HOW TO OFFER A SUITABLE PROPOSAL OF SALVATION?

““For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not based on works, so that no one can boast.”

Ephesians 2:8-9

HOW TO OFFER A SUITABLE PROPOSAL OF SALVATION?

KEY VERSE

Matthew 5:1-12

PRELIMINARY NOTES

As advanced as available persuasion techniques may be, as challenging as the mission of spreading the Word of God for the salvation of souls is, according to Jesus Christ, we find true success and happiness when we live according to God’s principles. In Matthew 5:13-15, we are called to be the “salt of the earth” and the “light of the world,” and our light should not remain hidden. We should indeed emanate flavor, be influential, and project God’s light to the world through our way of life as Christians.

Living out the Word of God effectively is to go beyond the mere preaching of knowledge acquired over time and is what truly holds value for Jesus throughout His entire sermon on the mount. In other words, more than any strategy we can devise with our intellect or expertise to win souls for the Kingdom of God, in the depth of our relationship with God, we must confront ourselves: How can we effectively offer a suitable proposal for salvation?

Even before starting the sermon, in chapter 4, we witness the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of God (Matthew 4:17, 23). And to underpin the laws of this Kingdom, Jesus shares the Sermon on the Mount, aiming to make clear how an evangelistic mission with excellence should be conducted by His disciples.

With this initial and fundamental understanding, in the Sermon on the Mount, we comprehend that Jesus provided clear and objective instructions for an approved conduct in the life of a disciple. Ultimately, as people followed Him, He wanted to ensure they understood what it meant to be His disciple. Thus, He provided guidelines for the perfect lifestyle they would be called to live, constituting a central project to convey an effective evangelistic Word that arises directly from the Throne of God.

Therefore, through the mercy of God, let us meditate… and be the light that illuminates the path for those who seek and need salvation.

NOTES

·      PERIOD OF JESUS AND MODERN TIMES

·      THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

·      LIVING AGAINST THE CURRENT OF THE WORLD

·      HOW TO OFFER AN APPROPRIATE SALVATION PROPOSAL?

EXPANDED NOTES

PERIOD OF JESUS AND MODERN TIMES

Jesus presents us with an extensive and uninterrupted account spanning three chapters in Matthew and a synopsis in Luke. Jesus, God incarnate, delivered the greatest sermon of all time without exaggeration, simply because He knew the heart and intention of each listener present on that day (Jeremiah 17:10). He sat down, as in that era, delivering a discourse while seated was akin to a decree, an official message sent to the people.

The Lord was fully aware of the impact it would have on the population, which in today’s context would reach all superficial, frivolous, religious, liturgical, political, and selfish believers. Through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus highlighted our urgent need for the saving work (Ephesians 2:8-9). After all, it is impossible for a natural man, with natural strength, to live out the reality of the sermon, except through the mercy and grace of God.

The Sermon on the Mount reveals our frailty and the crucial need for the Holy Spirit and God’s work in our lives to practice it with perfection and zeal. To be straightforward, studying and living the Sermon on the Mount is the most effective method of evangelism, presenting the ideal model of living and proclaiming what God has ordained for our lives.

The Sermon on the Mount immediately guides us that to achieve a highly effective evangelistic work for the Kingdom of God, we must reorganize ourselves and disregard all worldly and ministerial pleasures, as explained in Romans 12:2.

By examining every word of the Sermon on the Mount, we clearly perceive what Jesus was combating in the human heart, as the text exposes the reality of the moral and ethical condition of people at that time. Unfortunately, a period that signaled, in various contexts, numerous distorted interpretations of the Word.

We learn that our expectation is in the provider and not in the provision (Philippians 4:19). People of that time and, as it occurs in modern days, naturally have an expectation in a political savior and a military leader with a triumphant discourse. Furthermore, they longed for someone idealized as a powerful war general who would defeat Rome through a specific reform for these social ideals. When Jesus emerges with the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord disregards what everyone values as important without altering any laws imposed in that period.

