Jesus

The Sermon On The Mount

As I was preparing to teach on the Sermon on the Mount from Luke 6, I came across a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, preached on April 4, 1954 in Montgomery, Alabama.  It was one of the best sermons that I’ve ever read.  In his conclusion, he said…

“My friends, if we are to go forward we must go back and find God.  We must put God back into the center of our thinking.  Television and automobiles, subways and airplanes, dollars and cents can never be substitutes for God, for long before any of these came into being, we needed God and after they will have passed away, we will still need God.”

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talked about a different way to live.  Some might even call it backwards.  He says that the poor will be blessed.  He says the persecuted will be comforted.  He challenges us to focus on giving, instead of getting, even to those who could be called our enemies.  He repeatedly says, “You’ve heard this…but I’m telling you that….”

Culture tells us that we need more to be happy. Jesus suggests we might need less.  We must return to the roots of our faith and discover again what it means to simply follow Jesus.