The Greatest Sermon Ever Preached, Part 1

Father God, we thank you for tonight and a chance to spend time in your word. We are grateful for how it is you have provided your words in print, that we might read them, memorize them, study them, and get to know you all the more. We thank you, Lord, for this new year and the opportunity you give to us to live for you.

We trust that, Lord, during this year of 2026, that we would really, truly be committed and devoted to living out the things that we learn and following you in obedience every single day. We are grateful, Lord, for your salvation. We're grateful for all that you've done. Open our hearts and minds this evening to behold the beautiful things out of your law. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

I've come to realize the older I get, the more I remember all that my mother and father said to me when I was growing up.

I kind of wish I would have remembered them when I was younger, but now that I'm older and they're with the Lord, I tend to remember more of what they said now than then. And one of my mother's favorite sayings was this. She would say to me, since you're a child of the king, you need to dress like the child of the king.

She would say, since you're a child of the king, you need to walk like a child of the king. You need to talk like a child of the king. You need to understand that you're a kingdom citizen and live in light of that.

And she would repeat that over and over again. Remember, you're a child of the king. Live like a child of the king.

And she understood what the Bible says in Philippians chapter 3, when Paul said these words. He said, for our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. She understood that she was a kingdom citizen.

She also knew what Peter said in 1 Peter chapter 2 when he said, beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. She knew that we were strangers. We were aliens in this land.

She knew what the apostle Paul said in the book of Colossians when he said that you've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son, that there's a kingdom. And when you become a Christian, you're a child of the king. Over in Hebrews chapter 11, it says this in verse number 13.

All these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, for those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed, if they had been thinking of the country from which they went out, they would have had the opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Those patriarchs of the Old Testament understood kingdom citizenship. They understood that this life was not all there was, but they were surely just passing through.

They understood that they were aliens and strangers, and the land that they were in was a foreign land. I'm afraid that today as Christians, we don't like to be seen as aliens and strangers in this land. We wanna be welcomed in this land. We wanna be friends of the people of the land. We don't wanna look different. We don't wanna act different. We don't wanna speak different. We just wanna blend in with everybody else.

But the Lord has always made it very clear from the very beginning that his people have been called out to be completely, uniquely, and distinctly different than the people of the world.

In fact, if you got your Bible, turn back with me, if you would, to the book of Leviticus. The book of Leviticus. The theme of this book is holiness.

Be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord. That means that you are separate, uniquely different. You are set apart.

So the whole theme of the book of Leviticus was God's blueprint for his people that would set them apart from the world. In Leviticus 18, verse number 1, it says, "'Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "'Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, "'I am the Lord your God. "'You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt, "'where you lived, nor are you to do "'what is done in the land of Canaan, "'where I am bringing you.

"'You shall not walk in their statutes. "'You are to perform my judgments and keep my statutes, "'to live in accord with them. "'I am the Lord your God, so you shall keep my statutes "'and my judgments, by which a man may live, "'if he does them, I am the Lord.'" The Lord brackets what he says with his identity.

I am the Lord God. I am the King of all. You are not to live like those in Egypt.

You are not to live like those in Canaan. You are to follow my statutes. You are to be different.

You are not to be like them. And then, if you follow through to the book of Deuteronomy, in chapter 6, Moses says this, in verse number 10. Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you great and splendid cities which you did not build and houses full of good things which you did not fill and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery.

You shall fear only the Lord your God and you shall worship him and swear by his name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God. Otherwise, the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you and he shall or he will wipe you off the face of the earth.

Moses was serious. When you follow the Lord and you worship the Lord, you can't worship and serve any other gods. You've been called out of slavery.

You've been called out of Egypt. You have been delivered. You have been redeemed by your God.

You can't be like the people of the world, even though you live in houses that you did not build and you drink from cisterns that you did not dig and you are able to have the fruit of the vine which you did not plant. You cannot be like the people in the land of Canaan. But Israel had a hard time with that.

They had a very difficult time with that. They loved to be like the people of the world. And so when you come to the book of 1 Samuel chapter 8, listen to the words of the Lord.

Verse four, then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. And they said to him, behold, you have grown old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us.

Next phrase, like all the nations. We want a king like all the nations have. We want to be like the other nations.

