Scarborough Chinese Baptist ChurchSeptember – December 2015

Daily Devotionalfor Sermon Series

a study of The Sermon on the Mount

Week 6: October 19 – October 25

The following series of daily readings and questions have been designed by Pastor Tom Cullen to lead up to the sermon for the coming week. There are five daily studies for each week. Allow about 20 minutes a day to complete each daily devotional.

The weekly sermons can be heard at scbc.com Each week’s daily devotional guide is also available online at en.scbc.com.

Sermon ScheduleLiving in the Kingdom

October 25 – Going deeper, Part 2. (Matthew 5:33-48) November 1 – Being Real (Matthew 6:1-18)

November 8 – On Ambition (Matthew 6:19-34) November 15 – On right relationships (Matthew 7:1-12) November 22 – Making the right choice (Matthew 7:13-29)

Scarborough Chinese Baptist Church Fall 2015

Sermon Series Devotional Guide

Living in the Kingdom

a study of The Sermon on the Mount

I think there are two kinds of Christians. There are the law keepers who say, “If I go to worship and prayer meetings and don’t commit adultery then I am okay with God.” They have a long list of laws that they feel they must keep. And they do pretty well at keeping the laws they have set, but inside they are seething with anger, lust and revenge. We’ve learned that this is not the way God wanted us to be. It was the problem with the Pharisees, who cleaned the outside of the proverbial cup but left the inside dirty. (Matthew 23:25-26) Jesus clearly condemned this kind of living.

Then there is another set of Christians who say, “God has cleansed me thoroughly so I can live any way I like.” But Scripture doesn’t allow for this kind of attitude either. Romans 3:31 says, “Do we nullify the law by this faith? Not at all. Rather we uphold the law!” Dallas Willard has said that the law is not the source of rightness but it is forever the course of rightness.

Both extremes are wrong. But nor is it a balance between the two that we must strive for. The truth is, Jesus brings grace and we are cleansed of our sin. He also takes up residence in our lives and the fruit of his being in us is that we are now able to keep the law and therefore uphold the law. The two extremes of trying to keep the law, and totally ignoring the law are done

away with as we surrender our lives to the rule of Jesus Christ and we are able to reflect his character. The key to living the Christian life then is surrender. Are you surrendering your dreams, ambitions, relationships, vocation, finances, to Jesus Christ? Are you allowing him to be king of every area of your life? You will find that as you surrender to him he is able to live his life in you and you are able to reflect the image of God. In Him, Tom.

 Monday October 19

Read Matthew 5:38-39

Study

1. Verse 38 comes from Exodus 21:24. The concept of an eye for an eye may seem harsh to us but it was actually a way to prevent harshness. A person was not to die because of another person’s loss of an eye. The punishment was not to be worse than the offense. How were the Jews to right a wrong according to this verse?

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2. What new principle does Jesus establish with the example given in verse 39? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Page 2

3. How would Jesus’ words affect your relationships if you practiced what he teaches here? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reflect

Verse 39 has been used to justify pacifism. But that is not the

point of this verse. Kent Hughes states that Jesus is speaking

of a traditional, calculated insult. “Notice that Jesus specifically mentions “the right cheek,” which tells us

he is describing a backhanded slap…. The back of the hand

meant calculated contempt, withering disdain. When Jesus

spoke of being slapped on the right cheek, he was describing an

insult that comes because of one’s faith. Jesus is saying “if

you are dishonored as a heretic, you should not go to law about

it; rather you should show yourselves to be truly my

disciples by the way in which you bear the hatred and the insult,

overcome the evil, forgive the injustice.” That is the basic

essential interpretation.

Hughes continues, “There is another level of application

that really gets down to where we live. We are to set aside our

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petty ways of getting even – the kind of living that punishes

others by returning their own sins to them. If your spouse is

messy, you leave things messy in return. If your friend is late,

you will be late next time yourself. In effect Jesus asks us, in

turning the other cheek, to make the other person and his or

her well-being the center of our focus. We think of them and

adjust our actions according to what we think will point them

to Christ. And when we do this we begin to affect them.”1

How are you doing? Can you respond to a personal insult as

Jesus instructs? Are you secure in Christ’s love so that you can

turn the other cheek?

 Tuesday October 20

Read Matthew 5:40-42

Study

1. What does Jesus instruct us to do in these verses? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. What does it look like practically speaking_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Page 4

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3. What would your “natural” response be to someone who took your coat? How is this different from what Jesus expects of us? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. What do you think is achieved by going the second mile? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________5. What does Jesus say about giving to others in verse 42? What kind of spirit is a Christian to possess? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reflect

We speak a lot these days of our rights. We have a right to this and a right to that. We could say that we have a right to retaliate against someone who took our coat. Or we could say that no one has a right to make us carry a load a mile.

