All That Jesus Taught : Bible Study Part 11 | Zac Poonen

We continue today with our study on ‘All that Jesus taught’. We’re basing our study in these series on Matthew 28:20. Where Jesus commanded his disciples to go in to every nation, make disciples, baptize them and then teach them to do every single thing that he taught which I believe is the neglected half of the great commission. We were looking at Matthew 4 and see some of the things Jesus taught there in our previous session. We want to move on now to Matthew where we begin what is very well known as the Sermon on the Mount and this comprises the next 3 chapters. There are a lot of instructions here. It says here, when he saw the multitudes he went up to the mountain and his disciples came to him and he began to teach them saying. So the first thing we notice here is that Jesus was speaking to his disciples.

The Sermon on the Mount was not given to the multitudes primarily, it was to his disciples. To those who wanted to follow him only could understand and live by the standards mentioned here. And when ever we find Christians neglecting these 3 chapters or taking the instructions in these chapters lightly or like some believers do say this is not for us, this is for the Jews or something like that. There are many crazy, foolish, stupid arguments like that among Christians who do not want to obey all that Jesus taught and find many excuses to do away what Jesus taught. But if we see that these are very important words that Jesus spoke to his disciples then those of us who wants to be a disciple, who are disciples take them very seriously. But the multitudes were permitted to listen. It says “he sat down. His disciples came to him and he taught them but at the end of the Sermon on the Mount it says that the multitudes (Matthew 7:28) were amazed at his teaching. So the picture we have here is Jesus getting his few disciples close up to him and speaking to them and the multitudes behind them listening to what he was saying. They were amazed at his teaching and one paraphrase says that it was obvious that he had lived what he was preaching (Matthew 7:29). He had authority unlike the Scribes (Matthew 7:29) who preach without authority and behind Jesus’ authority was he lived every word of what he spoke. People take a lot of time preparing sermons. How long did Jesus take to prepare the Sermon on the Mount? 30 years. He was speaking out of his life. These are no notes that he sat down one day earlier and wrote down to speak on like a lot of preachers do today. He was speaking out from his life, a life that faced all types of temptations and various circumstances in Nazareth. From there he was now speaking out of his life and that is the example for us to speak as well. As we have often considered before.

So here we see 1st of all ‘9 blessed’ or 9 what I would call ‘right attitudes’ or ‘be attitudes’ that are described in the first verses 3-12, and then from Matthew 5:13 onwards he gives a little introduction up to Matthew 5: 20, and then Matthew 5: 21 onwards up to Matthew 7:6. We have 9 wrong attitudes that a believer should not have, wrong attitudes. Verse 9 right attitudes or good attitudes that a believer should have and then at the end of Matthew 7 is a conclusion from Matthew 7:7 onwards. So let’s look at these right attitudes that Jesus speaks about. First of all in Matthew 5:3, blessed are the poor in spirit.

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