But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord and the Lord said to Samuel, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you. For they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them from Egypt, even to this day, in that they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they are doing to you also. Now then listen to their voice. However, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them.

So the Lord says to Samuel, he says, look, this is not about you. Don't take it personally, Samuel. They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me.

They don't want me as their king. They want an earthly king, they don't want a heavenly king. So don't take it personally, Samuel.

It's about me that they have rejected. So give them what they want, but tell them, and warn them about what this king will do. So Samuel does.

He tells them exactly what the king will do in verses 10 down through verse number 18. It says, in fact, verse number 17, or yeah, excuse me, verse number 17, he says, he will take a tenth of your flocks and you yourselves will become his servants. Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.

He gives them all the negatives about this earthly king and tells them, you're not gonna like it, and you're gonna cry out to the Lord, but he's not going to answer you. So you would think they would say, then we don't want that. Oh, no, verse 19.

Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, no, but there shall be a king over us that we also may be like all the nations that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. We wanna be like all the other nations. We want a king that will fight for us.

The Lord of armies isn't strong enough. The king of Israel isn't mighty enough. We need an earthly king to fight our battles for us.

After all that God had done for them, after he led them through the wilderness, after he delivered them in a miraculous way by separating the Red Sea and them able to walk through on dry land and all the miracles that God did, it just wasn't sufficient. We wanna be like all the other nations. We want a king to rule over us.

So in Psalm 106, when the psalmist is reviewing Israel's history, he says in verse number 35, they mingled with the nations and learned their practices and served their idols, which became a snare to them. They became just like the nations of the world. Read on, it says, they even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.

And the land was polluted with the blood. Thus they became unclean in their practices and played the harlot in their deeds. Therefore, the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people and he abhorred his inheritance.

God warned them, but they did not listen because God has always told his people you're mine and because you're mine, you can't act and be like everyone else who is not mine. You must be uniquely and distinctly different from them. That's why Peter says you're aliens and strangers in a foreign land.

That's why the writer of Hebrews said the fathers, the patriarchs, knew that this was a land they were strangers in, but there was a city beyond that they lived for. That's why Paul said in quoting the Old Testament in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, said verse 17, therefore come out from their midst and be separate says the Lord and do not touch what is unclean and I will welcome you. To be holy means to be separate, to come out from among them.

And so the Lord says in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter six, verse number eight, you shall not be like them. He's speaking about the religious leaders. You can't be like them because they're hypocrites.

They live a life of duplicity. They live a life of hypocrisy. You can't be like them.

In Matthew 5, verse number 20, he says these words, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you cannot be a part of my kingdom. And the people listening to that would think, well, how can that possibly be? The Pharisees are so religious, they dress like they're religious. They pray like they're religious.

They look like they're religious. They speak like they're religious. And you're telling us that unless our righteousness exceeds their righteousness, we can never enter the kingdom of God? How can that possibly be? Because their righteousness was based on human achievement.

God's righteousness is based on divine accomplishment. That's why he could say that. And so in Matthews 5, 6, and 7, our Lord tells the people how to live like a child of the king. How to understand kingdom citizenship. After all, he's the king. And the king came preaching about the kingdom.

In fact, that's all he preached about was the kingdom. John the Baptist, the forerunner, would preach about the kingdom of heaven. It was at hand.

When the king came, he began to preach, and he preached the same message that John the Baptist preached, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. And so as he began to preach, Matthew 5, 6, and 7 tell us about some of the elements that would be in the sermons that Jesus would preach as he went from village to village, from town to town, preaching the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And when you come to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthews five, six, and seven, you have a record of the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who has ever lived, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And so we have the blessed opportunity to spend the rest of this portion of the year through the springtime into the fall, and probably even into next year, 2027, examining this great sermon, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. You can read it in about 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how fast you read. And there have been many commentaries written on Matthews 5, 6, and 7, many books written, many devotional books written.

About this sermon, it's filled with so much. In fact, more is said in these three chapters than most preachers say in a lifetime of sermons. This is the greatest sermon ever preached, and Christ is the greatest preacher who ever preached.

And so therefore, we need to understand exactly what he said and why he said it, and how he said it. So we've given you an outline. You can follow along with us.

It's basically three simple points. It begins with the purpose of the sermon, then the preface to the sermon, and then we'll give you some principles about the sermon as way of a introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. We'll begin by reading Matthew chapter 5, verses 1 and 2.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. He opened his mouth and began to teach them. It would be so great to have been there on that day.

