fasting, to highlight a truth for us. All of these practices can be misused and falsely directed. All three of these practices can easily create an environment to draw attention to oneself in such a way that compels us to want the praise of people.

For many of us, we have a vision of the good life that is a vast contrast to the picture Jesus paints in his sermon on the mount. As Jesus begins his teachings, he goes up on the mountain, recalling a vision for people of the stories of Moses, showing that Jesus is the new Moses. Jesus begins his teaching, however, not exactly how we would expect.  Jesus doesn’t just tell people what to do, rather, he helps them understand what blessing, or a blessed life, actually is.

It’s clear that the characteristics that are going to mark the blessed life are the words Jesus uses; poor, mourn, meek, hunger, mercy, purity, peace, persecuted. These words don’t paint a picture of blessedness as defined by success-ism, rather, they help us see our own brokenness, which allows us to live from a place of compassion rather than selfishness. Jesus starts by addressing our hearts before our actions.

In his sermon, Jesus offers listeners a stark choice.  Two paths are before all of us, and we have to decide which one we are going to choose.  In an age fraught with anxiety, depression, polarizing politics, and online vitriol, we are always looking for a quick fix and a path to happiness.  We assume the good life will be found on the wide and easy path.

But in his counterintuitive wonder, Jesus offers a narrow path instead, one that is filled with heart transformation and actually leads to a life of love, peace, and fulfillment.