Today we're gonna finish our study of the Sermon on the Mount, which technically ended with last week's text, by taking a look at the reaction of those who first heard it. In the process, we're gonna be going back and doing some overview again. We've had to do that periodically as I've been teaching through because so much of what he says as he moves through the Sermon on the Mount demands that we recall what he said earlier. and keep the context fresh in our minds. We're gonna find that's true today as well. And hopefully, in the time we have, and by the time we're finished, hopefully our reaction will be similar to the reaction of the crowds, at least in one way. I'd like to begin reading in verse 24, because we're gonna find that this little parable of the wise and foolish builders got some connections to what follows and what we're gonna be seeing today. Beginning in verse 24 of Matthew 7, we read this. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it did not fall for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall. And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. Let's pray. Holy Father, I do thank you for your word and I thank you for the opportunity to come together and worship you again this morning and to hear you speak to us through the truth that we've sung and through the truth we're about to hear and to respond to you with joy and with faith, hope, and love. We thank you for the reminder today of the terrible price that was paid that we might be forgiven for our sins We thank you that the Lord Jesus was fully God and fully man and who lived a perfectly righteous life on our behalf, also died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins on the cross, that we might be saved and receive the free gift of eternal life, the forgiveness of our sins. We thank you that he rose from the dead and is reigning even now as the sovereign Lord of the universe and that he is seated at your right hand where he ever lives to make intercession for all of us who have put our faith in him. We thank you for this reminder that he constantly looks after us all the time. He's watching over us as our great shepherd. We thank you for all the blessings that we have in Christ and we pray now that you'll help us to understand what it is that you would have us learn from these verses in scripture that you inspired our departed brother Matthew to write all those years ago for our benefit, not just for the benefit of the saints then, but for our benefit today, for the benefit of our children and those coming in ages to come should the Lord tarry. We do pray he'll come soon. We ask all these things in the name of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ, amen. Those of us who are familiar with the scripture are not surprised that from early in his life, our Lord Jesus had a tendency to astonish those who are around him. Consider in this regard, Luke's account of Jesus' visit to the temple when he was just 12 years old. Luke tells us this in Luke two, beginning in verse 46. Now it was that after three days, they found him in the temple. Remember, Jesus had gone up with his parents to Jerusalem. And when they were headed back home, they realized he wasn't with them and they searched for him and they found him after three days in the temple. And we're told he was sitting in the midst of the teachers. So there are a bunch of teachers there and he's sitting right in the middle of them, both listening to them and asking them questions. All who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. which means I guess they were asking him some questions too. So when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said to him, son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously. And he said to them, why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business? As some translations say, in my father's house. but they did not understand the statement which he spoke to them. He expected them to know by now who his real father was, right? They did know that, but that because God is truly his father, that he should be about his father's business, and they didn't understand. And he submitted to them anyway, the text will go on to say. Keep that in mind, young people. Sometimes your parents might, understand you, but you just have to submit to them anyway, and the Lord Jesus is a good example to you in that regard. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them, but his mother kept all these things in her heart, and Jesus increased in wisdom. Okay, he's already blowing people away. You know, the smartest people, the most knowledgeable scholars in Judea, amongst the people of Israel. He was already blowing them away with his understanding at 12. And we're told he increased in wisdom after that, of course, and in stature and in favor with God and men. So the teachers in the temple were astonished at his understanding, even at that young age. But as we see, he only grew in wisdom from that time. And we've seen some of that wisdom. just how wise he really was, one wiser than Solomon, in the Sermon on the Mount, and the way he's dealt with the false teaching that he's encountered, and the way he's given positive instruction for his disciples. So no wonder the crowds were astonished at his teaching. as we see in the first verse of our text, as I read earlier in verse 28. And so it was when Jesus had ended these sayings that the people were astonished at his teaching. Now here we're reminded that Jesus spoke these words to a large crowd. In fact, the word translated people here in the New King James, when it says the people were astonished at his teaching, means crowd. It's the same word that was used when the Sermon on the Mount was first introduced back in chapter five, verse one, where we're told that seeing the multitudes, akhlas, it's the same word, or crowds, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. So you have a situation where Jesus is seated on a high place, his disciples come and are around him, but the crowds are also around. And he's speaking both to his disciples and to the crowds at the same time. So the same crowds of people that were mentioned before as the hearers of this are now said to be astonished at his teaching. They've been there, in other words, throughout the teaching. Why were they astonished? Well, Matthew will tell us more about that in the next verse, but he's also already given us a pretty strong hint, at least to one reason, why they were astonished when he says that after these sayings or literally these words of Jesus had ended, the people were left astonished. Now this phrase, these sayings or these words actually refer back to what Jesus had just said in the preceding context. And this is something we noted last week. So if we're gonna understand why these people were so astonished at our Lord's teaching, then we need to Take note of this connection to the preceding verses, not only to what Matthew will go on to say next, but the link he's provided in the way he's presented this to us, to what Jesus has just said in his conclusion to his teaching, what we call the Sermon on the Mount. So we'll look back at verses 24 through 27 once again and read, therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine that's literally these words of mine. It's the same Greek that Matthew was using when he said, after he finished these words, the people are astonished. It refers back to the words of the Sermon on the Mount. The words that Jesus is referring to here when he says, whoever hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock and the rain descended into the flood's cave and the winds blew and beat on that house and it did not fall. In other words, Jesus, who has just quoted a lot of scripture, by the way, as we've seen, and we'll see again in rehearsing it a little bit here in a few moments, Jesus has been, is equating now his own words with scripture. And he is stating that you have to respond to his words the same way he expects you to respond to scripture. This is not something a Jewish teacher would typically do. He's claiming as I pointed out last week, that His words are tantamount to Scripture here in this context. And then He says, but everyone who hears these sayings or these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew a beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall. So once again, we see that our Lord Jesus taught that His own words must be obeyed even as the Scriptures must be obeyed. that God's judgment will come on you if you don't obey His words, just like they'll come on you if you don't obey Scripture. Talk about teaching with authority. No wonder the crowds were astonished at his teaching, at the words that he had said. As the IVP New Testament commentary informs us, Other Jewish teachers regularly cited earlier sages' opinions, and though later teachers sometimes came to regard their tradition as tantamount to God's Word, which is bad, it's good, and Jesus expects you to regard His words as tantamount to Scripture, but it's bad to take any other human being's words as tantamount to Scripture. We'll see more on that as we move along. They go on to say, Jesus' contemporaries would never have claimed, like Jesus, that people would be judged according to how they treated their words, even if sometimes they did elevate the words in ways they shouldn't. With this in mind, then, we're ready to move on to what Matthew says next, in which we'll see a second reason why the people were astonished at Jesus' teaching. We've already seen, and it's really the same reason stated differently, right? We've already seen it has to do with the authority with which he spoke. He spoke as though His words were the words of God, and obeying Him personally was the same thing as obeying God. He says in verse 29, 4, He taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. After having admonished the crowd, saying, back in chapter 5.17, do not think that I come to destroy the law and the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill a claim no scribe or Pharisee would make. He's already approaching a claim to divine authority when he says that. Well, he goes on to challenge their teaching with scripture as we saw in these antitheses that we saw in chapter 5. So we're gonna just rehearse them to get them back in our minds. because we want to have fresh in our minds what would have been fresh in the minds of the people. The sermon's not that long if you just read it some time, all the way through. We've been going through it for weeks. So we want to get back to a place where it's fresh enough in our minds so that we can get a better idea of why it was that they were so astonished. We've gotten used to this Sermon on the Mount over the years and over the past weeks. They had just heard it. This was a first-time thing for them. They never heard anything like this before. Not that they shouldn't have heard some of what he says before, because he constantly brought back scriptural teaching that they ought to have known, but they were blinded to. In Matthew 5, 21 through 22, for example, we have the first of these antitheses. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. Now, those of old were quoting the scripture here. Jesus' problem with them wasn't that they were quoting scripture. Jesus' problem with them, as we saw when we studied this, is that they were quoting part of scripture and ignoring the rest. They were emphasizing don't murder. That's in scripture. That's God's word. You should emphasize that. But most of them, could live their lives without murdering somebody and feel good about being quote-unquote righteous, right? But as we saw in our study of this, Jesus' problem was that they didn't deal with what leads to murder, anger in one's heart. They wanted an easy righteousness. So he says, but I say to you, here challenging the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees, not the word of God, But I say to you, whoever's angry with his brother of that cause should be in danger of the judgment. And of course, that's taught in the Old Testament. He's not saying anything new, as we saw in our study of that text. What he's doing is he's bringing all of scripture to bear against their focusing on only part of it. And you'll notice, with all heresy, that's what happens. Part of scripture is emphasized and other parts are ignored. Or parts of scripture are taken out of context and twisted. to mean things that they don't mean, and the Pharisees and scribes did both of those things, and Jesus was constantly correcting both of those things. Later on in verses 27 and 28, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. Again, a scriptural thing that the Pharisees and scribes were saying. But I say to you, and again telling them something they ought to have already known from the same Old Testament scriptures that they had, but which they tended to ignore, But I say to you that whoever looks in a woman's lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. He's teaching with authority in that he's challenging the misapplication of scripture that's constantly being done by the scribes and Pharisees. And he's not relying on any of them, on any of the scribes and Pharisees. He's not quoting one scribe or Pharisee over against other ones, he's appealing directly to scriptural ideas and stating them with authority in his challenge to them. In verses 31 and 32, furthermore, it has been said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a woman who's divorced commits adultery. He goes on to say, in verses 33 to 35, another antithesis here. Again, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord. But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Another antithesis we saw in our study of the Sermon on the Mount is in verses 38, 39 of chapter five. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. In Matthew 5, verses 43 through 46, we see the final antithesis. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. That was a distortion. But I say to you, love your enemies. And in our study of this, we looked at Old Testament text that taught all the things that Jesus was teaching, that they were leaving out, right? Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your father in heaven, for he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. In each of these cases, he's bringing up scriptural ideas that they were leaving out. Remember, one of the things he said before he went into all this is that we have to have a righteousness that's greater than the righteousness of scribes and Pharisees. We can't be the kind of people that pick and choose in Scripture what we want to highlight and think that if we can obey those things, we find it easier to obey, that somehow we're righteous. Well, God's righteous demands are far greater than that, and they're matters of the heart, predominantly, and Jesus, with great force, Not, again, quoting some other scribe or Pharisee. He wasn't saying, you know, hello said over against Gamaliel or something like that, no. He appealed directly to scripture. And by the time he was done, as we've seen, he wasn't just appealing to scripture, he was speaking with the same authority as scripture when he was doing it. And that becomes very clear. So what was happening is that Based on their tradition, the scribes and Pharisees were distorting the teaching of scripture. Later in his ministry, Jesus made the same point, perhaps even more forcefully. Later on in chapter 15, Matthew tells us about this. In chapter 15, verses one through nine, we're told that the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus saying, why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? Notice what their focus is. They're not coming and saying, Our authority is the Word of God and your disciples aren't living up to it." They're appealing to the tradition of the elders. You know, there's nothing wrong with tradition, but traditionalism is a big problem. When your tradition takes over and becomes an authority over Scripture, you've got a problem. It should be the other way around. They go on to challenge them. by saying, for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. And Jesus answered and said to them, why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? He's challenging the real problem, their tradition. For God commanded saying, honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father and mother, let him be put to death. But you say, whoever says to his father and mother, whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God. then he need not honor his father and mother. Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition." In other words, you've substituted the authority of Scripture for the authority of your tradition. Your traditions become your real authority, and it's added to and distorted things. No wonder he says next, hypocrites. Well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying, these people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. But as we've seen, our Lord Jesus drew his teaching from the word of God, and of course spoke also with divine authority himself. But just the fact, the way he handled the scriptures was enough to blow people away. Because they weren't used to people doing that. It was all about traditions. And they were so complex that most people didn't fully understand them all. It's described in Pharisees domain. Some theologians are like that today. Unless you can understand all kinds of systematic theological terms and so forth, you can't really understand the word of God, and they bring in all kinds of philosophical and traditional ideas. Some theologians do, and there are good and bad theologians, just like there were good teachers then and bad ones. And subtly they bring in tradition and it undermines scripture. Happens all the time. Still happens today, just like it was happening then. But these kinds of traditions get to be pretty complex. And people get really confused by them. And they don't know what to believe. And then you have somebody come along, comes along, cuts through all that, and just teaches the scriptures. And people are astonished, partly because they can finally understand what it says. It wasn't that hard after all. The commandments of men, the traditions of men have been distorting it to the point they thought they couldn't even understand it themselves. This is the kind of situation you had, a lot of, back then too. There's nothing new under the sun. As D.A. Carson stated, the teachers of the law taught derivatively, that is by referring to the authorities. We'll see that we teach derivatively as well, but to the real authority. He says, but Jesus taught with his own authority. All of us were impressed by the man whose skill and knowledge of his subject are so outstanding that he clears away the rubble of misconception and outlines the truth of the matter with sharp, incisive strokes. This was the effect Jesus had on his first hearers. I would say that and then some. I'd say that's putting it mildly. Of course, we will never possess the kind, same kind of authority in our use of scripture as Jesus had. None of us will. When our Lord Jesus appealed to scriptural authority, he was at the same time appealing to his own authority, as we've seen. When we appeal to scripture, ours is always a derived authority. And I think this is why, for example, the author of Hebrews spoke the way he did about Believers, when he commanded them to obey their leaders in the Lord, he said it in a particular way in Hebrews 13, 17. This reminds elders that we don't have an authority of our own. And the authority we have is derived authority. Jesus is the great shepherd. Pastors, elders, overseers, three different ways of talking about the same teaching office in the church. We are under shepherds. We have a derived authority. And it's implied in the way the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 13, 17, obey those who rule over you and be submissive for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief for that would be unprofitable for you. Now, when the author of Hebrews says to obey those who are over you, here referring to the elders of the church, He actually assumes that their authority is derived from Scripture and that believers will submit to that authority only as they're persuaded by their leader's appeal to Scripture. As Gareth Lee Cockrell observes when commenting on these two commands in this verse, the first term is passive, be obedient to. and is often used of those who have been persuaded to obey. The word literally means be persuaded. But when you're persuaded to listen to what someone says and you do it, you obey. You can see how the different connotation could come about. It's not a bad translation, obey. Be persuaded by them such that you obey is the implication of the word. So he's right when he says the first term is passive, be obedient to, and is often used of those who have been persuaded to obey, rather than for obedience to constituted authority. They're not obeying simply because someone says, you have to obey me, I'm the authority, but because they're persuaded to do so. Thus, he writes, it is an appropriate response from those who hear to those who proclaim God's word. The second imperative, submit to, is a more general expression that occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and demonstrates the breadth of the pastor's vocabulary. The combination of these two terms stress the need for faithful, thorough adherence to the oversight offered by their leaders. But what's the underlying assumption? That that authority comes from scripture. And that's the assumption everywhere about elders in the New Testament. This is why the apostle Paul so strongly stresses the importance of church leaders faithfully teaching the word of God. such as when he urges Timothy to be diligent, to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. He goes on to say in 2 Timothy 4, two through four, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. Now, clearly, people