Dallas Willard - The Sermon on the Mount

[Music] i like the words that simply say you are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in god's great universe okay now the subject of the kingdom is not something that we can successfully deal with in full i've tried to be impressionistic and make some main points i hope that as you become alert to it you will then as you read your scriptures you will see how it is everywhere and you will pick up on the language that is used for example jesus says to a certain lawyer um in mark 12 34 you are not far from the kingdom of god it's interesting to know that people may be more or less close to it and those kinds of points luke 11 20 if i by the finger of god cast out demons then know that the kingdom of god has come upon you so think about those verses see people shall come from east to west and sit down with abraham isaac and jacob in the kingdom of god and you will be shut out what does that mean sounds like hell no may have something to do with that's matthew 8 11-12 people shall come from the east and the west you know that was like slapping them in the face those were non-jews and they're going to sit down there with abraham isaac jacob you're going to be shut out you're a jew and you're going to be shut out what went wrong so that helps you think about the kingdom of god now remember that the kingdom of god is from everlasting to everlasting it does not begin it does not end jesus did not start the kingdom of god what did jesus did was make it available beyond human arrangements he made it available so whosoever heareth shout shout the sound sing the joyful tidyings all the world around whosoever will may come so you come and like the prodigal son the bath comes after the hug that's the kingdom what is the kingdom of god it is righteousness peace and joy in the holy spirit what does that mean that means it's a kind of righteousness a kind of peace and a kind of joy that you cannot do without the presence of the holy spirit you you can't do it nobody can that's why jesus just says look everyone will know you're my disciples because you love one another he didn't say any other thing as the sign of the disciple except the kind of quality of love when you understand that is then you're easy with old john's statement in first john 4 love is of god whosoever loveth is born of god and knows god if you don't love you don't know god now of course that means also that because you love you'll keep his commandments because that's what love does you don't start with the commandments you start with love they come the commandments comes out at the end of the pipe but it's love see so there's some things you know in the bible that i'm glad were not left for me to say because they can sound pretty mean listen to this the one who says i've come to know him and does not keep his commandments as a liar and the truth is not any no i didn't say that i would not have the courage to say that that's why i read it to you that's first john 2 4. so the kingdom stuff is the heart of everything and we need to teach it talk it live it let that be our message that is the gospel that's the gospel the kingdom is at hand where is it at hand as far as i know jesus all right now if you've got something that does it well that's for you to worry about someone says can you be saved without knowledge of jesus well if you deserve it you will be saved anyone who deserves it will be saved let's give that one okay and then now the weight is who deserves it so uh [Music] as far as i know someone asked me i'll say well what i would do if i wanted to enter the kingdom is i would start putting into practice the things that jesus said and said well you mean what do you mean by that and so keep the law well actually if you try sincerely you'll be led into the kingdom just try the ten commandments for two days you will be thrown upon the mercy of god because you're surrounded in a world and you're probably full of habits that are contrary to them and but actually if you want to be a saint just pick the next thing you know or be right and do it and go on from there you'll be a saint in no time because you won't be able to do it except interactively with god see the law is our teacher our school master actually that language there's a little it's hard to it's hard to put that into english because it refers to the practice of families that had a person usually a slave or a servant in their household that would walk their children to their teacher the teacher actually was the schoolmaster but they had someone who walked them too that's why that's why we have the word pedagogue you know peta your feet a pedagogue it takes you to christ and that's you know the standard way of presenting the sermon on the mount which i'm eventually going to talk about is to say that it will beat you to pieces and make you give up your self-righteous projects and turn to christ for forgiveness well that's conceivable but i think there's a great deal more to it than that um but many people present jesus as sermon on the mount as if he was meaner than moses you might have beat moses but jesus would get you because he'll go right into your heart he won't just look at your behavior it won't be enough you didn't kill someone you have to not be angry with someone jesus really drives you to the cross in that way of thinking well i think that's a sad misinterpretation of the role of the law now it's true that the law is primarily meant for people who don't keep it as paul says in first timothy that's where it really takes hold but of course it also teaches us how to be people who do keep it it doesn't give us life life is not in the law but it can drive us to what does and it should bring us through knowledge to christ and then he is the door right the kingdom opens up now when you teach this i hope you will teach it you will find that children young people understand it more quickly than anyone and you want to teach the kingdom to children and you teach it in terms of their kingdom and you want to teach them about kingdom they'll pick up on it immediately because they are so conscious of what they have say over and you take a kid in middle school or high school and say well you have a locker do you have a backpack and if they do say well i want to go see your locker and then they open the locker and you start taking things out and putting them in your pocket and ask them now how do you feel about that i often do that in talks i'll step down get someone's bag start going through it you feel immediately the violation of your kingdom because you have say over what's in that bag i don't right that's your queendom if you don't have that you you can't be a person