To hear Jesus speak to large crowds of people without a microphone, and to be able to speak to them so they could all hear what he had to say on that day. But there was a purpose behind what he said. It begins with the fact that he was going to identify the identity of those who are citizens of his kingdom.

That's why it begins with the beatitudes, with blessing. And when he begins to speak about blessing, he says it in a way that is contrary to what we would say a person who was blessed would be like. He says the poor, not the rich, are blessed.

And you think, well, that's opposite of a child of the king. Children of the king are rich. But he says blessed are those who are poor.

Children of the king, they laugh. But not according to this sermon, they mourn. Children of the king are warriors.

Well, not according to this sermon. They're meek, they're gentle, they're peacemakers. Children of the king are protected.

Not in this sermon, they're persecuted. They're reviled against. So much so that all men speak evil against them.

But what Jesus does is he begins to help you understand the character of kingdom citizenship by identifying the identity of the people who enter the kingdom and grow up in the kingdom in those first 12 verses. Then after he identifies the identity of those in the kingdom, he articulates the authority of those in the kingdom by saying that they are salt and they are light. Other words, they're salt and as salt, they will preserve corruption.

As light, they will proclaim the solution. Giving them the authority that comes as a kingdom citizen. So he interprets their identity.

He articulates their authority. And then he says, the people in my kingdom manifest a specific morality. That is, they follow the law of God.

They understand the laws of God. Because I didn't come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill the law. And therefore, in fulfillment of the law, they understand who I am and they wanna follow me.

They wanna serve me. And they become kingdom citizens. And therefore, they follow the laws as they're prescribed.

And as he begins to show how they manifest his morality, he is showing to them that as he speaks, he says, you have heard that it was said by the ages of old, but I say unto you. In other words, this is what you have heard from your scribes and from your Pharisees. But I say unto you, this is the way it is.

You have heard that it was said, you shall not murder. And thus, you should not murder. But he says, but I say to you, if you hate your brother in your heart, you're already a murderer.

He says, you have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. And thus, you should not commit adultery. But he says, I say unto you, that if you look after a woman and lust for her in your heart, you have already committed adultery on the inside.

So he begins to help them understand the issue of morality and how it applies to kingdom citizens when it comes to murder, adultery, love, and reaching out to others, that they might begin to realize that kingdom citizens live by a different set of standards than those outside the kingdom. And then he says, these words, he says, in Matthew chapter 5, verse number 20, again, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. And he talks about Jeremiah 31 and how the Lord will be, how the law of God will be written on the hearts of his people, that they might wanna follow the truth of God's word.

And that's what God does. His children long to follow him. So the purpose of the sermon is to, number one, interpret the identity of kingdom citizens, articulate the authority of kingdom citizens, manifest the morality of kingdom citizens.

And then he prescribes the piety, the religious devotion of kingdom citizens when it comes to giving, when it comes to praying, when it comes to fasting. He says, when it comes to giving, kingdom citizens give secretly. When it comes to fasting, kingdom citizens do it sincerely.

And when it comes to praying, kingdom citizens do it with simplicity. And so he sets kingdom citizens apart from everybody else when it comes to religious devotion because there's something unique and distinctly different in their worship compared to the way the world worships. And then he goes on and portrays the priority of kingdom citizens in Matthew 6, verses 19 to 24 by helping them understand that they are the ones who seek the kingdom first and the righteousness of God first.

They don't serve God and serve money. They serve the Lord God of Israel. They don't worry about what they're gonna wear or what they're going to eat or what they're going to drink because they have a father in heaven who takes care of them, a father in heaven who clothes them.

They don't worry about what the world worries about. The world worries about those kinds of things, but kingdom citizens, they don't worry about those kinds of things because they have a God in heaven who takes care of them. And so he portrays the priority of kingdom citizens.

And then he reveals the responsibility of kingdom citizens when it comes to their fellow citizens, when it comes to their father in heaven, and when it comes to false prophets. And then he defines the duty of kingdom citizens as he closes out Matthew chapter 7. They build on rock, not sand.

They obey the words of the Lord. And so you have an overview of the sermon and all that's going to be covered over the next several months. And when you come to the end in Matthew chapter 7, it says in verse 28, when Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

They were amazed. But note, there were no conversions. Nobody gave their life to Christ.

