Assurance in the Kingdom

Kingdom Living July 13, 2025 Matthew 7:21-29 Notes

Throughout this series, Jesus has described what life in His Kingdom looks like—what it means to live under His rule and reign. He has called us to a righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees. And now, He closes His sermon with a sobering warning and a gracious invitation, a call to examine whether we truly belong to His Kingdom.

There are many today who assume they are right with God simply because they try to live a good life, say the right religious words, got baptized, and joined the church. But not everyone who claims to follow Jesus truly knows Him and are known by Him. The question is this: Do I have real assurance that I belong to the Kingdom of God? Can we have real assurance of our salvation?

As Jesus brings His sermon to a close, He contrasts those with a superficial faith with those who have a sincere and saving faith. He warns of self-deception and shows us how to be certain of our place in His Kingdom.

In Matthew 7:21-29, Jesus closed His Sermon on the Mount by both warning and inviting people to pursue a sincere faith that brings real assurance in God’s Kingdom.

Audio

Transcript

Good morning, church. Good to see all of you here this morning. Can you believe it? We're at the end of our 16 week journey through the Sermon on the Mount. It's been sweet.

We're finishing up the Sermon on the Mount this morning. We've entitled this series Kingdom Living because it's a description of what kingdom life looks like for those who call Jesus king. And it's been both a challenge and a joy to study this sermon together with you. And I have to admit, I kind of hate to finish. I believe we could have divided it up and finished and gone through the whole year.

There's so much meat on the bone that we still didn't get to chew on. But it's time to finish it up today and so finish we will this series. Jesus has been talking to us about what kingdom life looks like. And it's been called the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived. And now I have to admit, studying it, that everything in here is so original, so amazing that it's so amazing to just study the words of Jesus.

He's called the righteousness here in this passage. He calls it to be from the inside out rather than the outside in. He calls us to a righteousness that surpasses the external rules and regulations of the Pharisees and of the scribes. And he calls us to a place of transformation so that we truly become his followers. And as he closes this sermon, he closes it really with a sober warning as well as a generous invitation, a gracious invitation.

He calls us to an examination of our hearts to really check and see what is your profession of faith? What do you really believe? What is it you claim as a follower or not? And here's the question I think is, can you have real assurance of faith? Can you have real assurance that you're a Kingdom member, that you're a member of God's kingdom?

There are many today who confess that they're believers. They say, I'm a Christian. They try to live a good life. They make a profession of faith. Maybe they're baptized or even joined the church.

But the challenge that Jesus gives as he finishes this message is he says those outward things may or may not be true because not everyone who says, lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. Now that's a disturbing thing. He teaches in this passage today that there's a difference between an outward expression and an inward transformation. The outward is important, but the inward is necessary. And this is what he's talking about today as he brings his sermon To a close.

He contrasts superficial faith with sincere saving faith. And he calls us to examine ourselves in Matthew 7:21 29. As we finish this sermon and as Christ closes out his sermon, he ends with both a warning and an invitation to a sincere faith that can bring real assurance of our place in his kingdom. And I believe as we look at the text today, we'll see three ways that we can have this assurance of our place in God's kingdom. Let's read the text and then we'll unpack it together, starting at verse 21.

Not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Everyone then, who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. This is God's word. Amen.

We're looking for three ways we can have assurance of our place in God's kingdom. Here's the first. It's by knowing that saying is not the same as submitting. Just saying a thing is not the same as truly submitting your heart in obedience to King Jesus. He warns against a mere verbal profession that just says Lord, Lord with the mouth, without a transformation, a change in the life.

He says, it's not enough just to say Lord, Lord. He repeats it twice. These people say to me, lord, Lord. They don't just say Lord once. They go around saying it a lot.

That Lord, Lord, Lord, Lordy, Lordy, Lord. They say it a lot. And they have a lot of, well, religious references. They've got public credibility. He talks about me.

He goes on that day. What day? Well, now we're talking future. Because he says, there are those who say to Me, Lord, Lord. And not everyone who says that will enter the kingdom of heaven.

So there are people that are saying it right now. You're saying it? Yeah. I'm a Christian. I call Jesus Lord.

You're saying it, but your walk doesn't match your talk.

You haven't actually said, he's king of my life and I do what he says. So you're saying it, but you're not obeying it. And he says, there are many that won't enter. And then he says, on that day. Now, what day is he talking about?

Well, he's talking future tense now. So we can't help but see this as an eschatological day. I think you could capitalize that and call that the Day of Judgment. It seems so because of how he describes it here. On that day, many will say to me, they're going to say it again, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name?

Didn't we preach? There's going to be preachers.

That's what he said. There's going to be people that you looked up to, that they were preachers, but they. They weren't real. They were false prophets. Remember he talked about them last time we were meeting?

Right. There's some false proclaimers. They're gonna be people casting out demons in your name. Didn't we do miracles, Mighty works in your name. These are all external religious activity.

And what he says is these outward things, these verbal expressions, these outward things, they are not what matters. What really matters is, are you in a relationship with Jesus? Because here's what he says. He says, and then will I. It's future tense.

He's describing that future day when people come. They've been saying verse 21. On that day, they will say, lord, Lord. They've been saying, lord, Lord. They will say, lord, Lord.

And then he says, I will say. I will declare. I never knew you. You did all those things in my name, but I didn't know you. You weren't in relationship with me.

Now you're here this morning. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you came. Maybe some of you are thinking, you know, I get a little extra favor with God this week. I'm checking off a box.

I went to church. Maybe God will give me a little credit for that this week and I can have a good week. I can go live how I want to now. I've checked off the church box. And so somehow that gives me favor with God.

I've earned some favor. Maybe some of you even thinking, you know, I'm gonna put some money in the bucket, that will surely get me favor with God. I'm gonna come down and take the Lord's Supper. And that's an outward expression. Or maybe some of you are in ministry.

You're a small group leader. You're on the worship team, you're working with the children. You're thinking, I know these outward expressions are gonna give me favor with God. And here's what Jesus says to you. And he says to me, I never knew you.

Because it's not about religious record keeping, regulations, rules. You're saved by grace, through faith. He did all the work, and he invites you to a relationship. He says, depart from me. I never knew you.

Perhaps, as we look at this passage, it might be important to just unpack a little bit here. We see that what they say now, Lord, Lord, what they will say, didn't we do this for you? Didn't we do that for you? Didn't we do these amazing things for you? And then I will say, I will declare.

And the word declare is different than those two says. It's the Greek word homologeo. It means to say a thing in a declarative way, to say the same word. It's often translated, confess. I will confess.

I will declare. It has kind of a judicial sense, a pronouncement kind of sense. It's the same word that Paul uses in Romans 10:9 when he says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, it's that same confess, declare. It's a declaration, he's my master. It's a judicial pronouncement of the will.

Like that. It's not just saying it. It's not just mouthing it. It's I declare it like that. But then here he's using it in this context.

I never knew you.

You claim my name, but I never knew you. And then here's perhaps the saddest imperative in this whole passage. Depart from me. Depart from me. That's a command word in the Greek.

Depart from me. Startling. We've gone through this sermon. We've heard these pairs. As he's closing these pairs of choices.

Narrow gate, wide gate, easy way, hard way, destruction, life like these pears. There's no third way. There's no middle ground like that. False prophet, true prophet, good fruit, bad fruit. Now we're true profession, false profession, a true profession.

You're coming into a relationship with Jesus. He's your Lord and Savior. He knows you. You know him. He says in John, chapter 10, my sheep know my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

You see, Jesus is not looking for fans. He's looking for followers. He's looking for people who truly say, I'm Lord, I'm king. Where is the kingdom of heaven? It's wherever Christ is king.

Is he king of your life? Then the kingdom has come to your life. Is he king of your house? The kingdom of heaven has come to your house. He says, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. The Greek word here is without law, no law. You're just following your own way. You're not really following me.

Paul's second letter to Timothy. He writes this. He says, but God's firm foundation stands bearing this seal. The Lord knows those who are his, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. He says, the Lord knows you.

