He Taught Them Saying: A Sermon Series Based on the Sermon on the Mount

By Hickman M. Johnson

He Taught Them Saying is a sermon series based on the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount was not preached to the masses but to the twelve—those whom Jesus called to follow him. It remains the most significant body of ethical teachings found in the Gospels.

Hickman M. Johnson, a longtime pastor, explores the savior’s sermon in detail in this book, noting that Matthew introduced us to this event by saying: “And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying …” (Matthew 5:1–2 KJV).

The disciples pondered the meaning of his words, grappling with their significance to this new life. They and we will ask questions like:

What does it mean to be Christian?

How are we Christians to live?

How are we to reflect Christ in our lives?

If the Ten Commandments established the moral norm for ancient Israel, then the Sermon on the Mount sets the ethical standard for Christian believers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664256033

Hickman M. Johnson

Hickman M. Johnson is a graduate of Tennessee State University (B.S.), Morehouse School of Religion, The Interdenominational Theological Center (M.Div.), Mississippi College (M.A.), and Emory University (D.Min.). He was awarded the honorary doctorate (D.D.) from Mississippi Baptist Seminary. He has served as pastor of the historic Farish Street Baptist Church, Jackson, Mississippi, since 1968. He formerly served as chaplain, Tougaloo College, academic dean, and president of Mississippi Baptist Seminary. He is married, has five daughters, and eight grandchildren. He is also the author of Farewell My Friends.

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Author of Farewell, My Friends

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5602-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5601-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5603-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022901499

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/24/2022

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Blessed Are the Poor

2 Mercy and Peace—The Blessed Life

3 Blessed Are the Persecuted

4 The Salt of the Earth: A Tribute to Rosa Parks

5 You Are the Light of the World

6 The Law and Righteousness

7 A New Law

8 Adultery and the New Law

9 Marriage and Divorce

10 Oath and the New Law

11 Revenge and the New Law

12 Loving Our Enemies

13 The Hidden Righteousness

14 Secret Prayer and a Hidden Room

15 Fasting: The Way of Self-Control

16 Earthly and Heavenly Treasure

17 Worry and the Kingdom of God

18 Judging: A Dangerous Pastime

19 The Secret to Success

20 The Golden Rule

21 The Narrow Gate and Beyond

22 Warning against False Prophets

23 The Conclusion

Endnotes

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the sacred memory of those whose charge it was to faithfully divide the word of truth. Many of these men—mentors, teachers, and friends—have already crossed the bar that separates time from eternity. I shall cherish the days and years we spent together. Their memory has filled the emptiness of my nights and brightened the morning of my struggles. To them, I say, Thanks.

FOREWORD

The Sermon on the Mount is believed by many biblical scholars to be the heart of the ethical teachings of Jesus and perhaps is the most popular passage in the Gospels. It certainly, in my thinking, is one of the most significant and pivotal pericopes in the New Testament. To study these ethical, moral, and theological teachings and principles of Jesus is to focus on God’s righteousness, which exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. For Matthew, the principles and teachings of Jesus were so profound and fresh that the people enthusiastically declared that Jesus taught with authority that exceeded the teachings of the scribes (Matthew 7:29).

Because of the importance and profundity of the Sermon on the Mount, Dr. Hickman Johnson, a pastor for more than fifty years, has developed from this passage of scripture, twenty-three compelling and cogent sermons that have both exegetical and practical gems for both clergy and laity. Dr. Johnson understands clearly that Matthew chapters 5 through 7 speak to almost every aspect of contemporary life. In chapter 23 of his book, Pastor Johnson carefully delineated these aspects of contemporary living: loving, hating, war, peace, conflict, greed, marriage, divorce, worry, success, failure, fortune, poverty, sickness, wholeness, law, grace, hope, despair, hell, heaven, prayer, piety, mercy, meekness, honor, deceit, evil, good, murder, slander, judging, forgiving, righteousness, sin, salvation, serving, gentleness, and haughtiness.

These twenty-three elegantly written sermons are a must read for clergy and laity because they are God-grounded, Christ-centered, biblically based, doctrinally sound, and life-centered.

Julius R. Scruggs, Pastor Emeritus

First Missionary Baptist Church

Huntsville, Alabama

Former president

National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.

PREFACE

Black preaching is a child of the oral tradition. Born at a time when it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, the black preacher memorized the stories of the Old Testament and repeated them with passion, contemporized by the black experience. The storyteller, of what E. Franklin Frazier has called, the invisible institution,¹ told his hearers to keep the faith: troubles don’t last always and, God’s gonna move his hands! Even though only faint memories of the slave preacher have survived, black preaching, as oral tradition, is still vibrant and alive. Just a few black preachers, past and present, have published their sermons. Conscious that only the most gifted writer can capture on a page the idiom and spirit that are at the heart of black preaching, they prefer to limit preaching to the spoken word.

