The View from the Mountain:
Possessing the Kingdom of Heaven
A Sermon on
Matthew 5:1-3 and Jeremiah 1:1-10
By the Reverend Jason E. Gamble, M. Div.
Calvary Presbyterian Church
February 23, 2014
JEREMIAH 1:1-10 (NRSV)
The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land
of Benjamin, 2to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of King Josiah son of
Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3It came also in the days of King
Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King
Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
4Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, 5“Before I formed you in the womb I
knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to
the nations.” 6Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am
only a boy.” 7But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to
all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, 8Do not be afraid
of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.” 9Then the LORD put out his
hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, “Now I have put my words in
your mouth. 10See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and
to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
MATTHEW 5:1-3 (NRSV)
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his
disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
We call on you, gracious God, to pour out your Spirit upon all flesh, that young and old
may see visions and dream dreams. By your Word, help us to understand our mission
in this world and by your Spirit give us a burning desire to make it happen. In the name
of Christ Jesus. Amen.
One of the great things about American culture is its broad musical offerings. In the US
we find some of the world’s greatest symphonies, countless rockers, rappers, hip
hoppers, etc., etc. and of course America is perhaps the world’s stronghold for country
music. Do we have any country music fans here at Calvary? Among countless country
music hits perhaps one of the most meaningful ballads of all is song performed by Reba
Mc Entire called, “If I Had Only Known”. “If I Had Only Known” is a poetic and heartfelt
song of lamentation written from the perspective of someone who lost a loved-one in the
Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing of 1995. She sings…
If I had only known
I'd never hear your voice again
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I'd memorize each thing you ever said
And on those lonely nights
I could think of them once more
Keep your words alive inside my head
If I had only known
I'd never hear your voice again1
I cannot help but wonder at the many people who are present as Jesus begins his
famous Sermon on the Mount, if they would have memorized everything Jesus said, if
they had only known that Jesus would die on the cross a short couple of years later.
Would they have paid better attention? If they had known that the words that Jesus is
sharing with these vast multitudes of recently healed followers and the disciples were
the key to spiritual success and meaningful life, would they have made sure that these
words stayed alive in their heads?
And what about us? If we had been there, recently healed of our diseases and
disabilities there at the foot of the mountain, would we have been on the edge of our
seats, cupping our hands to our ears, shushing our children, and quieting the people
who won’t stop talking during a sermon, so that we could fully take in the amazing, lifechanging words of Jesus? Would we? How serious are we about the Gospel? What is
it that we think we are doing when we show up in church and hear these readings?
Yes, it is a holy and pious thing that we do to gather in the name of Jesus Christ on
Sunday and to hear what he said, but in decades of hearing we can perhaps go numb
or worse still, we can sit through the Good News of Jesus Christ and let it become
routine without ever really internalizing and practicing the radical teaching that he is
trying to instil into us.
For a clue as to how vital the View from the Mountain is that we begin to hear from
Jesus today, we have to skip to the end of his sermon to find out. Does that sound like
cheating? Let’s turn to page 7 and look at the dramatic conclusion of the View from the
Mountain, the Sermon on the Mount, so that we can take in the importance and
magnitude of what it means to hear the words of Jesus – Matthew 7:24-27.
24“Everyone
then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a
wise man who built his house on rock. 25The rain fell, the floods came, and the
winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been
founded on rock. 26And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not
act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain fell,
and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—
and great was its fall!”
Wow! What critical information! I’m glad we know it now because if being healed by
Jesus is not enough to take seriously what he has to say, then this should wake us up!
His assertion that what he is going to teach us in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 constitutes an
“If I Had Only Known” was written by Craig Morris and Jana Stanfield, Published by SONY/ATV MUSIC
PUBLISHING LLC, BUG MUSIC http://www.metrolyrics.com/if-i-had-only-known-lyrics-reba-mcentire.html
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absolute and pure personal and spiritual crisis in our lives. There’s a lot to take in over
the next several weeks as we learn the key to success in life as taught by Jesus Christ
and if you were to doze through Matthew 5, 6, and 7 and wake up at the other end of
the Sermon on the Mount to find out that hearing the words of Jesus and acting on them
or not will mean that everything that you are trying to build in your life under God’s plan
will allow you to withstand the storm, home intact, or be washed away like the foolish
victims of a hurricane who watch their ill-founded life’s investment dissolve before their
eyes, then you might have some real regrets. You might sing a lament with Reba Mc
Entire – “If I had only known…If I had only known.” Well, we do know, we know that we
are embarking on the Sermon on the Mount together as a church – oh, I’ll take some
breaks so that we observe Transfiguration Sunday, Palm Sunday, and Easter Sunday –
but we as a church are embarking on a process of understanding, in depth, what Jesus
really taught and why it is so critically important.
Verse 1 tells us “When Jesus saw the crowds he went up the mountain.” It was
probably at that moment that Jesus himself took in the magnitude of what he had
accomplished in reaching out with healing to so many people in Galilee, Syria, the
Transjordan and the Decapolis. Many people had come to him and when they were all
made well he realized the sheer volume of his work. Like a military field surgeon who is
so busy with wounded the he doesn’t realize until the end of his two year tour of duty
that he has treated 5,000 soldiers, Jesus now takes in what he has done. He ascends
the mountain, not to get away from the work but for two reasons: to have the vantage
point to address a large crowd, using the hill as a pulpit; and, second, his ascent to the
mountain places him above the people, closer to heaven and closer to God, in order to
take on the divine perspective just as Moses did when he ascended Mount Sinai (Mount
Horeb) in order to receive the Commandments on stone tablets.
Jesus then sat down and was joined by his disciples. To our knowledge thus far, that
consists of Peter and Andrew as well as James and John, the four former fishermen.