He calls you to a relationship. And when he calls you, he calls you out of sin and into righteousness. And so this heart change is what Jesus is talking about throughout the Sermon on the Mount. He's moving everything from external to inward. When he says, you've heard it said, thou shalt not commit murder.

But I say, if you've been angry at your brother and called him raca, which means empty head, you've committed murder. In your heart. You've heard it said, thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say, if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery in your heart. He's moving everything to the heart level because he's saying, I've done all the work, but if you receive me by grace through faith, then I'd start doing a new work in you.

And so you could say it like this. You could say, we're saved by grace through faith, not works. But saving faith works. We're saved by grace through faith, not works. But saving faith works.

Tim Keller says it like this. He says, you're saved by faith, not fruit. But you're never saved by fruitless faith. And so saving faith transforms us. If we place our faith in Christ, it changes us.

In Luke's parallel passage to the Sermon on the Mount, he records Jesus saying this. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not what I tell you and not do what I tell you. He connects calling him Lord as a profession of faith with obedience that there's a change. That change you might have, areas that you're still stumbling in. All of us are imperfect.

We're growing. But if you're a born again Christian, you've confessed Jesus truly with your mouth and from your heart, then there's a desire in you now to change and to become more like Him. And when you don't, when you don't obey his word, you feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit and you want to change. As we talk to people and invite them to church, we say, come as you are and be forever changed by the love of Jesus. Come as you are, but don't stay that way.

This is what saving faith does to us. John addresses this problem in his first epistle of profession without obedience. He says, our talk and walk must match in First John, chapter one. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus His Son, cleanses us from all sin. And so as you walk in Jesus, he's cleaning you up. He's doing a perfecting work in you as you submit to his lordship. John explains that when we have Jesus living in us, we can have assurance. We can know that we know that.

We know that he knows us, and we know him that we have life. Here's what he says in First John, chapter two. Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar. And the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word in Him. Truly the love of God is perfected.

By this we may know that we are in Him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. And so we begin to change as we follow Jesus as Lord, as King. He does a work. He works.

If we, we work out what he works in us. Do you remember the parable of the two sons found in Matthew chapter 21 talks about these two sons. He says, what do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and he said, son, go and work in the vineyard.

And the Son said, no. He answered, I will not. But afterward he changed his mind and went and worked in the vineyard. And then to his other son he said the same. And the other son said, I will go.

But then he didn't go. And then he asked those that were listening that day who was obedient. And they go, the first son, the one who said no, but actually obeyed. He was the obedient one. Why did Jesus tell this story to the Pharisees?

It's because they had an outward righteousness that confessed one thing, but they did another. And he said he was calling those who might be saying no outwardly in their life right now. But they finally say yes to Jesus, and they do what he says. It's important that our profession matches our walk, he says merely. He's warning us here.

A mere verbal profession without submission is unacceptable. He's calling us to a relationship. Do you say, Lord, Lord, with your mouth, but yet do not bow the knee of your heart to him. Let's live in obedience to Christ. This is the first warning with an invitation I will say that Jesus offers here at the end of his sermon.

Here's the second way that we can have assurance. The second way it's by understanding that hearing is not the same as heeding. Hearing is not the same as heeding. To heed means to obey. Right now in verses 24 through 27, he begins to talk about two kinds of builders that build on two different kinds of foundations.

There's been this list of twos, right? Two gates, narrow and wide. Two ways, easy and hard. Two destinations, destruction and life. Two kinds of prophets, false and true.

Two kinds of fruit, good and bad. Right now we've got these two kinds of professions. A true profession and a false one. Now we got two builders and two types of foundations. He's telling us over and over again there aren't three choices.

There aren't five choices. There are two ways to live. There's to live for the world or to live for God. To submit to the world and to the flesh, or to submit our lives to Jesus. He makes this very clear.

Now he begins to speak to those that were hearing. Can you imagine all the people, this great crowd that's seated on the grassy area of that hill that goes up from the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee? I've been there. It's a beautiful, beautiful place. And here's Jesus seated at the top of the mount.

And he comes to the close. And they've just been spellbound for this whole. You can read these three chapters, and you can read them with feeling. And it will take about 20 minutes to read it as if you were preaching it like that, like Jesus may have done it. So it's not a long message.

I'm preaching longer just on these verses here than he did in the whole sermon, if you just kind of put it all together. But they've been spellbound. And he goes, there are two builders. One's wise, one's foolish. You know what they had in common?

They've all heard my words, and that's all you now. So you've all heard. They were all there. Yeah, we've heard him. We've heard the whole Sermon on the Mount.

They all heard it, but they responded in two different ways. They had this in common. They had all heard the word of Jesus, but they responded in two ways. One responded wisely and one foolishly. One was wise and built their house.

Let's just look. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock, built his life, built his life, built his house, built everything that he. Everything that, that he's doing in life, his lifestyle. Built it on the rock. What's the rock?

It's the rock of his Word. It's the rock of Christ himself. This person said, I've heard the word of Jesus and I'm going to. I'm going to submit my whole life. I'm going to build my life on Jesus.

I'm going to build my life on the word of God. I've decided who I date. If you're a single person who I choose to marry, what job, take, where I go to school after I get married, the way I raise my children, the way I treat my spouse, the way I treat my employer at work, the way I treat my neighbor, the way I even love my enemies. I've decided every single detail of my life is going to be built on Jesus. He's my rock.

He's my foundation. He's my cornerstone. And here's what Jesus says. If you've heard my word and you build your life on the rock of my Word and on the person of Jesus, well, there's one other thing that you have in common with the foolish. They both hear and they both experience storms.

See, coming to Christ doesn't mean you won't get storms. In fact, he promises there will be trouble in this world. But I have overcome the world, he says, and so we come into Christ. Doesn't mean we'll avoid storms, but here's what it does mean. After the storm comes, your life will still be standing because you've built your life on the rock.

It's the same storm. And the rain fell. Verse 25. And the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house, it's the same storm. Because if you look at 27, and the rains fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against same storm, storms come.

Whether you're a believer or not, storms come. But the difference is, if you built your life on the rock of Christ, it'll still stand but then what does he say about the foolish one? Well, and everyone who hears these words of mine, verse 26, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rains fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell. That's not all.

And great was the fall of it. That's the last words of the Sermon on the Mount. And great was the fall of it. I bet you could have heard a pin drop on that hillside. I bet the birds got quiet.

That's his last. That's. That's it right there. And great was, in other words, not one thing of that house remained standing. That house that was built on worldly values, that house that was built on foolish principles, that house that was built on sand fell.

And great was its fall. Not a partial fall, a total destruction, the whole structure. James addresses this problem of knowledge. We talked earlier about the problem of profession without obedience, profession without submission. Now we're working on the problem of knowledge without obedience, because we're all hearers, and some of you may even know the Bible.

Well, I've encountered seminary professors, and I can't see their heart. But what they claim, I believe, would lend itself to the possibility. They're not believers. They know a lot, but they don't believe what they know. You can know a lot, you can hear a lot, you can quote a lot.

But do you believe? James addresses this problem of knowledge without obedience. He says, but be doers of the Word and not hearers, only deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. Now, what's the mirror that John's talking about? He's talking about the Word of God. So when we look into the Word of God, we see those areas. Just look at the words of the Sermon on the Mount.

We see those areas where we fall short. But grace doesn't condemn us. Grace rescues us and then empowers us through the conviction of the Holy Spirit to transform in those areas. So instead of turning away from the mirror and forgetting what we've seen, we look at it and we go, oh, Lord, forgive me for that. Thank you for your forgiveness.

Empower me now to change. I get so angry at people. And, Lord, I know I sin against others. Help me with my anger, Lord. Help me to be patient like you.

And you begin, Lord, there are people that don't like me and I just want hurt them back because they hurt me. But now I see in your word that I'm supposed to be like you. And I'm supposed to love not just my neighbor, but I'm supposed to love my enemies. Those who have hurt me, I'm supposed to love them back. And I can't do it in my own power.

