The Sermon on the Mount

An invitation to a good and beautiful life

Over the next seven weeks, we will be learning from Jesus and leaning into his invitation to live this good and beautiful kingdom life.

Set down your journal, your Bible, your pen, and your phone. Open your heart to receive. Have ears to listen to what the Spirit wants to say.

Matthew 5:1-7:29

Simply hearing Jesus's words

This is the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety, from the heart. This is Jesus's great invitation to a good and beautiful life.

I wanted to start today by simply speaking this over your life so that you could hear it the way it was meant to be heard, the way the first audience would have heard it: without notes, without interpretation, without commentary. Just words that were spirit and life.

Words that may go over our head, but land deep in our heart.

Let his words capture you

My hope for today was to wash you with the word of God, to allow Jesus's words to capture you, to captivate you, to stir something up deep inside of you.

The Sermon on the Mount is probably the most important thing Jesus ever said, yet it is one of the most misinterpreted and least understood things he ever said.

Over the next few weeks, we are going to wrestle through this together. But we are going to start by just hearing and listening to the great invitation to a good and beautiful life.

Words that take hold of your soul

My hope and prayer for you is that these words of Jesus take hold of your soul and you cannot seem to shake them all week long.

That they capture you, captivate you, and stir you, because this is his invitation in its entirety to a good and beautiful life in his name, in his kingdom.

Prayer: Stir our hearts

Holy Spirit, thank you for the words of Jesus that were spoken so long ago but are still so meaningful, relevant, and profound today. Thank you that a word of God once spoken continues to be spoken, and that your word does not return void but will accomplish the purposes for which it is sent.

Would you take Jesus's words and stir them up in our hearts? Would you use them to capture us, to captivate us, to stir us, to draw us, to unsettle us?

May each one of us hear, in our own language and in our own way, this invitation to a good and beautiful life.

Prayer: Renew our minds

May all the places where we misunderstand and misinterpret Jesus's words be healed and restored. May our minds be renewed, that we might be formed into the image and likeness of Jesus.

May we have the courage and the faith to accept an invitation to a good and beautiful life.

Holy Spirit, just as you were needed when the Sermon on the Mount was first preached, we need you as we look at this together as a family over the next few weeks. Do what only you can do, in Jesus's name. A good and beautiful life is awaiting. Amen.

For Monday through Saturday

This is the good and beautiful life Jesus is inviting you to: a life of love, a life of hope, a life that is full.

The Sermon on the Mount is not just for Sunday. It is for Monday through Saturday. Valley Creek's weekly practice plans are designed to help you say yes to Jesus's invitation throughout the next seven weeks, with about 15 minutes of practice each week.

Text GOOD to 55888 for the weekly practice plan.