Nobody rose up and said, yeah, I want to be a kingdom citizen. I'm all in. Nope.

The greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived. And there were no conversions as recorded in the scriptures. But yet they were amazed at what he said.

Because he spoke as no other rabbi had ever spoken. He didn't quote anybody. He just quoted himself.

He just said what is true. He spoke with such authority. They marveled at all that he said.

So let's move from the purpose of the sermon to the preface to the sermon. In chapter 1 of, or verse 1 of chapter 5, it says when Jesus saw the crowds, who were these people? Who were in the crowd? We'll go back up to verse number 24. It says the news about him spread throughout all Syria.

They brought to him all who were ill, those suffering in various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them. Large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. These are the multitudes.

These are people that have been healed. They could not see, but now they can. They could not walk, but now they can.

They had all kinds of diseases. During the earthly ministry of Jesus, he pretty much banished all disease, all sickness, all illness from the land of Israel because he was the Messiah. Those were the credentials of the Messiah.

And so he's healing all these people. Sure enough, they're gonna follow him. Sure enough, they're gonna be right on his tail.

They're gonna tell other people, look what Jesus did to me. Come, see what he has to say. See what he's gonna do next.

And people would begin to follow. The crowds began to balloon and grow increasingly every single day. These are the multitudes.

Next, the mountain. The mountain. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain.

The mountain. It was just a mountain until Jesus made it the mountain. Why? Because it was just another hill on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee until Jesus preached this sermon.

The mountain. And then it became the mountain. Now, no one knows where this is.

I've been to Israel and there is a place there where the Catholics have built a church there on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee and they say this is where the sermon of the mount was preached. We don't know that. It could be.

It could not be. There is no guarantee that that is the hill that Jesus spoke from. I've been there.

I've seen it. But that doesn't mean it's the place. But whatever the place is, it was the mountain in which Jesus would address these people from.

And because of the sermon that he preached and the impact that it was upon the multitudes and all that he had done, it became the mountain. Next, I want you to see the manners in which he spoke. It says, when he went to the mountain, his disciples came to him, but he sat down, it says.

He sat down. In Latin, it's called ex cathedra, from the chair. In Catholicism, when the pope speaks with, as they would say, infallibility, he sits ex cathedra, from the chair.

When rabbis would teach, they would teach sitting down. Sometimes, I wish I could teach sitting down. But they would teach sitting down because that would mean they were speaking with authority.

When they stood up, they had conversations. When they stood up, they would discuss different things. But formal teaching, formal authority came when the rabbi sat down.

Then, Jesus went up into the mountain and he sat down because he was speaking with great authority as the king of his kingdom. Then note the message. It says, he opened his mouth and began to teach them.

He opened his mouth and began to teach them. And the message is so important because you see, he knew that the only way to true blessing was not because of your physical healing but your spiritual healing. Jesus knew that all those people he healed, they're still gonna die.

They're gonna get old. They're gonna get decrepit and they're gonna die. And the physical healing was only temporary.

But the spiritual healing, that would be eternal. That would be forever because it would deal with the soul of a man, the soul of a woman. And Christ wanted them to know that as he opened his mouth and began to speak, the words that he would give them would be the source of eternal life.

As he began to speak, he would be able to portray to them the truths of eternal life and help them understand that he's the king and the people in my kingdom are children of the king and they live as kingdom citizens. And this is how they live their lives and this is where the true blessing comes from. They thought that they were blessed because they felt better.

They thought they were blessed because they could see. They thought they were blessed because they could walk and run. They thought they were blessed because those who were dumb could now speak.

They thought they were blessed because those who were demon-possessed were set free. But it was just a foretaste of true blessing because true blessing came on the inside through the healing of a man's soul. That's why it's so important to understand this sermon and what it means to you and me today.

So from the purpose of the sermon to the preface of the sermon to the principles of the sermon, four things are going to happen over the next several months in your life. When you begin to understand kingdom citizenship, when you begin to understand what does it mean to be a child of the king and to follow the word of the Lord, four things are gonna happen. Number one, you will be blessed.

You will live the blessed life. That's what Jesus says nine times. Blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed.