that's why slavery or even feather what we call brainwashing is one of the greatest violations you can make of human personality because what is true of the slave they're not even king over their own body brainwashing you're not even the king over your own thoughts see it is essential to the person that they have a kingdom now then your next step can be how you're doing with your kingdom i'd like to use that to approach people instead if you died tonight where would you go so how you doing with your kingdom what's going to happen to you if you don't die tonight so those are ways of just getting into this very important material now jesus is a great teacher and he gave us a summary of many of his great teachings in what we call the sermon on the mount it wasn't a very big mount those of you have been there that's what they call the sermon on the mount it's hardly a mount at all maybe a mound the sermon on the mountain would be better but now going back to our big questions any great teacher must teach the nature of reality who is well off blessedness the good life who's a really good person how to become a really good person every great teacher has why is it why is that true because those are the questions every individual has to answer you get out of bed in the morning and answer those questions you go through your day answering those questions if you don't do it mentally you do it by action your actions show what you're assuming to be the answers of all those questions every great teacher has to answer them so you look at the list whoever i've listed plato buddha and freud they answer those questions sometimes they don't do them inclusively sometimes they are presented as great discoverers plato was thought to have discovered the realm of absolute truth and reality what he called the forms and then that's the guide to who's well off that's the guide to who's a good person that's a guide to how you get to be a good person live with the forms and you're told well you did that before you got here and picked up this piece of dripping suffering thing called your body which was not good for plato and you wanted to get out and not come back he was a reincarnationist and in that other realm you knew the forms and if you can bring your memory of them up to snuff you will have a good life you will be a good person and so how do you get to be a good person well plato's dialectic and dialectic is the winch of the soul that raises it up and fixes it on what is good see that i'm just illustrating okay now you no matter who the teacher is they teach that freud discovered supposedly something called the subconscious or unconscious mind it's a reality who is well off someone who's not driven nuts by their subconscious conflicts and so you go and you answer how do you become a really good person well the talking cure as it's called you come and lie on this couch for an hour every week and pay me five hundred dollars used to be cheaper and in time we will reweave your mind and you'll be blessed now that's over simplifying it to see oh that's the way that all works now see what i want you to understand is that jesus does that same thing that exact same thing and uh we've talked about the nature of reality the vision of reality god and his kingdom that's it then you can recognize that in events learn how to live in that and who's well-off someone who's living in the kingdom of god living in god's hands so for this this world as bad as it is is a perfectly safe place to be for anyone who is alive in the kingdom of god and so jesus stands as well why are you worried are you worried are you worried but why are you worried and you think of alfred newman with the arrow through his head you know saying who me worry and you think that that's not jesus so now that's the sermon on the mount it fits into this and that's what i want you to to understand as he is answering these questions and uh before he gets to the sermon he's already said what reality is and now he's going to tell you what it's like to live in it right so um one of the things that it will help you to do is to remember that this really is a sermon and the guy who gave it was really smart and he really knew what he was doing one of the things that happens when you become a scholar is you get views about the text of the bible and that view is pretty glum for the most part and the last thing you get is it was composed by someone who was intelligent you have what i call the bird nest theory of biblical text is you know a bird makes a nest it gets a little string over here and maybe a feather here and a leaf there and a twig there some straw and that's the way people think about the biblical text who did it they don't know but that's their theory and that's the way most scholarship will read the sermon on the mount and what they will do is pick over this part and that part and the other and talk about where that came from and so forth but you need to think the thought that this is a sermon you need to think how you could preach it as a sermon and actually it wouldn't be a bad thing to do that it would be shocking to your congregation but it might do this will be real good just walk in one day and just preach the sermon on the mount say amen and walk out see the impact of the hole is much greater than a little dribble here and so on because it really is tied together it's a coherent presentation it is mainly focused on question two and three and the beatitudes are number two but they are presented as proclamations of number one because they are then now we have the question of how do you access reality and in order to do that you need to understand something that the world has got all wrong and that is where is blessedness and the world today of course is laden with commercialism and you might be watching the boob tube and someone come on and say you would be blessed if you owned an audi and um so we have lots of messages from the world now the world's version of who's blessed is given in luke 6 along with the version of the kingdom it always starts out the same will be to you who are rich now that's not what you learned at school is it no blessed are the rich jesus says will be will be to you who laugh now well who's blessed according to the world you're having a good time it will be to those that have a good reputation the world speaks well of you see that's a list of things that the world normally says yeah you got those man you've got money you're in good health you're having a good time people think well of you and jesus says not necessarily not necessarily he's inverting the order of blessedness and now who is blessed in the kingdom of god the people normally not fought to be blessed in the world