In the religious aspect, values and beliefs were complex, with four distinct groups composed of Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots. Each had specific characteristics, such as being legalistic, liberal, separatist, and activist. And when the Sermon on the Mount is pronounced, Jesus announces that He did not fit into any group and led a reform even more profound that would reside in the hearts and minds of each listener.

These words of the Sermon stirred much anger, after all, they directly affected all the political and religious groups of that time that used the truth to distort and transform the way of following and living the word of God.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

While many churches are preoccupied with their appearance, networking, serving personal interests, membership, and more, the regeneration project seems to be increasingly distant from the day-to-day life of a faithful servant grounded in the Word of God. For personal interests, happiness has been portrayed as something you have the ability to attain through material possessions and agreements with both men and God.

In an evangelistic project, it’s worth emphasizing how Jesus instructed us that blessings are part of the discourse. However, genuine happiness and the beatitudes are conditions directly opposed to what the world depicts as the ideal lifestyle. In other words, what Jesus teaches us is that happiness is found in renouncing our own desires. This is referred to in literature as the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes, as explained earlier, are like a decree for those who are saved, duties of mortal life as preparation for a higher, albeit future, existence. In the Kingdom of Heaven, mentioned twice in this part of the Lord’s discourse, true treasures and inexhaustible happiness are found. Thus, the Kingdom of Heaven is the absolute goal of this wonderful sermon, which should be considered a manual with tools to attain the Kingdom and the Glories of eternal citizenship. Similarly, and through this treatise deeply written in our hearts, it serves to generate a constant maintenance of our moral, ethical, and salvation-oriented way of living!

It is evident that the specified blessings and the happiness they contain will only be fully realized after death, although the joy felt by the awareness of living in righteousness constitutes, even in this world, a valuable reward. An important element in this splendid elucidation of the true state of beatitude is the difference between pleasure and happiness. Mere pleasure is, at best, fleeting; happiness is enduring, as its memory renews joy. Supreme happiness is not an earthly achievement; the promised “fullness of joy” lies in the afterlife and resurrection.

LIVING AGAINST THE CURRENT OF THE WORLD

The text brings us a profound reflection that the perfect evangelistic work must begin to have an effect on ourselves. There is no merit in ourselves for anything we do; in other words, salvation is God’s grace upon our lives. It is a gift from God because no one is saved by works. The Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” The salvation that Jesus Christ offers to man is by grace.

The Beatitudes are impossible to follow because of our natural instincts, and only with the intervention of the Holy Spirit are we capable of fulfilling them. Without understanding the need to seek help from God, we will lose flavor and be trampled by our own false testimony before men. This is because the Word of God itself tells us in Matthew 5:13-14 that we are like salt: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world.”

These verses are part of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus uses the metaphors of salt and light to highlight the role of His followers in society. By calling the disciples the “salt of the earth,” Jesus emphasizes the transformative influence they must have on the world. Similarly, by calling them the “light of the world,” he underscores the visibility and revelation of truth through their lives. The exhortation to maintain the flavor of salt and not hide the light emphasizes the importance of integrity and authentic testimony in the Christian mission for personal edification, as well as for the evangelistic project.

The straight and narrow path on which men can walk in holiness was presented in contrast to the broad road that leads to the destruction of our souls. And it is no wonder that the Sermon on the Mount has crossed the centuries without there being another that compares to it. No mortal man has ever delivered such a profound discourse that combats our cruelest instincts.

The Lord is very clear in the instruction that we must go deeper against the current of the world by saying that we must: Love our enemies, do good to those who hate us. Christ also stated that sin begins with lustful looks, sensual thoughts, and addressed the issue of almsgiving, condemning ostentation and hypocritical displays. With the same spirit, Jesus denounced hypocritical prayers—words uttered but not felt.

Men have a tendency to judge their fellow beings and praise or criticize without due consideration for facts or circumstances, and of course, Jesus disapproved of partial or unjustified judgment. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged,” He warned. He then compared the transient nature of material possessions to the lasting riches of eternity. And where we should place our heart: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

HOW TO OFFER AN APPROPRIATE SALVATION PROPOSAL?

