So we'll read Matthew chapter 7, starting at verse 1 and ending at the end of the chapter, verse 29. Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye? but do not consider the plank in your own eye. Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye? And look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite. First, remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they 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 it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask Him? Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall. And so it was when Jesus had ended these sayings that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. Let's pray. Father God, we thank You for Your Word, and we pray that You would have Your Holy Spirit to open our minds to understand what it is that You want us to see from this. We thank You, Lord. You have given us Your Word to bless us and to guide us and to lead us, and we pray that it would do just that. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. This is the last part of a four-part series on the Sermon on the Mount. The earlier messages were the purpose of man, purpose of law, and roots of faith. The first message, purpose of man, in the Beatitudes, God gave us an objective standard by which he clarifies what is good character and conduct in man. And also, these are how God rewards us, evaluates us as workers in his kingdom. The eighth beatitude, the last one, is a consequence of having the character and exhibiting the conduct that God requires of his people. And for that, you are rewarded with persecution. And if we don't think of it as a reward, then we're just not really thinking like God wants us to think and we need to change the way we think then. If we're honest, I think most of us will admit that we're not there yet. We don't understand and we don't really personally experience persecution that we suffer for righteousness sake as a gift, as some reason to be joyous and to rejoice before God. But I believe that if you are a children of God, that's where you want to be. That's where your heart wants you to be. You want to be living in the Spirit with Christ in heaven. So Jesus, in this Sermon on the Mount, issued a radical call to his followers that was very, very different from what the Pharisees and scribes were teaching and expecting of people. In Matthew 8, at the end of this next chapter, or in the middle of it, A man, he calls a disciple, and the man said, let me go bury my father first. And what did Jesus say to him? He said, let the dead bury their own dead. So what Jesus said in that, what he implied in that, is that the living were dead, and that they would bury this man's father. So he was calling that man, to live. He was calling that man to life from death, the walking dead. And yet, in a way, we Christians are the walking dead. Not in the horror sense of it, but we are to live as dead to sin and to the flesh and be alive to Christ. And so we are called to live by the Spirit, in the Spirit, living in the Spirit, by the Spirit, for the Spirit. Meaning that daily we're crucifying the flesh putting it to death anew over and over again And so that means we live lives of sacrifice every day we die and that's what we want to do It's what God expects us to do. I Believe that if you are a Christian that's truly living as God wants you to live you are blurring the distinction between this world and the next and what I mean by that is that you don't fear death and the death that comes to all mine on this earth. You have no reason to fear that. You know that. Yet I think we are pulled along with society in terms of having to just go through the motions of acting all sad and all unhappy and all worried about death. And we really ought not. I don't believe we are doing Christianity a good service by that. Now granted, if what you're witnessing is someone who doesn't know the Lord dying, then yeah, that's a real occasion for sadness. And so many of us have probably seen that, and there is definitely an occasion to be sad there. Yet, when we know that this person that is dying or has passed is a Christian, then we must rejoice in this knowledge to know that this person is going home to be with the Lord. It's not easy to do. And yes, you grieve for those that are being left behind. We don't want to be left behind. We want to be with our loved ones. Yet, that's the reality. Our lives are to blur the distinction between this gulf that exists at the end of our lives, this death that everyone fears, because we don't fear it. We're not stupid because we don't fear death. We don't have a right then to act unwisely to all go become evil kneevals in this world. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about, though, is that we need not fear it. And so let's not fear death. That was the first message. I'm going to have to recap a lot faster, aren't I? Second message. This was the purpose of law, and it was Christ's affirmation of the law and a correction of several misunderstandings that the scribes and Pharisees had been probably not only permitting, but teaching. Erroneously. God's law, however, is his perfect standard. Never changed, never has, never will. God's moral law was present at creation. It will be present throughout this world until the end of all time. The Pharisees and scribes, however, had chosen to, I would call it, tame the law. They took this terrible beast and they pulled all of its teeth out. We're not afraid of you now. And yet what Jesus did in making his corrections concerning the law was, no, no, no, you're not dealing with a tame lion here. You're dealing with a very powerful enemy. And