Hey, there you are. Welcome to episode number two of season six with the Pastor Mike Drop podcast. I'm your host, Mike,

and I'm with my co-host, Emily. Hello. Hi, Emily. How are you today? Good. How are you?

Good. I'm excited. We've had a nice chat kind of sitting down and just getting prepped for this

conversation, which I'm really looking forward to because we're into the Sermon on the Mount.

And we have two more

distinguished pastors from our Hope community who are here with us today, lead pastors from a couple

of our campuses.

Yes, we have Pastor Scott Raines, lead to campus pastor in Ankeny.

I feel like with all this gray, distinguished really is becoming the right term for me. It's awesome to be here.

Glad to have you. Not gray hair, but Pastor Danny Houselder. Not gray hair yet.

Lead in Ed Hoe Bames. Yeah. And our college ministry, Kyros. Once I get the gray hair,

maybe I won't do college ministry anymore. It comes with the second building project. Maybe, okay, got it. Let's get right into it with some questions, Ted Lassau. Why don't we just jump right in? Anybody got any questions? Oh, yeah, no, I should have saw that coming. First question is, what do people get wrong about the sermon on the Mount? Yeah, I think that one of the things that people get wrong about the sermon on the Mount is they see it as like an entry list of requirements in order to live in the kingdom of God rather than just an explanation for here's how free people live. And this is consistent with the totality of scripture. Anytime that God introduces law, he introduces law after he's freed the people from Egypt, after they've walked through the Red Sea. He says, all right, I'm not giving you these laws so that you become free. It's you are free and this is how free people live.

And so here Jesus is saying, no, here's what a blessed life looks like, which is rooted in God's grace.

So it's not like, hey, do this and then God's going to love you. It's you are loved.

And this is how people who know that they are loved and live in that freedom how they live. Now, I think that another thing that people get wrong about the sermon on the Mount is then they read through the beatitudes when they read things like God blesses those who are poor and realizes their need for him. God blesses those who mourn for they will be comforted. And they start to think that if I do these things, then I'm going to have a life of health, wealth, and happiness. but the sermon on the Mount, and especially the beatitudes and the things that Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount, it is not a formula for health, wealth, and happiness. It's a description of what really is right and what is true. I've heard it said before that the Sermon on the Mount is not instruction for what works here on Earth all the time, but it is according to a kingdom that's going to last.

And when Jesus talks about the gospel, the good news, he almost always connects it.

It's the good news of the kingdom.

Yes.

It's the good news of the kingdom.

And so he's creating a society, a culture,

a new way of relating to one another,

which it's what you were saying.

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