On a mountainside in Galilee, Jesus preached a message known as the Sermon on the Mount. We read, “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them.”1 About two thirds of the way through the sermon, he asked this question: “What more are you doing than others?”2
The question has nothing to do with salvation. Jesus made that clear on several occasions, the most famous one when he was talking with Nicodemus. He said, “Whoever believes in [me] shall have eternal life.”3 Believing in Jesus is the requirement for salvation. The question regarding “what more are you doing” is directed toward his followers—which is different from believers in Jesus. There are many who believe; few follow.
Followers of Jesus go after him and become his disciples. The discipleship life is an option—“If any would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”4 There were crowds of people listening to that sermon, but Jesus was really talking to his disciples. Luke records that as he was beginning to preach, “he lifted up his eyes on his disciples.”5 And he asked them that question: What more are you doing than others?
As followers of Jesus, our lives should look different. Have we really bought into this concept? What more are we doing? This is not to say that we need to get out our legal pads and compile a list of things to do (although that’s not a terrible idea), but rather we need to be more intentional about our living. The context of the question is focused on loving those we do not like. Because that’s the most important thing—that we love others.
But there seems to be something even more important than that most important thing! Because after he mentions loving people we do not like, he asks the question: What more are you doing than others? Then he adds this command: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”2 All this seems foreign and quite impossible to us, for we assume being perfect is being flawless, not making mistakes. But that is not our word. The Greek word tamam means wholeness, completeness. Jesus is telling his followers that they need to imitate their heavenly Father who is perfect, and when we do, we will be made whole. We will be complete.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a French mathematician, inventor, physicist, philosopher, and Catholic writer (a busy man), wrote about the emptiness that we all feel at some point in our lives. He puts it this way: “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
So, to be perfect, to be complete, is to allow God to fill us up with himself. Paul’s prayer is that we “may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”6 And as that happens, we are able to do more because God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”7 Therefore, the answer to the question, What more are you doing than others? can only be that we are being filled with God’s Spirit who works in us. Then we will be able to do “immeasurably more” than anyone else.
1Matthew 5:1-2 2Matthew 5:47 3John 3:16 4Matthew 16:24 Luke 6:20 6 Ephesians 6:19 7Ephesians 3:20
