Hey everybody. Welcome back to Friday's edition of The Daily Bible Podcast. Yeah, welcome back and I guess welcome back to me again. Welcome back to you as well, pastor Mark's back because Pastor Rod is in the midst of a class right now. He's pursuing a doctorate degree. Some of you guys know that, maybe you don't. He's pursuing his demon n at Southern Seminary, and so he is. With a professor and his other students right now, digitally, at least online taking that class. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Yeah. It's well worth his time to, to continue to study God's word in that setting and in that way it is a, it's a very valuable use of his time. Absolutely. And he's pursuing a degree in biblical counseling, so it's one of the things that's advantage advantageous about a doctor of ministry is. Practical degree, so a PhD can be helpful as well. I'm not saying it's not, but a PhD is largely considered an academic degree and so you get a lot of people pursuing a PhD who are gonna be, who are gonna find themselves in the academy. The doctor of ministry is more of a practical professional degree for those that are doing ministry. And so he's pursuing a doctor of ministry in biblical counseling and so I'm excited to see the fruit that's born outta that. Yeah, that'll be great. And I expect much fruit to come from it. Same. Same. Well, it is my wife's birthday, so happy birthday, Amanda. Yeah. Happy birthday, Amanda. Yeah. She's not here. She's in California with her mom and sister. And Kelly, our sister-in-law, who also goes to our church. They're out there having just a ladies' weekend and, but it's her birthday. I'm thankful for I lover. So, happy birthday, Amanda. And you're holding down the fort? I'm holding down the fort. Yep. Yep. How's that going? It's going well so far. We're only like a 12 hours into it, so, so far. House is still standing. Dog's still alive. Kids got to school today. Yeah. That's a victory. That's a victory. Lemme put you on the spot. Yeah. Since it's your wife's birthday, why don't you tell us what your three favorite things about your wife are? Sure. Yeah. I may end up doing more, but number one, I just love being with her. She is a person I choose to spend time with every single time. 10 outta 10 times, I'm gonna choose my wife. Even over Pastor Rod. Yeah. And even over you, pastor Mark. Yeah. As much as that hurts, I think it's probably a good thing. I'm glad that we see eye to eye on that. What about grok? Still my wife. Okay. Okay. Good. Okay, just checking. That was just a tense. So I love being a router. It's it is never laborious to be with my wife, which is a good thing. Right. And hopefully I don't need to state that, but it's true. Mm-hmm. And then the second thing is our relationship is, it's really built on good communication. And I love that about us too. We go on walks probably twice a week, Saturdays and Mondays, and just talk with each other on those walks. And we talk about our kids, we talk about our plans. We talk about the future, we talk about our marriage. And and that's so good because there's substance and we're not just putting our relationship on autopilot and waking up one day down the road. Going, oh man. How do we relate with each other now that our kids are raised and outta the house? And then the third thing and yeah, this is not in chronological order because this is super important. She loves the Lord. She challenged me in my walk. She's wise. She's yeah, just courageous in her faith, she'll do things that are out of her comfort zone to allow God to use her in ways that she never thought maybe he would. And so I love that about her. And she's super hot too, so, at least from my point of view, which. I, so is that number four on the list or So, yeah. The college students, when I was a college pastor, they would be like, pastor pj, is it okay for me to put that, I want my future spouse to be attractive? And you answered, no, never. Right? That's un allowed. It's totally fleshy for you to want to be attracted to your future spouse. No, of course you should want be attracted to your future spouse. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Pastor Rod he has this theory that attraction can be cultivated. And while I understand where he comes from. I think that initial draw to somebody has to be there. There's gotta be some physical attraction there that causes you to go, I wanna go talk to that person. Now I'm sure we have the exceptions to the rule that are out there in the church. And you're, you may already be writing the email right now. I'm not saying it never happens. I'm just saying generally speaking, physical traction precedes every other. Element of that, that pursuit of somebody Yeah. Can I agree with both of you if that's allowed? You can, yeah. As long as you agree more with me. I think you're absolutely right. I think it is something. That is initially present, but it's also something that I think can and should be cultivated throughout a marriage just in a similar way that you can destroy it and do things to ruin it over time. Yeah. Yeah. So I have to agree with both of you. Fair enough. Fair enough. That is a very political middle of the road answer there. Yeah. So very strategic. It's 'cause you're running for office. You want both of our votes? That's right. We'll vote for you. Okay, good. Well, let's jump into our DBR. We got a big one today. We are tackling. Yeah. How are we gonna get through this? The Sermon on the Mount? Yeah. And