The Secret Wireless

Matthew 5:1-12 “Blessed…” 1 / 30 / 11 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. The Beatitudes are Jesus’ famous introduction to the even more famous Sermon on the Mount. This is the speech of Jesus Christ that is probably best known throughout the word, both by conservative and liberal Christians, by both the most religious believer and the most ardent atheists. When it comes to the Sermon on the Mount almost everyone likes what Jesus has to say here. And each person tends to read these passages and interpret them however they see fit. But there are not infinite possible meanings for this sermon. There is only one true meaning. When Jesus preached, He had a point, something that He intended to convey to His hearers. And so it befits us here this morning to begin a six-week ...

You shall not murder. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need. With this commandment God instructs us how it is that we are to begin to bring honor to our father and mother. We start with the most basic of tasks: attending to the physical needs of others. Often when we ask a neighbor if they believe themselves to be a good person they will respond, “Yeah, I think so. After all, I never killed anybody.” Murder is at the peak of our list of horrible sins because it is, humanly speaking, the worst. To put an end to another human life is despicable. Even soldiers in battle take another life only in great need. And often they suffer trauma for years and perhaps the rest of their lives because killing affects us in such a negative way. And so most of us can happily say that we are “good” because we have never killed anyone. We might even be able to say that we have ne...