And so you're looking in the mirror of God's word. You're seeing those places. You fall short. But instead of turning away, the wise man keeps building, the wise woman keeps building their life on the rock of God's word.

It's a very easy to understand image that James gives us. He basically says, you look at yourself in the mirror and you smile. You got a piece of broccoli, like between your teeth there, and you go, yeah, I'm good. Just go on back out into the public. Like every time you smile, people are going to, you got a little something there, you know?

And as you get older, old men. Can I get a confession here? You go to the barber and you got like a wolf hair sticking out of your eyebrow over here, you know, like that. And I still remember growing up and my papaw, my pawpaw, Dylan, my mother's father, would take me to the barber. We would go to Surfy's Barber Shop, and he would get in the chair first, And I'd hear Mr. Surfy say to him, hey, Mr. Dillon, you want me to get them eyebrows?

Yeah, better get them eyebrows. How about them ears? Yeah, better get them. So you got a haircut, an ear cut and an eyebrow cut. As you get older, you get hairs where you don't want them, right?

That's some TMI right there, isn't it, ladies? More than you wanted to know about the men. But I'd be laughing, laughing at him. And Papa say, you better stop laughing, boy. It's coming your way.

And he was right. He was right, he was right. It's like looking in the mirror and going, ding. I'm just going to let that hair stay over there. I'm not going to cut that or I'm going to keep that piece of broccoli.

That'd be strange. And James is using this imagery to describe what we're like when we look in God's word. And instead of repenting and saying, God, forgive me, clean me up and set me back on the right path here. I want to change. I want to be transformed.

You're saved by faith, not fruit. But you're never saved by fruitless faith. And so grace saves through faith, but faith works.

Beach houses on the sand. It made me think of these houses that are falling down. Have you seen the news on the village of Rodanthe? It's on the Outer Banks in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore area. They've experienced a significant number of collapsing beach houses into the ocean.

Over 10 houses have fallen into the ocean since 2020. And recent storms have made it worse. Hurricanes and so forth. And you just look at these houses. They don't just fall a little bit.

The great is their fall. And I couldn't help but think about that, that when storms come and waves surge, it exposes the foundation. It exposes the foundation. And this is the imagery that Jesus is using. If we build our lives on him, when storms come, and they will come, we will still stand.

Our lives will still stand on him. But when storms come, to those who have built their lives on worldly principles, they've heard the word of God, but they've chosen to go their own way. Great is their fall. Jesus has warned us against two unacceptable responses. A merely verbal profession without submission is unacceptable, and a merely intellectual knowledge without obedience is unacceptable.

And now in these final verses, we're confronted with the person himself. Jesus has finished his sermon. But now let's look at how the crowd responds in these final two verses, because in this final section, we can see that recognizing that amazement is not the same as allegiance. Recognizing that amazement is not the same as allegiance. They are amazed.

They are astonished. Look at what it says. And when Jesus finished these sayings, when he finished the Sermon on the Mount, I think there was a long pause of quiet. Great was the fall of it.

And the crowds were astonished when he finished. They were astonished. They were amazed. The word astonished in the original Greek could have the idea of being struck by amazement.

They were like, what was that that we just heard? This idea of astonishment. It depicts an ongoing feeling of wonder even as they're traveling home. I don't even know if they're talking to each other on the way home. They're like, they're so pierced.

And what do they take note of? He taught as one who had authority. Exousia in the Greek is the idea of power. Like, he's not like the scribes who are quoting other rabbinic writings. You know, they're footnoting what they say.

They're trying to get credibility.

Here's who said this, here's who said that, not Jesus. He quotes himself. He does it on his own authority. He speaks as if he were God. They never heard anyone speak like this before.

They're astonished. They're amazed. They've never heard anyone like this. But that's not the same as allegiance, because Jesus is not looking for fans.

He's calling followers. He's not just looking for people that, you know, Jesus, you're a cool guy. You know, you hear people today, in the culture today. You know, I don't like Christians, but I got to say, I'm attracted to Jesus.

I don't know if they've really actually read the Bible because he can say some hard things, but he's a person that people are astonished by. They're amazed by. People have an emotional response to him. But may I say to you, that's not enough. That's not enough.

You know, when I first started dating, my wife, Robin had an emotional response. I did. It's like, is this love? You know, do I love her? You know, which then engaged the intellect, because you start going, okay, you know, she's beautiful to the eyes.

She's attractive to me. I like the way she lives. You know, she's a believer in Jesus. You know, she's got a great family. So now I'm kind of moving past just the emotional attraction to, like, I'm thinking about, like, what I'm learning about her.

So that's intellect, right? But we're still not married. You know why? Because emotion and intellect doesn't make you married. An act of the will.

I had to say to her, will you marry me? And she said, I will marry you. And then we stood before God in the church and said, I do. The emotion was necessary. It drew us.

The intellect was very important, the knowledge, because we could see that we were meant for each other. We felt we were the best of our knowledge, but we weren't married until we said, I do. These people are astonished. They are feeling emotional. They're in wrapped wonder at what they've heard and the authority of the person of Jesus.

And his words were overwhelmingly wonderful. We want to be part of this kingdom, but I don't know if I'm ready. As an act of the will, as an act of the heart. Because in the Bible, the heart embraces all three components of the emotion, the intellect, and the will.

And they were astonished. But not all of them would believe Assurance is more than astonishment. In John, chapter one, we read, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. It's important to understand. It's great that you're moved by the words of Jesus.

That's wonderful. That's the wooing of the Spirit, the joy and the peace that's being offered. But have you received him as your own king, as your own Lord? Have you believed into him as the source of life for you? You can have assurance of this.

In First John, John talks about. He says, this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that, you may be confident that you may be assured that you have eternal life.

What's the test? Are you in a relationship with Jesus? Have you received him as your Lord and Savior? Have you believed upon him? Is he yours and you are his, Then you can be assured.

Throughout history, people have been amazed by Jesus. Thomas Jefferson was amazed by Jesus. He made his own New Testament. He didn't really feel called to him as the Son of God, but more of a great moral teacher. And so he took a New Testament and cut out all the supernatural elements and all the elements that pointed to the divinity of Jesus and was just left with rules and regulations.

And that was the Jefferson New Testament. He never received them as his own. Mahatma Gandhi, the famous Hindu, he said, I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. He was very impressed with the Sermon on the Mount, which he thought, if anyone could actually live that way, it would be awesome. But he never accepted Jesus as savior.

Albert Einstein described Jesus as that luminous figure of the Nazarene. H.G. wells called him the most dominant figure in all history in these great intellects. Neither of them, they were impressed by Jesus, but never bowed to him in faith. Even the Quran, that holy book of the Muslims of Islam, even the Quran claims that Jesus was a great prophet, that he performed miracles.

By the way, there are no miracles recorded by Mohammed, but the Quran records many miracles by Jesus, but yet it rejects that he was crucified and raised and that he's the Son of God and denies his divinity. All of these, and I could go on, were astonished and impressed by Jesus. It's not enough to be impressed and amazed. He calls us not to be fans, but followers to come to him. Not Just admiring Him, but submitting to him and giving him our complete allegiance to bow to him.

This is how Jesus concludes his sermon. He calls us to a choice. The narrow way or the wide way, the easy way or the harder way. The harder way is to deny yourself, to take up your cross daily and to follow him and to follow Jesus to that place your house will stand life eternal. The Lord will be with you always.

Are you building your house on the rock, your life on the rock of Jesus? Have you moved from just saying to submitting, from just hearing to heeding, from being amazed to giving Jesus your total allegiance? The key to assurance is both the confession of the mouth and the submission of the heart. Once again, as Paul wrote to the Romans, if you confess with your mouth, that word confess again is that Greek word I taught you earlier. When you declare with your mouth in a profession, almost an act of the will kind of way, homologeo.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. We can have this assurance. We can know that. We know that we know because he knows us and we know him. Over the past 16 weeks, we've walked verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount.