not always be persuaded, just made that clear, by the faithful teaching of the word. But we need to continue in it anyway, because that is our authority. Of course, if we should fail to faithfully teach the word, then the congregation should say to us with the Apostle Peter, we ought to obey God rather than men, as he said to the Sanhedrin in Acts 5.29. But a statement like that, we should obey God rather than men, could never have rightly been made to our Lord Jesus, whose authority was not derived from scripture, but was equal to it. As we've seen, He's God, we aren't. But not only pastors possess such derived authority. Whenever any of us appeals to scripture, we appeal to the authority of the sovereign God of the universe. And we speak with that authority, any one of us. So for example, when we confront the world with sin as we proclaim the gospel on the basis of scripture, or when we admonish one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord, or encourage one another on the basis of scripture, we speak with the authority of God's word. And as we conclude our brief examination of this text, Seemed brief to me anyway. I want to get back to Matthew's stress on the reaction of the crowds here. As we've seen, Matthew stresses the fact that they were astonished at our Lord's teaching. But we need to take note of the fact that he doesn't say that they believed because of his teaching. Maybe some of them did. We know the disciples already believed. Well, all but Judas. And the word that Matthew uses to describe their astonishment doesn't necessarily indicate that they believed either. In fact, the Net Bible notes correctly state that the word astonished suggests a variety of emotional reactions to Jesus' words, but not a commitment of faith. Some of them may believe. but many of them probably did not. Most of them, if you follow the rest of the account, didn't. As F.F. Bruce put it, the crowds might well be astonished at his teaching and recognize the authority of his words, but that is not the same thing as accepting his teaching or submitting to his authority. There is rarely an inconvenient throng around the narrow gate, he says. That's the same kind of response when we proclaim the Word of God that we can expect. Even sometimes people can express admiration even for Jesus' teaching, but that doesn't mean they believe it and are going to follow it and submit to Him as Lord. But what about you and me? Most of us have already believed in Jesus, trusting Him as our Lord and Savior. But have we lost our sense of astonishment at His teaching, I wonder? Are we so used to reading things like the Sermon on the Mount that we lost some of our wonder at just how wise and authoritative our Lord Jesus really is? And just how gracious have we lost our sense of astonishment at His authority? Have we maybe grown a bit cold or maybe a bit numb to the wonder of His words and deeds? If so, then I think we should all pray that the Holy Spirit will renew our astonishment and wonder at the glory and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. his authority and we should pray not only that he would renew our admiration for his authority but also a determination to submit to it more fully on a daily basis. If we really believe that he is who he says he is the only response is astonishment and obedience. Gratitude thankfulness for what He's done, amazement that He would love sinners like us and do with all of His authority what He's done for us. And that's what our worship has been about this morning, remembering that, being grateful for it. For those of us who have yet to trust Him as our Lord and Savior, I would urge you to receive Him now acknowledging His sovereign authority over your life, asking Him to give you the free gift of salvation. Because He is God. He is the sovereign Lord of the universe. There is no higher authority than His. And you will, come judgment day, bow the knee to Him, and recognize His authority. And it might be on your way to heaven, or it might be on your way to hell, but you will do it. I pray you'll do it on your way to heaven with great joy in your heart because you've received Him now. You've submitted to His authority now as your Lord and Savior. Let's pray. Holy Father, I hope that I've been able to to bring out clearly the force of this text. I know at least how it hit me in the context. And I was surprised at how up until these verses, I had not been as astonished as I ought to have been. And that revealed something in me that wasn't quite right. And perhaps others have felt the same way. Well, I pray with them, Lord, forgive us for the ways in which we miss how great you really are. We're so used to your grace, we're so used to you working so powerfully in our lives that sometimes we take it for granted and forget what a wonder it is that you would love us the way you do. and that you would exercise your authority and power in our lives for our good the way that you do. Forgive us, Lord, for not appreciating that enough every single day. And for anyone who has not yet come to know you, we pray for them, Lord, that you would convict them in the same way for the first time. and help them to trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. So they can leave here today knowing that their sins are forgiven, that they have everlasting life by your grace as a free gift because of what Jesus has done for them. We ask these things for your glory and in the name of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, amen.