this is upside down see now think how many times jesus used that language the first shall be last and the last shall be first well the first in what the first in the order of the world may very well be the last in the order of the kingdom the last in the order of the world may very well be the first in the order of the kingdom the beatitudes are proclamation that when you enter the kingdom suddenly people who were thought not to be blessed are blessed and you have a little ambiguity between luke and matthew and i think that's designed to cover the cut of the ground because matthew gives the first beatitude blessed are the poor in spirit now you should read this like that blessed are those who ain't got nothing going for them spiritually because they too [Music] may have the kingdom of god and having the kingdom of god is enough for them to be blessed luke strips it all down and says poor but actually they're closely related because the people who wind up blessed spiritually in ways that humans would understand that are actually usually people who are not poor have you ever noticed and you can find people who are devoted by profession to poverty but they live in places like this right now they're not poor spiritually and that's why they get to live in places like this to have nothing going for them spiritually who is the best illustration of that the people jesus picked as his apostles so when you think blessed are the poor in spirit think about peter out there in his boat these guys smelling like fish they're the ones and nothing going for them they were in an interesting age they were past the age when people got picked as disciples of an outstanding rabbi they were past that age they had flunked their gres and they hadn't made it the spiritual things and that beatitude refers to ability to know the scripture and have standing and reputation with people and tell them what to do and preach and talk and pray and administer the sacraments and all that sort of thing that's the spiritual goodies and jesus saying no no there are people who don't have any of that and they are blessed because they have the kingdom you understand now he's talking to a group of people who are like that when you read the sermon you want to look at the crowd and the crowd was really quite a bunch right that loony ticks sick people they had come from all over the countryside to jesus to receive his ministry put it in context jesus always teaches concretely and contextually and what he's doing with the beatitudes is show and tell because he could pick them out of the crowd and there probably were not three people in that large crowd who thought they were spiritually well-off they were just spiritually destitute and jesus is looking at them and saying yours is the kingdom of god now he's not saying that everyone who's poor in spirit is blessed that's where you have to understand how he teaches you cannot understand what jesus teaches unless you understand how he teaches and he does not teach primarily by giving generalizations we are afflicted with that idea and we impose it upon other cultures that would never think the thought we are afflicted with a certain idea of teaching well you start with the generalizations you get those all right and then you add the less specifics and you get done here no jesus is actually deflating generalizations he does that by picking cases and he gently puts the pen in the balloon and lets it go what's the generalization here you got money you got it made you got money you got it made they used to run an ad in the l.a times pursue happiness in a car that can catch it it was a peugeot ad pursue happiness you know what a what a ridiculous idea have you ever looked at peugeot drivers do they look to you like they're happy no but see that's manipulative that's how human beings work and jesus just very gently puts the pen in but if you don't understand that you'll go away saying well if i'm going to be blessed i'd better be poor you understand what i'm saying see because that's what happened and you find very distinguished high-priced teachers saying that if you are rich you're going to split hell wide open i mean a very famous man who i think since has learned better i hope aleister mcintyre just says that in his writings you can't be rich and go to heaven well he's actually being trapped in by a whole lot of stuff in the atmosphere like it's all about going to heaven anyway and when we're talking about the kingdom of heaven and what goes into it and how it works we're not talking about heaven after you die it's related but when jesus says unless you repent and become like a little child you can't enter the kingdom of heaven in matthew 18 he's not saying you when you die you won't go to heaven there are other things at issue in life than going to heaven another very important issue is would you like it if you got there everyone just automatically assumes that they can just get in the door they can wipe the sweat off of their brow and say i made it and don't even have to look around and see what's there you might not like it it's very strange that people who think they can live their whole life here not liking god will like him when they get to heaven so there are a lot of issues here and jesus is talking about the kingdom and the beatitudes are opening doorways for people getting rid of the illusions of where genuine blessedness is where is it well you can be poor and be blessed right now you know anyone with half a brain would know that because there are actually people who are poor and who are blessed in fact probably most people who have lived on earth are in that position if they're blessed at all if they're happy they're poor they'll go they don't exclude one another and you know lots and lots of rich people who are miserable right they're not blessed so the beatitudes are addressing the second question who is really well all it's not a complete list of wobbies or blesseds you know a teacher and jesus certainly was the top of the line the important thing for a teacher is to not cram all the answers into people's heads but to give them the idea and turn them loose see that's the teacher you give them the idea and turn them loose so now for dave one of the best things we can do to begin [Music] enriching our life in the kingdom of god is to write a set of beatitudes for today and you can write the wobes too remember we're not saying everyone who blankety blank is blessed we're saying among those who are blankly blank there are some blessed so we have a silly list blessed are the thin blessed are the people who've got hair so forth maybe the peugeot drivers that's a silly list you know that's the world's list who are you going to