that enemy is going to destroy you. And he was not attempting to pull back that knowledge. He wanted you to see that you are going to die as a breaker of the law. All of scripture points to the need of a savior. All of scripture points to our inability to save ourselves, to fulfill the law. Teachers throughout all time, in all cultures, can be very hard. Some teachers are very hard on our students. They expect perfection from them. And yet, those teachers then have to be reined in by principals or school superintendents to say, I'm sorry, but you cannot fail every student in your class. Not again. But see, some teachers, I don't know if you have had teachers like this, but I know I have. I can think of an instance, I was newly out of the service, I'm swimming in the pool at my condo complex, and this man just asked me, he's real talkative, and he said, it was Thanksgiving weekend. And this tells you what California, you can swim in pools on Thanksgiving weekend in California. But so, I'm talking to this man and he said, let me ask you a question. He was a foreigner, I forget what nationality, I'll just make up a dialect. But so, let me ask you a question. If you were a student and you had the option to take a test before the Thanksgiving holiday or after it, would you take it before or after?" I said, easy, before. No, and I was wrong. He's a teacher and he's telling me I'm wrong. No, after. You make your students study all weekend. I thought, wow, am I glad I don't have this guy as a teacher. But yet I was in school and I had a teacher give a bunch of my fellow students bad grades, give them C's. And I thought, good, they didn't deserve B's. I got an A and I thought I deserved an A. I'd worked hard, I knew the material, but I knew some of my fellow students were not very serious. And they'd been getting B after B after B, and yet this teacher deigned to give them a C. They all went in mass to complain to the management of the school. And a lot of them got their grades raised from a C to a B. I mean, it pays to complain at a school. Because why? Because you're paying for them. You as students pay for that school, and so that school needs to answer to their customers. And the students are the customers, not the teachers. So I learned from that, that was a long time ago, but I learned from that, that students have a lot of power in schools. Wow, I didn't know this. So, second message, all about the law. We in our culture tend to lower the standards just the way we work, but that's not right. And that's not what God does, and that's not what Jesus did. Instead, he was the only perfect pupil. Third message last week was roots of faith. And this concerned the disciplines of the faith. The first portion covered the good deeds, the prayer, the fasting. And so Jesus was telling us, don't do it like this. Do it like this. Do it very differently from what you see being done, frankly. The human interaction that you see in chapter six of Matthew was pretty much all sinful. All the human interaction that Jesus showcased was him telling us, don't be like this, don't be like this, don't be like this. All of it was about pride and vanity. Good deeds, the prayers, the fastings. The only reason these people were doing this was to see and be seen. And that was sinful. Jesus advised discretion, secrecy even. He wanted all of this to be done solely for God alone in heaven. So now, today's message, that was entitled Roots of Faith, so today it's entitled Fruits of Faith. So see, the Roots of Faith was about inward and downward. You are building your faith, and it's planting you. It's building you a foundation. The fruits of faith is all about outward and upward. You are now at work in your world, and that's what we're gonna get to. But first, I wanna talk a little bit more about the contrasts that are, I think, very obvious when you reflect on chapters six and seven. There are two key words in chapter six, secret and worry. We know there are six things Three of these things came under the secret category in the first part of chapter 6—good deeds, praying, and fasting. Now, these we think of as spiritual disciplines. They're on the spiritual side of the spectrum, let's say. And then in the later part, he said, don't worry about what you're going to eat, drink, or wear. And these, I think we could agree, are kind of on the earthly side of the spectrum. And so you've got these good deeds, praying and fasting, spiritual matters, eating, drinking, and wearing of clothes, earthly matters. But note what Jesus had to correct in their behavior concerning good deeds, praying and fasting. The Pharisees and scribes had moved all of these things that ought to be spiritual over here, over here. So now everything is earthly. All six of those things in chapter six are earthly. They'd moved the good deeds over to just doing it for man to be seen praying over there just to be seen by man and fasting. They were living earthly carnal existences. They were supposedly the teachers of the law, but they had no idea what the Bible was about. Isn't that crazy that people could devote their lives to teaching on the Bible and yet not know what its main point is? And that is to bring you closer to God, make you a little less in love with the world. But note what Jesus did in chapter six again. So again, you've got the spiritual side, the good deeds, the praying and the fasting that should be spiritual, the eating, drinking and wearing clothes that should be earthly. And he took all these and smashed them over onto the spiritual side. Because he said, if you focus on God, God will give you these things that you need over here, so it will all be in