THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
“Return + Be Restored”
Spring ’26 Sermon Series
If God brought about revival on the North Shore of Chicago, what would it look like?
When we imagine this, we’re asking the question of what shape “the kingdom of heaven” takes when it comes. How does one return to God? What changes when God restores his people to himself? What does human life look like under God’s rule?
Nowhere does Jesus answer these questions more clearly than in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). In this section of teaching, Jesus (whom Matthew has painted as a new Moses, having survived death threats from a jealous king, having escaped from Egypt, having crossed a body of water, and having been tempted in the wilderness for forty periods of time) ascends a mountain (like Moses before him) and delivers the terms for a relationship with God. As he does so, he paints a picture of a counter-culture: a group of people who have entered into life, and as such, live differently from the world around them.
1 When he saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to teach them, saying… (Matthew 5:1-2)
The hundred-or-so verses in the Sermon on the Mount are full of practical, concrete instruction. Jesus’ teaching draws a stark contrast to both the religious and irreligious ways of living that were most familiar to his hearers, and they have continued to do so in the generations since.
You could say, then, that what Jesus is delivering in this sermon is “law.” But while much of what Jesus teaches in Matthew 5-7 is his own faithful interpretation of law that is already found in Torah, there is at least one significant difference.
OT law: law is taught, law is meditated on, Holy Spirit gives insight into the law
NT law: law is taught, law is meditated on, Holy Spirit gives insight into the law, law is on our hearts
This new situation was foretold throughout the Old Testament, but with the coming of Jesus, that future reality has broken into the present. As such, the future blessings promised to those who walk with God in his kingdom can be claimed as ours now!
…even for those of us who haven’t been perfectly obedient to every instruction in this sermon. As we’ll say throughout this sermon series, these commands do lay out a Christian standard – we are actually meant to endeavor (by God’s grace through the power of the Holy Spirit!) to obey Jesus’ teaching! But we’ll see that the Sermon itself assumes that we will sometimes fail to keep these commands perfectly, and makes provision for such.
As such, our endeavor in these early months of 2026 is not necessarily for perfect obedience (which we’ll never attain in this life) but for true obedience (which the Bible always holds out as possible and desirable). For followers of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount serves as an instruction manual for a way of life characterized by genuine (though imperfect) obedience, moving toward maturity and ever-increasing “completeness” in Christ.
In other words, those who walk closely with Jesus live as he did: as though God’s loving reign has come into our lives.
We’ll need God’s help to do this. Fortunately, he couldn’t be more eager to offer that help by the power of his Spirit.
May he use the preaching of this Sermon, the discussions we have in our Life Groups, the prayers we offer to him, and the community of brothers and sisters alongside us on this journey to form us into a counter-cultural group of people whose lives increasingly match the pattern of Jesus’ own perfect life.
And who knows? Maybe such a counter-cultural community ends up being the catalyst for the revival we’ve been praying for.
Resources That Informed This Series
#1 Recommendation:
Impossible Christianity by Kevin DeYoung
Well-known books based on the Sermon on the Mount:
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Commentaries on the Sermon on the Mount:
The Message of the Sermon on the Mount by John Stott
Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World by DA Carson
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Martin Lloyd-Jones
The Sermon on the Mount: Kingdom Life in a Fallen World by Sinclair Ferguson
The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom by Kent Hughes
The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing by Jonathan Pennington
Books on Jesus’ Relationship to the Law:
Jesus and the Law of Moses by Paul T. Sloan
Podcasts on Matters Related to the Sermon on the Mount:
Mere Fidelity, “Jesus and the Law of Moses” with Paul T. Sloan
Mere Fidelity, “The Beatitudes”
The Theopolis Podcast, Episode 721 “Jesus as Israel” with Peter Leithart
Jesus and Jewish Law, Episode 1 “Debunking Seven Misconceptions about the Law”
The Bible Project series on the Sermon on the Mount
Short Videos Explaining the Sermon on the Mount: