Who Is Jesus? Part 1Sample

See Example A

Over the next few chapters, we get a front row seat to one of Jesus’ most famous sermons, the Sermon on the Mount. In this message, He introduces a new kind of relationship we can have with God. One not based on religious actions but on our adoption into God’s family. 

Here, the parallels between Jesus and Moses resurface. 

Remember, Moses went up on a mountain and received the Ten Commandments—the Law—from God. He taught the Israelites how to live as God’s people, representing Him to the surrounding nations. 

Jesus also went up on a mountain to teach, but what He was showing us is what the Law was always meant to accomplish. It was never supposed to be about behavior modification, but rather about heart transformation. And it’s through this transformation that we can become the kind of people who reflect our God to the world by loving others the same way He has loved us. 

Jesus showed us that the way to live as God’s people is not just about our outward expressions, but our internal motivations. 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:27-28 NIV

What Jesus is saying over and over again in this chapter is that fulfilling the Law looks like cultivating the environment of our own hearts. This is what it was about all along. But we lost focus. We lost perspective. 

See, Moses, when he came off the mountain from the presence of God, had to cover his face because it literally reflected the Lord’s radiant purity. So what he brought us was a veiled image. But Jesus is the perfect, visible image of our invisible God! He removed the veil from heaven by coming here in person and showing us the kind of relationship God longs to have with each of us. He restored our perspective and gave us the perfect example of what it looks like to reflect God’s image to the world.