put on that list who are the people in your world and your congregations and your constituency who are pursuing what they understand to be well-being and they are deluded they're deluded who are those people who are the people in your world that are regarded as not blessed by their world but they are blessed in the kingdom of god now i'm going to suggest that you really while you're here take at least a half an hour and go sit down in some comfortable corner and write a list of beatitudes and movies you need to write them both so jesus is turning people to the kingdom what are the beatitudes basically the beatitudes are proclamation of the nature of the kingdom their proclamations and they don't give you a general they say well you know you go into the kingdom of god and you see some people around there and here's someone who's mourning now you know you have to put realism in mourning it isn't like a turtle dove going morning is where you're turned inside out with grief morning is what you do when your hopes die when you've said goodbye as the hymn says to the dearest on earth to me and you know that jesus cares i know he cares his heart is touched with my grief though my days are weary my long night's dreary i know that jesus cares see blessed blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted now when you look at the beatitudes in matthew you want to recognize that they open with for theirs is the kingdom and clothes with theirs theirs is a kingdom that's the bookend and everything in between they are comforted you always read in the kingdom blessed are they that are merciful for they shall receive mercy in the kingdom so it'll help you to understand these if you put that in after each one they're bookended with that blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake in the kingdom great is their reward in the kingdom and remember that's not just heaven after you die it's that for sure and that's really good there uh but it's here too so paul in his little list of his troubles could say sorrowful but always rejoicing see for the child of the kingdom sorrow and joy are not contradictory they come together sorrowful yet always rejoicing you want to keep that in mind when you think about god and you dare to think the thought that maybe god is happy and it's good to think that thought because it counteracts the idea that he's really quite morose and angry all the time that's not him the universe is on the side of joy and that's where we can be and we live in the kingdom of god we're living interactively with god's action our rule is harmonized with his rule we're doing things together and that's how our lives become eternal because now then i have taken my life into his kingdom and he is acting with me and i with him and that's where christ is in us and we're in christ and christ is in the father and our life is hid with christ and god and so forth and see all that makes sense now because actually you sometimes can't look at a person and see whether or not the kingdom is acting with them nicodemus thought he could but he didn't he just knew a general truth nobody can do this sort of thing unless god is with them but he he wasn't able to see that it's not visible it's invisible see so the beatitudes are answers to this question they are not an exhaustive list and i do encourage you to write a list of beatitudes and will bes that are for today and actually they will include most of the ones that jesus gave but we need to get this in the category of real life and understand what he's doing so we can go proclaim good news to people who have been written off from the human point of view blessed are those with aids really think that one through think of being able to go to someone with aids and say that try it on i mean live through the moment with them and think what would have to be in your mind when you did that so that you wouldn't be just going to them say now now you know you actually have some truth to give them that makes them understand that the blessing of god is available to them can you do that blessed are those just foreclosed on blessed are the jobless and so forth so that that's how you can really get into this is to do that now the second question or the third third question up there jesus devotes a lot more time to this but you don't want to go to this who's a really good person until you've been through who's blessed you can't be a really good person if you don't get it straight about reality and who's willow if you don't get that straight temptation will always defeat you sin will grab you and take you in so jesus as a good speaker has order in his teaching okay now what he had said really had people's minds going right because now after giving the beatitudes he says to these people out in front of him looks kind of like the fringes of a benny hand meeting or something like that and he says to these people you're the light of the world you're the salt of the earth boy did they they never expected anyone to say that to them you see if they had stood up and said now you're the dregs of the earth they would have said amen but he doesn't say that he says you're the salt of the earth you're the light of the world city set on a hill can't be hid man doesn't light a bushel light a lamp and put it under a bushel puts it up here as you're talking about you're a lamb and god has lit you and god is going to put you up here that's where you are and you're going to be the light of the world where you are there's not going to be any light if you're not it will it won't be any salt if you're not it you've got a little space of time and space here and that's where you are the light of the world jesus is the light of the world but you don't get off the hook you can't palm it off on him because that's really what genesis 1 26 is about when it talks about reigning and responsibility and that's our future that's our eternity we are now reigning with christ where we are we are fulfilling the call of dominion we're doing it in love and that means we are creating goodness wherever we go in the power of god that's what we're doing uh we do it where we live and work not just a church you get to be the light of the world when you're not in church see and they say oy they this guy is preaching revolution right that's what he was saying i mean he's going to get the rabble up here and they're going to go live in those big houses and get all the money that's a standing problem in human in human government a british government in the 1800s we're struggling with what we call the franchise that is who gets to go who gets to vote and really only the aristocracy got to vote and then people got say well why shouldn't the collier and the