Simple Faith

Guest (Male): Are you in love with Jesus? If you answered yes, then you better be ready to sacrifice. Here’s Pastor Bill Henry.

Bill Henry: If it's convenient, I’ll read the word of God. If it's convenient, I’ll take time to pray. If it's convenient, I’ll go to church. If it's convenient, I may serve at church. If it’s convenient, I may actually give 10% of my income. If it's convenient, I may fast here and there. And on and on these conveniences go.

None of this is about sacrificial living. As we're going to see in this sermon, true love for Jesus Christ is always sacrificial. It always costs us something if it's true. It will cost us our time, it will cost us our money, it will cost us our love, it will cost us our very flesh itself.

Guest (Male): Hello, and welcome to Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry. This program is brought to you each day by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Get to know us by visiting us online at simplefaith.org.

Today, we embark on a great adventure as we begin an in-depth look at the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. Over the next several months, we will examine these amazing and challenging words recorded in Matthew chapters five, six, and seven.

We will begin at the beginning, of course, with an introduction and a look at the first couple of verses of chapter five. And be sure to stay with us at the end of today's program for a special resource offer from Pastor Bill. Now, let’s join Pastor Bill Henry for our first look at the Sermon on the Mount.

Bill Henry: To walk in loving obedience in the power of the Holy Spirit is so lacking within the church today and within many of our lives, if we're real with ourselves. Now, the superficiality can be because of television, TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram. So many today within the church have become spectators instead of participators in their faith.

It's a sad thing when you look and you see that again, that 10% of the church doing most of the work, doing most of the giving. And that 10% doesn't mind. That’s who they are; that’s who they are in Christ. But the rest, we should be jealous. “Hey, you're not going to serve that person and push them out of the way. I'm going to serve that person today.” But it's not happening. It's kind of like, “All right, yeah, it's nice to be served.” Anybody like to go be served at a restaurant when you have a good server? It’s nice. But that’s not what church is about. As far as being served, we should come to serve.

But now many come to church to be entertained, and you know this; you've seen it around you. Maybe some of you have experienced it. People look to church for entertainment. They look to worship to bring them to new levels of their emotional state in their faith, because that’s what their faith mainly is about: emotions. How do you feel? How did that worship make you feel today? How did that message make you feel today?

They want church to basically be a place where they can come feel good about themselves, be happy, don't worry. And they want the church to be a place where they can come and be served instead of being servants that we are in Jesus Christ. But then again, this leads to a church that, as we said a moment ago, is superficial. Where it is all about the show: how good is the worship, how good is the campus that you go to, and do we have the gold-plated toilets and all the other interesting stuff?

Lest you think that’s made up, TBN, their headquarters in Orange County—I don't know if they still do, but back in the 90s they used to have—you’d go in there to visit, and you’d go to the restroom, the public restroom, it was gold-plated toilets. It's just crazy. But this leads to a church, again, that is superficial, a church that simply wants to be entertained and has no interest in growing in their relationship in Jesus Christ, growing in their knowledge about their salvation, who their Savior is, who they are in Christ, what is to come, and how we might better please Him.

Here’s the question this morning: where are you and I on this spectrum? You see, these people want sermons to be entertaining and funny, filled with great stories and feel-good messages. But you see, when we look here at the Sermon on the Mount, we will hear Jesus saying things like, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these other things shall be added unto you.” Notice it is about the priority of seeking, of putting God first, seeking the kingdom of God first above all.

And sadly, a lot of us here, we put Him second or third, kind of the leftover place. And that’s one of the blessings that I think this study is going to help us with. Again, because of television and TikTok and social media, Instagram, Facebook, so many people have a little bit of knowledge about a lot of things, but they have very little deep knowledge about a few things.

And this includes the Word of God. It's funny how many doctors have been born out of TikTok and Instagram and Facebook. “Oh, well, I saw this Reel the other day that says this,” and “I saw this something the other day on the news that said that,” and next thing you know, we're doctors. And to be honest, after everything with COVID, it's hard to know who to trust and what to trust anymore, which I think is on purpose too.

