The Two Paths

Food Pantry IN NEED!!!

Read Matthew 19:23-26.

-Jesus’ message is clear—it is impossible for anyone to be saved on his own merits. Since wealth was seen as proof of God’s approval, it was commonly taught by the rabbis that rich people were blessed by God and were, therefore, the most likely candidates for heaven. Jesus destroyed that notion, and along with it, the idea that anyone can earn eternal life.

-The disciples had the appropriate response to this startling statement. They were utterly amazed and asked, “Who then can be saved?” in the next verse. If the wealthy among them, which included the super-spiritual Pharisees and scribes, were unworthy of heaven, what hope was there for a poor man? -Jesus’ answer is the basis of the gospel: "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God" (Matthew 19:26). Men are saved through God’s gifts of grace, mercy, and faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). Nothing we do earns salvation for us.

-It is the poor in spirit who inherit the kingdom of God (Matthew 5:3), those who recognize their spiritual poverty and their utter inability to do anything to justify themselves to a holy God.

-The rich man so often is blind to his spiritual poverty because he is proud of his accomplishments and has contented himself with his wealth. He is as likely to humble himself before God as a camel is to crawl through the eye of a needle.

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-The final section of the Sermon on the Mount consists of a series of warnings that provide a negative counterpart to the Beatitudes with which the sermon began. Matthew 7:13–14 contrasts two ways of approaching life. Verses 15–23 warn against false prophets. Jesus then presents the parable of the wise and foolish builders in verses 24–27.

-The common theme in these passages is the importance of obedience. Heeding Christ’s words and following His example is not optional for entry into the Kingdom.

LETS PRAY!!!

Read Matthew 7:13-29

““Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it.nHow narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.

-Verses 13–14 contrast the narrow and wide gates, drawing on the image of the gates of a city. A modern person might suppose that the wide gate signifying accessibility would be favored.

- However, the world of Jesus was more concerned about security, and thus the narrow gate is superior because it limits those who can enter.

-The fact that Jesus commands His followers to enter through the narrow gate points to the kingdom truth the metaphor conveys. He is calling for the obedience to His teachings that will show that disciples genuinely belong to the Kingdom.

-The metaphor shifts in verse 13 from gates to roads. This turns the focus to the Jewish concept of the two ways, a more traditional translation than roads: the way of life and the way of death. The roots of this teaching are found in the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament.

-The phrase the way of life was used by the Jews to describe all its teaching on obedience to God, moral and ethical living, and right relationships with other people. Jesus points to this by speaking of the narrow road that leads to life (7:14).

-On the other hand, the way of death described a pattern of disobedience that disregarded moral and ethical living and right relationships with others. Jesus calls this the road that leads to destruction (7:13).

-Because disobedience is so easy, this way is readily accessible and this is why it can be described as a broad road. Because obedience is difficult, the life of obedience is not easily accessible. It is a narrow road.

-Jesus is speaking to a large crowd about how the Jewish religious leaders were leading them astray. These leaders and many of the Jewish people were more interested in appearing outwardly to be religious by practicing rituals that others could see. They were using the wide gate, which signifies a dependence on ourselves and obtaining our own self-righteousness and salvation through trying to do things outwardly to impress others, rather than total dependence upon God, and recognizing that everything good is a gift from Him.

- These Jewish religious leaders and their followers totally missed that Jesus was the Messiah who was written about in the Old Testament. They didn’t recognize that they needed a savior, as they thought they were righteous enough by doing outwardly things. The wide gate represents our culture today, characterized by being self-dependent, self-absorbed (me, me, me) and wanting to appear outwardly better than everyone else.

-This is driven by social media. It also is comprised of every one of the world’s religions, other than true Christianity, that teach that if you are just good enough, and do certain things, and practice certain rituals and sacraments, you just might earn your way and make it to be with God for eternity.

-The narrow gate that Jesus was referring to is a personal relationship with God, not doing a bunch of religious rituals and sacraments to try and earn your way to heaven. It is accepting the free gift of your salvation by realizing you are a hopeless sinner who can’t get right with God on your own, and can only get right with God by placing your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

-It means not wasting any more time and energy trying to appear outwardly in a way to be accepted by the culture, but rather asking the Holy Spirit to live in you, to change your heart, and transform you into the person God made you to be. God sees the inward appearance of our heart, not our outward appearance to others.

-Which gate are you trying to pass through, the narrow gate of a deep personal relationship with Jesus as your Lord and Savior, or the wide gate of acceptance by today’s culture (which Jesus told us leads to destruction)?

“Be on your guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravaging wolves. You’ll recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit; neither can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So you’ll recognize them by their fruit.”

-What He was talking about is deception. The false prophet is one who appears to be speaking for God, but he is a deceiver. A false prophet doesn’t speak for God at all, and tries to deceive you and pull you away from God.