I have been preaching for over a half century and I dare say that I am not the first preacher to acknowledge that reading the written manuscript seldom stirs the imagination, as does the spoken word. However, there were those times I wished for the written word if only to safeguard that which was spoken. But it was not to be.

Is there something peculiar to black preaching that makes it best spoken? There are those who will point to the whooping. Martha Simmons says of whooping, This style of preaching is awesomely powerful and beautiful when performed by persons naturally fluent in the idiom.² Not every preacher is fluent in the idiom.³ In fact, the best of black preaching does not rely on whooping but the shared experience of suffering. Does the preacher speak to the experiences of those who hear? Is there healing in the preacher’s words?

It was W. Herbert Brewster, in an annual session of the National Baptist Convention, who said to the agreement of the audience: I’m glad I got my burning before I got my learning. In those few words, Brewster had spoken eloquently not only to the tension between faith and reason, but also between calling and training. A seminary-trained clergy, even in the twenty-first century, is an anomaly. When I was called to the pulpit of Farish Street Baptist Church, there was only one other black Baptist pastor in the entire city of Jackson who held a graduate seminary degree. Fifty-three years later, while the number has increased, most black churches are still led by pastors who have no seminary training. This may explain why few books are written by black preachers—especially books of sermons. It would be naïve of me to suggest that the lack of seminary training alone accounts for the absence of published writings among black clergy. I have discovered that few, if any, publishers are interested in publishing a book where there is a limited market. This also holds true for the denominational publishing houses. Few preachers will achieve the success of Rick Warren and T. D. Jakes. But every preacher has a story to tell—a word that is the healing balm for fellow sufferers.

The throngs that still fill church pews at eleven o’clock on Sunday have come to hear the preacher. They need to hear a word from God. They believe that the person who stands behind the sacred desk is called of God to speak a word to those who are sin stained and burden bound.

The sermons included in this work were first preached at Farish Street Baptist Church. Since that first time, I have returned to them, rereading and editing them to share with others. As the fiftieth anniversary of my pastorate approached, this task took on more urgency. I thought that this book of sermons might serve as a commemorative volume—a tribute not only to the preached word but also to the people who listened with deference to a flawed messenger, without rejecting the message. However urgent was the task, this preacher did not complete the edits in time for the fiftieth anniversary. However, I never abandoned the goal of finishing the manuscript for publication.

When I accepted the pastorate of this historic church on that August day in 1968, I never imagined that our union would last this long. Perhaps five years but not more than ten. Mine is now the longest tenure of any of the former pastors blessed to serve this historic congregation. Among my many responsibilities as pastor, the one that I approach with the greatest timidity is preaching. God called me to preach. This I believe! Nevertheless, the years of training, study, reading, and meditation have not eased my fears as I approach this task. I know what the preacher of my youth meant when he said: If God has called you, then God will prepare you. To be prepared by God is the desire and prayer of every serious preacher. Further, I have come to realize that there is no greater privilege accorded those who preach, than that the people still gather to hear the preacher. Moreover, I firmly believe that if God should withdraw himself, then preaching becomes but a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1 KJV).

In its 128 years of existence, Farish Street Baptist Church has had only six pastors. That is remarkable for an African American congregation. Long tenures are often contentious, marked by splits, schisms, and fissions. Pastors are frequently asked to resign, and deacons are discharged. But in the 128 years, Farish Street Baptist Church has never removed a pastor nor set aside a deacon. As with any congregations, there have been disagreements but no fights. The membership has been a constant encouragement to this pastor. He could not have asked for more.

—Hickman M. Johnson

January 2022

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible and from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Library of Congress Control Number:

Printed in the United States of America.

INTRODUCTION

I do not recall what led me to preach this sermon series. Perhaps, this sermon series, like every sermon series, found its life in the mystical encounter that exists between the preacher and the Word. As a seminary student, I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship.⁴ In part 2, Bonhoeffer included a sermon series from the Sermon on the Mount. I never forgot this book or the author’s thoroughgoing exposition of the biblical passages. As I prepared for this sermon series, I reread Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. For weeks, I entered into a conversation with the scholar, agreeing with him at points and disagreeing with him at other points. I asked myself, If Bonhoeffer were to preach this sermon today, what would he say to Farish Street Baptist Church? His language was that of the classroom and not the African American pulpit.

However, I knew that this was a message that I had to deliver, and so I began the series. The congregation was eager to hear the next installment. Through the series I sought to answer some of the perplexing questions that many of us had wrestled with and to raise other questions, where none had existed before the series.

Matthew chapters 5 through 7 contain the body of Jesus’s teachings—teachings we have come to know as the Sermon on the Mount. It is easy to forget that Jesus was a preacher as well as a teacher. Mark reminds us of this fact when he writes: Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14 KJV). Mark places Jesus in the long line of prophetic witnesses. While our Lord accepted the designation rabbi and, indeed, subscribed to the rabbinical tradition: He sat down and opened his mouth and taught them (Matthew 5:2 KJV). He was also the prophetic preacher.

