By: Andy Baker.

Being God’s Son, that is, God’s chosen King, Jesus made many speeches to help people know what the kingdom of heaven would be like (Matt. 3:17; Ps. 2:7; Heb. 1:5). Matthew in particular details these speeches to help his Jewish audience know about the King and His kingdom. Each speech section ends with: “When He finished these sayings…” (Matt. 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1). Notice characteristics of what Jesus emphasized about the kingdom of heaven:

The King’s Speech #1 – Matthew 5-7: Righteousness in the Kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount begins with a blessed character of heart that is molded and shaped by God’s will, and the sermon ends with a warning to always hear and do God’s will (Matt. 5:1-12; 7:21-27). This type of righteousness stands in stark contrast to the righteousness of the Pharisees as detailed through the main body of this sermon (Matt. 5:20-7:20). Jesus wants His kingdom to know that true righteousness does not consist in an outward show, but rather that right actions will proceed from an obedient, submissive heart to God’s will.

The King’s Speech #2 – Matthew 10: Preaching about the Kingdom. The main thrust of this lesson is for those (specifically the apostles) who are preaching the good news of the kingdom (Matt. 10:6-8). Jesus very clearly identifies that the preaching of the kingdom will bring persecution, pain and hardship to those who preach. However, Jesus shows that a steadfast reliance on God, His care, and His promised reward should always be the focus of those who preach (Matt. 10:9-10, 18-19, 28, 39, 42).

By: Andy Baker

The popular children’s song depicts the familiar illustration by Jesus in Matthew 7:24-27 of the Sermon on the Mount. Two men were building houses – a wise man and a foolish man. The difference between them: One heard the teachings of Jesus and did them, while the other heard them, and did not do them (Matt. 7:24, 26). Consider for a moment the things that a truly wise man does in building his spiritual house:

The wise man uses a solid foundation. Many things such as money, fame, strength, and teachings of other wise men give the appearance to be solid foundations (Jer. 9:23). However, to this wise man, he knows that there is but one foundation that will withstand the storms of life and the storms of Judgment (Matt. 7:25). He knows that there is “no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 3:11). As the authority of Christ is the foundation for this astute individual (Col. 3:17), he also knows that slab repair will never be necessary.

By: Kevin Cauley

Our senses receive so much more information than our conscious minds can process. Some of that information is lost; some of it gets buried in our subconscious. Learning, the act of perceiving information to consciously retain it, requires frequent exposure to and repetition of that information. How we learn is just as important as what we learn. Lack of focus builds a fuzzy picture of that which we are studying, but life is granular and detailed. People are also granular and detailed. Building the wrong image of another person or building an incomplete image does not produce the kind of interactions that God wants us to have with others. We must get beyond ourselves to authentically engage in a real relationship.

The only way for someone to reveal their true self to us, though, is to talk to them. God reveals Himself to us by talking to us. Paul wrote, “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:11-12).

We cannot know the mind of another unless that mind is revealed to us through communication. Sometimes, people do not want to do this. We must ask questions. We must listen to what it is that they are concerned about. We must consider that their experiences are not ours. We must refrain from identifying with them and seek to understand them. If there is something that we do not understand, we must ask clarifying questions. Go where the conversation leads, not where you want to take it. This is what it means to truly listen (James 1:19).

By: Kevin Cauley

It is impossible to know everything about another person. Each faces life from their own set of personal experiences, making everyone unique. Adults have enough experiences in common to facilitate basic communication. This is a start, but to have the kind of interactions that God wants us to have, we must get outside of our own limited experiences and look at things from the perspective of another. This is not easy because one is no longer just facing what one knows about himself, but what one does not know about another. The temptation is always there to retreat into one’s own experiences, but this does not develop the relationship. It only serves to self-justify by creating our image of other people (2 Corinthians 10:12). The single greatest obstacle that we face in our relationships is the image that we construct of other people.

Most of the time, we interact with that image instead of with the actual person. Why do we do this? It is easier. That image is a product of our creation. It is what we see of ourselves in someone else. We know it very well. After all, we made it. But this is a selfish move because we are just interacting with an image of our creation, not the other person. This is a failure to engage authentically. It creates shallow and impersonal relationships that have no real substance.

God calls us, however, to interact with the actual person (Matthew 7:12, 22:39). This is real work because we must suppress our desires to relate only to what we know. We must reach out and learn about the other person by seeing them as unique and different. Then we can see them as they are, not as we want them to be.