Matthew 12

Final thoughts

Go ahead an jump straight into verse 12 of chapter 7 with me as we get started.

Golden Rule

Matthew 7:12 “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

Like I said a couple of weeks ago the sermon on the mount is very structured and is similar in style to an essay so then here Jesus starts out with therefore, or so, meaning that just like if we were about to end an essay today what follows the therefore would be the final thoughts of the essay or the conclusion. Here is where we would place the most important part of the whole essay and Jesus in His conclusion also gives us the most vital information here in the end.

In this statement Jesus concludes His previous section on our relation to the world. Remember we talked about how we deal with things like anger or lust. Jesus concludes His instructions on our relation to others by telling us what we now call the golden rule and Pre-K teachers whether they are Christian or not are trying to teach their students. We should treat others the way that we want to be treated. That goes for our outward actions as well as our inward thoughts. Would we want someone to think poorly of us, objectify us, or judge us unfairly? No, we wouldn’t want that we want to be treated as well as thought of as equal human beings with equal rights as all those around us. So, treat your fellow man as an equal. Give people respect and show them how to treat others with respect through your life. I once heard someone say that we cannot be surprised when lost people act lost so when others don’t respect us it cannot come as a shock to us but it is our job to take the high rode and show them how they should treat us based on how we treat them.

Two Roads

Will this be easy? No of course not.

Matthew 7:13–14 ““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.”

Most people on Earth will choose option A. They would rather not think of their eternity and choose to live a live that is easy and without trials here on Earth. While that path can bring you happiness here on Earth, it will ultimately lead to destruction.

Option B is to follow God. It is to take the high road and accept that the world will hate us. It is a narrow road that you have to squeeze into. When I went to Chatanooga a while back Ally and I visited a place called rock city. It was a very beautiful walking trail through some little caverns and cliffs and waterfalls in the mountains over there. While we were walking through we came up on a part of the path called something like fat mans pass or something like that. I took a picture from the top of the pass before we walked through it. You can see here that it tapers down pretty narrow going around that curve. By the end of the pass though I had a rock wall touching my chest and a rock wall touching my back and I had to bend over backwards at a very uncomfortable angle to get through the pass and it is not like I am a huge guy or anything. That is the path that is laid out before us that leads to life. We are going to be pressed from all sides challenged by the world and attacked by those we thought were our friends. We are going to have to contort to fit the path and it will be uncomfortable and may even hurt but that is getting the sin out of our lives and molding us into a more perfected version of ourselves.

False Prophets

Jesus gives us a warning and an instruction to close out His sermon. Let’s start with the warning.

Matthew 7:15–23 ““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 thornbushes 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!’”

There are two “churches” that we can talk about. There is the visible church and the invisible church. The visible church makes up all those who claim to be Christians. All across the world people claim to follow Christ. The visible church makes up 2.8 billion people who claim to be Christian. Of that 2.8 billion we can be assured that not all of them are truly believers. This is why we have the invisible church meaning the people who are truly believers. There is no outward way for us to tell that a person is saved and that is why we say the true church is invisible as there is no way to prove for a one hundred percent fact a person is saved.

Jesus tells us there are signs though that we can look at. We can get hints at who is actually in the church and who is playing pretend. Many come “in sheep’s clothing” meaning claiming to be humble followers of Christ that are trying to help you follow Christ just like them when in actuality they are wolves who are seeking to gain something for themselves. This is why we need to be careful of who we trust when concerning the word of God. The internet is filled with people giving their opinions on scripture and telling you about God and many of these people are evil people with their own interests in mind. I don’t want to get into calling out specific churches or people that I see that are false prophets but many of these famous pastors and famous churches have corrupt intentions in mind with what they do so please be careful of what you trust.

Jesus tells us that we will be able to know the false teachers from the true teachers though if we examine their actions to see if they are producing good fruit. A true believer of Christ and teacher of His Gospel will produce good fruit. They will be charitable and humble lowly people not arrogant boastful greed driven people. We need to be sure to examine the lives of the people teaching us about God so that we can see if they are trustworthy. On top of that we should never take the word of any teacher, even those who we can be assured are trustworthy, as the gospel. Humans are falliable and we all make mistakes so examine the word of God for yourself and ensure that you are following the truth and not a distorted version.

Jesus then promises to us though that those people will be judged as many of them will claim to have followed Him faithfully in the end but Christ will reject them just as they rejected Him in their lives.

Foundation

Matthew 7:24–27 ““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.””

Now we have instructions to build our house on the rock. What does it mean to build our house? Jesus is reffering to our lives what are we building our life on? We build our lives by molding our beliefs and values and morals to something. All of us are building our lives and none so much as you who are still in school. Right now you are making decisions and taking actions that will mold you as a person potentially for the rest of your lives. Your lives are in the beginning stages of construction meaning that you still have the opportunity to get going in the right direction and build yourself properly. So then, Jesus gives us two options. Firstly, we can hear the words of Christ and build our lives on the rock. What does this mean? What is the rock? The rock is the word of God because it is firm and harsh at times, but reliable and trustworthy. If we allow the word of God to be our foundation the thing that our whole life is centered around. All of our values, beliefs, and morals stemming out from what He has told us then we will be wise. Our lives will stand through the roughest storms. When it feels like the world is falling apart we can have faith that God is going to keep us standing so that we may glorify Him in our success.

There is another option however. We can instead build our life on the sand meaning the world around us. We can build life on the ever changing and shifting world that changes its morals and values as the wind blows and inevitably like the foolish man our lives will crumble because there is nothing that we will be able to truly depend on in our lives.

This is the ultimate message that Christ wants to convey to you in the Sermon on the Mount that His word is the truth to success and joy in this life and in the next. Jesus wanted us to understand that His word is here to guide us in our lives and direct us so that we may be able to do like Proverbs tells us

Proverbs 3:5–6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”