When did you last read the Sermon on the Mount? Has it been a while? Have you ever read it? If you haven’t, you need to!

It is one of Jesus’s most influential and powerful sermons. It is documented in Matthew 5-7.

I read it again just the other day. It had been a while. I’ve read it quite a few times over the years, so it’s one of those sections that I can just fly through because my brain already pretty much knows what it says. It’s as if I can read it the way I’d review my notes before a test.

“yep, got it, got it… oh, yeah, … got it…”

In one sense, it’s good to know things well enough that you are just reviewing it.

In another sense, especially when you’re reading the Bible, it’s a little dangerous. It’s dangerous in a presumptuous way that can block your ability to hear from the Lord.

I mean, if you already think, “yeah, yeah, I got it…” then you are presuming that God cannot reveal anything new to you – and you miss out on deeper revelation.

Fortunately, I caught myself doing this and slowed down.

I was amazed on so many new levels!

Almost immediately I was struck by how dense this material is!

Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is like a hyper-compressed compendium on wise and godly living!

It’s as if he took the collective wisdom of generations and extracted out all of the most pure and essential elements.

I suspect that even the wisest scholar, with all the books of the world at his disposal, could not, even with a lifetime of effort and revisions, create a sermon so dense, and rife with practical wisdom.

Jesus, presumably without any iPad or notes of any sort, just ad libs it!

Doing a public speech is one thing, but to expound so much practical wisdom in such a concise way is an entirely different thing!

It’s nothing short of miraculous.

Only it’s the sort of miracle that I almost missed.

The next thought I had was, “wow, what if we all (all people) read and tried to follow just this miraculous message?”

What if we dumped everything else – all the ethics books, law books, theology books, political science books – everything, and only tried to live out these 3 chapters?

I suspect that our world would be SUBSTANTIALLY better, kinder, more generous – and all-around more sane if we did.

Maybe it can start with you and me.