balance. Because see, it's all spiritual, isn't it? There is no dichotomy between us as creatures. It's all spiritual. That's what Jesus did. That's why he came. To let us know that we were living life wrong. And we've got to live it differently. So we know that lesson. We really should be living out that lesson. We should be living in the spirit. Now let's go to chapter seven. Remember, six was inward, downward. Seven is outward, upward. So seven, just let me share with you some of the words from chapter seven. these action verbs, judge, ask, seek, knock, enter, gather, build. All of these words are describing people and some action that Jesus is commanding them or commending them to do. In verse 21, he says, not everyone who says to me, but he who does the will of my father in heaven. I skipped a bunch there, but I wanted to focus on not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father. Jesus is, you can see he's taking this apart. You are crying to me, wanting into heaven, saying, Lord, Lord, saying this. But no, no, no. I will evaluate you based on what you did, not on what you said. So actions speak louder than words. Also these words, judge, ask, seek, knock, enter, gather, build. All of them now are also, as I said, they're going outward and upward. They're all expanding into your community. You are now at work in your world. You're doing what it is God wants you to do. You're being salt and light. In chapter six, it's all about building your faith. You need to have something to give to the people. You have to be salt and light. In chapter six, you have to become that in order to be that in seven and make it worthwhile. So again, chapter six is about being, being salt and light. Chapter seven is about being salt and light in the world. You're now out there in the world at work. Okay, so that kind of just gives you a thumbnail sketch. of the differences between the last sermon and this one. So now, this chapter that I just read to you, Matthew 7, it contains some of the most memorable words in all the Bible, I think. And what I'll do is I'll just read eight statements that I'll then develop a little further. But these eight statements are very, very familiar, not only to us, but often to all the world. Judge not that you be not judged. Do not cast your pearls before swine. Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction. Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. A wise man built his house on the rock, but a foolish man built his house on the sand. I would say that if you were to just read these eight sentences to people across America that a vast number of them, whether they have spent much time in church or not, would recognize that they come from the Bible. These are very, very familiar phrases from the Bible. I would say even Americans who can't find Florida on a map would recognize that some of these come from the Bible. It is the privilege of us as children of God. These are our words. When you read these out in the community, and these people are unbelievers, they don't think of them as their words, but these are our words to own, to live by, to cherish, to rejoice in, to read on Sundays and throughout the week. So the first one is what I would consider every unbeliever's favorite memory verse. Judge not that you be not judged. So now, I'm going to give it a twist. You know I like to do that. Dave said he likes my preaching because he doesn't know what I'm going to say next. Now people, we people, are often familiar enough with our Bibles to know when other people are quoting it out of context. And we then want to take them to task for that. We want to call them to account for that. But let's be careful. We often think that Jesus is showing us how to judge, that he's not condemning judgment. And we know there's an aspect of truth there because you read the rest of the paragraph, right? And he goes on to talk about, tease that apart. This is how you get that speck out of your brother's eye. So we then say that he is teaching us how to judge and that he's not condemning judgment. And I believe that's true in part, but in a very real way, that supports what the unbelieving masses use that verse against us for, it is not true. I need to read to you two verses, both written by Paul through the Holy Spirit. Romans 14.4 says this, Who are you to judge another man's servant? To his own master he stands or fails. So we know that we will all one day stand before the judgment seat of God as individuals. We won't be able to be there with anybody else. We stand alone. We stand alone, frankly, condemned for our sins, and yet, as Christians, exonerated by the blood of Christ. Those that are not covered by the blood of Christ will then be found guilty for their sins at the judgment. Paul also writes this in 1 Corinthians 5, just a few pages further on, starting at verse 9. I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters. Since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person. But now listen what he says next. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore put away from yourselves the evil person. Now, Paul is contextualizing an issue within a church, and so you're talking about believers here, and he's saying that he agrees. We have to judge one another, and he's writing to this Corinthian church, saying that you judge those inside, and he agrees that that's so, but that we are not free to judge those outside. If you think about it, it makes sense. To judge is to act as an authority to pronounce judgment upon someone as being guilty or innocent. And often, as the judge, you then have the capacity to levy a penalty, a punishment upon that person if they're found guilty. We have no such power outside of the church, and we have limited power within the church. So when these unbelievers out there are saying, judge not that you be not judged, they're technically correct. I know it's crazy, but they are. Now it gives us an opportunity, however, because see, they're admitting they know the Bible. They're admitting they know a judgment ought to come. They're just telling us we're not allowed to do it. Agree with them. But point them to the God who will judge all of us. That is an opportunity for us to give that a twist, I think, that most people aren't expecting, most people aren't prepared for. Now, that's the first part, judge not that you be not judged. And I can't go into each of these in depth, obviously, because we have eight to go through. The second is in verse six, and this is, Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you in pieces. Now, in my Bible, in the New King James, this verse six is included under do not judge, verses one through five, but I think it obviously ought not, so I'll cover it separately. Now, this is an interesting verse. This, you need to understand, I think, if you're going to use it wisely. Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine. First, you have something holy. It's been set apart for God. Do not give that to the dogs, nor cast your pearls. Again, you have something of great value, and God doesn't want us casting it before swine because the swine don't value pearls. They're just going to tromple all over it. Dogs and swine are typically used in this text. You have the dogs, which were often run in packs. I mean, it wasn't like you think of a dog, you know, fluffy or spot at home. These are dogs that run in packs. I mean, they're kind of more like wolves than like what we think of as dogs. So these dogs can attack you very quickly. They're out there on the hunt. You try to rein them in, they turn and attack you. And that's what that means. They will turn and tear you in pieces. The swine are kind of different. The swine, they couldn't care less that you exist. They're just gonna do what they want. They live for their sensual pleasures. And so you cast your pearls there and they just trompe all over them. So the question is, why? When? I mean, like Paul said elsewhere, if we are not to consort with all these idolaters and sinful people, if we're not to cast our pearls before them, how can we ever talk to them? You are expected to talk to them, but you don't necessarily know at that point, right, that they're a dog or swine, but you quickly find out. And so God is just giving us license then to dust the feet off our, dust the dust off our shoes and walk out of that arrangement, walk out of that town. And it's what Paul did repeatedly. He would go to a city, he would talk to the Jews. The Jews get angry with him. He would say, I'm going to go talk to the Gentiles. And then he'd go talk to the Gentiles. Then sometimes the Jews that he talked to are so angry that they would come persecute him talking to the Gentiles. The Jews of Thessalonica were so angry at him that they went 10 miles or so to Berea to persecute him there when they heard that he was there preaching and having some success at reaching the Jews in Berea. We know that phrase. We know that to be a Berean was a great thing. But you don't read the next few verses where the Jews came and cited them and now they hate him in Berea too. Now, not all, maybe. But yet, this is what happens. These dogs and these swine, they can attack you. And God gives us liberty then to avoid those people. That's not where I want you to go. When Paul went to Corinth, what is it that Jesus told him? What is it that God told him? I have many people here. I want you to be comfortable here. And then he was there for over a year and a half. You don't need to run, Paul. You're going to be comfortable here. But he'd given them the liberty earlier to escape from these people. Now, let me give an example of what I consider just an unprincipled way of attempting to share the gospel. We're probably all familiar with this. There are churches that attempt to reach out to the community, reach out to the lost. They'll minister through some programs, and yet there is a price to pay. And so there is a common phrase in economics, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. And these homeless and poor and poverty stricken people, they know the price. They're going there, they're going to get the meal, but they know they have to listen to the sermon. It either comes before or after, but they're going to have to do this because it's structured that way. You can't just come get food and leave because they don't allow it. You have to be there. You have to listen. It's like a, what do they call those things where you have to go and listen to that? They try to give you free stuff, but you have to first listen to their pitch. Horrible, horrible time. You're on vacation and yet you're sitting here for hours listening to these people drone on about this timeshare that they want you to buy. It's like, I should have never come here. Well, see, these are poor people, though. They're going to sit there and listen to your pitch. They want the food. But Jesus never did that, did he? He didn't do that. Jesus did not say, oh, you want healed. Well, sit down here. You know, let me listen. Let me lecture you on the merits of the kingdom first. No, he just healed people. He fed people. He did all these wonderful things for people, but he did not tie it to his service to them, right? In other words, they didn't have to put the time in. He rebukes them later, and many of them don't