Last Sunday, Felix Baumgartner broke a number of world records. He jumped out of a helium balloon from 24 miles up in the sky. There is hardly any air, the sky is black, and the earth looks like a ball. Ten minutes later, he’d broken the speed of sound, and achieved the record for the world’s highest skydive and the world’s longest free-fall.
From up there, he could see the whole earth. Take it in at a glance.
Often, as we look at a bit of the Bible together on a Sunday morning, we find ourselves looking at some detail or other of the Christian faith. We think through some promise God has made, a command he gives us, an encouragement he wants us to take on board. God has so much to say that it’s good to pay attention to the details.
But there’s also mileage in looking at it from 24 miles up. To take the whole thing in at a glance. To remind ourselves what we’ve signed up for. Or if you here as someone still looking into these things, to see what it is you might sign up for.
We’re looking at Matthew chapter 5. In the spring, we spent a few weeks together looking at Matthew chapter 2 to 4. We met Jesus, as the wise men visited him, and then as he appeared on the stage as an adult. That was a prequel, because last year we spent some time in Matthew chapter 5.
Chapters 5 to 7 make up what we call “the sermon on the mount”, possibly Jesus’ most famous teaching. And between now and Christmas we’re going to look at chapter 6 together, picking up where we left off a year ago. But because chapter 6 follows on so closely from chapter 5, I thought we should spend one Sunday looking at the whole of chapter 5 together first.
And so it is that we find ourselves 24 miles up. Because the sermon on the mount is not only Jesus’ most famous teaching. It is also his first teaching. In Matthew’s gospel, he arrives on the scene, introduces himself and heals the crowds, and then he opens his mouth to tell us what following him is all about. Jesus intended this chapter to be the 24-miles up view. And then as we read on in Matthew, we come down to earth and see things much closer up.
So what is following Jesus all about? What does it look like from space? I want to point us to three things.
1. Promises First
Here’s the first. Following Jesus is about promises first. Promises first.
Matthew chapter 5 opens with what we call the beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And so on.
When Jesus opens his mouth, the first thing he does is pronounce God’s blessing on people. He says: If this is you, then you are someone God has blessed. You are fortunate indeed. You are one of the people with good cause to be happy.
And the people that God decides to bless are a surprising bunch really. The poor in spirit – those who know they’ve left God down, and so they’re bankrupt with him and could never buy his favour. The meek – those who don’t try to get themselves ahead in life, but are content for God to put people where he wants them.
Our society says that you get ahead if you’re good looking, well-educated, work hard, wealthy and have lots of carefully chosen friends.
Whereas Jesus says that if knowing God is the one thing you want, and you come to him poor and destitute, wanting God to give you that one thing, then God will bless you beyond your wildest dreams.
Now, if we want to know how it is that Jesus can turn everything on its head. How it is that apparently successful people can somehow miss out on God’s seal of approval. How it is that failures, people who have sinned, and who don’t deserve God’s favour, can somehow come out on top. Then we need to read on in Matthew’s gospel. This is the view from space, and Jesus will develop the details. But even from space I can tell you that it’s all to do with Jesus’ death and resurrection.
But at this point in Jesus’ ministry the principle is clear. The first thing that Jesus does as he enters his public ministry is to make promises of blessing to those who don’t deserve it. Following Jesus is about promises first.
This is striking, because if you stop someone in the street and ask them what they think following Jesus is about first of all, the chance are they will tell you it’s about our actions first. Following Jesus involves going to church, they might say. Or not swearing. Or giving to charity. In America some people would say it’s about which political party you support. Or you might here that it’s about loving your neighbour and keeping the ten commandments. It’s about what we do.
Those may be good things to do. But they are not what following Jesus is about, first of all. Following Jesus is about promises first.
In life today we are assessed by our performance. We do an exam, and we get a mark based on how well we did. You work harder at work and you get promoted sooner. You play well on the pitch and you make the team next week. You perform, and then you get your reward. One pastor in the States recently wrote these words: It is only in Christianity that you get the verdict before the performance.
Following Jesus is about promises first. God’s blessings to those who don’t deserve them.
2. Public Faith
Second, following Jesus is about public faith. Public faith.
Jesus goes on, in verses 13 to 17, to tell the crowds that if they follow him they are the salt of the earth, and they are the light of the world.
Salt had a number of functions in the ancient world. But the clue to what Jesus means comes when he says that salt is useless if it’s become too dilute to do any good. For salt to serve its purpose, it has to be salty. And so Jesus is saying that his followers are to be distinctive. We’re to let Jesus shape what we love and what we hate. We’re to let Jesus tell us we value. What is right and what is wrong. Money. Sex. Power. Careers. Family. Retirement. We learn these things from Jesus not just from the world around us.
As well as salt, we are to be light. And again, we see what Jesus means when he says that light is useless if it’s too hidden to be any good. For light to serve its purpose, it has to be visible. It has to shine out. And so Jesus is saying that his followers are to be out there, in the wider world, living good lives for everyone’s benefit and to point people to Jesus.
