Matthew 7:13-22

Tonight we're looking at Matthew chapter 7 verses 13 through 20.

Matthew 7:13–20

I think it'll be up, it may be up on the screen, but it is on page 812 if you're looking in one of the pew Bibles.

We're looking at Jesus' Sermon on the Mount this summer.

We are wrapping it up over the next couple weeks. It's starting to come to its conclusion.

And this is really the beginning of the conclusion of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

What we're looking at tonight.

And then next week we'll look at the rest of the conclusion.

And then the following week we'll finish by looking at the reaction of the crowds.

So, Luke, sorry, Matthew. Matthew chapter 7, starting at verse 13.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

These are Jesus' words to his disciples and to the crowds.

Enter by the narrow gate.

For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction.

And those who enter by it are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life.

And those who find it are few.

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing.

But inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them by their fruits.

Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

So, every healthy tree bears good fruit.

But the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit.

Nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits.

A long time ago, the poet wrote,

Two roads diverged here in a wood.

I took the one less traveled by.

And it has made all the difference.

Many times in life, you come to a crossroads.

And there are only two ways to go.

You can propose.

Or you can break up.

You can take the job offer.

Or you can reject it.

You can sign on the dotted line and buy the car.

Or you can pass on the offer.

You can choose to pack up and move.

Or you can choose to stay here in New Haven.

And you can't do both.

You can only do one or the other.

Now, many of us do all that we can to avoid these kinds of either-or decisions.

My generation, some people call us the millennials, whatever you want to call us,

were notorious for postponing commitment.

Wanting to keep all our options perpetually open.

At least wanting to keep the door open to future course corrections

if we decide we want to change and move a different way.

Not get locked into something that we can't get out of.

Now, in some areas of life, there can be good reasons for this.

And the technology available to us today allows us to consider some options

that were just simply not possible 50 or 100 years ago.

Like chatting on Skype or calling into work from halfway across the country.

But in the passage we're looking at tonight,

Jesus challenges our avoidance of commitment.

He says, spiritually speaking, no one is truly neutral.

No one is just uncommitted.

You can't have it both ways at once.

Jesus says there are ultimately two ways to live.

You can live in the kingdom of Jesus,

as he's described it in the Sermon on the Mount.

Or you can live in the kingdoms of this fallen world.

And you can't be loyal to both kingdoms at the same time.

You know, in the ancient world, there was no such thing as dual citizenship.

Because if you were loyal to one kingdom,

that meant you could not be

completely loyal to another kingdom at the same time.

And if you wanted to become a citizen of a new kingdom,

you had to leave behind your old citizenship.

Jesus gives several contrasts in this passage.

The narrow gate that few people enter versus the wide gate that many enter.

The easy way that leads to destruction versus the hard way that leads to life.

The healthy tree that bears good fruit versus the diseased or sick tree that bears bad fruit.

The false prophet, a wolf in sheep's clothing versus the true prophet,

a sheep who follows the good shepherd.

And all of these are either or contrasts.

Now, as we've seen this summer, if you've been coming here,

the Sermon on the Mount is a description of life in Jesus' kingdom of grace.

Jesus came into this world to call out a people,

to belong to God,

and to form them into a kingdom

unlike anything that this world has ever seen or known.

And the Sermon on the Mount describes what life looks like

when Jesus has called us and brought us into God's kingdom

by his grace,

by his mercy,

by his love that has drawn us in.

And the Sermon on the Mount describes

the life that we're meant to live.

It's a life characterized by humility.

Jesus starts by saying,

blessed are the poor in spirit.

It's the first thing he says.

The people who recognize that we have nothing before God,

that we're desperately needy,

and that only God in his mercy

can save us and rescue us.

It's a life characterized by humility.

It's a life characterized by being different from the world,

being salt and light

in the midst of a decaying and corrupt world.

And Jesus says,

probably the world will misunderstand you

and dislike you

and maybe even persecute you.

But Jesus says,

even when that happens,

you are called to love your enemies

and do good to those who hate you.

Because that's the kind of behavior

that reflects my kingdom.

So it's a life characterized by humility,

by distinctiveness from the world,

by intimate trust in God the Father.

We see this especially in chapter 6 of Matthew,

the middle of the Sermon on the Mount.

And it's, as we saw last week,

a life characterized by careful discernment,

but not self-righteous judgment.

Now, many people have responded

to the Sermon on the Mount

by admiring the ethical ideal

that is presented here.