But you see, guys and gals, when we start to do this with our walk with Jesus Christ, and we know a lot of things about God, but we don’t know the deep things of God, and we think that we’re theologians. I remember years ago, not too long ago, we were teaching the teens at our home. And this little boy, probably 14 or 15 years old, started to seek to correct me in my teaching. And I looked over at Taleah and she’s like, “Uh-oh.” And my kids are like, “Whoa, what’s Dad going to do?”

And I humbly corrected this young fellow. But there’s a lot of people today, they come to church and they don't want to be taught. They think they know everything; they think they know everything there is to know. And maybe you do. Maybe you do know even more than the pastor. I'll give you a great example; I'll bring Pastor Jay up. He's one of the most intelligent guys I've ever met. He is a smartical dude.

And I respect that. It was kind of scary when we first anointed him assistant pastor. It’s like, “Do I really want to have somebody who's older and someone who's a lot smarter than me as assistant pastor?” Yes, I did. I didn't care because those were gifts that God had given to him.

And you see, it didn't scare me because I knew the giftings that God had given to me. And you see, guys and gals, we need to be those that see Pastor Jay. One of the things that he did is he allowed me to minister to him as his pastor, and he still does. And I love his example, and in that I follow his example as well. I love that.

You see, but we have to be careful about shallowness in our walks with Jesus Christ, shallowness in our relationship with Him and in our knowledge of Him. As one commentator said, “Christ has a place in their life, but He is not their life.” Christ has a place in their life, but He is not their life. Can I ask you this morning, is Christ your life?

He goes on to say, “Christ really isn't their life but simply a part of their life, and many times not even a very important part of their life.” Again, we love to give God the leftovers. I remember years ago, some people wanted to donate some things to the church. It was a couch. And it was like, “Yeah, sure.” And so I didn't think anything of it. We get it; it’s a piece of junk. It has holes, it’s all moth-eaten; it was the grossest piece of thing I've ever seen. We brought it to the dump.

But to think that someone would donate the worst of their worst to the Lord was just grieving to me. But don't we do that a lot of times every day? “Oh Lord, I'm running behind today. You're going to get my leftovers once again of my time. Oh Lord, I'm running behind in the bills. You're going to get the leftovers again in my tithes. Oh Lord, I'm tired today. You're going to get the leftover of my serving.”

You see, this person, it’s all about convenience, their convenience. If it's convenient, I'll read the word of God. If it's convenient, I'll take time to pray. If it's convenient, I'll go to church. If it's convenient, I may serve at church. If it's convenient, I may actually give 10% of my income. If it's convenient, I may fast here and there. And on and on these conveniences go.

None of this is about sacrificial living. You see, guys and gals, as we're going to see in this sermon, true love for Jesus Christ is always sacrificial. It always costs us something if it’s true. It will cost us our time, it will cost us our money, it will cost us our love, it will cost us our very flesh itself.

Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship.” You see, we've been bought with the greatest price that has ever been paid: that is the precious blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord. No greater price has ever been paid for anything in the history of the world.

And He did it because He loves us. God does not deserve our leftovers but the first fruits of all we have and do. So that we should give to the one who has given all for us. And as we go through this Sermon on the Mount, I pray that it revitalizes some of us here, that some of us are woken up from our superficiality, our comfortableness.

And to be honest, I'm not any—it’s easy as your pastor to become comfortable. It’s easy for your pastor to become superficial, and we all have to battle against this because this is where our flesh wants to take us. “Yeah, you can follow Jesus as long as it doesn't cost you me—your flesh, the things that you like, your time, your sleep, your other things.”

You see, a church that is superficial, all about show, leads to a Christian or a professing Christian who is all about show and is superficial. So you look around today. A lot of the young people—and when I say young, 15 to 30, maybe a little older than that—they’re at some of the churches that, in this area, that are out of Bill Johnson's and Bethel there in Redding, because they love to be entertained.

They think that’s what church is. You go to a Christian concert today, and it might be a wonderful time of worship, but it's also a lot of entertainment. They jump around the stage and they have lights and all these different things. And then the kids, they come, and again, when I say kids, 20-somethings, 30-somethings, and they expect that’s what church is to be. It's superficial; it's all about them.

You know, it's interesting when it's all about show, Jesus said, “You’re a whitewashed tomb,” because all you're doing is putting on something on the outside. There's no spiritual depth in their lives, in their character, in the way they even live their lives. There's no true depth in their relationship and walk with God. Again, is this you here this morning? Is this you watching or listening? Hear these words.

There's no true depth in their relationship and walk with God. There's no depth in their commitment, in their growth in Christ Jesus. Are you growing in Jesus Christ? I don't care if you're 10 years old, 20 years old, 80 years old; are you growing still? If you're still breathing, everybody here breathing today? I hope.

You see, there’s no commitment to their growth in Christ, no denial of self, because it’s all about them. It's all about you, if that's you today. And we all have to be careful of this. We all have to be on guard of this. You see, but here within the sermon, Jesus will teach us practically how we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

He will teach us practically how to love one another as He loved us. He will teach us practically how to love the lost. What does that look like? We don't just make it up. “Well, this is what I feel that I should, how I should raise my kids. This is how I feel I should love my wife. This is how I feel I should love my husband, or I should go out and witness.” No, we’re told. Thank God, we’re told in His word. He teaches us and then He enables us by His Holy Spirit.

I love what one commentator said. He said this: “The Sermon on the Mount does not present the way of salvation.” Notice that when we go through this whole sermon, He doesn’t present the way of salvation. He was preaching that earlier in chapters three and four.

The Sermon on the Mount does not present the way of salvation, but of righteous living for those who are in God's family. This is as we read through this. Basically, we could call this sermon Practical Christianity, or Christianity 101. Again, I love what another commentator said about this. He said, “The sermon did not give a constitution for the kingdom, nor did it present the way of salvation. The sermon showed a person who is in the right relationship with God how they should conduct his life.”

That’s what this sermon is all about. You want to know how to test yourself to see whether you be in the faith? You want to know, “Hey, how should I be living as a Christian?” You've come to the right place: to the word of God, to the teaching as Jesus gives this sermon. Again, this sermon, while it does teach us how to live the Christian life, it is not saying—and we need to hear this, please—it is not saying that if you live this way, you will be saved. It is saying if you are saved, you will live this way.

Hear this again. I'm going to repeat this. It is not saying that if you live this way, you will be saved. It is saying if you are saved, you will live this way. And if we're not living this way, we need to take heed. We need to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying. Harden not your hearts.

You see, there's a vast difference. And as we come to these chapters, Matthew chapters five, six, and seven, of what we call the Sermon on the Mount. And as you certainly will recall the last two chapters, or a couple of chapters ago, you remember Jesus being baptized. Remember when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist? Well, that was a couple of chapters ago.

And as we're getting into the study, we notice then that He was led then in chapter three there into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted for 40 days and 40 nights in chapter four. And then in chapter four, verse 17, we read that Jesus began His preaching. It says this: “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” And then He went on to call some of His apostles. If you’ll turn back with chapter four with me to verse 23. Chapter four, verse 23.

We’ll see Jesus now calling some of His apostles. It says, “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. Then His fame went throughout all of Syria, and they brought unto Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and all those who were demon-possessed, epileptics and paralytics, and He healed them. Great multitudes followed Him from Galilee and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond Jordan.”

So I'm sorry, I had the wrong verses there. But Jesus called some of His apostles. We’ll actually get to that in just a moment. But here we see, as we're coming into the Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus, as He was teaching in the synagogues, preaching the kingdom, healing all these diseases, He became very famous and great multitudes—notice again in verse 25—great multitudes follow Him from Galilee and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

And so that brings us now into the Sermon on the Mount. So all these people, He’s being followed by these great multitudes. And look at verse one, as we start basically into this study. “And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him.”

