Counter Culture
A STUDY OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
CC 01: Everyone Who Hears These Words of Mine
April 7, 2024 • Garrett Marshall • Matthew 7:24–29
Everyone Who Hears These Words of Mine When I think of the best sermons I’ve ever heard, many times my mind goes back to sermons that have challenged me to look at a scripture in a new way, or to take a command of God that I’ve put on the back burner more seriously, or even just a great illustration. The Sermon on the Mount does all these things and more. This morning, we start a new series studying the greatest sermon ever preached and what God wants His kingdom people to look like.
CC 02: Blessed Are
April 14, 2024 • Garrett Marshall • Matthew 5:1–12
Jesus does not begin the Sermon on the Mount like any good preacher should. Instead of starting with a funny story, or an interesting illustration, or a shocking attention getter, He begins instead, with a list. This list is one of the most famous lists in history and has been given the name “The Beatitudes.” Our English word “beatitude” comes from beatitudo, which is the Latin equivalent of the Greek word μακαριος/makarios, a word which means “happy” or “blessed”, and this is how all of the Beatitudes start: “Blessed are the ________.” We live in a world where people are desperate to do anything they can think of to be happy. But what Jesus is talking about here is not a good feeling that comes to us based on outward circumstances. Instead, the sense of this word is something like, “God is pleased with” or “God’s favor rests upon” the people who possess the characteristics that Jesus goes on to describe. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “Okay, let Me describe to you what the good life really is.” Let’s take a look at this life that Jesus will call “blessed.”
CC 03: Salt & Light
April 21, 2024 • Garrett Marshall
In a book I was reading while researching this topic, an author made this statement “The world needs light. The world needs salt. It doesn’t need a bunch of Christians crawling into their Christian storm shelter and never coming out because it’s not safe out there, nor do we need a bunch of Christians who look so much like the world that they can’t see the light.” While I had never heard it put that way before, I found the statement to be incredibly insightful. We are called, as Christians, to not only be different from the world, but also interact with it in a meaningful way. How do we do this? What does this look like? This is the challenged posed to us in our next section of the Sermon on the Mount.
CC 04: Fulfillment
April 28, 2024 • Garrett Marshall
Given my smaller stature, there were many games of athletic prowess that were, shall we say, more difficult for me than perhaps the average person. However, one game I always enjoyed, was the game of limbo. If you are unfamiliar with the game, it is a very simple one. Two people get on either side of a stick or bar, hold it in the air and see who can go under it. As the game progresses, the bar goes lower and lower until only one can make it under, and they are the winner. I must admit, there were many times you could not wipe the smile off my face as people who were usually so dominant in feats of physical skill struggled to bend and twist to get under the stick that I could so easily just walk under. I bring this up, because this analogy works well when describing what the Pharisees were doing with the old law. They were interpreting it in a way that it made it easier to accomplish for them, basically defining it all by what you could show on the outside. In our next section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges this. More importantly, Jesus says this new way of viewing the law is not an attempt to get rid of it, but to fulfill it. This morning, let’s see what he means by this, and what it looks like for us.