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But in these verses Jesus makes it plain that we are not to make our rights the basis of our relationships with others. We are to give up our right to retaliation and turn the other cheek. We are to give up our right not to carry another’s burden a mile and do it voluntarily. We are to give up our right to keep all we have to ourselves and give to those in need.

In the words of Sinclair Ferguson, “The Christian does the unexpected, because grace makes him or her seek to win others by love rather than retaliate on the basis of rights.”2

List two unexpected things you could do today that would win another over to Christ through love. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 Wednesday October 21

Reading Matthew 5:43-45

Study

1. What do these verses tell us about how we are to treat our enemy? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Page 6

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2. Why does Jesus say we should practice this? (verse 45a) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. How did Jesus demonstrate these words? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ReflectWhile he was in a Georgia jail Martin Luther King wrote a sermon based on today’s text entitled, “Loving your enemies”. In the sermon he wrestled with questions about why and how Christians are to love. He “described how hate multiplies hate… in a descending spiral of violence and is just as injurious to the person who hates as to his victim. But above all love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend for it has creative and redemptive power.”3 Have you experienced how love transforms an enemy into a friend? How? How did it affect you? Have you thought of how at one time you were an “enemy”(Romans 5:10) of God but now through his love one of his children? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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___________________________________________________________  Thursday October 22

Reading Matthew 5:46-47

Study

1. What kind of love do “tax collectors and pagans” (unbelievers) have?

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2. What challenge does Jesus give in these verses? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. How is this love extraordinary? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. How did Jesus demonstrate these verses? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reflect

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People often ask what is the difference between a Christian a good person? Martin Lloyd Jones offers this answer, “The Christian is a person who is above, and goes beyond, the natural man at his very best and highest... There are many people in the world who are not Christian but who are very moral and highly ethical, men whose word is their bond, and who are scrupulous and honest, just and upright. You never find them doing a shady thing to anybody; but they are not Christian, and they say so. They do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and may have rejected the whole of the New Testament teaching with scorn. But they are absolutely straightforward, honest and true. …. Now the Christian, by definition here, is a man who is capable of doing something that the best natural man cannot do. He goes beyond and does more than that; he exceeds. He is separate from all others, and not only from the worst among them, but from the very best and highest among them. He strives in his daily life to show this capacity of the Christian to love his enemies and to do good to them that hate him, and to pray for them which despitefully use him and persecute him.”4

Is there something about your love that is different from everyone else? Is there a quality in your love that is not present in the unbeliever? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Friday October 23

Read Matthew 5:48

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Study

1. The words, “Be perfect” can also be translated, “Reach full maturity, be complete and whole.” How would we be mature if we practice all that Jesus says in verses 21-47?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. What question would Jesus’ audience have after they have heard Jesus’ statement in verse 48? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Do you think that Jesus’ is being unreasonable in his expectations? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reflect

Jesus is not telling us to reach moral perfection in this life. No, he is telling us that our Father in heaven demonstrates the perfection of his love in the way he loves his enemies. So we are to love as God loves. Sinclair Ferguson writes, “The mark of “perfection” in the Christian is just this: his love is not determined by the loveliness or attractiveness he finds in its object. His love is not directed only towards those whose love he can rely on in return. No, his love is controlled by Page 10

the knowledge that when he was God’s enemy and a sinner, the Father first loved him. If he is to show the Father’s love – the family love – then he will go and do likewise.

There is something haunting about the question Jesus asks in verse 47: “What are you doing more than others?” He assumes that members of the kingdom and family of God will not behave “like mere men” (I Corinthians 3:4). All that he has said in the description of the family of God in the Beatitudes confirms that we are not ordinary people. Different principles control our thinking and our living; we keep in step to the beat of a different drummer.

How tragic that the church has so often sought to be little different from the world, under the guise of attracting the world. But, there is more than that to such a compromise. It is rooted in an unwillingness to let Jesus Christ teach us the principles of his kingdom. For there is a high price to be paid for true Christian living. It costs everything.

In the final analysis, that is what Jesus means when he calls us to be perfect, like his father. The teaching in Matthew 5:21-48 simply spells it out. The father has given everything to us. He calls us to give everything for him and to him – no matter what it costs.”5

Are you willing to pay the cost of true Christian living? What helps you to pay the cost? What hinders you from paying the cost?

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Endnotes1. R. Kent Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount (Wheaton,

Illinois: Crossway Books, 2001) 133.2. Sinclair B. Ferguson The Sermon on the Mount (U.S.A:

Banner of Truth Trust, 1987) 101. 3. John Stott, Christian Counter Culture. (Downers Grove,

Illinois: InterVarsity Press 1978) 114. 4. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the

Mount, vol. 1(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1959) 313.

5. Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Sermon on the Mount (U.S.A.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987) 104.

Sermon notes for Sunday October 25_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Page 12

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