I'm Just Saying

And opening His mouth, He began to teach them saying,...(Matthew 5:2)

Much fruitful sermon material has been gleaned from the treasures of the Sermon on the Mount...the Greatest Sermon Ever. I would start here. With the astounding introduction. We may miss it if we rush too quickly into the things Jesus said. Think first about Who it is that is saying them. Jesus...the Great I Am...the Word of God...saying. Why don't the people of the world, the great multitudes receive the sayings of Jesus as more than the words of a good moral teacher? Because they do not know Him as the Great I Am. When Jesus speaks...God speaks. This sermon begins with no attention getting sound bites, no surveying of the felt needs of His hearers, no entertaining visual imagery. Jesus...just saying...is it still enough for us today?
As you read Chapters 5, 6, & 7 there is much that Jesus is teaching. But at the end of the sermon He tells a story about two men building their houses. One was wise and the other was foolish. The wise man built his house on a rock and the house stood firm when the storms came. The foolish man built his house upon the sand. And the house could not endure and ended in disaster. Jesus likens the wise and foolish men to people who hear His words and do them and those who hear His words and does not do them, respectively. So the end of the sermon brings us back to why we need to value the Word of God and pay attention to the introduction to the passage. Jesus is saying... So what are we doing? ...I'm just saying.