How to Live a More Blessed Life According to the Greatest Sermon Ever Told

By Susan Popovic

Why Everyone Must Know the Sermon on the Mount:

One of the greatest speeches ever given serves as a blueprint for the development of personal integrity, which is the starting point of creating an environment that provides equality and fair treatment of all.

Christ's indisputable classic sermon offers penetrating words and demands action from Christians and non-Christians to stamp out a malaise of poverty and injustice. When the two powerful chapters recorded in the Book of Matthew are truly comprehended, they will move the reader out of their comfort zone, and prompt them to start making small steps to make changes to help others wherever they find themselves.

Jesus Christ's first public preaching in the synagogue declared that His arrival brought hope to all: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18 NKJ).

To become an agent of change, we must begin with ourselves. In order to allow God's love to transform the hatred that we may feel toward someone, it involves unlearning the negative traits that were absorbed over the years; just like the blind man who begged Jesus to see, we too need to recognize that our own vision may be impaired, and we need to abandon the old biases and old way of doing things. Absorbing the learning is necessary until it becomes part of your character.

Unfortunately, the transforming process appears to be weak for some Christians, and some live in a manner that is not very different from their unbelieving neighbor; their lives are inconsistent with the righteous principles found in the sermon. We need to be different from our unbelieving neighbors and thus embody the salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). A life that is not transformed does not possess the saltiness that would differentiate it from others, nor is it able to be a light in the darkness. The sermon should demand a change in our behavior and challenge our convictions as to what is happening in the world around us. We need to be the "salt and light" in the world where there is much darkness to recognize that in order to inherit the eternal kingdom of heaven and enjoy a good life on earth, we must be concerned about providing a good life for others.

What would the world look like if we really did follow Jesus's teachings and combined our efforts and resources to help others? Jesus warns against those who are just listeners and who do not adhere to His teachings: "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:13-14).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886853308

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How to Live a More Blessed Life According to the Greatest Sermon Ever Told

Susan Popovic

ISBN 979-8-88685-329-2 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88685-330-8 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Susan Popovic

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Matthew Chapter 5

Matthew Chapter 6

Matthew Chapter 7

Concluding Remarks

About the Author

Socrates, the Greek philosopher, states the importance of examining your life in order to know yourself. Upon hearing this your immediate response would be that you already know everything that there is to know about yourself …everything except why you have this feeling that things are just not right, but you cannot pinpoint what it is. These feelings are normal regardless how spiritually strong you are. A self-introspection using the probing questions in this guide will help you dig into your soul to learn more about you than what is on the surface and explain the emotions you may be feeling. This process will put you on a path to help you discover God's will for your life.

The Sermon on the Mount begins with Jesus going up on a mountain in a way that Moses went up on Mount Sinai. Imagine sitting at the feet of Jesus as He tells this famous Sermon; identify yourself with the stories by asking, What message are Christ's words conveying to me personally and can they be applied in my own life?

In the same manner that the Ten Commandments serve as a guide to how people should live in order to be in a covenant relationship with God. Jesus's powerful sermon also serves as a guide of how His followers should live to be in a relationship with Him.

The central theme of the sermon is an invitation for people to examine their hearts and to devote themselves to the love of God and love of neighbor even if the neighbor is difficult to love. Jesus wants His followers to practice higher righteousness which should act as a guide for our character.

The sermon reveals God's presence through—the good treatment offered to a human being is equally offered to God, for Jesus says: Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me (Matthew 25:40 NIV).

Instead of storing up treasures on earth and filling our homes with trinkets that our family members will eventually throw out or sell at estate sales when they inherit them, "lay up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal" (6:20). We should invest our treasures which consist of our wealth, time, and other resources to further grow God's Kingdom, His Church; investing in people since all are made in the image of God and every person is to be viewed as someone very valuable. The early Church Fathers never viewed people as depraved or doomed from the womb as some heresies teach. God sees humanity as good even after the Fall found in Genesis chapters 1-3. Just as the blind man begged Jesus to see (Mark 10:46–52), we must pray for God to help us see and align our vision with His so that we could see people as He sees them and not what we assume them to be. Are you able to recognize whether your own vision is slightly impaired and could use improvement?

Jesus begins His Sermon by telling of the blessings involved when we live