You see, it’s no good if we’re salty but not lighty. It’s no use being wonderfully like Jesus if nobody would ever know. But it’s also no good shining brightly if we’re not salty. It’s no use being a huge influence in the world if we’re so blurred as Christians that we’re not actually being an influence for Jesus.
We need to be salt and light. Distinctive and visible. As one author put it, the salt needs to come out of the saltshaker. Following Jesus is about public faith. We live out what we believe, and we do so in public and without shame.
This is striking, because many of us would like to follow Jesus, but in private. We cultivate some good habits. We pray. We read our Bibles. We come to church and we draw strength from what we hear. But we let it remain a fundamentally private thing. If someone asked our work colleagues, the mums we meet on the playground, the people we sit next to on the bus, to describe us, they might do so in glowing terms. But would they be quick to say that we are followers of Jesus, and that we put that into practice in all our walks of life.
And actually, not only would we prefer it if things could be done in private. Society prefers it too when Christians have a private faith. The newspapers, the soaps, the sitcoms, the period dramas, are all happy for people to have a faith that sustains them. But when it starts affecting the decisions they take, the ways they interact with other people, it becomes a nuisance and the their quietly mocked as an over-keen Christian.
There are things you can do and keep purely private, but there are other things that make no sense as a private occupation. You can be an avid reader of Enid Blyton, and if you don’t want anyone to know it doesn’t matter. You can be an expert at tasting unusual chocolate from around the world, and nobody needs to know. But you cannot be a GP, a Doctor, and keep it as something that is purely private. You cannot volunteer for the local lifeboat crew and hope nobody else in the community would know. It doesn’t work like that.
And what Jesus is saying is that following him is in that category that makes no sense as a purely private endeavour. We need to see it as nonsense that we might try and keep it to ourselves.
Public faith.
3. Prophecy fulfilled
And third, following Jesus is about prophecy fulfilled. Prophecy fulfilled.
Actually, not just the prophets. The law and the prophets he says in verse 17. Which is code for the whole Old Testament. Don’t think, says Jesus, that I came to tear up the Old Testament half of the Bible and start again. I didn’t. I came to bring it to fulfilment.
The Old Testament is the half of our Bibles that was written before Jesus. In it, God made himself known. Through his dealings with his people, through the laws he gave, through the kings he appointed, in lots of different ways, he showed us himself, and he showed us his plan to bless the world.
But it is all forward-looking. It’s an incomplete book. The Old Testament ends with many things that it hoped for that hadn’t come yet. Not least, a promised king who would bring about all the wonderful things God had promised. That king would be a Messiah, or a Christ, which just means an anointed king.
And then Jesus arrives, and he says he that he’s brought about everything that the Old Testament looked forward to. If the Old Testament were like a glass meant to be filled with water, he’s filled it up. If the Old Testament were a picture for a child to colour in, he’s coloured it. He’s joined the dots. He’s put it into 3D and HD. He’s brought it to life.
Which means that we still need the Old Testament. It’s still the word of God. But we don’t read it as if we were Jews living before the time of Christ. We read it in glorious Technicolor, because Jesus has fulfilled it.
And in the rest of Matthew chapter 5, Jesus will show us what this looks like. He’ll take the commandments – do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not lie, do not retaliate –and he’ll show us how he has transformed them into a glorious full colour way of life. A way of life he lived himself.
Jesus hasn’t torn up what’s gone before and started from scratch. He’s fulfilled the Old Testament. Following Jesus is about prophecy fulfilled.
In Scotland, there is a football club called Glasgow Rangers. There was last year as well, but it’s a different club. The old one had had a distinguished run at the top of the game, in the top division for years. But everything well apart and went wrong and they went bankrupt. So it is that the club was torn up and started again. The club now trading as Glasgow Rangers is not the same as the old one. This club had to start at the begin, at the bottom of the league, and work their way up from there.
There are times when we wish that Jesus was like this. We like the idea of following him, but we find the Old Testament difficult or hard to understand. So we wish that he could be the new broom that sweeps clean. But he won’t let us follow him so cheaply. Following him will sometime mean he says things to us that we don’t like. We can’t put him in a box. To sign up to follow Jesus is to sign up to have him in charge, even if that turns out to mean things we don’t like or understand.
Prophecy fulfilled
Conclusion
So, let’s take a step back and look at life from an altitude of 24 miles.
What does following Jesus look like?
If we were to follow this Jesus, what would it entail?
Promises first. It’s not first and foremost about the things we do for him. It’s about what he’s already done for us, and about God’s promised blessings.
Public faith. We can’t follow him in private or in secret. He wants to transform every area of life, and then to use us to transform society.
Prophecy fulfilled. He’s the one the Old Testament looked for. So we get to follow the one true God and to enjoy all that he’s planned for this world, and the whole Bible tells us about that plan and about Jesus at the heart of it.
It’s an exhilarating view.