Welcome to the Bible Study. I'm Stephen Lawson, president of One Passion Ministries.

And each week I will teach verse by verse through the passage of scripture so that you can better understand the word of God

and put it into practice in your life. Join me now as we look together into this

section of the Bible. Great. So I'm just ready to dive into this and sooner I get started the more time we'll have at the end to talk among ourselves.

So let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father in heaven we ask So let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father in heaven, we ask now again for your blessing to be upon the teaching of your word.

We know that your word is powerful.

We pray for the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

To take your word and bring it home to our minds and into our hearts and to really mobilize our wills. And so we look to you to do great

things today as we dig into your word. We pray this in Christ's name,

amen.

Okay, so here we go.

Take your Bible and turn with me to Matthew, chapter 5.

We're starting a brand new series on the sermon on the mount and I'm

entitling this first study the greatest sermon ever preached.

And so I want to begin by reading, we're going to look at the first two verses, but I'm going to read

a few more verses just to kind of wet our appetite for what lies ahead. I think that

this is going to be one of the most heart-searching and life-changing studies that we will ever undertake, if not the most.

So, Matthew Chapter 5, beginning in verse one.

When Jesus saw the crowds,

he went up on the mountain,

...