Sermon Transcript
If you were gonna build a house, where would you start? Probably call someone else, right?
Probably call, you know, an architect or a general contractor, and you tell them what you want, you know? And then you’d sit down with them. They’d draw blueprints and all those things, they’d work on them, and then you’d come back and you’d finalize it, right? And so you’d come, they’d show you the blueprints, and they’d show you, and they’d turn it over to you, and you’d look at it, they’d point out different features. Oh, yeah, you wanted this.
Here it is, this and this and that. And you look through them, and you’d approve them, and then they would go off and they’d build the house. Right? And so imagine it’s done and it looks like this.
Now, that is not some AI nightmare. That’s a real house, believe it or not, over in Poland. That is. It reminds me, like, you know, those memes, like, expectation, reality. That’s what this reminds me of here.
You know, it’s kind of those things. Like, you see a blueprint, you’re like, it’s upside down. Well, you were looking at it like that. We were looking at it upside down. No.
Anyway, but that’s a real house over in Poland. Here’s the really fun thing about this is the furniture in that house is actually glued to, I guess, the floor, the ceiling. Which one is it? Like, if it’s above you? I mean, it’s actually the floor, but it’s actually the ceiling, too, so.
But you walk in and there’s just furniture up above you. So. But have you ever seen something like that in real life? Apparently, this is a thing that happens all over the world. Like, this is a trend.
This is a thing to build a house upside down. But sometimes our expectation doesn’t meet the reality, right? Or the reality doesn’t mean our expectation. Rather, things don’t always turn out the way that we plan them. But if we want to build a house, it just so happens to we need a blueprint.
If we want to build a life, it’s very much the same way we need a blueprint. And what happens when the blueprint doesn’t match the reality that we face? We have to go back to the drawing board. We have to go back to the foundation that we’ve laid and relay that foundation that we’ve built. So how do we do that?
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus calls the crowds to a life that is found saved, has found salvation through him, through him alone. He calls his disciples to take his word and to put it into practice. He calls the religious leaders of his day into account for their hypocrisy. And as he teaches, some recognize quickly that Jesus words are true, that he has the words of truth. Part of that’s because of how he taught with authority, right?
The Pharisees, the teachers of the law, the leaders, the religious leaders of Jesus day, they taught with the authority of others. They taught from authority that other people had already established. But Jesus taught with authority, with all authority, because he is God. He had divine authority. So just like building a house starts with the foundation, the same applies to our lives.
It applies to our faith. The right foundation is found in the authoritative words of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus that leads to everlasting life. And it’s this idea in Matthew, chapter seven, that Jesus concludes his teaching. In the sermon on the mount. With Jesus gives four sets of warnings, four questions that we must ask for analogies that will help us wrap our mind around what it means to live a life based on, built on the teachings of Jesus.
We read in Matthew, chapter seven, verse 13. Jesus says, 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. Now, this passage is often quoted. You’ve probably heard it before. I remember as a kid, maybe as a teenager, receiving tracts. I’ve seen tracts, you know, remember those, like gospel tracts.
You know, things that hand out, that people still do, that they still hand out gospel tracts. But I remember getting one of these once, and it had this verse in there about the narrow path, and the broad is the road that leads to destruction. When it got to that broad, as the road that leads to destruction part, you probably have seen something like this. There was this image of a bunch of people, just tons of people, on this bridge, and it’s so crowded. There’s just no room on this bridge that people are walking on.
In fact, there are so many people on this bridge, they’re falling off of the bridge, and what they’re falling into below is clearly meant to image the fires of hell, right? People are falling off this broad path into the fires of hell. And it just. It’s supposed to kind of to give you second thought, to scare you a little bit, that this road is so broad that people walk on, and yet it’s leading them to their destruction. Now, is that the imagery that Jesus gives here?
I don’t know. Let’s dig deeper. Let’s find out. The idea of two paths, one that leads to life and one that leads to death, was familiar to Jesus audience. The key difference between Jesus teaching and the teaching of the religious leaders of his day and the understanding of his audience is that they would have understood that they were on the right path simply because they were a part of the nation of Israel.
Right. God had a plan to save his people. And surely God’s not going to let any of his people go unsaved, right? At least not most of them. He’s going to save the people of Israel because they are the people of God, the chosen people of God.