The Sermon on the Mount was addressed to the disciples and not to the multitudes. The world heard his words, but Jesus’s words were intended for those whom he had called to follow—the disciples. If they hear and heed, then they shall become kingdom people.

Jesus preached, Repent: for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17 KJV). His advent signaled the coming of the new eon. In Jesus, the eschaton has been dislocated, and the future has dawned. This dawning is what C. H. Dodd has called realized eschatology.⁵ Given that this new reality has dawned, then how are believers to behave? The Sermon on the Mount seeks to answer that question and the consequences of being kingdom people or, in the words of Bonhoeffer, The cost of discipleship.

What does it mean to be Christian? How are Christians to live in a non-Christian society? For those who are serious searchers, the Sermon on the Mount is the mine where gold is hidden.

Pastors, who are often asked to assist parishioners navigate the turbulent waters of social issues—infidelity, divorce, same-sex marriage, abortion, war, poverty, and racism—may ask the question: What does the Bible teach? For the person whose reading of the Bible is limited to a daily devotional passage, the pastor’s answers may leave the person confused and speechless. Thus the Sermon on the Mount.

My first job after seminary was teaching a course in moral philosophy to junior and senior college students. In one class session, I asked the question: What ethical standard regulates your conduct? There were mixed responses: the Ten Commandments, the Bible, conscience, and the Golden Rule. Almost every student admitted that he or she possessed a moral compass—a moral compass passed on to them by family or church.

After discussing these moral compasses, they conceded that conscience could be an unreliable guide—unreliable because it can be trained and conditioned. To illustrate this, consider two students faced with the same moral choice. These two students may make different decisions when the choice is dependent on conscience. Identical behavior is predicted only when the moral compass is a force—law or rule—regulating behavior, which law or principle is unambiguous and the reward or punishment equally compelling. The believer will be confronted by many moral choices, and if his or her behavior is to be consistent with the will of God, then that behavior must be guided by a new normative, which is both unambiguous and compelling.

I am convinced that the Sermon on the Mount is the most significant body of ethical teachings found in the Gospels. If the Decalogue (The Ten Commandments) established the moral norm for ancient Israel, then the Sermon on the Mount sets the ethical standard for Christian believers. If you or I were given only three chapters of the Bible to read and told that should we obey its teachings, we would live the Christian life, which three chapters would they be? I would suggest chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the Gospel of Matthew (the Sermon on the Mount). I think Bonhoeffer might agree with this conclusion.

Within these three chapters of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus speaks to every condition—the sacred, the mundane, the holy, and the secular. A few of the topics may not appear appropriate for Sunday morning worship. Too earthy! Too worldly! But possessing a faith that is relevant has been and remains the challenge facing believers both in the primitive and modern church. I hope that you will find what follows helpful and practical to attaining that relevant faith.

1

BLESSED ARE THE POOR

And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:1–2 KJV)

The Sermon on the Mount has often been called the Christian’s manifesto—the new law. This new law is issued without mediation from the Lawgiver himself. Like Moses of old, he ascends a mountain, and from his mouth words are spoken that the chosen—the second Israel—will soon discover are life giving.

Matthew introduces us to this event by saying: And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying … (Matthew 5:1–2 KJV).

Jesus took the disciples apart from the crowd and taught them. Like the twelve, we too need time with the Teacher; time to understand the stringent demands this new life will make on us; time to ask the questions that only the Teacher can answer. Questions like: What does it mean to be Christian? How are we Christians to live? How are we to reflect Christ in our lives?

At times, the answers to these and other questions will prove elusive. We search the scripture expecting to find within its pages the answers to those questions that haunt us. We will turn to the professional religionists, hoping to hear from them the answers to the questions that confuse us. What is sin? What is the difference between sin and sins? By the way, the church seldom speaks of sin. It does talk about taboos, deviant behavior, sickness, and unacceptable conduct—but not sin! But what does God expect of us believers? How should we live? How should we behave? Turn to the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount is intended for believers—those who are saved! Therefore, if I am searching for the path to salvation, then let me look elsewhere. Once it has been found, then the Sermon on the Mount is the answer to my question What are the demands on this new life? In other words, what is the cost of discipleship?

Chapter 5 of the Gospel of Matthew opens with these words: when Jesus saw the crowd, he went up the mountain (Matthew 5:1 KJV). When he saw the crowds—the multitudes—he went up the mountain—a hill—whose name is but a footnote to the passing centuries. There he sat down in the rabbinical tradition. This was not the itinerate preacher who stood tall on some grassy mound to preach to the multitudes who had followed him. No, this was the rabbi who sat down and surrounded himself with his very own students. His disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and began to speak. These were the ones whom he had handpicked, calling them to follow him, to walk in his footsteps. Today, we, the church, are the called-out, the handpicked of Christ. We are called to follow Christ, to walk in his footsteps. We are the ones to whom he speaks. Listen to his words!

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children