What Is God’s Purpose for My Life? The Sermon on the MountSample

## Day 4: Prioritize Your Witness Now, we move from the sins that start in private to the ones on display for everyone to see from their inception. Firstly, Jesus addresses taking oaths. In the first century, most Jews believed that the only truly binding oaths were those made on God. They did so, in large part, because they held God in such high esteem that nothing else compared to his glory and importance. Rather than elevating the Lord, however, the gap eventually diminished the importance of everything else. As a result, anything not considered sacred was deemed to be of little enough value that one could swear by it without angering the Lord. Are you separating the sacred and secular? Are you letting your word be true in every area? Next, Jesus takes the law from the Old Testament, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This law was meant to maintain justice by putting a limit on retribution. At no time does Jesus deny that we have the right to resist or retaliate when wronged. He just calls us to choose not to for the sake of love. The fact that we retain the right to do otherwise is crucial to understanding his teaching here. The slap on the cheek in verse 39 was more about receiving an insult than a genuine threat to one's safety. Similarly, Exodus 22 made it illegal for someone to take your cloak because it doubled as a blanket or bed at night. As such, it came to epitomize the idea of an essential possession in Israel. Nowhere in Scripture does God command us to hate our enemies, but, by the first century, it had become conventional wisdom among the Jews; they viewed everyone but their fellow people as enemies. This approach came from the well-founded fear that interaction with the Gentile world would corrupt the Jews, just like it had done in the past. Do you think of people “other” than you as beneath you? Do people living unreligious lives repulse you from loving them? Consider the people you might not want to associate with. How could you love them if and when you cross paths with them? Who is already in your life like that? How is Christ calling you to love and befriend them? These high callings for us in our social circles and public lives are difficult to swallow. In fact, the standards seem impossible to meet—something we’ll discuss more later. Suffice it to say, Christ calls us to perfection but knows mistakes are inevitable. Let’s never let them become acceptable. God created us to love him and, through that love, care for others in the same way he does. Our shockingly over-the-top love will point people to Christ, for only he could empower us to love with such abandon. Ask Jesus to grow your trust in him and your love for others, remembering that you’re called salt and light by Jesus.