Real Life Selkirk
**FEB 8** The Sermon on the Mount #3 (Matthew 7)
  • Yes I Will
  • Your Faithfulness To Me
  • A Thousand Hallelujahs
  • Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me

  • Sermon

    Key Passage

    Matthew 7 NIV
    “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

    Vision/Mission

    Vision- We exist to reach the world for Jesus, one person at a time
    Mission- We do this by creating Biblical disciples in relational environments

    Introduction

    Today, we are going to conclude Jesus’ sermon on the mount.
    Again, we are flying through this sermon taking in a 30,000 ft perspective of this sermon.
    Rather than diving deeply on every topic and verse, we are taking the sermon as a whole and sharing the big picture message about what Jesus is saying and how it applies to our lives.
    A couple of weeks ago, we talked about how Jesus began His ministry by calling His disciples to Himself.
    The big principle that we drew out of that passage was that discipleship was God’s Plan A and there is no Plan B.
    Discipleship presented the human presence of the Almighty God showing the love of God, the nature of God and the will of God to the disciples.
    This isn’t classroom knowledge. This isn’t something that could have been learned through a Bible study or a class.
    This was an actual face-to-face relationship with a God who loved them.
    Jesus to the disciples in Matthew 4:19 was “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men”
    Matthew 4:19 Definition of a Disciple
    Following Jesus
    Changed by Jesus
    On mission with Jesus
    This was Jesus’ call and plan for His disciples
    When Jesus was about to go to the cross, He prayed to the Father, “I have completed the work you gave me. I have revealed you to those you have given me out of the world.”
    Jesus came to be our sacrifice for sin. Jesus came to make disciples.
    Everything else we see in Jesus ministry has to be seen through this lens. Jesus came to be God in the flesh and make a way for sinful man to be in relationship with the Father.
    But Jesus came to make disciples so the disciples would see the Father and make more disciples so the would would see the glory of God.
    Jesus then went up on the mountainside and began to preach:
    He began by showing how He had fulfilled the law.
    When we talked about that, we came to the conclusion that to be His disciple, we live under His righteousness, not our own righteousness under the law.
    Either we follow the law, or we follow Jesus who fulfilled the law.
    Eternity hangs in the balance of that decision.
    How does Jesus fulfill the law on our behalf? His command was simple: Follow Me, I will change you and bring you on mission with me.
    Last week, we further saw how Jesus extended the perspective of the central role of the Kingdom of Heaven into our lives by showing that what we do is for the Father
    Whether we give, or pray or fast, it is for God’s glory, not our own.
    We concluded last week talking about worry.
    Worry is a natural human response when we pass control of our lives to someone else.
    Human worry is natural when we entrust our lives to Jesus.
    But Jesus said, “trust me”

