Sermon on the Mount: Choices

Old Testament: Joshua 24:15
New Testament: Matthew 7:13-27

  1. Introduction
    1. 12 of 12 - Final sermon in a penetrating series!
    2. Next week Dan will kick-off the 4-weeks of advent with a sermon on Hope
  2. Prayer
    1. Let’s begin by asking for God’s help understanding this final and challenging section of the Sermon on the Mount
  3. Please open your Bibles to the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Page 684 in your pew Bible
    1. Can you believe that 12-weeks ago we started two pages back? Follow with me.
    2. The Beatitudes describe for us the root character of the believer
    3. We receive our calling to be salt and light. To be different form everything else under the sun
    4. To expect persecution
    5. To adopt a whole new legal code that is about internal transformation by imputed righteousness not legal obedience
    6. To learn to know and love God in the Spiritual exercises: Giving, Prayer & Fasting
    7. We have been oriented to our relationship with our stuff and our ultimate reward in heaven
    8. Reminded to not worry, but rather be righteous
    9. Taught on  the relation that judging has to the humble believer
    10. Learned to ask, seek and knock
  4. Well, here in the final bit of Chapter 7, there are no more injunctions, corrections or explanations. The sermon is over and Jesus is quite literally asking the listener to choose. Like every good sermon his ends with a “So What.”  There are Two-ways – The Wide and the Narrow
    1. Read 13-14
    2. Common Hebraic wisdom
    3. The rest of chapter seven is all about this undeniable dichotomy, the following metaphors and warning only illustrate this division. Two kinds of people, two kinds of trees, two kinds of foundations.

                                                               i.      Really many choices are like this – A or B, on or off, 1 or 0, and in these cases, no decision is a decision it is no. Should I eat the treats after church? Yes or No? A debate that lasts until 1:00 makes my choice for me. The treats are gone my window of opportunity is closed. Well Jesus has offered up such a choice with much greater implications. Which way will you choose pilgrim? The wide or the narrow path?

    1. But what is the Wide and Narrow gate? I do not want to mitigate the obvious that the high-calling of the disciple. We are undoubtedly called to a difficult and narrow path. But what will argue today is critical and I do not think you will read it in most places. In a few, but not most. In most commentaries, you are going to read that Jesus has called us to holy living and that words alone will not suffice, that the mark of a true Christian is one who is a doer of the word. Ok. Now listen carefully, I agree that we have a high-calling. In fact, I will spell it out in detail for you, but in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus has gone out of his way to discuss a new gospel unlike anything else. A salty gospel that is different from any other religion – a gospel of imputed righteousness – a gospel of interior transformation by alien power, namely the Holy Spirit. A gospel of the poor in Spirit, The meek, the gentle. Remember Jesus is talking to the Pharisee. He is saying the way of the Pharisee is like every other religion - behave right and you will win favor with the divine. But Jesus says, look I bring you a new Gospel.

                                                               i.      Romans 10:9-11 – because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.”

