Matt Chandler - Character and Influence

Well, good morning! If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. We’re going to be in Matthew chapter five. Over the next six weeks in our «Citizens and Strangers» series on the kingdom of God, we will shift our emphasis from discussing what the kingdom is and who the King of the kingdom is to the implications for the citizens of that kingdom. Our plan is to dive into the Sermon on the Mount, which is ambitious; you could spend twelve, fourteen, or even thirty weeks on it! We’re going to pack a lot into each of these weeks. Just a heads-up: the Sermon on the Mount will serve as a spiritual mirror. Some things you see will be pleasant, while others may not be. However, we are confident that the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ rests upon us, regardless of what we see in that mirror. Are you with me?

To summarize the next six weeks, I will quote Dr. Thomas Schreiner. Here’s what he says: «Disciples have a distinct profile in contrast to the world; they admit that they are poor in spirit, they are peacemakers and merciful, they endure persecution, they do not hate those who mistreat them, they are not marked by lust and the abuse of women, they love their enemies, they do not practice religion for the praise of others, they trust God for their physical needs, and they do not judge others. They communicate their difference from the world and shine as witnesses in a dark world.» So if I could summarize six weeks, there it is. But you don’t get off that easily; we’re going to dive in!

Not long after my conversion to Christianity, I had a profound experience of the grace of Jesus Christ and gained an understanding of who Jesus was. I wanted a relationship with Him! I wanted my friends to know this as well. I loved what I had experienced—the freedom I felt—and wanted my friends to share in it. I would invite them over, invite Jimmy, invite Jennifer Devore, invite my friends from the team, and we would go to church. Yet, instead of hearing the gospel, they were met with what I’ll call moralism. I just wanted them to hear about Jesus, but instead, they heard about not having sex. I wanted them to learn about Jesus, but they heard that they shouldn’t party. I would get them there, and they would hear about this or how that was wrong. This experience made it difficult for me to trust the church to introduce my friends to Jesus Christ. It literally created a barrier between me and the church for a long time. In fact, if it weren’t for Steve Hard down in Dallas, I don’t know that I would be a pastor. I was content doing ministry outside the walls of the church because of the issue with moralism. Does that resonate with anyone else? I experienced that, and I felt it—I understand.

Yet, there’s a difference between moralism and morality. Let me clarify that. Moralism is any teaching that suggests you must conform to certain behaviors to be loved and accepted by God. It’s a checklist mentality that says, «If you behave this way, God will bless you.» That is moralism! Listen to me: God hates that—it’s nonsense. So if you come from a background that teaches you must behave a specific way to be loved and accepted by God, and that raises hostility toward God because you’ve fallen short of that list, I’m telling you— you have not heard the good news correctly. We are not moralists, but we do believe in morality.

Now, here’s what I mean by morality: it is being transformed by the Spirit’s power to align with God’s revealed will for human flourishing. Christianity has a moral component that is connected to God’s design for us, which we read about throughout the Bible. In passages like, «You have made known to me the path of life,» this is David saying, «The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.» There is a moral aspect to our design as human beings that when we align with the path of life, those boundaries—pleasant places—actually lead to human flourishing in ways that do not, and I would argue cannot, exist outside of those boundaries. There are hints and shadows of this from creation on in the Bible. I want to highlight some of them before we dive into Matthew 5. Even in creation, we see shadows of the morality that God has built into us as human beings. Genesis 1:27–28 states, «So God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds.'»