You know, many people,

even people throughout the world,

not simply Christians,

but many other people have said,

the Sermon on the Mount

is the most beautiful piece

of ethical teaching ever.

Gandhi greatly admired it

and was deeply moved by it.

But Jesus said,

you know,

the response I'm looking for

is not just to admire

my teaching from a distance,

sort of like looking

at a beautiful sunset.

You say,

wow, isn't that nice?

And you sort of sit

and bask in it

and enjoy it for a little while.

And then you go on with your life

and you feel a little more peaceful.

Right?

But Jesus says,

no,

I'm not calling you

to admire it from a distance.

I'm calling you to enter in

and to become a citizen of my kingdom

and leave behind your former loyalties

and become loyal to me

above everything else.

And in the conclusion

of the Sermon on the Mount,

which we're starting to look at tonight,

Jesus presses the point home.

He insists on a decision,

a response.

He says,

I'm not just giving this to you

to be like a beautiful sunset

that you can look at

and walk away

and feel a little more peaceful

and then sort of goes away

after a couple days.

But I'm calling you

to a whole new life,

a whole new kingdom.

So he says two things tonight.

First, he says,

enter by the narrow gate.

Verse 13 and 14.

If you go to New York City

and you want to ride in the subway,

you have to enter through a turnstile

at almost every station.

And only one person at a time can fit.

Right?

And I don't know if you've ever tried to,

once I was in New York

and I was coming back

from flying somewhere else

and I had a big suitcase.

And I was trying to get this suitcase

through the turnstile

of the New York City subway

and it got caught.

It was trouble.

I had to figure out

how to maneuver it around.

But the point is,

you can only go one at a time

through the gate

into the subway.

It's the same thing

if you go to a Yankees game.

I'm even using a Yankees example.

I'm a Red Sox fan,

but I'll give you

the Yankees example, okay?

Even if you go to Yankee Stadium,

you can't just blend into the crowd

and sort of slide in.

You have to hand in your ticket

to the guard,

the ticket person, right?

Whatever you call them.

I don't know what you call them.

Anyway, it's the same thing

you go on a plane, right?

You've got to go through security.

And there's lots of things

that they will not let you bring

through security.

Jesus says,

the way to enter the kingdom of God

is through a narrow gate.

You can't enter anonymously.

You can't just slide in

as part of the crowd

and have nobody see you.

You can't just sort of slip in

and be hidden

and just make it in

somehow like that.

Jesus says,

you don't get in automatically.

You don't get in by walking

into a church building.

You don't get in by being born

into a Christian family.

You enter through personally

trusting in Jesus.

Jesus is the gatekeeper.

He's the gate, actually.

You enter by going through Him.

It's the only way in.

You enter by realizing that one day

every one of us will face God's judgment.

And what we need more than anything else

is to be right with God.

And the way that that can happen

is by trusting Jesus

and by accepting what He's done.

And when you enter the kingdom of God

by trusting Jesus,

you must leave some other things behind.

They won't fit with you

into the kingdom of God.

They don't belong in the kingdom of God.

Jesus talks about some of these things.

He says,

entering the narrow gate

means leaving behind

other people's opinions

and our attachments

to what other people think of us.

It means leaving behind

our attachment to worldly possessions.

Jesus talked to a rich young man

later in the Gospels.

And Jesus said,

there's one thing that you're missing.

Sell what you have

and follow me.

And the man walked away very sad.

And we never hear of him again.

Because he was more attached

to his possessions

than to Jesus.

This week I was talking with someone

from Eritrea,

which is a country in eastern Africa.

And he's someone who's considering

becoming a follower of Jesus Christ

and identifying himself as a Christian.

And he said,

I know Christians

back in my country

who were physically tortured.

They were put in metal storage containers

in the middle of the desert

when it was 100 degrees.

He knows that becoming a Christian

is a very serious matter,

even a dangerous matter.

He knows that it's not something

to be taken lightly,

to identify himself

as a follower of Christ.

You know, sometimes I think

in the United States

or in parts of the world

where Christians aren't going through

intense physical persecution,

we can forget this.

But Jesus reminds us

his way is a hard way.

Whether that means

facing physical persecution

from an oppressive government,

or whether it means

living in the midst

of worldly wealth and privilege

and not becoming entangled

and drawn into it,

or living as salt and light

in a nominally Christian culture

where lots of people

are talking the talk,

but not many people

are walking the walk.