It's the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived. He speaks of the upside down values of the kingdom, upside down to the world, but right side up to the Lord. He speaks of a radical inner transformation. He blesses the humble, the merciful and the pure. In heart.

He redefines righteousness not as we do, but in the heart where anger is like murder and lust is like adultery and love even reaches to our enemies. He paints a picture of this wonderful place called the Kingdom of Heaven. We're seen as kingdom people who live not for show, but from secret intimacy with the Father, through prayer, fasting and generosity. We've heard Jesus teach that we're to trust God fully, to pursue his kingdom first, and to judge others not with hypocrisy, but with grace and discernment. He warns us that the path is narrow and that true faith bears faith bears fruit not just in words, but in obedience.

In chapter five, he teaches us the character of the kingdom citizens. In chapter six, he talks about the conduct that flows out of this new kingdom character. And then in chapter seven, he gives us a choice that we must make. Will we make Jesus king? He's the narrow gate, the firm foundation, the final judge and the authoritative king.

It ends with a warning and an invitation. It's not enough just to say lord, Lord, it's important to engage the heart, which is the intellect, the emotion and the will. And to say I do to Jesus. It's a call to relationship to King Jesus. Let's not just be hearers of the Word, but let's do what he says.

Amen. Church. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this sermon. Thank you for even the powerful way that you close Jesus, that you want to make sure that we recognize there's no more important decision than the one where we decide what to do with you.

Either follow you or not. Either submit our lives and build our lives upon you or not. And so I pray for that one. That's in my hearing right now. We've all heard.

You're listening now, and the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. Have you ever given your life to Jesus? Have you ever called Him Lord and meant it from your heart, confessing him as Lord and Master of your life? You can do it right now. You can pray with me right now.

Pray like this. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner, but I believe you died on the cross for my sin and you paid for my sin and that you were raised from the grave and that you live today. Come and live in me. I pray for you to become my Lord and my Savior right now, to change my life, to adopt me into your family and to give me eternal life. I confess you as my Lord, as my King, I submit and surrender my life to you, fully holding nothing back.

You're praying that prayer, believing today Jesus is willing and ready to save you. As you're here today and you're a believer, you're a follower of Jesus. And as we're finishing up this series, I just pray for each of us right now. Lord, Holy Spirit, show us that place that you would have us look in the mirror. Is it a place where we're holding a grudge against someone and we haven't forgiven them and you're saying love them even though they've hurt you?

Lord, I don't want to turn away from the mirror right now. I want you to take that. I want you to take that spite, that feeling of revenge away from me so that I love that person. And not just love them, I forgive them. Maybe there's another area.

Maybe there's an area where you're depending on something other than the Lord. You're not seeking first his kingdom. Lord, I just pray for every aspect of this sermon now that you would allow us to look in the mirror and that Holy Spirit you would apply to our hearts the conviction so that we might be transformed. Lord, we love you and we thank you. Most of all, we thank you for Jesus.

For it's in his name we pray. Amen.

Audio

Transcript

I've got a series to finish. I'm kind of bummed. I'm not going to lie to you. I have had so much fun in this Sermon on the Mount series. I'm going to have fun again, I'm pretty sure.

But this has been a joy and just seeing God move in his church and move in my life as I study this text. So we're going to be in Matthew chapter seven, finishing up the Sermon on the Mount together. Matthew chapter seven, verses 21 through 29. And we're concluding this series where the greatest preacher pastor of all time has finished one of the greatest, if not the greatest, sermon of all time. And it has been such a win.

Throughout this series, Jesus has described what it looks like to be a part of the kingdom of God. And it's countercultural. It's different than you expect. It's more amazing than you thought. God is absolutely up to something.

Jesus has called us to this righteousness that surpasses even the supposed great ones of his day. A righteousness that goes past the Pharisees and the scribes. Now he's coming to the close of his message. We've had two kind of like this, and now he comes really strong to finish. Like any good message, there's an opportunity to respond at the end.

And that's what Jesus is doing now. He's given us a chance to respond, and he's not. He's not pulling punches. Jesus, often considered and seen as meek and mild here, he's coming on pretty strong. And I pray that you can hear it, receive it, and be encouraged and challenged by it today.

Now, I know this. Here's what I know. A lot of us assume that we're right with God simply because we've tried to live a certain way, or we've tried to do the right steps, or even we may have thought, well, I got baptized when I was young, or. Or I grew up in the church. Something I've heard many times here in the south is, you know, as often as the doors were open, I was there.

So I'm good with Jesus. That's not quite true to the gospel. And that's where Christ is going to spend a lot of time today is, are you sure that you know him and that you're known by him? Because it's not all this external stuff, it's the internal stuff that matters. And I do know that this will challenge some of you today because guess what it did to me this week.

I'm going, christ, do you know me? I mean, do you really. I want to know you, and I want to be known by you. This is a good question, my friends. I'm not trying to make you doubt your salvation.

I want you to experience authentic assurance of your salvation. And the only way to do that is to come on this journey with Jesus. And here we get this question of, do you really know? You may say Lord, Lord, but do you really know me? And do I know you?

I want to have this kind of real assurance, and I want you to have it, too. I think the apostles of old all wanted it. John's first John, if you read that sometime, that's like his major premise is, I want you to know that you have eternal life. I don't want you to doubt it. And that's what I want for you too, my friends.

But I don't want to mince words with it. I want to do as Christ did and make you know that you know, that you know. So he brings his sermon to a close here in these last few verses, and he gives us both a warning and an invitation, an invitation to pursue the kind of faith that brings real assurance we can have this church. He's not trying to, like, keep this from us. He wants us to truly know us, to know him and to be known by Him.

We can experience real assurance. So I pray that you'll experience this too, as we read this together and are challenged by it, that it'll move us towards Jesus. Here we go. Matthew, chapter seven. Finishing it up.

Starting at verse 21, it says, and these are some hard verses, Church. I'll admit this, these are hard. He says, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven on that day, many will say to me, lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness, for everyone. Then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who's built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. That sounds familiar, right? We just sang about that.

You know, we mean to do what we do when we get up here to worship. We're thinking about it. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and beat on the house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. Here's how it finishes the sermon on the Mount, because Jesus finishes there his words. Now Matthew gives us a conclusion statement. He says, when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. This is God's word.

Amen. I pray that this whole 16 part series has blessed you. I pray this last one will truly do the same. Here we go. I want us to experience assurance that our place, of our place in God's kingdom, and the first way that we're going to do that is by knowing that saying is not the same as submitting.

Saying speech is not the same as submission. There's something interesting going on here that I had to read it several times before I observed, right in the first few verses, there are three words for saying. I had to kind of go under this to even figure it out. You'll notice in verse 21 it says, Everyone who says to me. Verse 22 it says, Many will say to me.

And then Jesus says, I will declare to them. These are three speech words right here in these few verses. So that made me go, what's going on here? What's this about? This is the idea that you can say, say, say all you want to, but submission is truly what it means to be in Christ Jesus.

He says, everyone that is all whole. There will be lots of people who come to me saying this habitual. This word saying in verse 21 is in the participle, which means ing in a way. They come saying repetitively over and over, lord, Lord. And Jesus says about them, they will not enter unless they've been doing the will of the Father.

Okay, that sounds terrifying. They come saying, master, Master, Lord, Lord. This is the right term. Oh, Lord Jesus. I've called him to not only be the Savior of my life, but the Lord of my life.

But what is Jesus saying here? It has to make sense in context. He's saying, they come telling these things with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They say all this good stuff, Lord, Lord, I've done this. Look what I've done.

Look at the miracles. Look at the, the prophecies. Look at. And he's looking here, church. This is what the whole Sermon on the Mount has been about.

It's what the whole thing's been about. He says, you've got to have righteousness better than the Pharisees. And you go, how's that possible? These are people who so diligently follow the law. He says, yeah, but it's all talk.

It's all external. There's nothing in here. There's no depth heart. Now, here's what's wild about that. As your pastor and as your friend, I cannot see this submission.

