Nineteenth-century missionaries left safe homes in England or Holland, and at the ends of the earth met disease, prison camps and their children’s graves, along with the question of whether God really cares for the faithful. From that uncomfortable observation the sermon moves into the eight beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), so easily turned into a checklist of demands or a spiritual visa application. The preacher shows that the key to the whole passage is its final line, three words that change the meaning of everything before them. Listen if your Christian life has ever felt disappointing.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- Matthew tells of the baptism, forty days in the wilderness and teaching on the mountain in a way that echoes Israel's story and Moses on Sinai. What do you think he wanted to say about Jesus through this?
- The Sermon on the Mount was heard mainly by the disciples, but Matthew wrote it down for persecuted Christians in Syria in the late first century. How might each group have heard the Beatitudes?
- The speaker compared treating the Beatitudes as a checklist of requirements to filling out an Australian visa form. Why does that approach clash with the grace our salvation comes from?
- The key to the Beatitudes is the phrase "because of me" (Matthew 5:11). How does it change the way you understand poverty, meekness, mercy or peacemaking?
- When your Christian life feels disappointing because faithfulness to God does not bring the reward you expected, what helps you look at it from the perspective of eternity?
- Christians in Cairo risk rejection by their families, while we might at most be called fools. Where might your faithfulness to Jesus cost you something this week, and how do you plan to stay faithful?