Blessed, blessing comes from what Jesus says. And the word is makarioi, comes from the word makar. It's a state of blissfulness, a state of joy, it's a state of contentment.

It's that inner peace, it's the inner contentment, it's the inner joy that's not dependent upon anything circumstantial. That's not dependent upon anything on the outside because it's all happening on the inside. That's what makarioi is.

And so Christ is talking about true blessing, true joy, true contentment, the blessing, the blessing that characterizes God because it's the phrase used of the Lord. Psalm 68, verse number 35 says blessed be God. Psalm 72:18, blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel.

Psalm 119:12, blessed art thou, O Lord. First Timothy 6:15, he is, that is Christ, the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords. In other words, you receive as a believer, you become a partaker of the divine nature and if God is the blessed God, then you become the blessed as God's children because you're a partaker of divine nature.

And the Lord is not dependent on anything externally to suffice him, to satisfy him. Doesn't need all that. And when you become a believer, you realize the things around you don't mean nearly as much as it did before because what happens on the inside of a man, the soul of a man changes everything.

So over the next several weeks as we go through the Beatitudes, you're gonna begin to understand the blessed life. Society says if you wanna be happy, you wanna be joyful, then you gotta have the right girl, you gotta have the right guy, you gotta live in the right house, you gotta drive the right kind of car, you gotta have a certain amount of income. And Jesus says that man's life does not consist in the abundance of things which he possesses.

He says don't be like them. You must be uniquely and distinctly different from the world but we find ourselves always targeting the world. What do they have? What can we have? How can we be like them so we can be joyous, so we can be happy, so we can be fulfilled? Yet kingdom citizens, they are uniquely and distinctly different.

Even Solomon who had gardens galore, who had parks, houses, temples, women, silver as the sand of the sea, gold, intellect, wisdom, knowledge, he was a king, said all that was vanity. All that was empty. It doesn't mean anything.

And if Solomon says it and he had it all, why can't we believe him? But we don't. We still want more. We want more money.

We want bigger houses, bigger cars. We want finer clothes. We just think if we have a little bit more here or a little bit more there, we'll finally be happy.

No, because it's not dependent upon circumstances on the outside. It's all about the Christ on the inside. That's where true blessing comes.

And the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, will teach you the blessed life. It will also teach you about the baffled life. In other words, your life will be absolutely bewildering and baffling to everybody around you because you won't be like them.

You won't act like them. You will be uniquely and distinctly different than them. They will be quite perplexed.

Why? Because in your realm, misery is the key to happiness. In their realm, it's not. Being poor is the key to being a child of the king.

But in their mind, it's not. In fact, even though the people were amazed at what Christ said, because he spoke like no one else, no one wanted to follow him. Nobody wanted the blessed life that he offered.

Why? Because they didn't believe that that was the key to happiness. They didn't believe that that was the route to joy and contentment. They were happy just that they had been healed.

They were happy that they were just better. And now that they felt better, now that they looked better, everything was fine. They didn't need what Christ offered them.

But he offered it anyway because he always preached the truth. And when you study the sermon and you apply the sermon, you live the blessed life, and the blessed life is the most baffling life to those around you. They will not understand what makes you tick.

They will not understand that you don't have the same desires and passions that they have, the same drive that they have, that when you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, because that's your priority, everything else will be added unto you. But you have a priority to seek first God's kingdom, not your own kingdom, where the people around you are all trying to build their little kingdoms. Why, because they are their own king.

They don't wanna serve the true king. That's why later on in the ministry in Luke chapter 19, the people would say, we will not have that king rule over us. Why, because that king had a different criteria than they appreciated, had a different standard than they believed in.

The third thing is that you will end up living the beautiful life. Why? Because it's the life of Christ. This is his life.

This is who he is. This is how he lived his life. He didn't come to abolish the law.

He came to fulfill the law, and in fulfilling the law, he embodied everything that the law required. And he says in Matthew chapter 5, verse number 48, be ye perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect. Strive to live the life that Christ wants you to live.

And because he lived that life, you've been following your master, your king. Live his life. And that becomes the most beautiful life there is.

Dr. Richard Alderson in his book, No Holiness, No Heaven, says this. God calls us not to happiness, but to holiness. Of course, to be holy is of necessity also to be happy, but we are to seek after holiness.

If we seek happiness, we shall get neither that nor holiness. And he's right. God wants us to be holy like him.