Jesus said,

whatever situation

you find yourself in,

following me

is a hard way.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

put it this way,

referring to other things

Jesus has taught

in the Sermon on the Mount.

He says,

to testify to the truth

as it is in Jesus,

and at the same time

to love the enemies

of that truth

with the infinite love

of Jesus Christ

is indeed a narrow way.

To believe the promise

of Jesus

that his followers

will inherit the earth

and at the same time

preferring to be wronged

than to do wrong ourselves

is indeed a narrow way.

Or to see the weakness

and the wrong

in other people

and at the same time

to refrain

from judging them

and writing them off

is indeed a narrow way.

The way is unutterably hard

and at every moment

we are in danger

of straying from it.

As we've studied

the Sermon on the Mount

this summer,

I've been struck

by how challenging

Jesus' demands are.

It's hard

what he calls us to.

It's extremely hard.

And Jesus doesn't

try to hide that fact.

You know,

sometimes my tendency

is to sort of downplay that

and to emphasize

encouraging,

kind,

nice,

soft things.

And Jesus says,

no, actually,

it's important

that you know

that the way

I am calling you

to walk

is a hard way.

But he also says

it's a way

that is worth it.

He says

it's a way

that leads

to life.

To eternal life.

And he says

the other way

it leads

to destruction.

So Dietrich Bonhoeffer

goes on to say this.

He says

if we

walking the narrow way,

if we behold

Jesus Christ,

if we look

to Jesus Christ

going on before us

step by step,

we will not

go astray.

He says

if we worry

about all the dangers

that beset us,

if we gaze

at the road

instead of

at him

who goes before,

we are already

straying from the path.

For Jesus

is himself

the way.

He and he alone

is our journey's end.

And when we know that,

we are able

to proceed

along the narrow way,

through the gate

of the cross

and on to eternal life.

He's saying

the way is hard.

But Jesus Christ

has gone before us.

And Jesus has walked

this hard way.

And he walked it

all the way

to the cross.

He lived a life

of faithful trust

and obedience to God

all the way

to the end.

He walked a harder way.

He blazed

the trail

where there was

no trail before.

And all that we do

is walk behind him.

And Bonhoeffer says

just look to him.

Because he's the way.

And he's

eternal life.

He's the destination

that we're going for.

And the one

that makes it all worth it.

So that's the first thing

Jesus says.

Enter by the narrow gate.

Second thing,

he says beware

of false prophets.

Verse 15 through 20.

Now the basic problem

with false prophets

false teachers

or false leaders

is that they don't

tell you about

the narrow gate

and they don't walk

in the hard way.

Jesus says

they come in sheep's clothing.

In other words,

they appear

and claim to be

Christian teachers

following Jesus,

the good shepherd.

But in reality,

he says,

on the inside,

they're ravenous wolves.

They're not serving Christ

and advancing his kingdom,

but ultimately,

they're serving

their own interests

and building

a different kingdom.

And Jesus says,

be careful.

False prophets

are dangerous

because they're deceptive.

So he says,

first,

they don't tell you

about the narrow gate.

The Old Testament

talks quite a bit

about false prophets,

especially if you read

the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was dealing

with a lot of false prophets

in his day.

And in his day,

the people of Jerusalem

had walked away from God.

They were committed to idols.

They were perpetuating injustice

in their society.

They were disobeying God's commands.

And the false prophets

in that day basically said,

everything's just going

to be all right.

Don't worry.

Peace, peace.

Nothing bad will happen to you.

God will protect you.

And Jeremiah said,

that's a false comfort.

The false prophets

are saying,

peace, peace.

But there isn't any peace.

They're trying to sweep reality

under the rug.

He says, look,

you're following idols.

You're mistreating each other.

You're oppressing the poor.

You're disobeying God's commands.

You're ignoring his word.

It's not okay.

Everything's not going to be okay for you.

And all those nice sounding words

won't help you

when God's judgment

comes to visit you one day.

And they'll disappear really fast.

And it happened.

People were taken away

into exile in Babylon.

Their city was conquered

and destroyed.

And then after they were taken

to Babylon,

there were some more false prophets.

And those other false prophets said,

oh, you know what?

This isn't going to last very long.

God's going to bring you home soon.

He's going to fix it all

and life will be easy for you again

and you can go home.

And Jeremiah said,

oh no,

that's not what God's doing here.

