The power of the Sermon on the Mount is not simply a beautiful lesson… it is a message backed by a life. Jesus lived out the Sermon on the Mount and He invites us to follow in his steps with the help only the Holy Spirit can provide.
On earth, Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God was at hand and He was the entrance. “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” But what does this mean for us? Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s best known writing is “The Cost of Discipleship” in which he states that Jesus is calling us to really follow him. Without discipleship, Bonhoeffer argues that ‘costly grace’ turns into ‘cheap grace.’ Years before the beginning of World War II, this young German theologian looked at his ‘Christian nation’ and saw looming disaster. “Cheap grace has turned out to be utterly merciless to our Evangelical Church. This cheap grace has been no less disastrous to our own spiritual lives. Instead of opening up the way to Christ it has closed it. Instead of calling us to follow Christ, it has hardened us in our disobedience.”
Jesus said the religious leaders of his day were hypocrites because they claimed to follow the Law of Moses while ignoring the very heart of God. “You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former.” (Mt 23:23) What does Jesus say about those who claim to follow him but do not do what He says? “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Mt 7:26-27)
Bonhoeffer argued that the one who gives up self is the one who truly understands grace. “The only man who has the right to say he is justified by grace alone is the one who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from grace. But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves.”
“Happy are they who know that discipleship simply means the life which springs from grace, and that grace simply means discipleship.” So what is this discipleship “which springs from grace” that Dietrich proclaimed? It is one thing: following Jesus… each day… full of his Spirit… eyes on him… listening to his Word… obeying what He says… following Jesus.
“And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple… In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:27, 33
Quotes from “The Cost of Discipleship” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, first published in 1937 by Chr. Kaiser Verlag, translated by R. H. Fuller. Copyright 1959 by SCM Press Ltd.