Now, it's interesting, we just kind of read through how it started here as far as we saw that all these multitudes—He’s preaching and all these multitudes are coming to Him. He’s doing all this healing. And then all of a sudden now, He sees the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and He was seated, and His disciples came to Him.

It’s very sad to see in a recent and very popular television series about the depiction of the life of Jesus, that the writers completely misrepresented this event. First, they portray Jesus as nervous and that He basically knew that the Sermon on the Mount was coming, and He was prepping His notes, and He was nervously trying to prepare for it, pouring over His notes.

And then they show Jesus continually going to Matthew to get his opinion and how he should preach and this and that. I guess they missed the part where Matthew, the very writer of this Gospel, wasn't even there for the Sermon on the Mount. He doesn't come until chapter nine here in Matthew’s Gospel. And lastly—and this was the last episode we ever watched of this program—this episode where basically they had built a stage then for Jesus to go and give the Sermon on the Mount.

And I'm sorry, but are you kidding me? And it just when guys and gals, when we get hold of something and we, you know, if we all you have to do, if you're going to do something like that, stick with the word of God. There's no reason to twist it, no reason to turn it. And so again, if and you know what’s sad, though, is how many people are believing that that's what the Bible teaches without going and seeing. And how many other things do programs like that, that and others? They’re going to be held to a great accountability.

Some people don't think it's a big deal that they're not holding to the word of God. Maybe some of you here do. I do. I take great offense when you go away from the word of God. I take great offense because this is my Jesus. And there’s no reason to go away from the word of God.

So then I go, well, why are they doing that? Why? Doesn’t make any sense. But be careful. So we see here within our text, this is not how it happened. Again, look at verse one: “And seeing the multitudes.” So first Jesus sees these multitudes of people. Remember as we read in chapter four, His fame went throughout Syria and just these great multitudes were following Him in verse 25 from Galilee, the Decapolis, from Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.

So Jesus, seeing these great multitudes, most of whom we're told in John chapter six and we're told here that most of these people were coming to Jesus for healing. They were coming to Jesus for healing, not for the hearing of God's word. Again, we read the same thing in John chapter six. It says a great multitude followed Him because they saw His miracles.

You remember there in John, Jesus would go on to even say, it’s like, “Look, man, you know, I am the bread of life.” And He just kind of narrowed it down. “You have to eat of my body, drink of my blood,” and many disciples, “Whoa,” they abandon Him. Now, it's interesting. So we have this multitude of people who are following Jesus. Now, this is very interesting. In the Greek, the word for multitude is <em>ochlos</em>.

And it's basically, one Greek scholar said this about it: “In classical Greek, most often pictured—this word pictures a crowd of people milling around a throng, confused multitude or rabble.” Even more graphic was how Plato used it to denote, quote, “a leaderless and rudderless mob where the people have no power of judgment.”

Now, this Greek scholar went on to say this about this word and an application for today. It’s pretty awesome: “Most people follow Jesus only out of curiosity and/or to see what they might get from Him. The practical application of this is very pointed.” He goes on to say, “It is sad indeed that many churches today are compromised merely of <em>ochlos</em>, or this word, multitudes, of people who are identical to the multitudes who followed Jesus. By appealing to what people want through entertainment, emotional excitement, and other such fleshly means, we're gathering big crowds, but Christ and His truth are pushed to the background or even expunged altogether. Instead of being Savior-centered, we have become seeker-sensitive.”

Guest (Male): We’ll stop right here for today. Pastor Bill will return next time with another look at the first couple of verses of Matthew chapter five and our introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. This has been Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington.

Today, we brought you a message from Pastor Bill from his new series in the Sermon on the Mount. It is our sincere hope and prayer that you've been blessed by the words you’ve heard today from Pastor Bill. If you would like to share today's message with someone, it's available at our website to either watch or listen, and you can actually download an audio MP3.

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