wheelwright and all these other why shouldn't they vote well because if you let them vote there's a lot of them they will take our money and you know they actually recommended a system of plural voting to head that off that people with a college education had three votes the wheelwright had one and of course the women didn't have any right those are big issues in government revolution see the 1800s and the 1900s were periods of revolution and the main battle we're now fighting in this world is often put in terms of revolution sharia law that's revolution okay so how are we going to handle this and they said well you know this guy's preaching no jesus said no no don't think that i am come to destroy the law now you know when you say that you say it when they're thinking it right you say that because that's what they're thinking and now what's going to happen well he said i am come to see how the law is fulfilled and the law is fulfilled will take care of revolutions revolutions as human devices commonly said always eat their own children which they generally do because they are restricted to force not power not power now jesus comes with the kingdom and he says i'm going to redefine goodness in human terms for you so verse 5 20 in matthew is the key to everything that now follows because the people he was talking to always thought in terms of the righteousness of the scribes and the pharisees and now he's saying if you do not go beyond the righteousness of the scribe and the pharisee you will not enter the kingdom of the heavens we have to understand that verse once again not talking about going to heaven when you die he's talking about entering an interactive relationship with the kingdom of god here and now and he's saying if you try to do that at the level of action you'll never make it god will not meet you he will not act with you the righteousness of the scribe and the pharisee was a righteousness of action it was a righteousness that said if i can just control my actions i'm okay the righteousness of the kingdom moves not to actions but to the source of actions when you get to talking to people about spiritual disciplines it's so hard to get them to understand that they are not about behavior modification behavior modification will happen if they are pursued in subjection to the kingdom and with jesus as the teacher that will happen but that's not what it's about you have to go to the sources of action and this afternoon we're going to get into that in more detail you have to go to the sources of action change the source now jesus when he moves into that he takes the two primary sources of wrong behavior takes them first anger and lust those are the two things that's now if you pull those out of human life nearly everything that's done wrong will disappear so he says the old law has said you shall not kill okay so if you don't kill then you say i'm okay i didn't kill anybody so the old law says that now what do i say i say unto you now what's he going to talk about you're going to talk about the inner conditions of the heart i say unto you get the wording right here who is angry with his brother and if you like the easy version you can add without cause um who is angry with their brother with or without cause shall be guilty before the courts and whoever shall say to his brother rakha raka what's that well this is an aramaic term and some people speculate it comes from the sound you make when you clear your throat to spit it's a term of contempt you good for nothing you twit you twerp it's a term of contempt so you'll be before the supreme court and whoever shall say you fool shall be guilty enough to go into gehenna that's the junkyard in jerusalem and there is apparently a cosmic one gehenna not hades gehenna so what's he doing he's moving into attitudes and if you say you fool whoa wow fool doesn't mean what we think of today fool is a purpose for a person who purposely engages in what is stupid and harmful behavior now sometimes it's used in that sense today but normally we just think of a fool who's someone who's foolish but it goes much deeper than that what's he teaching about he's teaching about how you think about people obviously it has a connection with love but at this point it's just negative if you do these things that reveals an attitude now if you don't understand that would you say what i did when i my grandmother wouldn't let me call my playmates a fool and i said well i'll just think it see fair seeism is built into the human frame but of course it wasn't talking about the action it was talking about the attitude right now he moves over to the positive side and he says therefore verse 23 you're presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you leave your brother there and go your way first be reconciled to your brothers and then come and present your offering this was again a very shocking thing because the rule was you could not interrupt a procedure in the temple like that except for some ritual cause like you found out something was wrong with the offering or something of that sort so if the ritual didn't go right you could interrupt it not for a moral reason see the failure that the prophets always grasped in israel was you had people performing the rituals with rotten hearts and that's one of the functions of the prophetic as opposed to the priestly work though actually one can be both a priest and a prophet the way that works but jesus is saying here just call it off just call it off go make things right with your brother well you can come back and do what you were doing see this is someone who is so sensitive to their brothers that's so far from not killing them not calling them fools not saying raqqa so far from that that they can't wait to make things right and to secure that relationship and so jesus deepens it as he goes along and now we've got suing someone going to court make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way in order that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge and the judge to the officer and you'll be thrown into prison and you won't get out of there until you have paid the last farthing two systems kingdom human the kingdom system you have a cause between you and another person and you try to work it out try to work it out maybe you compromise some maybe not doesn't say don't go to law that's important to say because i've seen so many people hung up on that i knew a business businessman once whose policy was that he would not do business with christians because he could not sue them it doesn't say don't sue people it says it tells you how to do it it's how you do it but people want to turn this into a legalism and so they come up with dumb things