I will see the fruit of it in your life at times, but if you're constantly saying the right things and doing the right things, it's hard for me to know. It's hard for us, your family, to know unless we're with you a lot. We start to see chinks in the armor. We start to go, hmm, I wonder if it's all a show. I wonder if it's all a facade.

And then he goes on verse 22 to say, on that day, this is like one of those capital D days of the Bible. Some other translations, in fact, even tell you so. But it's like the day in which Christ Jesus returns, the day of judgment, whatever that final finale kind of day is. And in the future tense, it says, on that day, they will again say, we cast out demons. And they.

It's not just that. We prophesied in your name. We did mighty works in your name. Oh, Jesus. Look, church, I gotta tell you, this one scares me so bad because I can look at my resume, if you will, and go, I've done some stuff.

I've done some things for Jesus. Paul looks at his stuff, though, and says, it's all rubbish for the sake of knowing Jesus. Okay, that I get. That makes sense. My resume is unimportant.

God cares about this and really only this. And then this will begin to bear fruit in my life. Real fruit. Not diseased. Not just barely getting by.

Church, I promise you this. This might be hard for you to hear, but. But there have been times where I just went through the motions as a pastor at this church. There have been times. There have been times on a Sunday morning where I got up and preached a message that I pray, fed you and helped you, but I was barely getting it.

Barely getting through it, I bet. Here's the good news. I bet you've been there. I don't feel alone here. I don't feel like extra conviction.

This is a human characteristic that at times we're doing things externally, but it hasn't moved in the heart yet. And Christ says here, there will be People who come with their mouths saying, look what I've done and will come with their actions, but forgot the key component. The key component, which is submission.

We have these three disciplines, or three values, if you will, here at the church. And I have to admit, I think sometimes we just gloss right past the first one. I don't know how we do this. We push heavily at this church about, you know, being in service to the church and being connected to one another in community groups and being on mission. We really, it's like we have right application for heart for each other and heart for our world.

But I want you to know something, church, you can't even do that stuff well without heart for God. These are steps. They're not meant to be done like in silos. You have to have a right heart for God before you can possibly begin to be a good encourager to other believers. You need encouragement from the Lord Jesus first.

You need a heart for him first. This is why Jesus ends here. He wants us to know, hey, I've told you a lot of stuff. And guess what? He.

He's told us a ton over the last few weeks as we've been studying this. This, we think took Jesus under 30 minutes to preach. And in under 30 minutes, he has addressed almost every touchy subject in our lives. He's talked about money. He's talked about sex.

He's talked about the way our hearts should be, our righteousness. He's talked about fasting. He's talked. I mean, he has covered the basis and now he finishes with. And none of it's going to work out unless you decide, I am lord of your heart, not just your actions.

You need a righteousness that's better than the Pharisees because they give me this lip service.

Church. This is a challenge to you today. I want you to look internally, I want you to think about this and go, okay, I'm doing things for God. I'm saying things for God. But am I on a daily basis hungering to spend time with him?

Am I desperate for Christ? I want to move my heart towards him. I want Jesus to say, instead of depart from me, I never knew you. I want him to say, well done, good and faithful servant. I'm so desperate to hear that, it scares me.

I don't want to hear anything less.

And the only way that this is going to happen is for me to constantly be in relationship with him, saying, I just. I want to so know who you want me to be. And I want to know who you are in such a Real way that it impacts everything I say and everything I do. And it no longer is just going through the motions. Some of you have jobs.

Right now you're going through the motions. It might even be most of you. I don't know, you're just like, gotta go to work today. And I don't wanna. And I don't like half the people I deal with.

Maybe it's more just going through the motions.

I'm just not.

I don't desire to live my life that way. I'm prayerful that you will not either. Some of you, God has put you. I would say all of you, God has put you where you are in this season. And it may be that he has a future purpose for you that's outside of the place you currently are working or whatever.

But right now, you have an opportunity to have a heart for God in an incredibly powerful way. You can change the culture of the place you are. You can change it. I'm confident in this. I want to hear Christ say, well done.

Second Timothy, chapter two. It says, God's firm foundation stands bearing this seal. The Lord knows those who are his. He knows them. Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.

Do you hear that, church? You claim Jesus. Why is it then that you also claim iniquity? These two things make no sense. It makes no sense that you say, I have a heart for God, but I also have a heart for alcohol.

That makes no sense. I have a heart for God, but I also have a heart for the world that has these sinful tendencies. And I want to be your friend. No, a good friend tells someone the truth in love and says, I am confident that God has a better purpose for you than this. Your identity is not male, female, what?

Your identity is Christ and him crucified. And then everything else falls into alignment with that all of a sudden. Then we go, okay, what does God say about me? I'm not going to listen to the world and what it says about me. I'm not even going to listen to what I say about me.

This is not. This is not the heart of God. He says, let everyone who calls my name depart from iniquity, run from it.

And he finishes that little section saying, you workers of lawlessness. It didn't seem like lawless work, did it? When you look at that, I think Luke gives us more emphasis on this. There's a very parallel passage in the book of Luke. In chapter six, it says this.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I Tell you, this is what's going on really behind the scenes here. People are coming, saying, lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, let me in. He's going, you didn't listen to me all your life. You never did. He says, the one who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice will be like the one built on a rock.

And the one who doesn't is a fool. That's not a very Christian thing to say. I can't believe Jesus said that. The word in the Greek there is moros. He says, you're a moron.

I thought Jesus was different than this.

He calls it like he sees them. He says, you hear these words and you just say, that sounds good. I like it a lot. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing any of that.

Moron.

That didn't come from Pastor Jonathan. You don't have to hold that against me. That came from Jesus. Oh, I didn't like it. Tough.

John addresses these problems. Matthew 2. The apostles are all dealing with Luke. They're all saying, hey, don't come with lip service. It comes from a heart of obedience.

John, in 1 John, chapter 1, he says, if we say, we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. The longer that you spend time with us and we are in fellowship together, the more that we get to see all of you, and this is good, we get to see true fellowship, and the more time we spend together, then we start to go. Why is it, dear friends, that some of you say, lord, Lord, but you do not do all of the things.

You get choosy with the things of God. What a good fellowship of believers would do is rebuke that. You say, I don't want to be a part of a judgy church. Do you want to be a part of a church that really loves and cares for you, that actually wants God's best for you? Do you want that church?

Because I do. And that means we're the kind of people who share truth in love with as much grace as we can give it. But we don't just back away from the table and say, hey, you know what, John? Sally over there has got a serious problem. But if I bring it up, you don't know Sally like I do.

Sally will get real ticked. She might leave the church. Well, she might stay at the church for 10 years and have never had a transformed heart. That's more terrifying. That's way more terrifying.

Sally might get in a wreck on the way home and her tough self went tough all the way from Jesus. I'd rather just deal with her toughness. Go. This might be spicy I'm about to bring. I might just come in saying, hey, Sally, I know you're a little bit spicy and this is going to be a spicy one.

All right? But you drink too much, you know, or whatever. You fill in the blank. Every time we have a conversation, you're still talking about how much you hate your husband. This is not godly.

I like this message. Until you said that, Jonathan, I was good because I cannot stand the man I'm sitting next to. I can't stand him.

A true church, a true fellowship of believers, doesn't lie. They practice truth. They tell one another the truth in love and they care enough to tell it. I've been so non confrontational in my ministry. It's like deeply in me, this middle son thing that just lets things flow.

I never rock the boat. I got along with my siblings. I didn't try to make waves. And now I'm a pastor of church. And I go, I am not saying the things I need to say to people sometimes because I don't want.

I want to make waves. And then years go by and they keep hurting themselves. And I knew what to tell them actually breaks my heart. Now the old me, the new me is paying the price for the old me. We're going to leave him behind, though.

We're going to try to do better. I love you enough to tell you what I'm seeing. I want to see. Here's what I'm confident of. Church.