-Jesus described these false prophets as a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing. These  people who existed in Jesus’ time and are present today, even in some of our churches. While most of us use yellow, orange and other color highlighters for Gods word for reasons like verses that convict us, comfort us,

-They use black highlighters on the verses in the Bible that are contrary to our culture or their flesh, and tell the congregation what they want to hear in keeping with the culture.

-Jesus is telling us to beware of those people, even though they may appear religious on the outside. They will deceive you and pull you away from the true Word of God.

-In the same way, a tree can’t deceive for very long. Once the season for bearing fruit arrives, we’ll know what kind of tree it is. Jesus is warning us to beware of people who appear on the outside to be religious, and perhaps even appear to be followers of Christ, but are not and will lead us astray.

-We can never really know anyone else’s heart. We can observe others, however, and if they are trying to sway you into unbiblical beliefs or if there isn’t evidence of good fruit and saving faith in their life, you need pray for them and be careful not to be drawn into false beliefs by them.

-Even more importantly, we can reflect on our own lives. What fruit do you most often produce? We’re all still sinners—all of us stumble from time to time. As Christians, though, our hearts have been transformed by the Holy Spirit living inside us.

-If we have true saving faith, we should have fruit that we produce in our lives to evidence that transformation. So what fruit are you producing? Do others know you are a Christian by your fruit? Ask the Holy Spirit to help you continue to transform and produce good fruit.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

-This verse has always given me pause. And has led me to a place of self reflection and repentance. The repentance here has always been two sided as well.

-One side it’s genuine repentance and knowing I haven’t prioritized my relationship with Jesus and have chased after the world.

-The other side it is in my opinion a self centered/insurance policy type of repentance. Not repenting genuinely but because I just want to make sure I don’t hear those terrifying words come from Jesus. Jesus wants us to pursue a relationship with him out of a desire for him, not out of fear or as a eternity insurance policy.

-I used to talk about how if you don’t like worshiping and praying to the Lord now, or you find it inconvenient, you are not going to like the new heaven and new earth!

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’

-When Jesus said, “I never knew you,” to the insincere disciples, He meant that He never recognized them as His true disciples or His friends. He never had anything in common with them nor approved of them. They were no relations of His (Mark 3:34–35). Christ did not dwell in their hearts (Ephesians 3:17), nor did they have His mind (1 Corinthians 2:16).

-In all these ways and more, Jesus never knew them. Note that Jesus is not breaking off the relationship here—there was never a relationship to break off. Despite their high-sounding words and showy displays of religious fervor, they had no intimacy with Christ.

-So it turns out that what matters isn’t so much that we know God on some level, but that God knows us. As Paul explained, “Whoever loves God is known by God” (1 Corinthians 8:3; also see Galatians 4:9). The Lord “tends His flock like a shepherd” (Isaiah 40:11), and He knows who are His sheep (John 10:14).

-Those somber words “I never knew you: depart from me”. show that Jesus is indeed omniscient. He did not “know” them in the sense He would if they were His followers, but He knew their hearts—they were full of iniquity! Isaiah’s condemnation of hypocrisy fits this group well: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13).

-The lawbreakers whom Jesus does not know are fake Christians, false teachers, and nominal adherents of religion.

-Those who attempt to follow Christ without experiencing union with him inevitably run off the road in one of two ways. We either embrace a cheap-grace, obedience-optional faith that feels distant and lukewarm over time, or we enslave ourselves to external commands, leaving us exhausted, ashamed, and even further from God. Rankin Wilbourne writes:

“Union with Christ is the song we need to recover and hear today as the heart of the gospel. The song of grace without union with Christ becomes impersonal, a cold calculus that can leave you cynical. The song of discipleship without union with Christ becomes joyless duty, a never-ending hill that can leave you exhausted.”

“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.””

-Jesus’ final warning and challenge to us in this chapter is that it’s up to each of us to exercise our free will and choose between life with Him or a life of destruction.

-Jesus is saying that anyone who knows that there will be a coming judgment of all mankind, but ignores Jesus’ teachings, choosing to live their life focused on their own selfish desires and acceptance by the culture, is as foolish as a person who builds their house on the sand.

-If you notice in Jesus’ parable, both builders were exposed to Jesus’ teachings, but only one obeyed what he heard. Jesus called the first builder wise. Jesus called the second builder foolish, emphasizing that he would suffer hardships not only in this life, but he would also suffer eternal separation from God.

-We are each building a life. The proper foundation for a life is Jesus’ words—not just the hearing of them, but the doing of them, too (see James 1:22).

-It seems at times that everything in the world is set up to make us turn away from God’s words. And often, our own feelings pull us toward doing the exact opposite of what the Bible says.

- But a wise man will follow the words of God despite these pressures—not as a way to “show off” or earn salvation, but because he trusts God. All through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presented Himself as the final authority on and fulfiller of the Law; He ends the sermon with a call to heed His message and, in fact, find one’s security in Him (see 1 Corinthians 3:11).

KINGDOM VALUES START NEXT WEEK!