Sermon preview, week of January 7, 2025
Mountaintop Blessing
This Sunday’s order
- Sunday
- Reading
- Matthew 6:1-16
- Series
- Mountaintop Manifesto
- Preaching
- Kendall Ellis
This is a sermon preview for the second week of our “Mountaintop Manifesto” series.
The readingMatthew 6:1-16
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“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
- from Matthew 6:1-16 (NIV)
Read Matthew 6:1-16
1“Be careful not to perform your righteous acts before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2So when you give to the needy, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 5And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward. 6But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7And when you pray, do not babble on like pagans, for they think that by their many words they will be heard. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. 9So then, this is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name. 10Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread. 12And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
’ 14For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours. 16When you fast, do not be somber like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward.
Berean Standard Bible, public domain
What's the most surprising news you've ever been told?
One of my favorite movies growing up was The Princess Diaries. I saw myself in Mia’s character: big eyebrows, poofy curly hair, not particularly athletic, and friends with the self-proclaimed “Nerd Herd.” I liked my high school life, but I wouldn’t exactly say that I was noticeably influential. So I always wonder how I would react to finding out I’m actually royalty with the power to change lives.
Jesus sees the crowd gathering on the mountain. They, too, were a bunch of Mia Thermopolises–invisible people with a secret that was about to be revealed. Jesus opens his mouth to let the secret out: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
And I can’t help but imagine that the crowds let out the Greek version of "shut up, wow, gee whiz, golly wolly."
Why such a surprise? Certainly we can all understand that being poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungry, thirsty, or persecuted don’t feel like blessings. If anything they feel the opposite. But it goes deeper than that.
Last week, we began discussing the Sermon on the Mount by starting in the very middle with the Lord’s Prayer. We learned that the ancients put their main point in the center, so if we are going to understand what Jesus is saying here at the beginning of his sermon, then we need to hear his words with the Lord’s Prayer in our minds. When Jesus taught us to pray, he also revealed that Father God was going to use us–God’s children–to reconcile God’s good, just kingdom. This is what it means for us to say, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
The beatitudes–what Christians call these blessings of Jesus in Matthew 6–show that Jesus is putting his money where his mouth is. God really is putting all his eggs into one basket. God’s betting on the underdog, so to say. When Jesus opens his grand manifesto with the proclamation that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit, he is declaring that everyone in that rag-tag group of nobodies isn’t actually a nobody at all: they are sons and daughters of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And out of God’s mercy, they have the power to start a new kind of revolution on earth.
This revolution will not involve fighting or power-grabs. This revolution will not involve pride or self-centeredness. It is a revolution rooted in the person of Jesus, the God of sacrificial love. Because their identity is in Jesus, they are not nobodies. They are salt, light, and a city on the hill. Wherever they are is where heaven is.
If you think you’re a Mia today, remember this: you are not invisible to God. You have been called beloved and blessed. You are royalty empowered by the Holy Spirit to join a revolution more grand than you can imagine.
But just like Mia, we can either run away from this surprise or choose to accept it. No matter how unbelievable this good news is, let’s accept it today. Let’s be salt, light, and a city on a hill. Let’s join Jesus’ life-giving revolution.
Reflection Questions
- What do you think it would have been like to hear Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount? What would your response have been after you heard Jesus share the beatitudes?
- Which blessing do you have the hardest time believing about yourself? Why do you think that is? How can you lean into that identity in Jesus more this week?
- What is one way the Holy Spirit is empowering you to serve this week that gives witnesses to God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven?