And you may not believe this yet I pray that you will one day. I am confident that the gospel will make better every single aspect of your life. Every part. When you give your marriage to Christ, it will get better. When you give your finances to Christ, it will improve.

Oh, I don't want him touching that. Yes, you do. Yes you do. But I have very little. That's why you really need to let him in there.

Cause you don't know what you're doing.

You need to let him submit to him in every aspect. Your relationships, your wallet, your workplace. But if I'm working like that, if I'm working as unto the Lord, I'll be the only one working that hard, Jonathan. Yeah, I'm aware. Will that mean you get promotions?

Probably not. Probably not. Eternity's a long time though, Church. I'D rather get there. I'd rather get there and hear, well done, good and faithful servant.

Maybe I suffer for 40 years of a work that I just never really got seen, but here's what God knew. You were getting it, my boy. You were working hard. I want to hear that. It's just better.

It's just better. Every time that I give things back to Jesus and say, alright, I'm sorry I took the reins again, help me be a better husband, man. He's better at it than me. He's so much better. It's like he designed it or something.

He's so much of a better father than me. I don't know how to discipline like he does. I don't know how to be patient like he is. I don't know if you believe this yet, but church, I'm telling you, give every aspect. Leave not one stone unturned.

There's young people in the room that are like, I don't really want to give Jesus my dating life. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Because you have no idea. You see Pretty.

Oh, it's pretty. No, you're pretty. No, I'm pretty gross. You don't know what you're looking at. This person could be far from God.

They could be a detriment to your faith in so many ways. They could lead you down the worst roads. And you will look back 10 years from now and say, hey, Jonathan was right. Hear me now, friend. Give him your dating life.

Give him everything. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie. I don't want to be like this. John explains this too, about assurance. I mentioned this earlier.

He says in 1 John, chapter 2, whoever says, I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar. And the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word in Him. Truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

He says we ought to walk as Jesus walked. Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me. Deny yourself and follow me.

We have this wonderful parable I want to share for you. This is one I haven't studied as much. I spotted it this week. Matthew, chapter 21. You can come there if you got your Bibles on you.

But it's just a handful of verses. But Matthew, chapter 21, 28, 31, there's this wild story about two sons. Jesus says, what do you think a man had two sons and he went to the first and said, son, go and work in the vineyard today. If any of you have kids, you know that sometimes that doesn't go well. Sometimes you have to tell them many times.

And sometimes you just see them out in the vineyard, just standing there like, what did he tell me to do? That's my kids. At least they all have brain damage. But anyway, son, go and work in the vineyard today. And he answered, I will not.

I will not. But afterward, he changed his mind and he went. Then he went to his other son and he said the same. And he answered, and I go, sir. But he did not go.

Here's your question. Church. Which of the two did the will of his Father?

The first. He said the wrong thing. He did the right thing. This is an important parable Jesus tells after the Sermon on the Mount and the chronology of things. He's letting us know something.

There's some people in the church that they say the wrong stuff a lot. They don't always get it right in their speech, but their heart moves them to action. And it's action in the will of the Father. This is why I think we can be the kind of church that goes, okay, we say, come as you are and be forever changed. You came.

You came with all your rough edges, saying some wild stuff. But I see you. Your heart is moved to do the will of the Father. Now, I don't think Jesus tells this parable so that we will keep saying, I'm not going. That's not the point of why he's telling us.

It's more important that you do what you've been called to do than to just say you'll do it and not do it. Okay? A merely verbal profession of faith without submitting is not faith at all. A mere Lord, Lord without obedience is not saving faith. It's that simple.

Let's live in the kind of obedience to Christ that does the will of the Father from the heart doesn't, hey, this is not probably the best growth method that I could possibly say, but if you're just coming to church because it's a box you need to check off, I'm okay if you don't come. I'm good with it. But if you're ready to come in here and get healed with me, I need Jesus desperately. You just don't know how bad. If you're ready to come in here and get healing with us, then come on.

It's not a checkbox. Cause God doesn't even look at that. He's not going to get up there and come through the pearly gates. And he's going to go, boy, you hit enough. I mean, 52 a year, and you got, you know, you got a couple hundred in here.

Good stuff. That's not how it's going to work. Not even one bit. He's going to say, depart from me. I never knew you, or, well done, come on in.

And then there might be a select few of us that just come in there literally smoking. We barely made it. But praise God, we're in there. All right, we're in there. Here's the second.

The first is saying without submitting. The second is hearing is not the same as heeding. Trying to help you here. I know we don't say heeding a lot. You're like, jonathan, that's a word, weird word.

All right, See the mnemonic device I'm doing here? Saying, not submitting, hearing, not heeding, trying to help you. All right, Brain games. Hearing is not the same as heeding. Hears these words.

Look, verse 24 and verse 25, verse 26. All the way through there, we're getting this illustration that we just sang about earlier. He said, there's some people who's going to hear it and they're going to do it. And they're wise. They build their house on a rock.

And guess what? Guess what's true. This illustration is really perfect for all people of all time, of any culture. He is promising kind of the same story to people who hear it and do it. And the people who hear it and don't do it.

All of us get this church. I know this is going to give you those warm and fuzzies you've been longing for all day. Guess what all people get? Rain, storms, quakes, things rattling the cages, shaking the house. Guess what?

Every human being gets this. Christ does not come and say, I have crucified now all of your suffering and all of your potential difficulties. It's not in the Bible. It's not in there anywhere. Instead, he says, I will make all of this have meaning and purpose.

I will be with you. I will give you hope in the storm. So all of us are getting the storms, the rain, the wind, all of this beating against the house. He says, the wise man hears it and does it. Here's what.

Here's these words. That means church. We've got to spend more time reflecting on these words. He's flipped the world upside down. He said, you know what?

Everybody else wants to get divorced. That's not the way of the gospel. He said, hey, everybody else just wants to lust and do these things. It's not the way of the gospel. This is how you deal with your money.

This is how you fast, this is how you pray. He's dealt with so many things here, which means we gotta come back to this. Did you hear it then? Did you apply it?

This is the hardest part about preaching is like, I get some amens, I get some hoorahs. People come out of church saying, hey, good job today, Pastor, but I want to hear next week. I tried to deal with what you said. You don't even have to tell me on the way out, hey, good job. But if you want to tell me on the way in next Sunday, I really wrestled with something that you said last week, or it doesn't even have to be something I said.

Just take the text and come back next week and say, hey, I applied something here and I'll go praise God. Because if I'm not preaching under application, then I'm wasting my absolute time.

A man who hears these doesn't just let them go in the ears, but actually applies them to, puts him into action, builds his house on the rock. And then there's these fools, these moras, as the Bible puts them, who don't apply them. They hear it. Maybe they hear it again and again and again and again. They don't put it into action.

He says something very strange, and I do want to mention this. In verse 27, he says, the rain came, the floods blew, the winds, all that, and it fell. And you would think he would leave it off there, but for some reason he adds on, and great was the fall of it. Great was the fall of it. I had to ponder this this week.

I'm like, why did you include that? What is that aspect about? I think this has to do with the fact that it's not going to be like a partial. It's not going to be just a little bit. It's going to be a full downfall.

The walls are going to crumble, the place is going to fall to the ground. Some of you have experienced this in life, perhaps B.C. before Christ. Some of you, you tried to walk through life and something big hit something terrible, something hard, and the house fell. Some of you have been through this, and great was that fall.

It about destroyed you. Some of you have been there, Some of you, even in Christ Jesus have had terrible suffering in your life. And you didn't walk through it in the power of the Holy Spirit. You tried to walk through it in your own power. And the fall was Great doesn't mean he loves you any less.

It doesn't mean he's not here to protect you. It doesn't mean anything about your eternal life. But you didn't walk through the storm. Well, I've been there. You're not alone.

I've walked through some storms in my own power. Didn't go well. I'm not good at holding up the wall. I'm not good at it. And you're not either.

He says, great. Was that fall. It's not going to be some kind of partial. It's going to be massive. It's going to be obvious to you and to everyone, perhaps.