that's just the thing, like, we're not gonna hit all the details in this. We can't, we don't. This isn't a four hour, five hour podcast and you don't want it to be and neither do we 'cause we've got other things to do too. But the Sermon on the Mount, last time we talked about the sermon on the plane from Luke's Gospel this is different. This is obviously Mount versus plain. Those are different. Geography's probably a long time ago for a lot of us, myself included, but I remembered that man a mount is a hill and a plane is a flat knot hill. Jesus, it looks like taught similar themes multiple times, and that makes sense. If he was an itinerant preacher and teacher, which he was, he would travel around to different areas, he would. Probably cover a lot of the same things when he would go to various areas. We get more though in Matthew's account. Certainly. The Sermon on the Mount boils down to, and there's different views of this but I think by and large what the Sermon on the Mount is calling us to is kingdom ethics. He's calling us to, and he says as much in Matthew five 20, a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, which the intent there was for his heroes to say, how is that even possible? Mm-hmm. How can I be more righteous than the Pharisees? Because as much as the Pharisees are the bad guys when we read the Bible in this time as Jesus is speaking to this audience, they didn't look at them as the bad guys. They looked at them as the ones that were more righteous than anybody else around. Yeah, that's right. So Jesus is going to say, this is what a righteousness that exceeds their righteousness looks like. And that's really the Sermon on the Mount. And so a lot of it is, these are kingdom ethics. Now, that said, that doesn't mean that our approach is to say, hey, you know what? I can't do this. So this is just the ideal, but it's not for me. There's a lot here for us to apply as we read through it. Yeah, and there's some theologians who will go as far as saying, this is a bunch of things that don't apply to us. Now, this is laws and principles for the millennial kingdom. Right. Just as a standalone thing. And we wouldn't, we would certainly not say that, but there are people who will go as far as saying. Saying something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And certainly there's elements here, which I think he's alluding to and pointing to the millennial kingdom. Yes. Even the beatitudes. These are, and I mentioned this with yesterday's episode, is he's really pinning a picture of an upside down economy here. Mm-hmm. When he says, blessed are the poor in that word, blessed in the Greek is Rios. It's happy. Mm-hmm. Happier the poor for theirs is the kingdom that the poor people don't inherit kingdoms. Right. Right. A blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth again. There's another one. The meek don't inherit the earth. They're not the strong and the conquering do, at least in, in the present world. And so there's evidence here that this is talking about a world to come or at least a kingdom to come. But I would agree. I don't think the whole thing is about just the millennial kingdom. Yeah, absolutely. Let's look at one of these specifically. Yeah. Like what does it mean to be persecuted and how does that apply to us? Today here in North Texas. Yeah. Are we persecuted here? And is this promise for those who are persecuted something that applies to us? Or is this just for maybe the martyrs or maybe people in the missions field? Yeah, yeah, it's, I'm talking about this briefly on Sunday, and Peter's gonna bring us face to face with the concept of persecution as we continue in the study of the letter. And I think it's, can we experience persecution here in north Texas in our current. Context. Yes. There's varying levels of persecution all throughout the world and I would even go further to say, I think we're going to begin to experience a greater degree of persecution as time goes on. Yeah. And we're starting to see the initial waves hitting the shore, so to speak, of that persecution that's coming. In fact, the Supreme Court right now is entertaining a case against a Christian counselor in Colorado who was sued for trying to. Help a young person who is struggling with their gender identity and attraction to people of the same gender and try to point them towards Christ and say, this is not what's good. You need to follow Jesus. And so they've been sued saying, this is wrong. You can't do this. And now that's at the Supreme Court because it's become a matter of, is this free speech? But I think Dr. Moler was talking about this a few days ago and he was just saying, look, this is gonna have. Ramifications no matter what side the Supreme Court comes down on. But if the Supreme Court sides with the state of Colorado against this Christian counselor man, that all of a sudden takes what we believe and puts it in the crosshairs of people that if they wanna disagree with us, now there's a precedent that they can take us to court and say, Hey, you can't teach the Bible this way. So I, I think. Growing up, we always thought about persecution as something that happened somewhere else. Mm-hmm. But it might be coming here. And so would Matthew five 10 apply to us? Absolutely. As long as it's for righteousness sake that we're being persecuted. Yeah. And not for, that's a helpful distinction. Yeah. Not just for being jerks. Yeah. Right. We're not gonna get blessings for that and we can. Wrongly