God Motivation and the Mountain Climber

Jesus was a mountain climber...with a purpose.  He didn't use grappling hooks or get ready for His climbs by doing one-finger pull-ups or even ascribe to Captain Kirk's reason for such ascensions when asked why he climbed ("because it's there") .  He instead gathered a group of unlikely disciples and took a hike with them up a steep hill where He would be in view of a large crowd that was interested in what He had to say.  Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him (Matthew 5:1).  Many have heard of this speech that He gave, this "Sermon on the Mount" as we call it.  It takes up the better part of a few chapters of Matthew's gospel account and includes in it everything from beautiful and comforting words to ideas that rattled the established religion of the day to concepts that still stir up controversy in the church.  It is used to call Christians to an unbelievably high standard of righteousness through phrases like be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (5:48) and is used by some to justify their own sin and get people to leave them alone through the quoting of, judge not, that you be not judged (7:1).

Whatever we do or don't know about Jesus and however familiar we may or may not be with His words, the sermon on the mount should have a profound effect on us.  If it doesn't--if we dismiss them as archaic or scoff with rolling eyes--we will discover in the end that the joke is on us.  My plan in the review of each section will be to hold it up against the very end of Jesus' discourse and ask myself and anyone who might read the post, "What are we building on?"  Jesus ended His sermon in this way: Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it (7:24-27).  Rest assured, the rains, floods, and winds will come.  Will we stand in the end?  That all depends on the foundation our lives are built upon.