📖 Matthew Intensive — Unit 4: Sermon on the Mount II

Text: Matthew 6:33

From Character to Practice

In the first part of the Sermon on the Mount the King described the character of His people, the Beatitudes that mark the citizens of the kingdom, and called them the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Now He turns from who they are to how they live. Chapters 6 and 7 are the practice of that righteousness, worked out before God in giving and prayer and fasting, in the use of money, in freedom from anxiety, in the way we treat others, and finally in a decision that determines a whole life. The sermon does not let us admire the Beatitudes from a distance; it presses them into the ordinary daily places where faith is either real or only spoken. The King is not seeking admirers who keep their faith on display, but a people whose obedience runs deepest precisely where no one is watching but God Himself.

Righteousness Not for Show

Jesus warns, "Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them" (Matthew 6:1). He takes the three great acts of Jewish devotion — giving to the needy, praying, and fasting — and in each He draws the same contrast. The hypocrites do them to be seen, and the applause they receive is the only reward they will ever get. But the disciple gives, prays, and fasts before the Father who sees in secret, and the Father who sees in secret will reward him. So Jesus says, when you give, do not sound a trumpet; when you pray, go into your room and shut the door; when you fast, do not look gloomy to be admired. The question He presses is the question of the audience: are we living before men, for their eyes and their praise, or before God, content that He alone should see? (His teaching on prayer here opens into the Lord's Prayer, which we take up in its own lesson.)

Treasure and the Heart

From the audience of our righteousness Jesus turns to the treasure of our hearts. "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (Matthew 6:19-20). Then He gives the reason that searches us: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Our hearts follow our treasure, not the reverse, so what we truly value will quietly capture what we truly love. He speaks of the eye as the lamp of the body, so that a good and single eye fills the whole life with light while a bad eye fills it with darkness. And He states it plainly: "No one can serve two masters... You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24). Money is a useful servant but a ruinous lord, and the heart that tries to enthrone both God and wealth will end by despising one of them. So Jesus is not condemning possessions but exposing a rival lordship, and He calls the disciple to hold earthly things loosely and to fix his heart on what cannot be lost.

Do Not Worry — Seek First the Kingdom

Because the disciple's treasure is in heaven and his Master is God, he is freed from the anxiety that drives the world. "Do not worry about your life," Jesus says, and He points to the birds of the air that neither sow nor reap, yet the heavenly Father feeds them, and to the lilies of the field that do not labor, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass, will He not much more clothe His own children? Worry adds not a single hour to our lives; it only robs the present of trust. The Gentiles run after food and clothing as if there were no Father in heaven, but Jesus says, "your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things." Therefore He gives the great command of the chapter: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matthew 6:33). Anxiety is answered not by getting more but by putting first things first and trusting the Father with the rest, taking each day as it comes.

Judging and Discernment

Turning to how the disciple treats others, Jesus says, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged" (Matthew 7:1-2). He paints the picture of a man with a plank in his own eye trying to remove a speck from his brother's eye, and tells him to take the plank out of his own eye first; then he will see clearly to help his brother. This is not a ban on all discernment, for in the very next breath He says not to give what is holy to dogs or to cast pearls before swine, which requires us to tell the difference. What He forbids is the hypocritical, condemning spirit that is harsh toward others and blind toward itself. The disciple judges himself first and most severely, and comes to his brother not as a judge over him but as one beggar showing another where bread is found.

Ask, Seek, Knock

How can anyone live this way? Only by a Father who gives. "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). Jesus reasons from the lesser to the greater: if a son asks for bread, no decent father gives him a stone, and if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him. Prayer is not prying open the hand of a reluctant God but coming to a Father who delights to give. And out of that confidence flows the rule that sums up the whole law of love toward others: "Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12). The Golden Rule is not a clever maxim but the Law and the Prophets pressed into a single sentence we can carry into every encounter.

The Two Ways and the Two Claims

As the sermon draws toward its end, Jesus sets before His hearers a series of sharp choices. There are two gates and two roads: "Enter by the narrow gate... narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:13-14), while the wide gate and broad way lead to destruction with a crowd going through them. There are two kinds of teachers: He warns to beware of false prophets who come in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves, and gives the test, "You will know them by their fruits." And there are two kinds of claim upon Him: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). Some will point to mighty works done in His name, and He will say, "I never knew you; depart from Me." Words about Christ, even religious words and works, are not the same as knowing Him and doing the Father's will.

The Two Builders

The whole sermon comes to rest on a single image of two builders. "Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock" (Matthew 7:24); but the one who hears and does not do is like a foolish man who built on the sand. Both men built houses, and from the outside the houses may have looked the same; the difference was hidden in the foundation until the storm came. When the rain fell, the floods rose, and the winds beat against both houses, the house on the rock stood and the house on the sand fell with a great crash. The dividing line is not hearing but doing: it is not enough to admire the sermon, attend the preaching, or even applaud the truth; the wise build their lives on obedience to the King's words. When Jesus finished, the people were astonished, "for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes" (Matthew 7:28-29). Their amazement was right, for no mere teacher had ever spoken this way; here was the King Himself laying down the law of His kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount is not advice to consider but the word of the King to obey, and the only safe place to stand when the storm comes is on the rock of doing what He says.

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