understand our just rude attitude or aggressive manner to be persecution when it really isn't for the content, it's for for sure the means by which we, we say these things, so we have to be careful not to interpret that and understand that wrongly. Yeah. Yeah. In Matthew five and then six, he's gonna get into a series of things where he's gonna say, you've heard that it was said, but I say to you, in fact, that's a repeated ent. You can find that in your Bibles if you underline it or if you use log offs online. Maybe you can highlight it on there. But I think is worth noting that because this is significant and what the crowds are gonna respond to Jesus, they're gonna say, wow. He's teaching as one with authority, not like the scribes and the Pharisees, because the scribes and the Pharisees would always appeal to. Other voices and they would never say of scripture, well, you've heard it said this, but I say, and, mm-hmm. And add to scripture or modify scripture. But what we see in the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus doing just that. He said, you've heard it say that you shouldn't be angry, but I tell you man if you or that you shouldn't commit murder. But I tell you, if you're angry with your brother, you're guilty of that sin already because it's a matter of the heart. Same he talks about with lust and these other things. So, yeah. Jesus is going after these the heart of the issue, which is the heart, and he's gonna call them to this obedience. And that's one of the reasons why this kingdom ethic is saying you need a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees. 'cause the Pharisees were all about the external without dealing with the internal. Yeah. And it can be easy, even modern day Jews, you can move to neighborhoods that have Jewish people in them and they'll have little strings that connect. Oh yeah. Their houses to the grocery store so that they can go there and we can look at that and mock that and, I think rightly so we should identify that as perhaps an issue. Yeah. But I think we can also just look over there and say, oh, look at them. Look how silly. Mm-hmm. But what Jesus is calling us to is say, okay. This is what you've been told, but let's look at your heart. Mm-hmm. Let's examine what actually is motivating you and driving you. And I think we can see in all human hearts, but very evident in, in what we're seeing here is the check, the box attitude that we so easily get into. It's just like, oh, well if we have a string that connects the house to the grocery store, we're good to go. Right? But that's not what Jesus cares about. He cares about. Our hearts. He does. He does. And he cares about the integrity of mm-hmm. The person too. Because the other issue with the Pharisees was hypocrisy. And that's something that Jesus went hard after them, and he's gonna go after them hard. And in Matthew's gospel when we get to Matthew 23 and the woes the statements of woe and condemnation there. So he is been dealing with that a little bit with the anger and the lust and things, but then he's gonna get into that with regards to the outward expressions of. Of righteousness and he's gonna talk about giving, Hey, don't be like them when you give. Don't be like them when you pray. Don't be like them when they, when you fast. And what they would do is they would want everybody to notice what they're doing. Mm-hmm. Because they would want the applause of the world. And Jesus is saying, it's not about the esteem of the world, but the esteem of your father and your father who sees in secret will reward you in secret. And so Jesus is calling for this. This integrity that is not about being seen by other people. But saying, man, it, it really is about my, my, again, the heart, my heart posture before the Lord being fully devoted to him saying, I'm doing these things because I love the Lord. Again, kingdom ethics. It's not just let me avoid the big ticket items, but if I have small sins in my life, it's no big deal. And it's also not just about man. I'm doing this so other people look at me and think that I'm righteous. No, you're doing this for the acclaim of God, not the acclaim of men. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And you can look at like the end of chapter five and the section on Loving Your Enemies. And I think there's a really like convictional thing in there for me at least, which is he's talking about. How we should love our neighbors and we should also love our enemies and pray for them. And one of the things that Jesus says is, do not even the Gentiles do the same in regards to loving people who love them. And we can so easily. I find myself even doing this on occasion and saying like, what? Is different about a nice secular person who is a conservative and has a family and a Christian. What? What is different? Well, I say that rhetorically, I ask that question rhetorically. Of course there's many differences, but. Here's a really distinct difference. You're never gonna see that guy or that gal loving their enemy. Mm-hmm. And Jesus calls us to this new kingdom ethic that you're talking about, which is that we're to love our enemies. And that's what one of the things that will make us distinct from even the seemingly. American picket fence family that we may come across on a regular basis here in North Texas. Yeah, no, for sure. And the radical treatment of sin too is another thing. Mm-hmm. That the, if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it from