Touching Lives with Dr. James Merritt Audio Podcast

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes on the matter of honesty, and we desperately need it. As we look at this passage in Matthew 5, here is the key thought that Jesus is giving us. Let the words “you” and “true” always go together. To help us make sure that happens, Jesus tells us three things to remember not just on telling the truth, but how to do it.

In Jesus’ day, divorce was more commonplace than you would have imagined and there was a great debate about when divorce was even allowed. It wasn’t incidental that Jesus had just finished talking about lust when He started to talk about divorce. Lust causes adultery and now shockingly, He is going to say that divorce and remarriage can do the exact same thing. Jesus is going to remind us that God’s ideal is one man and one wife for one life. It should be “’til death do us part.” There are two things that Jesus asks us to do when it comes to the topic of divorce. Let's dive into those together.

From today’s key passage of Scripture, we’re going to see how adultery is not only a sin in the bed, but it is a sin in the head. Adultery can be both physical and mental. It can be both on the inside and the outside. In a day and age where sexual immorality is running rampant, not only are marriages being ruined, but even the very concept of a biblical marriage is being tainted. Thankfully, Jesus gives us three principles to remember so we can guard against this terrible sin of adultery and avoid the look that kills.

In today’s key passage, Paul reminds Christians then and now of an important truth to remember. The God that gives us grace also gives us government. So with that in mind, how are we to relate to the government? That’s exactly what we’re going to discuss in this message. Let’s dive in.

We find in 1 Timothy chapter 2 what every Christian should do politically for every political leader. Simply put, every day we should always pray for the political leaders who lead the way. So what is the politically correct thing to do when it comes to any political leader? That’s what we’re going to discuss in this message.

Approximately 70 murders happen in the United States every single day. We are the murder capital of the Western world. Yet, if I were to ask you, “Have you ever murdered anyone?” you would probably and emphatically say, “No!” But listen to what Jesus said about murder. He is going to show us in today’s key verses that murder is not an act; it is an attitude. Put simply, Jesus said, “Murder from the hands comes from murder in the heart.” We are going to see exactly what Jesus says about murder and you will see it in a totally different light.

If you are going to be rightly related to God both in this life and the life to come, you had better be rightly related to the truth of God’s Word. We are going to learn in today’s message that when you honor the Lord, you honor the law that the Lord honors. Now, what does that mean exactly? Let’s dive in together and find out.

Jesus makes two important statements to His followers in today’s key passage. He says, “You are the salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world.” As we study this text together, we are going to see that Jesus used these metaphors because we live in a world that is decaying and dark. The culture before our eyes is disintegrating. The darkness of evil is a cloud that covers this entire planet. We need to be the salt that stops the decay and light that penetrates the darkness. With this in mind, here is the whole point of what Jesus is going to say – Jesus makes us different so we can make a difference. And when we make a difference by being salt and light, we can bring the world under the influence.

If you get through this life, particularly in the culture of this world, and you are never in any way, shape, form, or fashion persecuted, maybe it's because you're not standing for Jesus. Hopefully, today you will decide in light of this message that you are going to stand up when you need to and you are going to speak up when you need to. If you pay the price of persecution, you can be reminded that Jesus says you are blessed. So to prepare for that moment, let’s look at the three pieces of counsel Jesus gives regarding facing persecution.

Maybe the reason why we don’t really face much of any persecution is not because we are living in a different age than the early Christians. It may be because we are living a different kind of Christianity than the early Christians. The reality is that you are going to be persecuted if you truly live up to the standard that Jesus expects. With this in mind, let’s take a look at what Jesus is telling us in His powerful statement about persecution from the Sermon on the Mount.