like that you've been in court you watched people suing one another it's like having a couple of rottweilers tied to different walls jesus is saying don't do that love the people that you're going to suit doesn't say give in on everything it doesn't say whatever you say is right no no it doesn't say that see that's again that's trying to reduce his teaching to legalisms it's the heart of love that he's talking about that's what he's getting at and he's saying now if you don't do that you're going to get in this other system and have you ever seen people caught in that other system i've seen people's lives totally ruined by a court case so don't go there if you can avoid it stay out of that don't make a legalism of it okay again that's not the point you'll miss it i must move on quickly to the next teaching which is about lusting because here again people just find some silly legalism and try to make that deal with it because what it's talking about is learning to love and respect people to love them and respect them the old law said thou shalt not commit adultery well i didn't i didn't have sex with that woman right did i have sex without what it means depends on what you mean by is that we have these wonderful illustrations of how this all works i i can't go along with that there's too much to illustrate it but it's the person on the other hand who says well i i didn't do the deed and jesus said was that the end of the story how about this do you use another person to excite your lust and do you enjoy cultivating it and have you in your heart consented to the deed though you're not going to do it a woman is not to be used in that way a man is not to be used in that way well what is the answer well you actually love them you learn to love them too much to do that see that you're dealing with pornography you can't get to it until you work with the mind what's wrong is in the mind it's how they think about people that leads them to that and it's how they think about themselves right because it isn't just the other person it's me who am i to sit there and cultivate my lust by looking at a person what what does that say about me that's the deeper question am i so needy that i have to do that is that where i get my satisfaction or do is there something better is loving people better than lusting people for me as well as for them you see now if you don't understand this you get some silly legalism like has been done over and over in the history of the church one way to not look at a person lusting is not look at them at all how would you do that put yourself in a position where you never see them now in this context jesus is talking to pharisees who believe that you sin with your members and so he's telling them how to do it punch your eyes out cut your members off you will roll into heaven a mutilated stump because you don't have members with which to sin you believe jesus was teaching that i hope not he knew very well it didn't matter what you cut off you still had the problem see so he deepens the teaching it goes into the heart all of the issues of lusting and they're not all about sex this is deeply a teaching about desire we talked about epithumi earlier and boy is this a big deal because it's desires which rule the world and people learn to run with the desires and then all the troubles come out of that um that's the teaching now he goes on oh i divorced her did i do what was yes i gave her a pink slip so i'm righteous if i didn't give her a pink slip i'm not righteous i gave her a pink slip so i'm righteous now in that world it wasn't biblical at all but a woman who was divorced her life was ruined just that simple i mean there might be an exception here or there but the alternatives were dreadful your life was right and in that world polygamy was still permitted jesus says you can't do right you can't be right just by giving a pink slip oh well you kept your vow you swore to the lord that if he would do such and such you'd do such and such now the old law says if you do that keep your vow jesus says don't do vows don't swear why what does swearing do swearing is a way of trying to impress people with irrelevant things to get them to do and believe what you want them to do and believe why does one say by god well probably just habit because you know this just gets into thoughtless stuff but that whole that institution is designed to lift what i say up to the level where god i swear by god this is so this car will run for another thousand hundred thousand miles without any serious repairs by god well how did god get in here you know he says don't swear by god don't swear by jerusalem don't swear by the altar don't swear by your head because you can't make one hair white or black this was before revlon why because more than just saying it's this way or it's not this way comes from evil what's the evil it's the desire to manipulate the desire to manipulate that's where all the songs and dances come from you see them in religious programs as well as in advertising constantly we have this guy in this part of the world named cal worthington and he sells cars and he does all sorts of funny things riding a hippopotamus and calling it my dog's spot right see now what's that what's that about that's to get you to think he's an idiot and that you can take advantage of him if you buy a car or that he's not stupid and he's not bright enough to take advantage of you look he's calling that hippopotamus this dog spot right we have another merchandiser here there in southern california crazy gideon that's the name of his business i call him crazy that's what jesus is talking about he's doing all sorts of stuff that are irrelevant now you know cal worthington could come and sit you down and say now here's how much i've spent on this car here's what it's worth on the market here's what i'm selling it to you for he could do that couldn't he but if he did he wouldn't make as much money as telling you that his dog spot does such and such see that's song and dance and jesus is saying don't go there now if you're angry or lust ridden you're going to need a few swearings to carry you through your day and if you're angry then your lust is going to be much more harmful and you look at what the suffering that goes on in the sexual area and you see that much of it is due to anger or contempt see that's why jesus starts there then he moves on now if you if you're not driven by anger contempt lusting and so on it's going to make all the difference in the world in your family relationships and how you deal with one another people who do uh marriage counseling will tell you that the most deadly thing in any relationship is contempt it's the greatest predictor of