follow him after more in John 10. He rebukes them. You're only following me because you want free food. And then they're so offended that they leave. So that, I believe, this quid pro quo aspect of selling the gospel on the cheap like this, I don't think that's biblical. I don't think it's warranted. And I think it's an example of casting our pearls before swine, potentially. Because they are now just thinking, oh, here it comes. Here it comes. I've sat through this a hundred times. Now maybe one day they'll believe, that's true, but I'm still not saying that it justifies this quid pro quo aspect of us cheapening the gospel in this way. The third example, beginning at verse seven, is very famous. Again, ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. We have two primary things here in these first five verses. In seven and eight, persistence is obviously what's showcased. You are persisting because you want this. And then in the next three verses, trusting in the goodness of God is the lesson. And this is more of a reflection back to chapter six, saying this must be grounded in faith. You can't distrust God here. You have to trust God, that He's a good God, and He will answer your prayers. He will give you the desires of your heart. Note again that we have initiative and action that's assumed of us. The three things in verse seven, ask, You're asking, you're taking the initiative, you're going to somebody and you're asking a question. God, in this case, we want to know. We take the initiative to find something out. Now, asking, however, is kind of cheap. When you're learning a new job, for instance, you ask your mentor a lot of questions. And eventually, they'll start reminding you, I answered that question. The other day I gave you the answer to that question. Why are you asking me about it again? Don't you take notes? Look at your notes. So see, we're supposed to learn by asking, such that we then take this into our minds, into our memories, and we are benefiting from it. We're learning. We're becoming experienced. Ask, knock. What are you doing when you're knocking? Where do you want to go when you're knocking? If I'm here and I'm knocking, I want to go there. I don't know what's back there. I want to go back there. If there's somebody back there and they're willing to let me in, they'll open that door and let me in. So see, you're having to take the initiative. Asking is kind of cheap, easy. Knocking, I have to go out of my way, I have to go somewhere, I have to find out who that is, who has what I want, all these things. Seek now, seek, you're on a treasure hunt now, right? Seeking, it's much more than asking and knocking. You're actually days perhaps, weeks on this seeking adventure. See, Jesus is describing our lives, all of our lives, in the form of these few simple words. In chapter 7, chapter 7 covers your whole life. And He wants you, all these action verbs, He wants you doing them. He wants you asking, knocking, seeking. Now, the remaining verses focus on God as being good and willing to help. We're not to doubt Him. And so, obviously, our momentum through life is predicated on our faith. If your faith ebbs low, you will become inactive, an inactive inner Christian, because you're not living out your faith. It's weak, and you're not attempting to strengthen it. The next section, starting at verse 12, again, it's the last verse of that section. Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. There is a therefore here, and verse 12 is included with verses 7 through 11 in the New King James. In the ESV, however, verse 12 is included with the next, the narrow and wide gate. So, see, there is dispute, disagreement over where exactly this should be. Again, I think it kind of stands alone. This verse 12 stands alone, but it does relate to the previous verses. This chapter 12 is the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. So, what is the golden rule? It's predicated on the goodness of God. Remember we just talked about the last part of verses 10, 11, 9, 10, and 11 are all about trusting God to be the good God. And now he's saying, you be the good person. That's what the golden rule is all about. God says, it's not enough that I be good, I am good, but I expect you to be good too. It's not just that he saves us to heaven as jerks. He wants us to be far less of a jerk when we get to heaven than we otherwise would be because we are emulating him, our father, our good father in heaven. And then the next section starting at verse 13, enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it. I believe this was probably the inspiration for John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I mean, it's just such an obvious example. It's throughout his book. Note the two destinations. First is, enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. There are many who go in by it. Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life. So the two destinations are destruction and life. There is a John Owen quote. that I have memorized and I like to use with people because I believe it comes into conversation at times. He finds the current strong who swims against it, whereas he who floats along with it is insensible to it. So when you are saved and you start going against culture, you immediately feel the current. You are opposing evil in your world, and you will feel that if you're doing it right. So that is what's going on here. That is this narrow gate that leads to a difficult road that leads to life. Jesus said, there are many who go in by the wide gate. Note too, these gates are not at the end of the road. The narrow and wide gate are not at the end, just at the entrance to heaven or hell. No, it's earlier on your walk. You're choosing where to go. And note how he phrases it. When he talks about the narrow gate, talks about the wide gate, he said, there are many who go in by it. So they're just walking down the road. They don't even necessarily know there's a gate, right? It's big, wide road. There's a gate there, but they don't notice it. Narrow is the gate. Difficult is the way which leads to life. And there are few who find it. So you had to be looking for this gate to want to go through it. Just like the asking and the knocking and the seeking, you're taking the initiative, you're going. God has given you this hunger to do what's right. You have to be looking for it. You have to have eyes to see that gate. And so now we're at the sixth of these rocks, these topics that Jesus brought up. And this is at verse 15. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. He starts right there telling us that we're talking about false prophets. These are people who want to lead you astray. And in Christ's day, there were very many. I mean, this is the founding of the Christian church. If anything was opposed by more demons on earth, I don't know what it would have been. Maybe the birth of Christ, maybe the temptation of Christ. But here he is, he's founding the church through these apostles. These godly prophets speak the truth and they serve God. The ungodly prophets speak lies and they serve only themselves. We see examples of these in the book of Acts. We know that God's word contains all the remaining prophecy that we need. But yet, not all people on earth believe that. Not all people on earth live like that. It took three centuries for people to recognize that the word of God was the word of God. They didn't decide it was the word of God, but they had to refine their studies to understand, oh, this is the word of God. It's like finding a masterpiece. Because you say it's a masterpiece doesn't make it a masterpiece. It either is or isn't. But yet you then have that skill. God has given that early church that skill to begin to discern what is and what is not a forgery. What is real, what is not. And so you have this culmination of this, recognizing this is the Bible. These are the 66 books. And ever since then, we've been trying to defend that from people who hate it, who oppose it. I was a couple weeks ago on our way here, we stopped at Zion, outside of Zion National Park, and got at a hotel. We went to the pool for once. I wasn't a fuddy-duddy, and my wife and I went to the pool. And immediately a family joined us. Two families joined us. And I got to talking to this young man. Neat young guy. I really liked this guy. He's probably mid-20s. But I thought, we're in Mormon country. And sure enough, it wasn't long before I realized that he was a Mormon. And so I asked him where he had done his time, you know, his missionary journey, when they slap elder on their shirt and ride their bikes around with their white shirts and ties. And he said it was in Canada. And it was, was it Alberta, Canada? I'm looking for my wife. Was it Alberta? Oh, she's hiding from me. But anyway, oh, there she is. Was it Alberta? Yes. Okay, thank you. But then he right away, I said, why did your church send you to Alberta? Oh, we believe in continuing revelation. And I thought, oh, great, why did I ask that question? And so I deflected him from that. Now, I shouldn't feel that way, but I liked this young man. I didn't want to have our conversation end in 30 seconds with me telling him I did not believe in his continuing revelation. But so I changed, kind of diverted him a little bit, and we just had an enjoyable conversation for a bit. They're so lost. Mormons are so lost. Jehovah's Witnesses are so lost. Roman Catholics are so lost because they have a faulty view of God's Word and they have a faulty view of Christ's sacrifice. And so, see, the one informs the other. If you have a faulty view of His Word, you can make anything else up that you want and go off on a tangent, and many do. And yet, that's not what happens with us. We know the Bible is the word of God. We know it defines reality, truth. All that we need to know, as Paul told Timothy, is in there. So we need nothing else. Starting at verse 21, we have the seventh section. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. And so last week I shared this, and so I won't go into too much here, other than to again emphasize the says and the does difference. We've got these action words that are required of believers. So you don't just have a faith that is apart from works. You are living out your faith by your works. It demonstrates that you are a Christian. And those that think they'll get into heaven without any works are deceiving themselves. They're not really Christians. God makes us to work. That's why we exist. Our law-keeping doesn't save us. We keep the law. We honor God's law. But our law-keeping cannot save us. And yet, we keep the law. We honor the law. Because we know that Christ kept it. Our big brother kept it. And we love our big brother. And he kept that for us. How dare we denigrate it and dishonor what he has done on our behalf? It's horrible what people do with God's law. So I'll skip ahead again. Like I said, this is the last rock. This is the last major section in verse 24. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. Again, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them is the man that built his house on the rock. What does not lead to action does not lead to transformation. And God intends to transform the world. And He does it through us. He does it a person at a time. And yet we, being newly transformed, now have the responsibility to transform the world that we come into contact with. And if we're not doing that, if we don't even want to do that, then we're not doing what God wants us to do. We're not living out our purpose for existence. We are perhaps then just spending our comforts on ourselves, which is not what God would have us to do. Now, note what was built in each case. A house. But the difference is where. Where was it built? Was it built on the rock or was it built on the sand? So see, people are equally employed, equally busy. Yet, where are you? What are you standing on? And so all of this effort in the end could be washed away. And we know that that can apply to Christians as well. Paul tells us that if you build upon this foundation with wood and hand stubble, it will burn. I mean, it's so much of the three little pigs is in the Bible. It's amazing that some of these fairy tales just make have more meaning once you become a Christian and see them there. Effort is required either way. There's effort to build this house. You're just building it in the wrong place. You're building it on the wrong foundation. So now, we've covered all of these beautiful statements, these eight beautiful statements from Matthew 7, which I believe most of America would recognize at least some of them. And now, we see the beautiful shore. Like I said, this is our walking through this world, entering into heaven. And now we see what comes. And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished. at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes." I don't think people are easily astonished. Just yesterday, I think, I found, you know how Facebook will take you to a video and then suddenly there's a list of videos and you find yourself watching video after video when you didn't intend to? And there's this magician, and this magician is doing amazing things. And he's got all these white cards that keep appearing out of nowhere, and he does it for like three minutes. Suddenly they're all over his hands, and he washes them all away, and then they come out of his hair. I don't know how he's doing this. I mean, it's just amazing. it was to me astonishing. I don't want to know how he does it. I want to be astonished. I enjoy that sensation. I don't want to have some secret other next video showed me exactly what he was doing with his hands and these trick cards to show me how it was done. And see, sometimes I think that's how we think of the Bible. We think that Especially people that really don't know the Lord, and they're not prepared to be astonished in a way that can't be explained, even if you dig and dig and dig and dig. And so we are Christians living in the wake of what God has done on our behalf, and He calls us to live lives of astonishment. And yet we can't do that in and of ourselves. We don't have that ability. Yet we do have a great God who is more than willing to astonish on our behalf. We just need to ask. We just need to knock. We just need to seek. And He will do that. But it takes initiative on our part. It's said that Jesus spoke with authority, and that astonished the people. And yet, at the end of Matthew, we read this, all authority has been given me in heaven and on earth. All authority Jesus has, and he has it to do what it is that he wants us to do. So we must live by faith and serve our King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We have been called, like I said at the beginning, to live radical lives of faith. And it's becoming more and more true that we really must be doing that. The normal lives that we all might have been living a few years ago are kind of becoming abnormal now. We are abnormal for being who we are and doing what we do. And yet, viva la abnormality. We want to be seen as abnormal in our world, and we want to be persecuted for that, frankly. It's not that we want it, but it's that we will be rewarded for it, and we certainly don't want to shy away from that as a logical outcome. We don't want to change our behavior one bit. But remember, our persecution must be because of righteousness sake, not our own arrogant attitude or personality. We can't change the world, but God is changing the world, and He will change the world, and we all ought to want to be a part of that. We have a small part of this world that God has given us, and we want to change that world. It ought to be on your heart. Matthew 7 is all about taking the initiative to do that in your world. God will change your world through you, but you have to want it. You have to seek Him to want that and to do it. He asks us to have faith in Him. That's why He reminds us here in chapter 7 about all of what chapter 6 talked about. We must live by faith and follow Him where He leads us. Let's pray. Father God, we thank You for Your Word, for Your Son who not only accomplished our salvation but also modeled for us how we are to lead our lives and told us here in the Sermon on the Mount what it is that we're to do and why it is that that's astonishing to people. Not all people will take that passively. because Satan has his activists as well. And yet we pray, Lord, that you would have us to be and want to be more active in your world, at work attempting to reach out to people that we know and care about and want to see transformed. We ask you for opportunities, Lord. We ask that your Holy Spirit would lead us into such situations and we would follow, that we would obey. We thank you now for this time together. We pray that you would have your Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love and a desire to be at work in your world. In Christ's name we pray, amen.