As previously mentioned, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addressed details that still afflict the modern church, such as financial hypocrisy, moral scandals, severe judgment, inconsistency in public life, among other intolerant attitudes. These behaviors have led people to disillusionment and questioned the sincerity of faith. Jesus’s concern in dealing with a deeper problem, stemming from adulterated hearts, aims to curb the bad testimony of believers who daily promote negative consequences, distrust, and the abandonment of faith by disillusioned observers with those who claim to be of God! This is a crucial warning for the integrity of the Christian message today.

In summary, to offer an appropriate salvation proposal, the Lord guides us that it must begin through our lives, without hypocrisy and religiosity, a character change completely opposite to what is dictated by the world. Giving a good testimony, according to the Bible, involves living in a way that reflects and practices the teachings and values left by Jesus, with integrity, love for others, honesty, forgiveness, respect, loyalty, and a comprehensive relationship with God through our behavior and prayer.

Giving a good testimony is initially the best proposal for the conversion of Word listeners, as well as those who are thirsty and hungry for a better life. This drastically and essentially implies living according to Christian principles and values, being a light that illuminates the path of others to Christ. This involves a continuous journey of spiritual growth and commitment to service and love for others.

Being a good testimony is a proposal for which we should not find merit in ourselves, after all, it is exactly as the apostle Paul communicates to the Christians in the church of Ephesus: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” This is the first exercise stated by Jesus in His Beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Giving a good testimony involves recognizing dependence on God, acting with humility before Him and others.

In our life or ministry, we will often feel like crying, and we will cry, after all, even Jesus cried. In the Beatitudes, crying is a reason to be comforted by Christ Himself. Crying is an act of humility, surrender, and understanding that nothing is under our own strength. Yes, the beatitude says that we can have freedom to cry because this includes an attitude of contrition and repentance for a sin or something that has caused us deep sorrow. At the same time, this indicates that if we seek consolation in God’s grace, we will find it. And more than that, we will be comforted!

The entire structure of our lives, the madness for pleasure, the amusement park mentality, the obsession with entertainment, the constant pursuit of excitement, money, energy, time, enthusiasm spent on living this is the expression of the world’s desire to avoid mourning, avoid grief, and avoid pain. But Jesus said, “Blessed are the mourners. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” In other words, only in Jesus will our lives and the ministry entrusted to us make sense even in the face of adversities and tears, for through them, we will be molded to be humble and surrendered to the true God!

The Sermon on the Mount is the classic and true meaning of what we need in our lives to ensure that we understand what it means to be a disciple and how it will necessarily impact our lives. Jesus said in John 8:31-32: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Being a disciple means being meek, but for that to happen, we must abide in the words of the Lord. In other words, the message recorded in the Sermon on the Mount is a great place to start learning the kind of character we should develop to be pleasing to Him. The Sermon on the Mount is also a good place to return periodically and assess ourselves, checking if there is any aspect in our lives that needs purity of heart, mercy, hunger and thirst for justice, and if indeed we are detached from this world, trusting fully in God with meekness in complex and challenging situations.

Finally, the best evangelistic project boils down to living all the principles mentioned by Jesus. If we surrender before the Lord and His Justice and incorporate these principles into our spiritual journey, we contribute to an authentic testimony, reflecting the light of Christ in the world and positively impacting the lives of those around us. Certainly, this will be a great evangelistic project that will impact numerous lives.

Our testimony should speak more than words. Jesus taught His disciples and listeners that, by correcting our lives, we are preaching before even using words. The Lord exhorts us to live according to the principles and teachings of the Gospel in such an impactful way that our life, attitudes, and love for others communicate the message of Christ clearly and inspiringly, dispensing the need to express it verbally. This implies being a living example of the love, compassion, humility, and justice that Jesus taught, allowing our life to be a message that speaks directly to the hearts of people around us.