    Preaching Time

    I want to talk about the focus of the disciple.
    A disciple of Jesus must set their eyes on Jesus in order to follow Him
    The disciple has already left their own authority, their own rights and their own lives to follow Him
    Living the life Jesus puts before us becomes the sole calling of our heart.
    So many people talk about a calling on their lives.
    Like for some people, God sends down a beam of light and tells that person what their purpose for life is.
    Some people feel like their calling is ministry. Some people feel that their calling is helping the needy, or going to a foreign country.
    I want you to know that there is only one true calling. I have it. You have it. Jesus has already told us what that calling is in our passage.
    It is so common, that I think we often skip over it.
    I want to go back to that verse and bring it up, because I believe this sets the framework for our passages today:
    Matthew 5:14–16 NIV
    “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
    As a disciple of Jesus, you are the light of the world.
    You have a purpose. That light that is growing inside of you needs to be seen in the world around us.
    As that light is seen, God is glorified.
    The end of the entire matter is that God is glorified through His disciples.
    Here is your calling. Follow Jesus. Be changed by Jesus. Be on mission with Jesus.
    In all of this bring glory to God.
    What does that look like?
    It is a life that is lived looking upward, not to the things of this world.
    We talked about that last week
    A person who is living according to the law OT law or NT law is consumed with what happens in this world and what they do and whether what they do is right or wrong.
    The person who is following Jesus knows that the Father must be glorified.
    In everything I do, whether easy or difficult, whether in duress or comfort, it is all for Him to be seen.
    This last segment of the Sermon on the mount must be seen with the glory of God as the outcome of the disciple.
    It is the easiest way to understand this.
    There is a very important, but seemingly subtle line that Jesus is going to reveal today.
    Jesus is going to reveal that there are two gates, two houses, two types of disciples, two types of teachers.
    In fact, if you look through this sermon and into Jesus’ call to His disciples, He is always pitting the Kingdom against what they know.
    Either be fishermen or disciples
    Either pray to be seen by others or pray to be seen by the Father
    Either give to be honored by others or give to bring glory to God
    Either be light or darkness
    Either serve one master or the other.
    In all of these dual paths, they say the right words, they have religion, they quote Bible verses, they appear to be correct.
    But Jesus shows us that one path is Godly, the other path communicates a religious system apart from the Kingdom.
    We are going to set this up by looking at Jesus’ first statement here:
    Matthew 7:1–6 NIV
    “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
    This is an interesting and powerful passage to begin today’s dialog.
    I want to condense this down into a core value we have in our church.
    In our Life groups and in our relational environments of all sorts in this church, we all share the same guidelines for discussion.
    Guidelines provide safety for each person to open up in the context of that relationship to reveal what God is doing in their heart.
    One of our core values are “I statements”.
    I used to be the “We statements” or “You statements” guy.
    It provided me an ability to say things, while sounding smart, but not being real.
    An example is from a life group I was in many years ago. The topic was about Peter who asked Jesus about how many times he was supposed to forgive someone else. He said, “As many as 7 times?” Jesus told him, “You should forgive 70 times 7”
    The discussion question was something like, “Why is the continual forgiveness of others difficult for you?”
    I answered something like, “Well, when we forgive, we often forgive believing that the other person will no longer harm us. When they don’t change their behavior, we become angry, bitter and unforgiving. Forgiving like Jesus keeps us from these toxic feelings and keeps us living in grace.
    This was a technically sound answer. Totally Sunday School approved!
    Then the leader said, “That is a great response. Now say the same thing as an “I statement”.
    When I forgive, I forgive believing that the other person doesn’t want to harm me anymore. When they don’t change, I become angry, bitter and unforgiving. Forgiving like Jesus keeps me from these toxic feelings and keeps me living in grace.
    Wow, that really changed my answer.
    Jesus begins this last segment of the Sermon on the Mount by telling each listener that they needed to take personal ownership of their own journey.
    You don’t need to watch others and critique them. You need to look at your own path
    This carries extra importance along the way with the rest of this passage. As we change and the Father is seen through our lives, He is glorified.
    He is glorified as we make disciples.
    Matthew 7:7–12 NIV
    “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
    Here is where I want to tie in our closing from last week.
    Both of these talk about what we ought to desire from God.
    I want to begin today where we concluded last week and we will bring this entire teaching to a very clear and concise conclusion.
    Matthew 6:33 NIV
    But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
    We are instructed by Jesus to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness.
    Not to seek after our kingdom and our righteousness.
    Or what did Jesus say in His opening stanza?
    Matthew 5:6 NIV
    Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
    Does Jesus tell us what our hearts ought to pursue?
    If I ought to seek after His Kingdom and His righteousness, how do my prayers and requests look to Him?
    Matthew 7:7 NIV
    “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
    I want to highlight this for us today. We have highlighted that Jesus did not give us a new testament law.
    That however does not mean that we now choose to continually live in sin and claim to follow Jesus.
    I want to introduce this either/or situation that Jesus has presented.
    Either we are a disciple, or we are a fisherman
    Either we stand with our feet in the Kingdom of Heaven, or we stand on the kingdom of this earth
    Either we set our eyes on the eternal, or we set our eyes on the temporary.
    This is what we were talking about last week.
    Do we pray the Lord’s prayer from top to bottom, or from bottom to top
    Do we see our circumstances and go to God for our struggles, then our sin, then our food and, then pray for His Kingdom and His honor?
    After we have already prayed for ours?
    Or do we seek Him first.
    This is the context as we step into the concluding sections of this sermon.
    Matthew 7:13–14 NIV
    “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
    I want to probe a question:
