If you're going to build a house, you need a good foundation. Many are the houses now suffering from cracking, or even severe subsidence, because the foundations weren't thought out properly in the first place. Whatever you think of Jesus, he did teach some really good foundational life truths. Even a lot of atheists acknowledge that he was a great teacher, so it's worth considering what he had to say to prevent cracks appearing in our lives.
Reading through Luke's Gospel, we get to a major teaching session in chapter 6, verses 20 - 49. This is probably one example of many such occasions; the similar passage in Matthew's Gospel (chapters 5 - 7) might recount a separate event or provide a different emphasis on the same one. Either way, this passage gives an important insight into Jesus' teaching and, more importantly, tells us how we should live. Someone recently said to me that if we lived like that it would be life-changing, and that's the point, isn't it? It's great teaching, but only has any effect if we live it.
In this chapter we read what Jesus had to say about treating other people and being honest about ourselves. He starts, however, by telling us that being blessed isn't based on seeking material security. Yes, if we have that we are blessed, but only short-term, while we have it; that isn't eternal blessing though. Jesus had come for the poor, hungry, sad and rejected; he was going to provide great blessing for people like this if they followed him.
He then turned his attention to personal relationships. The bottom line, he told the crowd was to treat everyone as we would want to be treated ourselves - everyone, including our enemies. He adds elsewhere (e.g. Luke 17:4) that we should even forgive those who treat us badly. There are times when we have to stand up for what is right and oppose evil, but we should never get into judging and persecuting other people. In fact, he continued, we should spend more time on making sure that our own lives were being lived right than criticising others for their behaviour. Only when our lives are properly ordered do we have a right to speak into those of others.
Jesus taught great foundational truths that would change the world if we all live by them, and he gave us the power to do that through his death and resurrection.
Jesus finished this address to the crowd by warning them that listening would get them nowhere if they didn't do what he said as well. This sermon was delivered farily early on in Jesus' ministry, laying a foundation of how to live before he went onto rather more challenging and spiritual matters in the couple of years to come. He likened their response to a house built on a rock, if they acted on what he said, or sand if they didn't. Only a life with a firm foundation, based on Jesus teaching, was going to last.
Just imagine a world in which everyone was looking after the interests of everybody else and forgiving others all their wrongdoing, be it accidental or deliberate. This was revolutionary teaching and still is today, when our prevailing culture in the UK is of personal choice, individual achievement and market forces. Aren't we so inspired by the news items which report how someone has gone out of his or her way to better the lives of others?
What if everyone lived like that all of the time? It's definitely worth a try, but we all fail in trying permanently to be good. Our nature just doesn't allow it. Jesus knew that. That's why he didn't just tell us how to live, but died and rose from the dead in order to set us free from our sinful natures that prevent us from being really good people. Only if we allow Jesus to put our lives right and the Holy Spirit to have control over our them are able to get close to living out fully the lessons that Jesus taught in this passage of the Bible and elsewhere in his ministry. We end up frustrated if we try to do it on our own. When we let him help us, we can really start to put this foundation in place and begin to change the world.
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