The other 8 aren’t called out of the crowd until Matthew 10. Jesus sat down to teach
because teachers in antiquity gave their lectures and sermons from the seated position
with their disciples in a circle around them. Today, Jewish Rabbis still sit when they
teach.
“Then he began to speak, and he taught them saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:2-3) And he begins his instruction for the
foundation of all that is meaningful to the soul, for the real Christian life, by pronouncing
a blessing, a beatification. You’ve heard Matthew 5:2-11 called the Beatitudes; that is
because the Latin word for blessed or happy ones is “beati”. The blessing, fortune, and
happiness-causing gift from God that Jesus offers to all who will follow him is the
kingdom of heaven – not riches or wealth, not power or control, not superhuman power
(we got over all of that in the Temptations) – but the sure and certain truth of knowing
that what we have done and how we have lived here on earth is and has been the will of
our Father in heaven. There is no greater blessing than that! The feeling of looking at
yourself in the mirror and knowing deep in your heart that you have acted according to
God’s wishes for you as shown to you by your Lord and Savior, your private instructor,
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your personal Spiritual trainer, Jesus Christ, is the best feeling heaven can offer. You
can have all the toys, power, and amenities that this planet can offer, but I assure that
those blessings are nothing compared to what Jesus is offering when he offers to you to
possess the kingdom of heaven.
Now how do we obtain that blessing? First clause of verse 3 – by being “poor in spirit.”
Poor in spirit does not mean you have a weak personality. It does not mean that you are
depressed, lukewarm, or indifferent. In fact to be poor in spirit is to be quite excited
about doing the will of God. Emmet Fox wrote one of the most influential books of the
20th century entitled, “The Sermon the Mount: The Key to Success in Life.” In it he
posits that “to be poor in spirit means to have emptied yourself of all desire to exercise
personal self-will, and, what is just as important, to have renounced all preconceived
opinion in the wholehearted search for God. It means to be willing to set aside your
present habits of thought, your present views and prejudices, your present way of life if
necessary: to jettison, in fact, anything and everything that can stand in the way of your
finding God.”2
But this is no small feat. We spend so much of our lives trying to make our own
preferred agenda come to pass that we likely think very little during any given day about
the difference between our will and God’s will. Most people spend a good deal of
prayer time asking God for one thing or another. This is good and fine, but the bulk of
our effort in prayer really ought to be asking God to inspire us in knowing God’s will and
in requesting the power to get God’s will done, whatever it is. There is a common
American Christian proverb that says that God may or may not be willing to get on
board with your plan, but God is always willing to let you get on board with God’s plan.
Our job is to seek God’s plan without self-will, to be poor in spirit. The results? We
shall own, that’s right, own the kingdom of heaven.
The prophet Jeremiah was one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament and he
wrote not only the 52 chapters of Jeremiah but the 5 chapters of Lamentations. By
elevating him to the status of major prophet we understand him to speak on behalf of
God. God put his words in the mouth of Jeremiah and Jeremiah was appointed over
nations and over kingdoms with the power to determine their destinies. He became
God’s representative on earth not out of political aspiration but surrender to God’s will.
His first step was getting over his own fears, feelings of inferiority. He had to overcome
his self-will and get on board with God’s will. In fact the Lord said to him, “Do not say, ‘I
am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever
I command you, Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you…” Then the
LORD put out his hand and touched [Jeremiah’s] mouth…” (Jer. 1:7-9) and from that
day Jeremiah lived according to God’s plan no matter what people thought of him.
Getting over self-will to receive this blessing of possessing the kingdom of heaven isn’t
easy and Jesus, too, struggled once or twice. On the night of his arrest and impending
crucifixion Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me…” He,
too, when faced with his own death, knew that it was hard to live 100% according to
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EMMET FOX, The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life, Harper Collins, New York, 1989, p. 21.
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God’s will but he showed us that with God all things are possible and he concluded his
prayer by saying, “yet not what I want but what you want.” (Matt. 26:39) This is how we
possess the kingdom of heaven, friends, and this is why we have a cross in our church
and wear them around our necks; because we have a Savior who was poor in spirit and
willing to do anything that God asked of him.
Psalm 1, which was our Call to Worship today, tells us, “Happy [and blessed] are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in
the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they
meditate day and night.” (Psalm 1:1-2) They reap blessing because they are poor in
spirit. They don’t take the advice of evil people and are not a law unto themselves
either. Their delight is in the law of the Lord. They actually meditate on it and it sinks
deeper and deeper into their consciences over a lifetime such that they are impervious
to temptation and to self-will. They possess the kingdom of heaven, we are told
poetically by the Psalmist; they are similar to trees that bear fruit and stay green all year
long. Reba Mc Entire sang, “If I had only known…I’d memorize each thing you ever
said.” Well the psalmist knew it and did it!
On September 22 when you elected me as your Designated Pastor I said that if we
really believe that Jesus is the Christ he’ll hand us the keys to the kingdom and that we
can accomplish anything for Christ. Now I believe, because Jesus has said it is so, that
we at Calvary Presbyterian Church can possess the kingdom of heaven. We’ll just
need to be poor in spirit.
We know that Jesus has come to save this world – Joseph’s dream in Matthew 1
showed us that. We know that with Jesus we can overcome any temptation the Devil
throws our way – the temptations in the desert taught us that. We know that Jesus
wants to touch and heal us – we experienced that last Sunday. Now we see that Jesus
wants to give us a foundation for living filled with blessings. When we finish hearing his
Sermon on the Mount and seeing his View from the Mountain and put it into practice,
we will possess the kingdom of heaven and we won’t be singing, “If only I had known”
for we now know in advance, in case we didn’t already, how important it is to hear the
gospel and to live it. In Christ’s name. Amen.
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