    What makes the wide gate wide and what makes the narrow gate narrow?
    Many people think that this is talking about Christians and non-Christians.
    However, looking at the context of what was before this and what is after this, I come to a somewhat different conclusion:
    I believe people enter both gates trying to find the Kingdom of God.
    That is why they are going through the gates
    One path to the Kingdom of God is a path that is all about me.
    Jesus came for me. Jesus came to help me with my life, and Jesus is here to bless me and make me healthy, wealthy, and happy.
    This is the path that Jesus affirms me, and builds me up and reinforces me.
    The other gate is the gate that is all about God
    The gate that is all about God is really difficult.
    God isn’t affirming me. He is shaping me, pruning me, chipping away parts of me that I took my life to build.
    The end of this path means I look nothing like I did when I began. But it is through this gate that He is seen through me.
    This path requires humility. This path requires patience, suffering, struggle, and confusion. But in it, we learn to trust. We learn to find our joy in His work.
    This is a narrow path because this true discipleship is a hard road.
    People want “Jesus and”
    Jesus and a comfortable life
    Jesus and money
    Jesus and all of my opinions and rights.
    I’m not saying that having money is wrong or evil.
    I believe you can be wealthy and glorify God, and you can be wealthy and not glorify God
    In the same way, you can be in poverty and glorify God and you can be in poverty and still try to glorify yourself.
    The question is, when someone looks at you, do they see your wealth, or do they see Jesus?
    That is the outcome of that question.
    Matthew 7:15–23 NIV
    “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
    There will be false prophets and false disciples.
    These are the wide path. They are seeking validation and seeking to be seen by the world around them.
    False prophets and false disciples will both have something in common.
    They will be focused on this world
    Do you hear the cry of the false disciple? “We cast out demons in your name!” “We healed people in your name!”
    Jesus says, “Away from me, I never knew you.”
    The narrow path is a path of surrender and humility.
    It isn’t about trying make God be seen in this world by what we do.
    It is a life that is about allowing God to be seen in His way by what He does.
    This is the temptation of religion
    This is what the Pharisees and the teachers of the law did during the time of Jesus.
    They made their activity evident. They did everything for God. They did things so that their righteousness would be seen.
    The problem with their righteousness was that it was THEIR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
    When people saw them, they saw people who were changing themselves and believing God was pleased with them.
    The more rules you follow, and encourage others to follow, the more we do for God. But God doesn’t do through us.
    This is an either/or scenario.
    Either they are false prophets or true prophets
    Either they are false disciples or true disciples
    This brings a very subtle but important point to our discussion.
    The wide gate and the narrow gate are the separation of knowing Jesus as His disciple and and knowing about Jesus in religion.
    This passage offers a warning to us that there are those who will call us and draw us to the wide gate.
    During the time of Jesus, there were the Pharisees. Jesus called them out in this sermon.
    He said, “Don’t pray on the street corners to be seen by others like the Pharisees.”
    This is religious practice
    Pray to your Father who is unseen
    This is relationship
    Jesus warning is that false teachers will try to draw us into a life that is lived for appearances, following the rules and doing things for God in our lives.
    Jesus warns us because these people are religious, but they will draw us away from the truth of discipleship.
    Our righteousness if found in Him. Not in our good works. Not in our religion.
    This is where He highlights that people will call Him Lord!
    They are using the right words! They are doing spiritual things!
    All of the spiritual things in this world do not equate to knowing Jesus.
    Jesus calls us to discipleship, not miracles
    Jesus calls us to discipleship, not outward displays of power
    Discipleship is a humble shaping of the heart
    Not an outward display for God
    This all summarizes in the following passage that is a powerful conclusion to this sermon.
    Matthew 7:24–27 NIV
    “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
    Both people built houses.
    Again, I want to highlight that this passage mostly highlights the difference between the Pharisees and discipleship.
    It is religious practice vs. discipleship.
    Both builders built houses that they felt were in obedience to God.
    One was built on the sand. One was built on the rock.
    Now many pages of books have been written outlining what authors believe is rock and sand.
    The rock and the sand have to do with our understanding of who Jesus is and what He says.
    In all of the warnings of this passage, I want you to know that there will be a storm. There will be a judgment day.
    There will be a time that what we have built in our lives is exposed.
    Your righteousness will be yours or Jesus’
    Your identity will be yours or Jesus’
    Your life will reflect His glory or yours.

    Conclusion

    I want to summarize the entire sermon on the mount in one sentence.
    Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
    The outcome of discipleship is to reflect the glory of God in this world and to invite others to join in following Jesus.
    The process to get there requires change in our lives.
    Significant change. This sermon highlights the significant change that it requires
    God will reshape every part of your life. It won’t be formed in a way that you want it or in line with something that will make your life easier or more comfortable.
    He will reshape your life so that He can be seen in everything.
    We cannot listen to people telling us that the answer is something other than Jesus.
    We cannot live making change in our lives and in our world that are not His changes.
    Religion will not save you
    Your church will not save you
    Your pastor will not save you
    Reading your Bible will not save you
    Only Jesus will save you.
    And salvation comes from a life that is surrendered to His hands.
    A life that the Father will change to reflect Himself in this life.
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      • Matthew 7NIV2011

      • Matthew 5:14–16NIV2011

      • Matthew 7:1–6NIV2011

      • Matthew 7:7–12NIV2011

      • Matthew 6:33NIV2011

      • Matthew 5:6NIV2011

      • Matthew 7:7NIV2011

      • Matthew 7:13–14NIV2011

      • Matthew 7:15–23NIV2011

      • Matthew 7:24–27NIV2011

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Real Life Selkirk
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