A couple of years ago, two college students challenged me—a woman in her 50s—to memorize the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7). Inwardly, I balked, but now I know that few things in my 35 years of following Jesus have been more transformative than committing Jesus’s most famous sermon to memory.
John Stott wrote that the Sermon on the Mount is “the nearest thing to a manifesto that [Jesus] ever uttered, for it is his own description of what he wanted his followers to be and to do.” After spending the last few years memorizing it, I see with increasing clarity that I need Jesus’s help to live out what he taught.
In a world where algorithms capture our affections and lure us online via our cravings, one of the most effective resistance strategies we can employ is to study and memorize Scripture—especially the Sermon on the Mount.
Create a New Algorithm
The algorithm often knows us better than we know ourselves. Every time we buy something on Amazon or pause to watch a reel on social media, the algorithm chronicles our activities and builds a profile of us.
This profile shows our real interests (not just the ones we list in our social media bios) and some of our most private behaviors (the ones we thank God aren’t live streamed). In milliseconds, companies use what the algorithm knows about us to discover the most effective way to get us to buy their products.
In the same way that the algorithm learns about us with each post we like and each reel we watch, God’s Word comes alive in us with every command we learn and put into practice, with every verse we ponder, and with every teaching we adopt as a way of life. By absorbing and obeying Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, we can create a feedback loop that enlarges his kingdom rule over our lives.
Let Scripture Reorder Your Heart
Before I started my memorization project, I’d heard many Christians tout Scripture memory as one of the most potent tools for conforming to Jesus, but I didn’t take it seriously. All that changed when I realized algorithms had more access to my life than God’s Word did.
By absorbing and obeying Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, we can create a feedback loop that enlarges his kingdom rule over our lives.
Like many Americans, I was averaging more than two hours daily scrolling social media and shopping online, and much less time reading the Bible. I’d thought lack of time was my biggest obstacle to memorizing Scripture. But in reality, my affections and priorities were the obstacle.
Memorizing and studying the Sermon on the Mount has provided a powerful reset. I’ve noticed two significant changes in my life.
1. My thoughts are increasingly populated by Jesus’s desires for me.
Previously, I was easily shaped by what internet influencers said I should be doing and what my heart really wanted to do. Now, Scripture tenderly draws me to Christ’s transforming grace.
For example, a few months ago, someone wrote harsh words to me. I couldn’t sidestep what I’d memorized: Pray for those who hurt you (Mt. 5:44) In those difficult interactions, Jesus’s teaching gave me wisdom to stop reacting and start praying for the one lashing out. Pausing to pray breaks down my self-protective stance so I can consider what the log in my eye might be (Mt. 7:5).
2. I see how vastly different God’s kingdom is from the world we live in.
I no longer feel as drawn to the shallow version of perfection the algorithm offers me—the beautiful home, the perfectly fit woman charmingly dressed, or the promise of perpetual travel. When I stop to linger over another picture-perfect kitchen, the Sermon on the Mount prompts me to consider where my treasure really is.
These chapters have given me a robust lens through which I can view all of God’s Word. After drinking so deeply of Jesus’s sermon, I see it as the hinge on which both the Old Testament and the New Testament hang.
I had thought lack of time was my biggest obstacle to memorizing Scripture. But in reality, my affections and priorities were the obstacle.
When Jesus equates murder with anger, he exposes a corruption we prefer not to acknowledge within ourselves (Matt. 5:21–26). Later in the New Testament, we see we have a Savior who forgives our anger and frees us to live to God’s glory. Having this framework embedded in my mind helps me remember the gospel when outside influences pull my attention away.
The first three years of my journey into the Sermon on the Mount have helped me be more like Jesus. Yet it’s obvious to me that my journey has just begun.
My life changed when those two college students challenged me to memorize the sermon. Almost every day, those words draw me closer to my Savior and encourage me to conform to him. The Sermon on the Mount has given me more joy than any product the algorithm could ever pop into my newsfeed.
The Gospel Coalition