You're going to be here for 70 years.

It's going to be a long time.

It's going to be a long road

because God has a lot to teach you.

But God also has good plans for you

even while you're in exile.

You see,

the problem with false prophets

is not just that they sometimes

tell things that are outright lies.

It's that they don't tell the whole truth.

A false prophet might only talk about

God's love

and never about God's holiness

or God's righteous judgment.

Or they might be always comforting

and reassuring.

But always vague

and never clear about anything.

But by never mentioning

some parts of God's truth,

they distort the whole picture.

They give false comforts

and false hopes

that aren't rooted in God's character

and God's will.

And the New Testament

is also full of warnings

against false prophets.

Paul said in Acts 20,

he said,

after I leave,

there will be fierce wolves

who will come in among you,

not sparing the flock.

People will arise

speaking twisted things

to draw away the disciples after them.

He says,

therefore,

be alert.

Beware.

Don't be deceived.

False prophets

don't tell you

about the narrow gate.

They say,

you can go on

doing whatever you want to do

and everything will be all right.

And Jesus says,

beware

because that teaching

will only harm you

in the end.

Second,

Jesus says,

these false prophets

don't walk the hard way.

He says twice,

verse 16 and verse 20,

he says,

you'll recognize them

by their fruits.

You might say,

what does that mean?

What are the fruits

that we should look for?

Well,

there are three,

at least.

First,

character.

Galatians chapter 5

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

talks about

the fruit of the Spirit.

Love,

joy,

peace,

patience,

kindness,

goodness,

faithfulness,

gentleness,

self-control.

That's the character

of Jesus Christ himself.

And it's the mark

of a true believer

and a faithful

Christian teacher.

Jesus says,

false prophets

might look good

on the outside,

but on the inside,

they're divisive,

they're angry

and bitter,

they're selfish.

They might show

favoritism,

they might abuse

the message of forgiveness

into license.

They might

make themselves

the center

instead of making

Jesus the center.

So,

their character

is the first aspect.

Second,

their words.

Jesus says,

every healthy tree

bears good fruit,

every,

the diseased tree

bears bad fruit.

And later on

in Matthew chapter 12,

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

Jesus uses the same image

of a tree and its fruit

to talk about our heart

and our words.

He said,

out of the abundance

of the heart,

the mouth speaks.

And so,

a part of how we

can tell,

a part of how we can

beware

of false prophets

is by listening

carefully

to people's words.

Looking at their character,

listening to their words.

Do their words

line up with what

Jesus says

or not?

One of the marks

of a faithful teacher

is their words

align with the words

of Jesus.

So,

character,

words,

and third influence.

Paul said in

2 Timothy,

he says,

false teaching

eats its way

like gangrene,

like an infection.

He says,

it promotes ungodliness,

it causes bitter divisions,

and upsets people's faith.

But true doctrine

is healthy teaching.

It produces godliness,

it promotes unity,

and it strengthens

the faith of God's people.

In Acts,

it says,

many times

the word of the Lord

grew and multiplied.

It spread out,

and it went deep

and bore fruit

for God's glory.

So,

character,

teaching,

influence.

Those are three fruits

that we can look at,

three aspects

of the fruit

that Jesus is talking

about here.

So,

let me

conclude by saying,

how do we apply

this teaching?

First,

Jesus is saying,

be discerning.

There are some

preachers and teachers

on TV,

on the internet,

in churches,

writing popular books,

who don't measure

up to these standards

in their character,

in their words,

and in their influence.

And Jesus says,

be careful.

They can be deceptive

because they have

good appearances.

They might be

a wonderful public speaker.

They might

have an attractive

personality.

They might be

handsome or beautiful.

But Jesus says,

look at their character,

look at their words,

look at their influence,

be discerning.

Don't immediately

attach yourself

to someone

who claims

to be

a Christian teacher

without

looking carefully

at those things.

Jesus says,

don't be naive.

You can't assume

that just because

somebody says,

I'm a Christian

and I love Jesus,

that they're

a true follower

of Christ.

He says,

be careful.

Second,

be patient.

The danger

here,

for some of us

at least,

is that you may

be tempted

to respond

to this passage

by becoming

extremely suspicious

and excessively

critical

of everyone,

probably everyone

except yourself.

And you're

always looking

for a reason

to decide

that someone

is a false teacher

or a fake Christian

and write them off.

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find

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