Day 7 | A Stark Warning

Read: Matthew 7:1-29

On judging others

7 “Don’t judge people, and you won’t be judged yourself. 2 You’ll be judged, you see, by the judgment you use to judge others! You’ll be measured by the measuring rod you use to measure others! 3 Why do you stare at the splinter in your neighbor’s eye, but ignore the plank in your own? 4 How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Here—let me get that splinter out of your eye,’ when you’ve got the plank in your own? 5 You’re just play-acting! First, take the plank out of your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your neighbor’s eye.

6 “Don’t give holy things to dogs. Don’t throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they will trample them under their feet—and then turn round and attack you!”

On prayer

7 “Ask and it will be given to you! Search and you will find! Knock and the door will be opened for you! 8 Everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened. 9 Don’t you see? Supposing your son asks you for bread—which of you is going to give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish—which of you is going to give him a serpent? 11 Well then: you may be evil, but you still know how to give good gifts to your children; how much more will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

12 “So whatever you want people to do to you, do just that to them. Yes; this is what the law and the prophets are all about.”

The two ways

13 “Go in by the narrow gate. The gate that leads to destruction, you see, is nice and wide, and the road going there has plenty of room. Lots of people go that way. 14 But the gate leading to life is narrow, and the road going there is a tight squeeze. Not many people find their way through.

15 “Watch out for false prophets. They will come to you dressed like sheep, but inside they are hungry wolves. 16 You’ll be able to tell them by the fruit they bear: you don’t find grapes growing on thorn bushes, do you, or figs on thistles? 17 Well, in the same way, good trees produce good fruit, and bad trees produce bad fruit. 18 Actually, good trees can’t produce bad fruit, nor can bad ones produce good fruit! 19 Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down and thrown on the fire. 20 So: you must recognize them by their fruits.

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Master, Master’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; only people who do the will of my father in heaven. 22 On that day lots of people will say to me, ‘Master, Master—we prophesied in your name, didn’t we? We cast out demons in your name! We performed lots of powerful deeds in your name!’

23 “Then I will have to say to them, ‘I never knew you! You’re a bunch of evildoers—go away from me!’ ”

True obedience

24 “So, then, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 Heavy rain fell; floods rose up; the winds blew and beat on that house. It didn’t fall, because it was founded on the rock. 26 And all those who hear these words of mine and don’t do them—they will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 Heavy rain fell; floods rose up; the winds blew and battered the house—and down it fell! It fell with a great crash.”

28 When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching. 29 He was teaching them, you see, on his own authority, quite unlike their scribes.

Consider:

The Sermon on the Mount ends with stark warnings. The warnings might seem a little out of place as Jesus has just instructed His hearers not to worry and to trust God for everything. Why the change? Jesus needed to convey this warning: unless they followed the way of peace, mercy, humility, and meekness—disaster loomed on the horizon.

Jesus spoke into a powder keg of unrest, division, and simmering violence. People all around were waiting for something big to happen. They expected the change to come in the form of a violent, revolutionary overthrow, inevitably resulting in a return to the ways of greed and bullying power, just with a different group at the helm.

The Sermon on the Mount recasts that expected new thing. When Jesus warns about the house built on sand, he may be referring to the Temple system, signaling that reliance even on this sacred system won’t ward off the coming cataclysm. On the contrary, the house built on the rock is the way of life Jesus has promoted throughout the Sermon.

The Sermon on the Mount was not just a cheerful set of teachings - it was Jesus’s way of presenting a way of life that He is the only way of life. To not go that way means judgment, not from an arbitrary, bullying God, but from the violent systems of the world which rely on wickedness and folly.

Jesus delivers this warning through the image of a narrow and a wide gate. The wide gate is easy to enter. There are plenty of people headed that way. But the people on that road are careless about God’s way of peace; it leads to destruction. On the contrary, the gate leading to life is narrow. It’s a tight squeeze. You have to be intentional to follow the path of living at the intersection of heaven and earth. You have to want to come the Beatitude way.

Jesus uses another metaphor to get at essentially the same point. Good trees produce good fruit, and bad trees produce bad fruit. While that seems obvious, Jesus repeats it to his followers, reminding them to look and see the fruit around them. Jesus hints to watch and do what He does to see the fruit of healing hope and reconciliation. That's the fruit that Israel needs. That's the fruit the world needs. Observe the fruit from other movements of the time and see violence, shame, folly, and all manner of wickedness over and over again.

It’s not enough to agree with Jesus’s teaching. Jesus warns that not everyone who calls him Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do God’s will. Many people will think they are following Jesus but fail to understand that Jesus is after something more profound than surface-level knowledge. Those who assume they've been getting on fine may hear those terrible words of judgment and dismissal.

But with every warning of the Sermon on the Mount comes an invitation. Go back to the start of the Sermon and start again. Try with the Beatitudes again. Be ready to hear the call to a different way of life. You don't have to stay as an evil-doer. Jesus is constantly challenging and urging people to come his way, to become his sort of people, a heaven-plus-earth people.

If Jesus is now the Emanuel, the one who embodies the heaven-on-earth reality, then this urgent message isn't just another option that might suit you. The Sermon on the Mount is about Jesus’s words forming a solid foundation for a new kind of human life. This way of life is about trusting God as the heavenly Father. It is about living in God’s presence. It is about prayer as the central activity of God’s heaven-plus-earth people. The keynotes of this way of life are forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation.

Those are the people in and through whom God's kingdom is coming on Earth, as in heaven. In other words, this isn't just a new, fiercer legalism with a different and better reward. Instead, it's an invitation to be heaven-plus-earth people in the present time by following Jesus and learning to trust the Father.

Reflect:

What narrow and wide roads might be before you? What factors (personal, cultural, environmental, etc.) might make the narrow road difficult for you to follow?