The Sermon on the Mount: Spiritual Basic Training

The greatest sermon ever preached by anyone, ever, is recorded in Matthew 5 — 7. It is called the Sermon on the Mount. It was preached by Jesus early in His ministry. Somewhere along the shore of the Sea of Galillee, Jesus sat down on a mountain side with His disciples and the crowd that was following Him and taught them how to live in the Kingdom of God. Almost everything Jesus taught them was the opposite of how they were living at the time: “Love your enemies”, “Store your treasure in heaven, not on earth”, “Do not worry”, “Seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness”; plus the Beatitudes, which began with “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven” and ended with “Blessed are you if you are persecuted for righteousness, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven”. ‘Poor in spirit’?, ‘Persecuted’? These are not the words of an uplifting sermon.

But Jesus was not interested in making them feel good. He was preparing them for war. Unbeknownst to them, Jesus was instructing His disciples how to live on the battlefield where they would daily confront satan and all his demons. He was going to send them out like “sheep among wolves” with these marching orders: “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, and cast out demons” (Matthew 10: 8). The disciples would have to live Kingdom lives, or be destroyed by the enemy. The Sermon on the Mount was spiritual and even physical basic training.

Nothing has changed — the same is true for the followers of Jesus today. We are called to release and advance the same Kingdom of God Jesus described in His sermon, to push back the darkness, take back the territory, and defeat the power of evil. And that means war, which is what disposessing satan involves. To do this, Jesus has given us power and authority.

The scope of this power and authority is described in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus tells His disciples: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks the door will be opened” (Matthew 7: 7, 8 NIV).

I have written a lot about these verses and similar verses (for example, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you” in John 15: 7). Of course, we are instructed to ask from our position ‘in Christ’. It is understood (or should be) that we are asking for things that will advance His Kingdom, not ours.

Most fundamentally, these promises given by Jesus to ask, seek, and knock, are about power and authority.

I think about these promises this way:

Imagine you are a private or corporal in the Army. But you have this special anointing — you can go to the Commander of the Army at any time and ask him for anything — and whatever you ask for will be given to you. You have permission to knock on his office and the door will be open to you. That is power. That is authority. Of course, you can’t ask for whatever you want. For example, you cannot go to the General and say, “My drill sergeant is a real jerk. Please get rid of him”. You know that this power and authority is only given if you ask according to what is best for the Army, not just you.

When you are in the Army, you are trained to think about what is best for the mission, for the organization, and the person next to you. You are taught to put yourself last and all these other things first. When you ask for anything, you ask with this mindset. That is the heart of the Sermon on the Mount.

But what can you ask for? Whatever will allow you and your team to most effectively accomplish the mission of your unit and the Army as a whole. For example, can I ask for the healing of a fellow believer? Is it the General’s will for his soldiers to be sick, either physically or emotionally? Do I need the General’s permission to ask for them to be healed? He wants them to be fit to fight. You don’t have to ask the General if healing his men is his will. Of course it is.

Does the General want his troops to be infiltrated by the enemy who will sow discord and discontent among the ranks of the Army? You have power and authority to uncover the enemy and cast him out of the fighting units. You don’t need to ask the General if it is his will to do that. Of course it is his will to keep his men focused on the mission.

Jesus has described the mission for His troops in His Nazareth Manifesto, “Proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed” (Luke 4: 18 NIV). How do we accomplish this mission? By healing the sick, casting out demons, and sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom of God with power and authority.

What about the rest of the world — the unbelievers? How will the Kingdom of God advance? It will advance when the soldiers in the Army of Jesus share the Gospel with the unbelieving world, like the disciples shared it in Acts. When the Gospel was effective it was always accompanied with power — the power to heal and cast out demons.

We are called to bring the Light into the darkness. We will invade the kingdom of the world, which is satan’s kingdom. He will fight tooth and nail resisting us; there will be casualties. Some of us will die. But, in the end, we will be victorious. As we enter the war, we do not need to ask the General, “Is it your will that this person be healed or delivered from demonic oppression?” He has already made his will known to us, He has given us our marching orders. It is up to us to obey. And we do not fight alone. He is with us, always.

Paul writes:

“My beloved ones, I have saved these most important truths for last. Be supernaturally infused with strength through your life-union with the Lord Jesus. Stand victorious with the force of His explosive power flowing in and through you. Put on God’s complete set of armor provided for us, so that you will be protected as you fight against the evil strategies of the accuser. Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods that hold this dark world in bondage. Because of this, you must wear all the armor that God provides so you’re protected as you confront the slanderer, for you are destined for all things and will rise victorious” (Ephesians 6: 11 — 13 TPT).

Who wears armor? Soldiers in an army! We are Jesus’ soldiers, anointed with His power and authority to defeat the power of satan and evil. To do that we have to go back to the beginning — to the basic training given to us by Jesus. Back to the Sermon on the Mount. Only by following these instructions to the letter will we gain the victory. We cannot fight the enemy in our own power, by following our own instincts, or relying on our own experience. As the saying goes, “It is His way or the highway”. And that ‘highway’ is the broad road, and we all know where that leads!

Jesus fights with us. After all, in the Sermon on the Mount we are instructed to pray, “But deliver us from the evil one”. And we know who that is!