What does Jesus teach?
Jesus teaches that entrance into God’s kingdom is found only through him, that he is the narrow gate. It’s only by becoming a follower of Jesus that we enter the path in the first place. For example, Jesus said elsewhere, John ten nine, I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. Jesus, in that same analogy in John ten, says that he is the good shepherd, and the only way that the flock can be led, the only one who can lead the flock into the safety of the fold is the good shepherd, is Jesus.
In that same parable he uses in John ten, he also says in verse four that the good shepherd goes ahead of the sheep, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. In verse 14 of John ten, Jesus says, I know my sheep and my sheep know me. We’ve talked before about the dangers of leading sheep through the wilderness of the judean countryside. And Jesus is using that analogy to explain what it means to walk on this narrow path. And so Jesus is not only leading the flock into the safety of the fold, he’s not only bringing them into the salvation of the kingdom of God, he’s also leading them along the path, along the troublesome and dangerous path, the narrow path that we follow when we follow Jesus.
And it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing we have a good shepherd. The word translated in the Bible in verse 13 as narrow talking about the gate, and in verse 14 as small talking about the path. It’s the same word, and it’s a very rich word. It has this understanding, this meaning behind it, of a narrow path.
Yes, but that path is full of trouble. It’s full of danger. It’s full of worry, scary things, worrisome things, destructive things that might harm us because there’s danger in this world. When you’re following Jesus, it squeezes us in uncomfortable and troublesome situations. In comparison, the broad path is pretty comfortable.
You might be on the broad path and you look around like, wow, look at all this room. You know, you could really breathe here. I got no one here telling me what to do, right. There is so much room anyone can fit on this path that leads, Jesus says, to destruction. So is it.
Is the. Is the fiery pits of hell with, you know, people falling off? Is that the imagery that Jesus is giving us here, of the broad path? No, it’s. It’s one that entices us.
It’s comfortable. People enjoy being on the broad path.
Jesus presents, then, two responses to his teaching. The right way or the wrong way. The right way leads to life, and it’s a narrow and sometimes even troublesome road. But the wrong way is a broad path that’s really, really comfortable, but it leads to destruction. And so following Jesus is exclusive.
It’s an exclusive thing, and it’s often difficult, but it’s the only path that leads to life. Here’s the thing. We’ve said this before. The path of Jesus is exclusive, but it’s not exclusive of anyone. All people, all believers are welcome.
Everyone is welcome to travel the path of Jesus. And we can enter through one true gate at any time by calling on the name of Jesus. But those on his path exclude every other path. We’ve chosen the way of Jesus over every other way, because we recognize that every other way leads to destruction. There’s only one way in, and there’s only one path to travel that leads to life.
Jesus knows the trouble that we’ve been through. He knows the dangers that you’ve traveled through in your faith, in your life.
In fact, he knows that this world is a narrow and dangerous path for his disciples. He said as much. In fact, when he was getting ready to go to the cross, he’s giving his words to his disciples, teaching them for the last time. Before he would be arrested and tried and crucified. Before the resurrection.
Jesus said these words to his disciples in John 14. He said, do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. He gives him a promise.
My father’s house has many rooms. If that were not so, would I have told you that I’m going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am? You know the way to the place where I am going. Now we hear those words of Jesus and we think, oh, yeah.
Oh, yes, Lord. Amen. I know the way. Jesus is the way. But when Jesus disciples first heard those words, they were confused.
They didn’t understand what was going on. In fact, Jesus, one of his disciples, came to him. And Thomas, one of his disciples, came to him and said, lord, we don’t even know where you’re going, so how do we know the way? Like, could you at least tell us where you’re going? How did Jesus respond?
He said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. What we learn is this, that Jesus disciples follow his instruction, rather than the easy and destructive paths of the world, the paths that the world offers. Now Jesus moves on to use illustrations to show his disciples what it means to live life, to choose between that narrow path and that broad road. And he starts by suggesting that there are two kinds of prophets, two kinds of fruit that can be borne in our lives.
And so Jesus says this, 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. The wolf in sheep’s clothing should take on a new meaning. Now that we’ve discussed the idea of Jesus being the good shepherd, the idea of the sheep coming into the fold, that idea should take on new meaning for us.