you. If your hand causes, you sin, cut it off. Now he's not literally talking to do that, but he's saying we need to treat sin that radically. Yeah. We need to see it as such a danger to us that we've rooted out anywhere we find it in our lives. Let's talk. About what he says about judging in Matthew seven, because I continue to hear this, it's a common refrain from the world and people will often throw this back at Christians, they'll say, doesn't the Bible say thou shalt not judge? Number one let's address that. Does the Bible say thou shalt not judge? And then second, is that true? Should we not judge? What are your thoughts on that? I think we need to define what judgment is. Okay. What kind of judgment are we talking about here? Okay. Are we talking about. I, let me use a different word. Are we talking about discernment or are we talking about someone who condemned somebody to hell? Or are we talking about something? Something else? Because I think that helps us understand this, right? Are Christians called to just be completely und discerning? I don't think that is a biblical response, right? Are we called to be the one who condemns people to hell? With our gavel also something that is not our responsibility. So I think that's the first step, is understanding what exactly does it mean that what kind of judgment are we talking about? Yeah and I think while I agree with you, we're not condemning anyone to hell. I. Often what people are referring to when that, when they say, Hey, you don't judge me. You're not supposed to judge me. Doesn't the Bible even say, don't judge and look at Matthew seven, one Judge. Not that you not be judged. And yet oftentimes people are saying that because they're like, I don't want you to tell me that what I'm doing is wrong. And so the world will say, don't tell me that the person that I love, I can't love. Don't tell me that my sinful choices are sinful because. The Bible says, don't judge, and yet look at verse three. It says, why do you see the spec that's in your brother's eye? But do not notice the log that's in your own eye. Or how can you say, let me take the spec out of your eye when there's a log in your eye. But look at verse five, you hypocrite. He says this first, take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. So I think this is Jesus assuming we should judge. It's just we need to judge not hypocritically. This is keeping with the rest of what he's been talking about, about not doing things for external, not doing things for show, examining your own heart. And this is keeping with Galatians six when it says, brothers, you who are spiritual, restore the person caught in a sin or a transgression. In Galatians six, Paul says, but watch yourselves lest you also fall in this. I, would agree that I don't know how much Christians should be involved in judging unbelievers, specifically calling them, to forsake sin. You can't expect an unbeliever to act like a believer. Mm-hmm. But I think within the household of God, as long as we're not doing it hypocritically, I think the paradigm in the Bible is that we should judge. And so Christians shouldn't look at somebody else and be like, dude, don't judge me. 'cause the Bible says, don't judge no it doesn't. It just says, don't judge hypocritical. That's right. That's right. And I think that's, that answers the question because when that line is used, and when I say that question, I mean what is the actual judgment, the type of judgment that we're talking about here, when people use that line, judge, not that you be not judged, they're using that as a defensive mechanism. They're not looking at the context that follows this. Right. And we'll get. Maybe there in a second. But the golden rule, same thing. Very well known verse. Yep. But then the subsequent verse not so well known. Right. And really gives a lot of clarity and definition to, to this particular phrase that lots of people know. Yeah. Yeah. Right Before that though, I think it's worth hitting. He talks about our prayer lives. And we need to clarify this because otherwise we could take this and run with it and really misunderstand some things and find ourselves pretty disappointed in wondering what's wrong with me. Because Jesus says, ask and it will be given. Seek. And you will find and knock and it will be opened. Okay? So those are statements of promise. Ask. It's gonna be given, seek, and you will find knock and it will be opened. And then he doubles down in verse eight. He says, everyone who asks. Receives. The one who seeks, finds, the one who knocks it will be opened, and then he gives the example of a father and a son. He says, look, if you as earthly fathers know how to give good things to your children, when they ask how much more is your heavenly Father gonna give good things to you when you ask him? So I think the important thing for us here is to say we have to. Pay attention to the word good. Yes. And we don't get to define good. God does. So it's like when your kids come to you and they say Hey dad, I'm hungry. I want to eat a full bag of m and ms. Can I have a full bag of m and ms? They're asking, they're seeking, maybe they're knocking. 