Matthew 4:23-5:2 - This teaching begins our deep dive into Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, which is one of the most famous and important collections of teachings of all time and an especially load-bearing part of the New Testament. Matthew's gospel frames the sermon in ways that highlight it as an important part of Jesus's gospel of the kingdom, as a new law for the New Covenant community, and as an extension of Jesus's whole-person approach to ministry in word and deed. In short, it is Jesus’s vision of the good life in His kingdom of grace. It also begs the question, "What if Jesus was serious?" A sermon by Cameron Heger. [Part 1 of our series "Jesus's Sermon on the Mount: The Good Life in the Kingdom of Grace"]
Questions for reflection: 1) What have you previously heard about the purpose of the sermon on the mount? 2) What do you make of the radical claims the sermon makes on Jesus's disciples? 3) What part of Jesus's sermon do you find most beautiful? Most challenging? 4) What does the sermon on the mount have to do with the Kingdom of God? What does it have to do with the grace of God? 5) What are some of the implications for us "if Jesus was serious?"