That's the beautiful life. It's the beauty of Christ's life in you and through you. So, listening to the sermon, applying the sermon, following through on what Christ says, you live the blessed life.

The blessed life is the most baffling life there is because it's totally contrary to the world, and yet it is the most beautiful life there is. And fourthly, you'll end up living the bold life, the strong life, because of the boldness of what is said. When you apply those things to your life, you become strong.

You become the strength of all those round about you. You become bold in character, bold in conversation, bold in all the things that you do, and you live a bold and strong and wonderful life. And let me add another one.

You really will live the born-again life, for this truly is a sermon about how to be born again, how to enter the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It's all about being born again. It's all about having new life in Christ. The born-again life is the beautiful life. The born-again life is the bold life. The born-again life is the blessed life. The born-again life is the most baffling life to the unbeliever, because it's totally contrary to anything they could think of. So let me say it to you this way.

I shared this with the women yesterday at the women's Bible study. But let's say that every time you came to church, you received $100. So you're here tonight, and we're gonna give you $100.

There's a good chance you'll be back next Wednesday night, because next Wednesday night, we'd give you another $100. You come on Sundays, we'll give you $200. But if you came and you received 100 spot or 200 bucks, you'd be sure to come back next Wednesday and next Sunday and the following Sunday and the following Wednesday.

In fact, you'd probably even be on time. Why is that? Because you'd be inviting your friends to come with you. You come to our church, we're gonna give you 100 bucks.

Really? I'm going. You come on Sunday, we give you 200 bucks. I'm there.

Pick me up, I'm coming with you. If we did that, within a week's time, there would be no room for you to sit on Wednesdays and or Sundays. People would be on the outside looking in, wanting to be in here, because knowing that if they were in here, they would receive 100 bucks or 200 bucks, depending upon Wednesday or Sunday.

So having said that, listen to the words of our Lord. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

In verse 127 of Psalm 119, the psalmist says, I love your commandments above gold. Yes, above fine gold. When you come, we offer you something better than $100.

We offer you something better than $200. We offer you something better than gold. We give you the bread of life.

We give you the word of the living God, which is more valuable than anything else, is more precious than anything else. Think about that. Why isn't that enough to motivate us to come? You know why? Because we value money and gold and silver pieces more than we value the word of God.

We don't value the word of God nearly like we should. But the psalmist knew. The psalmist understood that the words of the mouth coming, the words coming out of the mouth of our Lord are so valuable that he didn't want to miss a one of them.

He loved them so much, they were more valuable to him than anything earthly. And so we ask ourselves the question, why is it we don't say to people, come with me? Because we're gonna give you something more valuable than gold, more valuable than silver, more valuable than thousands of pieces of gold. We're gonna give you the bread of life.

We're gonna feed you the bread of life. We're gonna feed you that which is absolutely sustainable for all eternity. But yet people still don't come.

Why is that? It's because they do not value the word of the Lord. It doesn't mean that much to them. Oh, the people were amazed at the words of Jesus, but they did not heed the words of Jesus.

They weren't that valuable to them. This auditorium should be filled on Wednesdays and Sundays, because when you come, you get something better than thousands of pieces of gold and silver. You get the word of the living God.

But you see, for most people, that just is not sufficient. It's just not enough for them. There's something more valuable to them than the word of the Lord.

That's why they are not here. But through this sermon, Matthews 5, 6, and 7, you will see the value of truth, the value of the word of God, how important it is to our lives to apply, to memorize, to live, because it gives you true blessing, true beauty, true boldness like nothing ever, because it comes from the living and abiding word of God. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for tonight. A brief moment you give us to spend in your word, and we thank you, Lord, for how it is we can study it in the middle of the week. My prayer is for everyone in the room that, Lord, you would do a mighty work in their heart and life, that they would see the value of the truth of God, how it applies to them, and how it is they can live in accordance to it.

And pray, Lord, for those who come who might not even know you, that, Lord, you would come into their hearts and save their souls, that they might truly follow you and live what is truly the greatest of all lives, the life as a child of the king. Help us to understand kingdom living, kingdom citizenship. Help us come to grips with the fact that you are the king, and the king has spoken, and we as your subjects bow before you in adoration, thanking you for all that you say and all that you do, in Jesus' name, amen.