divorce in a relationship but of course it always goes with anger and i haven't had time to talk about the relationship between anger and contempt but that's a big so what jesus is talking to us here just to wind this part up is he saying you know if you want to be a really good person you need to be filled with agape love agape love takes care of it all who is a really good person someone who's filled with agape love a really good person keeps the law as paul explains in romans 13 and it's said over and over he that loveth fulfills the law but it does much more than fulfill the law you see fulfilling the law isn't loving loving leads to fulfilling the law and it does that because one has stepped into union with christ and his kingdom in such a way that when it comes down to the point of am i going to hate this person and be angry with them because they've crossed my will and said no i don't need to do that i've got a better way my will is surrendered to god i am in the care of god all anger comes from the will being crossed very simple the surrender of the will to god solves the problem of anger now you can still stand up for what is right you just don't have to be angry to do it and you can actually do it much better if you're not angry much more effectively so i'm sorry i don't have time to go in that there's a lot to be said there but the basic idea is simply this the sermon on the mount proclaims the kingdom of god the reality of the kingdom of god points out who is blessed and who is not in terms of that and then says now when you step into the righteousness of the kingdom then fulfilling the things that are right in behavior naturally come out of that and we have to add that the fourth question is how do you do it discipleship and we've got to talk about that later okay thank you dallas can you say something about the uh the relationship of um kingdom theology discipleship of which about kingdom theology kingdom theology discipleship and um the theology of non-violence and alternative polis that's prevalent in churches that have moved past a programmatic phase and how that just how that works and how it ends up in legalism um that's a big one well non-violence is a real good idea that's a real good idea and because violence usually refers to force and that goes all the way to killing people the non-violence is a real good idea um the only thing you have to be worried about there is to what extent you are sacrificing love to non-violence and if you're in a position where that is have to happen then i would encourage a little violence if you do violence always do it not trusting the violence but trusting god and god is in favor of people not being hurt but it depends on who's going to get hurt if you don't engage in some activity that might stop them just illustrated i i used to have a dear friend who was insisted that if a man came down the street with a rifle shooting people he couldn't do anything but kneel and pray now he thought that was being obedient to christ but you see he was not thinking about the people who were being shot and so if you're going to deal with that situation you have to think about everyone involved in the situation and your responsibilities for them now if you're going to stop the man with the rifle by doing something violent you still have to decide what you're going to do right what are the options who are you trusting when you do it you still have to decide those questions and you know the difference between mace and tasers and deer rifles that's significant so if you once you say well violence is sometimes required for love you still have to decide what the violence is and you still have to decide whether or not in order to do what needs to be done you have to be angry and hateful right now war is so awful that it is usually correctly assumed if you're going to deal do what you have to do and more you'd better hate him and so that's how you know all the propaganda that comes up in war so there are many many details here but love is what rules in this issue and if you have identified righteousness just with non-violence then you have to think about love to what extent violence may be called for by love most wars are unjustifiable i'll give you that at the offset most things that are done in warfare are done wrongly or should not be done ben gurion in the first war of israel with its neighbors told his soldiers try not to shoot people try to take out armaments that's a good piece of advice right now it's almost unapplicable now because of how it's done uh but still that's a good idea don't hate your enemy love your enemy same thing in business or church how can you love someone and fire them well people generally don't know how to do that and so if they fire someone they cut themselves off have nothing to do with them and just let it go but if you're going to fire someone there should be a loving reason why you do it you should be able to state that to them they may not be able to accept it or understand it but you should be able to state that to them and you should be able to sustain appropriate relationships with them after you do it now just saying that you can understand that's not the way it's done okay but that's because it's not done by people of love standing in the kingdom of god so you can you you even can say this that if you're going to fire someone it must be because it would be unloving not to do it now unloving to whom to everyone affected by it right if i don't fire someone that affects everyone else in the operation should i get mad at them and fight no should i despise them have contempt for them get away from them see all those things are what is normally done absolutely not if you fire someone you want to do it with a full comprehension of what the effects of that kind of rejection is on people and you need to go into it in the same way if you're going to fight in a war where you have to kill someone you have to do that in the same way okay no that's not an adequate answer but that's a start anyone else um uh the speaking of of oaths or manipulative speech and and you know carrying that to the example peugeot for instance right it almost makes it impossible to to work for for for someone who doesn't follow kingdom practices you know particularly in america where most of our businesses is marketing to other people and marketing in ways that for the most part are deceitful because we're selling something that that the product isn't delivering so could you speak to that a little bit more i mean how do we conduct ourselves with employers who who in essence wouldn't let you conduct yourself in in that manner well just as a start you say i am a disciple of jesus and as a disciple of