The prophet Ezekiel disparaged the leadership of Israel, calling them wolves, calling them ravenous wolves, because they led Israel astray, they led people astray, and from the inside of the nation, they tore it apart. But the difference here is that the wolves in Ezekiel’s day weren’t hiding what they were doing. They were just open and blatant about it. But Jesus says that these are wolves in sheep’s clothing. The interesting thing here is that Jesus equates this, equates to false prophets as wolves and sheep’s clothing.
Now, think about this with me. If someone came to you and claimed to be a prophet, how would you respond? You’d probably be a little incredulous, wouldn’t you? Be like, right, okay, you’re a prophet. Sure.
Like, find the exit. Like, you know, just back away slowly. All right, children, there’s a crazy person over here. Just stay away. Right.
You’re a prophet. Sure you are, buddy. Good thing. All right, see you later. That’s probably how we would respond.
And the same was true in Jesus day. I mean, think through this. How did they respond to Jesus, who really was a prophet? He was the son of God. What do prophets do?
They speak God’s word. And Jesus was a prophet like no other prophet ever. And they still rejected him. So they were just as incredulous toward people claiming to be prophets as we would be. So maybe there’s a deeper understanding.
Maybe there’s something more to what Jesus is saying. Perhaps a more likely understanding here would be that those who claim to speak on God’s behalf, who Jesus calls false prophets, are these ferocious wolves. Maybe it’s the people who claim to lead others, to instruct them in God’s word. And yet they’re false prophets, false teachers, because they’re really just teaching their own. Teaching, their own understanding, their own traditions.
Now, both of those things, again, if you think about this, this is what the Pharisees did, isn’t it? They taught their own traditions. They pretended to speak on God’s behalf, even though they weren’t really truly teaching the spirit of God’s law. And so what Jesus is doing here is he’s calling out the spirit of the day in the leaders, the religious leaders around him, who claim to speak on God’s behalf. When they created these, we talked about this before, this hedge around the law, these protective laws that kept people from breaking God’s law.
Right? But the problem is, they taught their traditions, they taught their interpretations of the law. As if they were the truth that God spoke in the first place. And they would beat people over the head with these rules. And so Jesus is calling them out.
He calls them hypocrites. They’re acting as if they speak on God’s behalf, when in reality, they’re just passing on the traditions that they made up themselves.
Why? Just like in Ezekiel’s day, when there were ferocious wolves in the leadership of Israel, they were tearing their nation apart because they wanted power. They wanted control. And the same was true with the religious leaders in Jesus day. And so he calls them hypocrites.
And so we have to be careful. We have to watch for wolves in sheep’s clothing. How do we do that? We do that by examining their lives, their actions, the fruit that comes from their faith. If their actions lead people away from God, are they truly speaking on God’s behalf?
If they’re not loving people like God loves people, are they truly speaking on God’s behalf? That’s what Jesus turns to next. And so we need to be cautious that the teaching of false teachers, false prophets, wolves in sheep’s clothing, don’t corrupt us. And so Jesus identifies two kinds of fruit that we can look out for in the second half of verse 16, Jesus says, gives this analogy, do people pick grapes from thorn bushes 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 bear good fruit does bear bad fruit. No, sorry. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit, you will recognize them.
And so let’s think about this. We’ve probably, again, we’ve probably heard this, this passage quoted before, this proverb of Jesus before. But what is Jesus really saying here? The key to understanding this is going back to the beginning and thinking about this idea of grapes and figs and thorns and thistles. Now, grapes and figs, maybe you don’t love either of those types of fruit, but in Jesus day, that was what was available.
And those things fed people. They gave life, you know, so to speak. They filled this need for hunger, and they brought nourishment to people.
What do thorns and thistles do?
They hurt people. Right? You run into one of those in the garden, you might lose your religion.
That’s what they do. And why do they hurt people? For their own survival, so that they can last. Do you see the analogy here? Do you see what Jesus is saying?
That likewise, false teachers, false prophets, leave paths of destruction in the lives of those who don’t have the wisdom to see through their hollow ways. And so we need to be warned. We need to see the difference, in a word, the difference between someone who teaches the words of Jesus and someone who teaches only from their own words, only their own wisdom. One word that was summarized, that is love.
