Nicky Gumbel - The Jesus Lifestyle

One of the great challenges for the church today made harder I suspect because the world seems largely to have given up the attempt is to hold together teaching and ethics.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus teaching on how to conduct our lives. It is his answer to the question, How exactly can we fulfil our calling to be in the world but not of it? What could be more important for us in our generation than an earnest attempt to understand and apply this teaching of Jesus?

As we move towards the so-called post-Christian era, Nicky Gumbels choice of material, combined with his experience of life, his humour, and his passion for bringing practical sense and sparkle to biblical teaching has produced an invaluable book for today.

It will prove equally useful to both mature and new Christians, provides excellent follow-up material to the Alpha course, and will help the church to shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

Bishop Sandy Millar
Assistant Bishop in London

Astonishment is probably the best word to describe what we have felt as the Alpha course, developed in our local church, has spread all round the world. Now running in 169 countries, in over one hundred languages, millions of people have completed the course and millions are attending it each year.

As the course continues to grow, one of the questions we are asked over and over again is: What happens after Alpha? In response to the demand for follow-up material, we first produced A Life Worth Living and then Challenging Lifestyle . I wrote Challenging Lifestyle almost fifteen years ago. Recently I gave a series of talks on the Sermon on the Mount at Holy Trinity Brompton. Inevitably, as the culture has changed and time has passed, the material has developed so much that it seems appropriate to give it a new title. There is a great deal of continuity and therefore I have left the word lifestyle in the title. But the word Challenging no longer seems strong enough. The only appropriate words I can think of to describe the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount are, The Jesus Lifestyle.

To seek to follow the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is to seek to follow Jesus. The words of Jesus are the greatest words ever to have fallen from the lips of a human being. They are the kind of words we would expect God to speak; they authenticate Jesus own understanding of his identity as a man whose identity is God. Since I first encountered Jesus in 1974, I have tried to live by the teaching of Jesus. Often, I have failed miserably and continue to do so. However, I love Jesus and I love his words. This book attempts to meditate on them and explore how they can be applied to our lives in the twenty-first century.

I am so grateful to the many people who have helped with this project. In particular, I would like to thank Kitty Kay-Shuttleworth, Chris Smith, Julia Evans, Mark Knight, James Orr and Kate Crossland-Page for their help and advice on the text. I would also like to thank all those who have been involved in the filming of the talks; Archie Coates, Martin Bennett, James Wynn, Mark Elsdon-Dew, Lisa Carlson, Jo Soda, John Butterworth, David Groves, Dan Lawson Johnston, and Katie Markham.

Last, but by no means least, I would like to thank Roslyn de Haan who has overseen the whole project in addition to numerous other projects with an extraordinary combination of hard work, dedication, commitment, patience, good humour, grace and total unflappability.

Our culture is obsessed with lifestyle. There are numerous magazines devoted to clothes, health and fitness, dieting, sexual performance, homes and gardens, and other aspects of lifestyle. They place style above content, and are preoccupied with how things look. Jesus is much more interested in what is underneath.

Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the Mount presents a challenge to our lifestyle in the West. However, it also offers an alternative lifestyle. We are called to develop the Jesus lifestyle. The question often asked by our culture is not so much Is Christianity true? but Is it real? Does it work? The world is watching. This is the challenge set before us.

As I have preached and worked through the eighteen chapters of this book over the last three years, on every occasion I have found myself profoundly challenged by Jesus. I only hope the reader will be as challenged as I have been.

The standards of lifestyle set by Jesus are very high. The Christian leader John Wimber put it like this: Jesus is insatiable. Everything we do pleases him but nothing satisfies him. I have been satisfied with Jesus. He has not been satisfied with me. He keeps raising the standards. He walks in high places. He is generous but uncompromising in his call.

The Sermon on the Mount has been described as the supreme jewel in the crown of Jesus teaching.

Jesus chose to give this sermon from a mountainside (Matthew 5:1). Perhaps he had in mind that it was on a mountain that Moses received Gods commandments in the Old Testament, or it may have been that this was simply the best place to speak.

There is some debate as to whether the sermon is addressed to his disciples or to the crowds. He appears to begin with his disciples (Matthew 5:1) and to finish with everyone listening (Matthew 7:28). The teaching would seem to be primarily for the disciples, the equivalent today of those who have already encountered Jesus. But it is clearly appropriate that it be heard by the crowds comparable, perhaps, to those who have not yet encountered Jesus. Jesus continually contrasts the two. He says, Do not be like them. His disciples should be different both from the non-religious, the Gentiles and pagans (the equivalent today of the secular world and the confused world of pluralistic religion) and also from the religious, the scribes and the Pharisees.