    1. So, behave well because you have been redeemed! Understand your depravity and surrender your self to the work of the Holy Spirit. Press into him and press on to the prize – WHICH IS KNOWING CHRIST MORE FULLY.
    2. I just do not think we get folks. So many books I read just reinserted works righteousness. God saves you freely as you, now behave like him or it will be proof that you were never called; it makes the entry free and the staying contingent! Did you hear me before? We are called to be like light, in fact, to not live this way is to miss the very best things in life, and it is like salt without saltiness or light under a basket. It is foolish! The gospel of holiness is good news. It is emancipation proclamation from you and a description of your freedoms. We have many reasons for orthopraxy – it is good, worship, reward, final judgment. I would love to hear well done good and faithful servant.
    3. Do you have that? The narrow gate is this gospel, and few will find it. Most will turn to the religion of the Pharisee, the Muslim, and the Hindu, the religion of the world - Behave in the proscribed manner and God will love you. Seriously, look at the rest of the warnings in this light. It fits with everything we have said so far. This is the narrow way – the way of the gospel.
  1. Wolves and Fruit
    1. Read 15-12
    2. This section describes those who appear to be Believers in BEHAVIOR but at the core they are not sheep of the Great Shepard, they are wolves. And how should we identify them? We cannot see through the sheep’s clothes and the tree looks just like all of the others – so we are to judge them by there fruit. Now, maybe fruit means right behavior, but does that make any sense? It says they look the same! They are kind, and generous and do not smoke or drink or dance. What kind of fruit could we be looking for? How could we unmask these wolves? The fruit here cannot be the behavior, else how would we judge the Pharisee? Well, we need not look far to identify the fruit – Jesus described it at the beginning of the sermon! You will know my people by the following fruit. They are poor in Spirit, understanding their great need. The are humble and they mourn, they hunger and thirst for righteousness, they do not count on their own, they are undivided in their dedication to this gospel, they are peacemakers and willing to accept persecution. This is the fruit we judge. Right behavior is the mask. Right behavior is the sheep clothing. Right behavior is the tree. The fruit is what does not come naturally to any human. The beatitudes!
    3. You see there are many righteous people. It is often said the many of the best “Christians” are outside the kingdom. The Asian religions are full of better behavior. The Muslims have Christians beat far and away with right behavior. The mark, the fruit of the Christian is he understanding of this radical new gospel, this narrow gate – Salvation form Depravity by Grace and Imputed Righteousness and the Indwelling of righteousness Himself, namely the Holy Spirit.
  2. That is why the words of verses 21-23 should come as no surprise! Many people will think that good or righteousness behavior is the sane as knowing Jesus Christ! Well it is not! Those who know Christ know a strange of realty the loving savior, a contrite heart and the activity of the Holy Spirit. You see these people at the throne of God were confused. I suspect many in our world will be. They said Lord, Lord, using his name twice for familiarity. Then three times they repeated what they did in his name. Unfortunately not recorded in the NIV. Three times them mention their activity “In His name” They might as well repeated the mantra of our culture. Lord we were good, we sowed good works into creation and you should receive good. That might as well say I was nice to people, kind to animals and shared my stuff with others. And Jesus would say I never knew you. Look around church. The world is full of “good” people who do not know Christ. Truly, the only Christians I understand are the Christians who when they met Jesus at the great throne – faced with his condemnation would say “Yes Lord I do deserve Condemnation. I am poor in Spirit. I do not deserve to be here. I only came because you called me. I would understand if you sent me away. I come pleading your promise only. And to that person is promised a welcome, for they have KNOWN Jesus and his kingdom.
  3. It like two men building two fine houses. Now listen up. I do not want to get tricky here. Both men build fine houses and I would like to think the fine houses are right behavior. But one man built his life of right behavior on the rock with Jesus Christ, and one man built his house on “being good”, or his own righteousness, and when the final judgment came, the flood. Only the man who built his house on the Rock of Jesus and not the stand of the Law survived. One fine house of good behavior stands as a beautiful testimony to Jesus and will be rewarded. The other man’s works are like so much trash washed down steam.
    So What?
    1. What do we do friends? I know I have taken a different tack. I am not alone, and some would not agree with me. Do you get it? Do you get the narrow way? The narrow way is about right Relationship with God, and Right Words or even Right Deeds are not enough. Right Relationship only comes from a Right Understanding of Righteousness.
    2. If there are any in this room who did not know Christ I would call you out to see the difference. Everybody else in the world offers you the chance to be good enough in varying degrees or by different method. Only Christianity, only Jesus offers you this –Come to me you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest, confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. I will impute my righteousness to you and fill you with the Holy Spirit who will guide you deeper into me. As you surrender to his work the fruit of it will be humble, meek and beautiful behavior to my glory, your house will stand in the final Judgment and you will spend eternity growing in my Kingdom.
    3. For the rest of us – What will you do Brothers and Sisters? If you know the gospel then hear again the good news. Jesus wants you to live a Holy Life; anything else would be to miss the greatest good. We will be judged by how we have used the gifts that have been given to us.

                                                               i.