How can you claim to speak on Christ’s behalf if you don’t love other people, like Christ loved people. That’s the difference.
Those who lead others to Jesus, that’s what sets them apart from those who would lead others astray. And that word that summarizes, that is love, as Jesus said in John 13, by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples. If you love one another, if you love one another, that’s the identifying mark of a disciple of Jesus, of someone who teaches God’s word. And again, it’s our job to examine the fruit, to look at the actions of someone who claims to have words from God and to decide the path that we will travel. It’s God’s job to judge the heart, not ours, and the source of the fruit.
But in the end, those who lead people astray, they’ll pay a penalty they’ll face destruction just like everyone else on the broad and easy path. What we learn is that Jesus disciples are recognized by a life transformed by love. Jesus then turns us to the eternal rewards that we receive. Now, remember, we’ve said that it’s not as if we should live our lives only for rewards when we’re living our lives for Jesus. But there is an eternal reward, and that reward is also present in this life.
And so Jesus says in verse 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, and that is our reward.
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. According to Jesus, receiving that reward. Entering the kingdom of heaven comes when we call on the name of Jesus, when we call out to Jesus as Lord, and when we obey his teachings. Jesus said in John 638, I’ve come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. And so we obey the teachings of Jesus because Jesus entire life was submitted to the will of the Father in heaven, of our Father in heaven.
And so we submit ourselves to the teachings of Jesus, not merely hearing them, not just knowing about them, as James says in James, chapter one, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself. He says, do what it says. And so if we want to experience the reward of living in the kingdom of heaven, we have to live obedient lives to the word of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus. James instructs us further in chapter one, verse 25, he says, whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. Do you want to be blessed in what you do?
Then we have to look intently into the words, the teachings of Jesus and put them into practice in our lives. Jesus then addresses those who claim to do that, who act as if they are experiencing those blessings in his name but lack true obedience. He says in verse 22, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons in your name, perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you away from me, you evildoers. If you notice there’s hypocrisy here.
Remember what hypocrisy means. You’re acting like something that you’re not, and these false disciples are acting like true disciples. They’re even claiming that they’ve done the things that Jesus himself did in the name of Jesus. Now, can we substantiate these claims? That’s not the point of what Jesus is saying here.
The point is, what he’s saying is that their hearts are not given over to him. And again, it comes back to that one word, love. Do we love God? Do we love Jesus? If so, then we will obey him.
Not just pretend like we do not just pretend to act in his name. Disobedience isn’t love, is it? It’s not. Neither does simply knowing about God or knowing about the teachings of Jesus help us enter the kingdom, because just knowing about them isn’t loving them. And so what we learn is that Jesus disciples know him.
They know Jesus, and they’re known by Jesus through a genuine relationship. Jesus then looks again at these kingdom rewards that are present now and in eternity through a genuine relationship with him. And he concludes with a parable about two builders and two foundations. In verse 24, he says, therefore, remember, whenever there’s a therefore, we should ask what the therefore is there for. Right.
Go back. We’ve already done that. We’ve looked at the context of the parable that Jesus is about to give. We understand why he’s about to say what he’s about to say, don’t we? We’ve unpacked that.
And so Jesus says, therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice. Let me say that one more time. 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 nothing fall because it had its foundation on the rock.
Jesus says, everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice, does not put them into practice. That’s the focus here, is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose. The winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, fell with a great crash. Building on a solid foundation matters.
Building our lives on the teachings of Jesus matters. When you lay the foundation for a house, what do you do? You dig down deep into the solid earth. You dig down below the soil and the sand to a solid place. And we would go.
We’d pour a foundation of probably concrete, right? Something strong that that house can sit upon. Now, they, believe it or not, didn’t have concrete trucks in Jesus day. But instead, what they would do is they would dig down to the bedrock. They dig down to the solid, firm rock below the sand, their sandy soil.
And it would be tempting if you, if you didn’t understand how the soil works, which we’re not going to get into that because it’d be way too nerdy for today. But if you understand that on the top of this soil, there may be this layer of sandy soil that looks solid, you could walk on it, you could build a house on it, and it would seem fine until the rains came and the floods, and it would wash that soil out and the house would fall with a great crash. It’s the same way in our lives. It’s the same way in our faith, just like when the soil and the sand moves and the house falls. We need to examine our lives.
