Sermon on the Mount

How do we really grow in character? Everyone desires to see differences in our lives in how we act and think. But how does change really come? What makes Christianity different when it comes to character growth? Is the Sermon on the Mount simply an exchange of one list of virtues for others that Jesus provides or something more? If it is, we are only left in despair for never reaching them or in arrogance for our thinking we have kept them. When Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount it was the inauguration of his public ministry.