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Elements City Church

Sermon on the Mount - Week 10 - Judgment According to Jesus

The Sermon on the Mount is the most famous sermon Jesus ever preached. It derives its name from the place where Jesus preached it; a mountainside that acted as a natural amphitheater along the shores of Galilee. The Sermon on the Mount, preached to ordinary people, covers a wide range of topics like prayer, fasting, money, worry, forgiveness, anger, lust, judging others, and more. But the theme that unites it all is Jesus explaining the heart of God behind His given Law. It is one of the most challenging biblical texts to interpret properly because the Sermon goes far deeper than promoting external obedience to God’s moral imperatives or simple behavior modification. Every line of the Sermon goes to the heart of discipleship. The Sermon offers a clear understanding of what a blessed life that is pleasing to God looks like from the inside out. What Jesus taught often runs counter to mainstream thinking, but every lesson is brimming with heavenly wisdom and practical instruction that leads us into a flourishing life.

Locations & Times

1825 N Alvernon Way, Tucson, AZ 85712, USA

Sunday 5:00 PM

Thanks for joining us!

Whether you're on-site or online, we are praying that tonight will be an encouragement to your soul. May God whisper to you and help you in taking your next steps in a journey with Him. If you're new, we'd love to have you fill out our connection card.

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It's here in the Sermon on the Mount -- found in Matthew 5-7 -- that King Jesus gives us a radical picture of what life in His Kingdom looks like. And it’s our hope that, as we meditate on Jesus’s words, we might become people who more closely follow His Way and experience a life that truly flourishes in the process.

“I think the Sermon is a piece of wisdom teaching from Jesus that invites people into true human flourishing through wholeness centered on God and his coming kingdom. Jesus’s Sermon invites us to see the world in a certain way and to be in the world in a certain way that accords with God’s nature, will, and coming reign upon the earth; in short, “righteousness” (cf. Matt 5:20). It is a call to faith‐based discipleship in Jesus, the Son of God.”
- Jonathan T. Pennington

The Sermon so far:
Beatitudes (Matt 5:1-12)
Salt and Light (5:13-16)
How to Have Kingdom Righteousness in Following the Law (5:17-48)
How to Have Kingdom Righteousness in Practicing Your Faith (6:1-21)
How to Have Kingdom Righteousness with Your Possessions (6:19-34)

Next two weeks:
How to Have Kingdom Righteousness in Relationships (7:1-12)

Matthew 7:1-5

vs. 1-5: Judgment in relationship to Fellow Believers

Two Problems with how we read this passage:
1. Translation

In the English of previous generations, "judge" still retained its more general sense of "evaluate, discern, separate, or decide." This is the role of a judge, one who listens, perceives, and decides what is just (notice the same root), and then dispensing justice (the same root again) — namely, favor, success, deliverance . . . to the one who is in the right and condemnation and guilt to the one who is in the wrong. This discernment process is what it means to "judge" here.

It is an unfortunate turn in current English that the main, if not exclusive, [thought] that, "judge" creates in hearers is only the narrower, latter sense of the negative condemnation. This then distorts our sense of what justice is about — it is not just condemnation for the bad, but restoration of what is right, with its necessary good and bad consequences distributed accordingly.
Jonathan T. Pennington

We cannot discern a person’s motives, so we should not condemn our fellow Christian by assuming the motivations they held in their heart. Only God is wise enough to know the heart of each human to make an accurate judgment leading to condemnation.

Two Problems with how we read this passage:
1. Translation
2. Totalization

1 Corinthians 5:11-13

Perhaps holiness in the Church has become lacking because we've stopped confronting sin biblically.

Matthew 7:3

“Jesus is drawing attention to a curious feature of the human race in which a profound ignorance of oneself is so often combined with an arrogant presumption of knowledge about others, especially about their faults.”
Leon Morris

Matthew 7:4

We don’t get to choose who God sends to make us aware of the speck.

Matthew 7:5

Both the plank and the speck should be removed.

vs. 6 - Judgment in relationship to Non-believers

Matthew 7:6

How should we discern when to engage someone regarding their sin?
When there's evidence of the Fruit of the Spirit in a person's life

(Less than) 5-minute Nerd-out: Jude

Jude 1:17-23

How, then, should we live, according to Jude?
1. Build yourselves up in the faith
2. Pray in the Spirit
3. Keep yourselves in God’s love
4. Wait for the mercy of Jesus’ return
5. Show mercy in all situations

Show mercy =
Assume positive intent
(regardless which side you’re on!)

It’s tempting to judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions.
Craig Groeschel

Thanks for partnering with us!

Thank you for enabling us to be the Church in our city! Your gifts help fuel the mission of Elements City Church, as well as our capacity to share His love with as many as we can. You help us bring the HOPE and LIGHT of Jesus to our city! You can give online at the link below or through the Elements app.

http://elementscitychurch.org/give

Whether you joined us on-site or online, thanks for being with us tonight!
May you have a blessed week ahead!

Join us next week as we continue our series in the Sermon on the Mount.

Be sure to check the Elements app for all of our upcoming events, like Family Night at the Zoo, this Saturday!

We look forward to gathering again next weekend!