'cause you're behind a closed door. They're saying, I want a full bag of m and ms. You as the dad, you're gonna say, okay. I know what's good for my kids. What's good for 'em is not to have a full bag of m and ms, but the need that they're expressing, which is that they're hungry. I, as their father, I'm happy to meet that need, and so I'm gonna provide them with something that's good to meet the need of their hunger. It may not be the exact thing that they're asking for, but because you as the dad know better, you're gonna meet the need, and that need is still gonna be met, but it's gonna be met with. What you define to be good. And that's how God works with us too. Yeah. We'll go to God and say, God, I'm asking you for this. I'm seeking this. I'm knocking at heaven's door for this. And God will so often say, yes, I, I hear you, but I know what's ultimately good and what's right and what's best for you. So here's the need that you really have, and let me give you what's good to meet that need. Yeah. Let me ask a ridiculous question, but maybe it'll be helpful in clarifying, is it wrong to pray and ask God for a Ferrari? I can't say in every circumstance. No, because somebody could ask that with a thought in mind of this is specifically how I feel like I could use that for God's kingdom work. Yeah. And if that's true and you can, and God sees fit to, to say, yeah, I can see how you could use that for God's kingdom work. He could answer that prayer request and give you a Ferrari. But man there's a big gap between saying, God, I could use some transportation to get from point A to point B and saying, God, I need a Ferrari. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that, again, it goes back to the heart, right? This is all about what is the heart. Yeah. And, are you somebody who wants the good things that God defines as good? Maybe that is a Ferrari in some niche situation. Right? Right. Or are you somebody who wants what you define to be good? And I think even when we make those requests, we should be seeking a heart that genuinely thinks and desires what? God thinks is good, right? To be those requests. No, for sure. For sure. And the heart is really what it comes down to. And this is really where he wraps up the Sermon on the Mount when he talks about even the scariest passage in the Bible, right? Matthew 7 21 through 23, that they're gonna be those on that day that say, Lord, Lord. And they're gonna appeal to a lot of things they did for the Lord, but they're not gonna appeal to a relationship with him. They're not gonna have that love for him, that heart relationship with him and Jesus is gonna. Indict them for that and say, depart from me. I never knew you. we didn't have a relationship. And so that's what it's gonna come down to, even the two houses, right? There's those that hear the word and do it and the one that hears the word and doesn't do it the hearing and doing is part of the relationship. That's part of what it looks like to follow Part Christ. And so, that's so key to the, our future and our eternity is when we do that. I think so much about the sermon on the Mount is about the heart, and I think that's what Jesus is going after and saying, this is what you really, this is where the problem really lies. It's not on the external. It's in the internal and only God. Only Jesus. Only the act of salvation and being reborn can solve that problem. Absolutely. And. If you read these passages and you aren't astonished in some way, like the crowds were granted, we have the Holy Spirit, we're gonna read these things with different intuition, right? Different insight, right? But if we don't read these and we're not blown away, we're not amazed at what God is doing, I encourage you to go back and read it again. This is incredible stuff. All of scripture is of course, but. We should be astonished in a right way in a new covenant way about these incredible truths that are in here. Yeah. Yeah. 'cause again, just to, reiterate what we said towards the beginning of this, this is not something that Jesus is saying, Hey, this would be great, but you don't have to do this. Mm-hmm. He's saying, this is our aim. This is our target. Yep. And so when you read about what he says about anger or lust, or when you read about these things, about what your heart should be when you're fasting or praying or giving. He means what he says, this is not him just saying, oh, it would be nice if, right. He's said, no, this is what it looks like to follow me. And by his spirit we can make some progress in that. And that's something that we should be praying for and seeking. For sure. Well, let's pray and we'll be done with this episode. Lord, we thank you for the Sermon on the Mount and for the clarity of it. And it's it's power. Lord it's sobering to read this and to say, wow. Sin is waiting. It's crouching. It's seeking someone to devour. I see how I can look at the big ticket items and say, well, I'm, at least I'm not doing that, but I've got other sin in my life that I need to be just as, as adamant to guard myself against. And like Jesus says, about cutting off the hand or gouging out the eye or. His comments that he makes about the hypocrisy of people during this time. Lord, it, it's so easy for that mindset to creep into our lives regardless. Against that, I pray and give us a true integrity. Give us a hunger for you, a hunger for your word. Keep us on the narrow path. We didn't even get to talk about that. There's so much more, so much rich stuff here in the Sermon on the Mount. But we do wanna be a church that's on the narrow path until you return. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Keep your Bibles tuning again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you tomorrow. Bye.

​Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said