James says this so well, this idea of not only being a hearer, but a doer. Listen to these words from James, Chapter one. He says, be doers of the word and not hearers, only deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. Now, I would imagine there's probably not a female in the whole room who's ever walked by a mirror and not looked at a few things. I've seen a few of you guys, though. I'm worried. I'm worried because I'm looking at your hair going, that thing.

Hadn't seen a comb in a while. It's been a minute now. The bald guys in the room, you're good. You don't have to worry. I guess you just get out of the shower.

As long as you're dry, you're good. I did notice today I missed a couple things. I got some rogue hairs up here. This whole thing my wife hates. So it's all gonna go soon.

I'm doing this literally for Jesus, y'. All. I'm playing Jesus for Kids Fest. It's a terrible beard. I'm sure Jesus is better than this.

I'm confident his was better. But none of us walk by a mirror. Now. My son, I think, did this for most of his life. He's starting to comb his hair now, but I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen a mirror in about 10 years until, like, the last year or two, he would show up to church.

Like, dude, man, why am I the only one that cares about you. Like you don't care about you. Like, how do you do this? Because I'm probably over much. Like, I'm in there.

Like, the gray hairs, y', all, I'm telling you, they're straight from the evil one. They're straight from the evil one. I mean, I know there's supposed to be wisdom in all this, but guess what they do. They don't lay. Gray hairs come and they go, I'm going this way.

I don't care what you put in me. I'm going over here. And now they're getting on my nose. Like, what is. I've got them on my ears.

The barber hit them on my ears the other day. I'm like, getting old is a good time, y'. All. And I'm not even that old. That's what I've been told.

But feeling some things.

There's these beach houses. I couldn't help with this this week. Like, his direct illustration is these houses on the sand. And you would kind of think that's crazy. And yet we've been doing this right off the coast of North Carolina for a while.

And guess what's happening? They're falling into the ocean. Here's a picture of one. This is in Rodanthe. I don't know if y' all have ever been.

It's beautiful. I love it out there. But they built their stuff pretty close to the sand. And that island is just moving. It's moving over time.

They're actually trying to dredge sand back onto it to keep it being an island. But you know what it wants to do? It just wants to sink out into the sea. These houses are just falling in there. I couldn't help but picture those images I heard recently that, like, they can't even do good excavation out there because there's so much sewage and stuff.

So now you can't even, like, swim over in there. Or I guess you could, but I wouldn't. It's tough. We build our houses like this. This is what Jesus is saying.

Hey, we can look at that and go, duh. Like, don't build your house there. Why is it not a duh to you when you do this in your actual life? Why is that not a duh? I'd rather handle my own way, you know?

I feel like I've got this marriage thing down pat. I got this. No, you don't. I don't.

I need to be in prayer. Not only myself. I need to be in prayer with my wife. We need to. Randy said this earlier.

I Heard it another way, not just triangle. Do you remember those boppers that you could go like this, had two balls and a stick, and it'd go clank, clank, clank, clank, clank. My dad used to use this as illustration. Picture you're the two ends, and when both of you look at each other, you're the most far apart. So, like, if you see the straight line, you're the farthest apart.

But when both of you look to Christ, all of a sudden you come together. And this is how marriage works, friends. When both of you just say, christ is first. Both of you together say, christ is king. He is Lord, not only of our lives, but of our marriage.

All of a sudden, we are united. This is awesome. Build your house. Build your lives on a solid rock. I don't know what my time is.

There's leaves back there. I thought it turned red. I guess it doesn't. I don't know. We're almost done.

I got one more point. This is a good one. I love this one a lot. I've been enjoying it. Don't tell me.

I don't even want to know. All right, you're figuring it out.

The third one is this. That we would recognize that amazement is not the same as allegiance. This is how Matthew concludes this. He says, hey, a lot of people were astonished. They could see that he had authority.

You know what we don't see? We don't see him say. And many came to faith. Maybe they did, but we don't see it. Here's what I know.

Talk to people in your neighborhood. Talk to people at work, and just ask them, hey, what do you think about Jesus? They'll think you're a little weird, maybe, but they'll say, hey, I think he's a pretty good dude. He was a prophet, you know. I think he helped some people.

He stuck it to the man. I've heard people say, I like Jesus because he's, like, anti establishment. Like, okay, that's a weird view. But people like Jesus. Do you know every major world religion likes him, too.

Isn't that weird? Like, they fit him in. Oh, we like Jesus, too. We're gonna put him in our little book. It's weird.

They all like him. They're amazed. The people, they go, man, they're amazed by the sermon. They're astonished. He's got authority.

We don't see allegiance.

Sure, he's got this influence. He's got this right to preach. One commentator on this, it said, jesus did not preach the Sermon on the Mount in Order to be admired for his homiletical skills. He preached it to produce obedience. We should not look at the Sermon on the Mount and go, wow, that's pretty.

We should look at it and go, spirit, help me.

Help me to do these things. You've called me to do them. I know that I'm far from you on some of these issues. Heal me, help me. He didn't come to pray, preach a pretty sermon.

He didn't come to hear. And I bet he didn't hear as he walked away, hey, good job, pastor. Good job, preacher. I think people were like. That was wild, like, really countercultural stuff.

They're sitting there walking away, going, I'm not sure what to believe. They're astonished, but they're not obeying yet. Assurance, my friends, is more than just thinking. Jesus is pretty cool. Assurance is more than just thinking, hey, you know what?

The people of God are pretty nice. They seem pretty generous. You know, I hope that. Hey, hear me say this. I hope you come to church and you feel welcome.

You feel like you can make friends here. That should be true. I feel like these people are genuine. They seem pretty caring and loving. That's just because you haven't met everybody.

I'm kidding. I'm kidding. God's working on all of you. You're all going to be wonderful people. Some of you just aren't there yet, and I'm not either.

I think church can be. I think Jesus, you know, he could probably. He could probably help me here. I'm not so sure about over here. And you look at this whole thing and you're kind of astonished by what Christ has done and maybe how the people of God live at times.

Or maybe it's the converse. Like, you've seen so much pain and so much difficulty in the church. You're not sure about all that. I hear that more often. It's like, I'm just.

I know Jesus is pretty cool, but his people are the worst. You know, I hear that more often.

But none of that assures Jesus is pretty cool. That's not going to work. Is he Lord? Is he King? Is he Savior?

Am I saying Lord, Lord? And not doing the stuff. But John, chapter one, it says, to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. First John 5, it says, and this is that testimony that God gave us what eternal life. And this life is in his Son.

Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. Christ wants you to be assured he's not trying to keep this from you. But it's got to move past, oh, these are pretty nice phrases to, I need desperately to give my life to Christ and let him have every single closet.

I'm not going to leave anything in any of them anymore. I'm going to start saying, all right, I'm really scared. This is okay, friend. This is okay. To come to Jesus and say, I don't know what you're going to do when you walk in there.

Some of you, when we come to your house, you're already doing that. Just get used to this. Like, I've been to people's houses. Sometimes I do this. Hey, just don't go in that room because the kids have been in there and I haven't been in there in a while.

Don't go in there. Some of you do that. What we can't do is that with Jesus, that's not the gospel. That's not how it works its way out. Instead you say, I'm scared to show you in here.

I know you need to get in here because this is what's hurting me.

I had a bad relationship with my parents, and it's killing me. I can't forgive them. I can't forgive them. But I know you want in there. You know he wants in there.

You keep getting that prick. Ugh. I don't want to open that door. Just with all your reluctance. Just go ahead.

Let's come on in here. And it's going to go different than you expect. It's going to feel like weight falling off.

Forgiveness has a way of just letting weight fall. Some of you need to confess some things to Christ that you haven't even confessed to your spouse. You haven't even really admitted them to yourself yet. You haven't come clean and said, you know what? I've got a problem.

You keep doing the thing and you're like, this is probably not good for me. And you haven't yet said, this is going to kill me. Or in my witness, in some way, this is going to hurt me. All right, God, let's go in here. You know what I've found?