We need to examine our foundation. Alternatives to Jesus in this world are all sinking sand. They’re all shifting sands. And so build on him on the solid rock. Who won an eternal victory on the cross?
Think about this. We serve a king who invites us into his kingdom and shares that victory with us, that reward when we enter through the narrow gate, through the only way into the kingdom, through that victory of the cross. And then he invites us to build our lives on the foundation of the truth of his teaching, so that our lives will stand. And that’s what Jesus disciples do. They build on the solid rock of his teaching.
So how do you build on the rock? We have to choose between two paths. Enter the kingdom through a faithful relationship with Jesus, who transforms our hearts through his love. Jesus path excludes all other paths, but he invites all who believe to enter in the path. Following Jesus is often more difficult, more dangerous than the alternative.
Paths that seem like they’re pleasurable but they lead to destruction. All other paths that the world offers leads to destruction along the way. There’s going to be troubles when we travel this narrow road, for those who claim to speak God’s word will be there, enticing us, trying to pull us away from the truth of the teaching of Jesus and so we can be led astray if we’re not careful. To examine the results of their teaching, to look at the fruit of their lives and their actions, to measure them against the truth of the words of Jesus and the goodness of God, the love of God, the solution that Jesus gives to overcome the pressures and the dangers while still staying on the right path is this, is simply this. And if you’re gonna take anything away from today’s message, it should be this.
To build your foundation on Jesus words. Build your foundation on Jesus words. So how do we do that. How do we know if our foundation is built firmly on the rock? I want to give you some questions that you can ask yourself, some ways to examine yourself.
And there’s two theologians that I want to share from. The first is Warren Wiersby. Wiersby was a preacher up in Chicago and has now gone to be with the Lord, but wrote many, many books and commentaries and sermons on how to live your life fully for Jesus. And he gives us three things that we can do. First of all, examine the cost of your faith.
Did your profession of faith cost you anything? Have you paid a price to follow Jesus? And if so, what does that cost? The second thing is investigate whether your life has really changed. Is there fruit in your life that you can point to today that wasn’t there before you followed Jesus?
What good things have come out of your life? That is a deposit. It’s proof that your life in Jesus is real, that your life is being transformed by his love. When we become more loving toward other people, when we seek reconciliation from broken relationships, when we become more generous, when we live out the fruit of the spirit. If you think about that, those are a result of the love of Jesus transforming our lives.
When we have love and joy and peace, not because we don’t have troubles in this world, but because we have the peace of God, which transcends all understanding when we’re patient with others, even when they harm us, when we’re kind and good, faithful to Jesus, to our promises to others, when we’re gentle in our responses, when we do these things, that’s a deposit. That’s proof that our faith is really real, that we’re standing on the teachings of Jesus? And finally, Wiersby says, remember that true faith in Christ will last. What storms have you weathered through your faith in Jesus? Can you point to times where you can look back and see that God was with you all along?
Let that be fuel for the future where you trust him even more? So, we come to the end of Jesus teaching. In the sermon on the mount, we should take account. We should take time to ask ourselves some maybe difficult questions about the transformation in our lives. And I want to share Michael Wilkins in his commentary, he shares some questions that we should ask ourselves.
Will you enter the gate to life in the kingdom of heaven and embark on a life of following Jesus, or will you reject him for the popular roads that lead to destruction from the world? Will you find in Jesus the inner source of transformation that will produce good fruit in your life, or will you follow the voices of this world that hype a promise of life, but will only take you into the fires of hell. Will you obey the father’s will and come to Jesus as your only lord, or will you chase after false manifestations of spirituality that result in eternal banishment? Will you build your life on Jesus as your solid rock, or will the pleasant ease of life that this world offers cause you to be unprepared for the storms that you’ll have to weather?
Ultimately, we need to check our blueprint. We need to check where we’re building the foundation upon which we build. We need to examine our own fruit from our own lives. We need to ask ourselves, am I following the path of Jesus or another path that leads to destruction? What path are you following?
What fruit are you bearing? Is your life withstanding the storms?