jesus i'm learning how to live my life the way jesus would live my wife life if you were me so jesus is me he's in this situation and so i would spend a good deal of time talking with him about it and seeking instructions and asking him to act with me when i act and of course in the full recognition that very often in a career or in a business or something of that sort you can pay a heavy price for doing what you believe to be right that's why people say things like business is business right what are they getting ready to do when they say that they're getting ready to do something they know is wrong right maybe more or less bad they may even be mistaken about whether or not it's wrong but that's what they're getting ready to do and the answer to that for the christian is business is never just business business is life why is there something called business is that god's idea see we have to think that through um we have to think well business is man's side no it's god's idea what is business business is god's idea of how people who live together can serve one another and that's that's god's idea that's what business is now when businesses are talking about themselves that's what they say they never say we're in this to make money they say things like we care we care and you know what that's what they're supposed to do of course they have to make money no question about that but that's not what they're for no career is for the advancement of the individual in any respect but see our folks in business and in other careers so often just see themselves alone in the world trying to make their kingdom work it's like we used to say back in the hills of missouri when the food ran out before winter did for our hogs and we would say root hog or die turn them loose open the gate let them go on the open range that's how many people look at their life they're on their own and it's just root hog or die and then you may be working for someone who has that outlook and i don't think there's really anything to say but stand by your convictions lovingly with sympathy for their position stay in communication with them be prayerful thoughtful watch for your opportunities to speak and if it comes right down to it that you have an outlook that is not going to be acceptable just accept that and at that point you say my my pay master is not you is christ remember what paul says in colossians 4 i serve the lord christ i work at usc they pay me but i don't work for them i work for christ and i think that's the attitude we have to take into and we expect christ to stand with us if we want something we ask for it see a lot of times you find people in the bible they don't ask for help i think we've got time for our 132nd question 30 second question thanks gary dallas just to continue that a little bit and test you not testing as a businessman i would say that kingdom living is the best way to run my business absolutely absolutely the best for my bottom from my bottom line oh yes there's no doubt about it i would say that early and often i do say it okay [Music] you have to be careful and not read that as a guarantee that all your projects are going to succeed see that's where the prosperity gospel goes wrong is it tells you how to say your words and if you hold your mouth right everything will come up roses that's not a part of the deal and you have to sometimes look at the bottom line not year by year but five years by five years and so so there you're you're really dealing with a lot of tendencies in the field that wants a quicker result teaching boy you're going to get me going on something here the spiritual life is the real life it is not something separate that is the spiritual life it's your real life it's not a little addendum over here where you sort of go here and take it take care of business with god and then you go out and take care of business without god no it's that's that's the constant teaching of the scripture from old testament to new see so i mean we i have to talk about this particular point when i talk about discipleship but the place of our service is in the world the ministry of the saints is in the world the church is designed to help saints minister in the world that's where the ministry is so your business is holy unto the lord and every business is but many people don't know it so we we really need to say that uh one of the enduring problems for people who get serious about discipleship is they keep thinking it's something that has to do with religion it has to do with life discipleship is a life thing the kingdom of god is a life thing not religious no hopefully religion would have some help for that but the way it's set up you see ministers constantly slipping into this idea of what can what service can you do for the lord well it's something around the church and discipleship is for the world so as a minister i can only help people if i can help them serve the lord in their work in their home wherever they are that's my job as a minister ephesians 4 is very clear about that there are people who have special gifts and their job is to prepare people for the ministry of the saints ministry is what belongs to the saints not to the preachers well they can do that too i hope they do but the point is we're preparing people to live in the world now if you don't if you haven't heard that before i want you to take a little gander at ephesians 4 and look how that's set up it's all about life and we see we're trained to think of discipleship that leaves out our work which means that most of our time is spent outside of discipleship and of course the protestant reformation had this right luther luther the the priesthood of the believer is not a statement that believers can do what the priests do you know pray and do all that stuff it is a teaching that the believer is a priest in everything they do and luther's favorite illustrates his illustrations were always the plowboy and the milkmaid no doubt a sexist distinction so this is thank you for saying that see that we've got to come back to spend time on that are we done well miraculously you've left time for you to send us off with a 17-second blessing a 17-second blessing i don't know how you did it lord bless the thoughts and words that we have engaged in together this morning and caused the good ones to do us good and the bad ones to be forgotten now bless our food and our fellowship together in the name and honor of jesus the cosmo crater will be [Music] you

Channel: Conversatio Divina

Views: 4,518

Rating: 4.7647057 out of 5

Keywords: Dallas Willard, Renovare, Spiritual Formation

Id: -OOHi_xsIlI

Length: 83min 29sec (5009 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 30 2020