Every time that I come to a person or to Christ and ask for forgiveness and ask for them to hear the whole truth and deal with me as they please, I always feel the weight come off.

Is it easy? Is it painless? No. No. But when I go ahead and say, hey, Jesus, let's look in here.

This is awful. I know. Look around. Look around in here. I'm so sorry.

Can you. Can you reorganize in here? This is terrible. It's okay, my friend. We're all doing this.

I'm just saying. Would you be that kind of believer? Jesus says, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. And then he also says in another passage, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

What does that look like? That means I come and lay my yoke at his feet. I come with my baggage. I come in there and all of us do this. I'm no different than you friends.

I don't have less bags. I promise you, I don't. I'm very aware of my baggage. I come in there like I do when I'm bringing the groceries inside and try to put every single bag on both arms until they start to go numb. And I bring all that into Jesus and say, I'm the worst, but you love me here.

All right, let's start unbagging it. Yeah, this. Can we. I need to talk about this church. This is how we all do it.

This is submission. It's no longer saying, you can have a little bit of this. No, no, no, no. I'm done being astonished with Jesus. I love what he said.

No, no, no. I want to have absolute allegiance to the King so that he just impacts every part of my life. I want to give you a few stories of a few people to close off. There have been people throughout history that have been very fascinated with just Jesus. Jesus is pretty outstanding.

He's astonishing. You know, one of our founding American fathers, Thomas Jefferson, very much admired Jesus. So much so that he created his own version of the Gospels, which I would encourage you to not read. They're not. Well done.

He's a great writer. But guess what he did. He went through and removed all the miracles and references to Jesus divinity. Why? Because he thought Jesus was a great guy.

But not the son of God and not crucified for our sin. Then he missed it. That's not the Jesus of the Bible at all. He came with one primary purpose. To set you free, friend.

That's his purpose. Not to do cool stuff. There have been many people like this. Einstein said much well of him. H.G.

wells said, he's the most dominant figure in all history, and they all respect him as some kind of great teacher. I could give you example after example inside of world religions. Gandhi, for instance, often quoted, jesus did you know this. He was deeply moved by Jesus life and works, especially the Sermon on the Mount. But he never received him as Savior.

He didn't see him as a crucified Savior. And Lord, Buddhists, in fact, have met some who say Jesus is an enlightened being. He reached that final state even in the Quran. It honors Jesus as a prophet and miracle worker, but it often denies his divinity. The crucifixion, the resurrection.

They believe a lot of them in the swoon theory, that the man who was, or even the replacement theory, that the man who we thought was hanging on the cross wasn't Jesus at all. I can tell you this. You take Jesus off the cross and there's no reason to talk about him at all. Why even talk about Him? Why do all of these things want to talk about Him?

Because it's more, just more. He's the Son of God, crucified for your sake and mine. And he rose from the grave and he's alive today and he's at work. He's not an inactive Savior. He's on the move and he wants to move in your life.

Is he king?

16 weeks we've been digging through this verse by verse. Jesus blesses the humble, the merciful, the pure in heart. He redefines righteousness. Anger is like murder, lust like adultery. Love that reaches out to enemies.

A lifestyle that's not showy, but is intimate with the Father in prayer, fasting and generosity.

And now he warns us that the path to love life is narrow, the gate skinny and true. Faith bears fruit not just in words, but in obedience. And those in Christ Jesus who hear him and do what he's called them to do are built on the rock.

Friends, can you hear this today? Have you moved from simply saying, lord, Lord, Lord, my life is yours? There's a big difference.

He's not lord of just a few things in my life, He's Lord of all. Am I getting it right in every area? I'm not. But I come to him with that and say, hey, I messed up again here. I want to do better.

Lord Jesus, would you comfort me in this place? Is he king of every aspect? Have you moved from. From just hearing it to doing it? And from, oh, wow, look at Jesus.

To be king. Be king of all things in my life. I pray you see the difference. I pray it moves you this week to be more than hearers of the Word of God. Let's pray now together.

Church. Heavenly Father, I thank you that you are a good God.

This whole series, this whole message series is a reminder of just how good you are. Because you flipped the script on everything that is broken about this world.

That we can love not only those that are easy to love, but those who are hard. That we can treat each other with dignity. That we can be honored in humility. That we can experience peace, true peace. That we can know how to pray.

That you have something to say about every aspect of our lives. So thankful that that's who you are to us. I'm so thankful, God, that not only have you given us this astounding challenge, but you gave us the means to do it. Not in our own strength. That is not the word of the Sermon on the Mount.

Instead, we see dependence. Whoever hears these words and does them, whoever walks in the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ promises this later. We're so thankful for this, Jesus, that not only did you die for our sins, for our sake, for our brokenness, not only did you, God, raise Jesus from the dead so that we could no longer fear death. Not only that, you said, I will send to you a comforter, a helper.

The promised Holy Spirit that inhabits every believer. Did you know this, my friends? Every believer in this room has the promised Holy Spirit. You talked to him lately?

Y' all have a relationship.

You have the most powerful thing that's ever existed in your life. You ever open that door. So thankful, God, that that's who you are to us. You don't just give us instructions and say, good luck. You save us.

You seek us out and you send your Holy Spirit to help us. Walk with us. You say, you will never leave us. You will never forsake us. You will be beside us.

God, I'm so thankful for who you are. Help us, your church, to be more than hearers of this word, but doers. I pray right now that every single person in the room that you would bring something to their mind. A rock that's not been turned over, A closet that's not been emptied out. Would you bring that to the minds of your children right now?

Lord, open those doors and say, hey, we haven't talked about this yet. Why are you hiding this? The brokenness you feel from this, the bad habit, the addiction, the way you've been talking about your family, the way you've been handling your finances. The things you're doing in the darkness behind your spouse's back. The un, unrepentant sin, the forgiveness that you won't give.

Can we talk about that? I pray, God, you would bring that to mind. Every single person in Here and that we would say, all right, Jesus, today I'm opening the door. Heal me in that very place.

Now I recognize there may be someone in the room today that all of this sounds beyond their capacity because they've not even yet said yes to Jesus in any way. They can't have assurance because they've never confessed Christ as Lord and Savior to begin with. Friend, if that's you today, I'm so thankful you're here. And I don't think you being here is an accident at all. God's up to something in your life, even if you don't see it.

And perhaps today is an opportunity for you to say for the first time, Jesus is Lord, King, Savior of my life and I want to live anew and a new way for him. I'm sick of how I've been doing it. I need the true king. If that's you, my friend, you're hearing the Lord calling you today, would you pray simply with me? As Paul writes to the Romans, he says, if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved.

It comes with the confession of Jesus is Lord, He's King, and my allegiance is unto him. If that's you, my friend, pray this simply with me. Jesus, I believe today that you are Lord of my life, that you died on the cross for my sin, my sake, my guilt, my shame. You paid. I believe that today and God, I believe you raised Jesus from the dead.

This gives me great comfort to know that not only have you dealt with my pain, my sin, but you've also promised eternal life and done the steps in order that I can receive that. Thank you for who you are, Jesus. And now I ask, boldly I ask, help me to submit my life to you. You. There are a lot of things in a lot of closets, under many rocks in my house that I have never given over to you.

Help me to begin a process of submission to you that day by day I would deny myself, take up my cross and follow you. Jesus, dear friend, if you prayed that with me just now, welcome to the family of God. And all of us can join you in the. In the prayer of that last piece. Lord, we bring to you every unturned stone in every closet.

Heal us in every one of those places and show us the purpose you have for us in this life. Help us to be great lights in our city. Lord, would you please. I pray boldly just over your church. Would you please reach this city for your son's name.

Would you do it? We don't have the power to change lives. All we have the power, power to do is be faithful and persevere. Give us that and help us to be courageous and bold with the gospel. Do this in your people.

We pray. In Jesus name, Amen.

You're caught up!

Here's a random sermon from the archives...

Making Room for Singleness

May 24, 2009 ·
1 Corinthians 7
Watch