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What would Jesus have to say about
success? For the last several weeks we have been preaching through,
working through, the Sermon on the Mount and using that question, What
Would Jesus Have to Say About…. and today we actually come to the end,
the last portion of the Sermon on the Mount and it is about Success.
Within that we find four contrasts. Today I am going to follow the lead
of my colleague, Buck, and do the sermon a little bit differently, a
little more interactively. We’ll do that from time to time. We
actually do that a lot during the 11:00 service. We thought we’d try it
out on you a little bit in this service. So as we go through it, I’m
going to ask some questions and my rule of thumb is, I don’t embarrass
anyone; so I may look at you and want an answer… No I won’t do that.
Particularly the people in the front row, I’ll try not to embarrass
them. But, if you have a thought, feel free to express it. Within this
particular passage we find four contrasts and the first one is the
narrow and the wide gate. In other words, in God’s point of view,
success has more to do with the narrow gate, the narrow way, than the
wide one.
Here’s what Jesus says. I’m going
to read this to you and just ask you to follow along. A lot of these
scriptures, particularly these scriptures, you know about; you’ve heard
them before; they’re familiar to you. (Matthew 7:13-14)
“Enter through the narrow gate. For
wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and
many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that
leads to life, and only a few find it.”
What is the wide gate Jesus is
talking about? What is the narrow gate? Any thoughts of what it might
be?
Another thing I won’t do, if you say
an answer, I won’t look at you and say “You’re wrong!”
Just some thoughts. Anybody have
any ideas?
Response: The wide gate is the
world and its philosophies and how it thinks.
Chris: The wide gate is the world
and its philosophies and how it thinks, is that how you would say that?
O.K. Absolutely.
Response: Secularism.
Chris: Secularism. O.K. What
else?
Response: Our own will.
Chris: Our own will. Yeah, that’s
exactly right. Someone else said that in the earlier service. It’s us
in some cases. It’s our own thoughts. What else?
Response: Right decisions.
Chris: Right decisions. Good.
Good. It has a lot to do with making choices, doesn’t it, the wide and
the narrow gate?
Now, we could really look at it from
a moral point of view. We could look at it as just a life point of
view. You know, the world’s view of success is advertised as being
easy, like, “Lose twenty-five pounds and you could still eat all you
want.” “Learn this and get a great career, and only go to school for a
couple months.” That’s what the T.V. tells us. Or any kind of choices
that we have to make, we have to often success in life and that’s why
this passage is so incredible in a lot of ways it applies in lots of
ways. A lot of success requires us to make choices which are the
difficult ones and we all know that. The easy way isn’t always the best
way. But in this particular passage, Jesus is talking about something
very specific. He’s actually talking about Himself. He is the
narrow gate; and the wide gate might be said to be keeping your options
open. You know, in our world, right now in our day, it seems to be true
that there are no, what we might call, truths that are true all the
time. Fifty years ago when you got an education it was about the
pursuit of truth versus what was false. In our day, we have come to
believe that there are no really truths that last forever, except maybe
two plus two is four; but particularly when it comes to religion, who
knows what’s true? And what we have is what I would call a kind of
religion of diversity. It’s the idea that everybody has their own ideas
and we all live together and it’s diverse. We all just sort of respect
each other and it’s not that we do that just for the sake of respecting
each other; it’s because who knows what’s true. We also, kind of, bow
down at the altar of tolerance. If you believe there’s truth, you’re
not tolerant. Now I want to say very clearly, before I go any further,
diversity and tolerance are good things, as far as they go; but Jesus
says things like “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes
to the Father except by me.” In other places it says over and over
again in different kinds of ways, “there is no other name under heaven
by which people may be saved.” You might say that’s intolerant. Maybe
it is. But success begins with the narrow gate and the narrow gate is
Jesus himself. Of course, that really does open up the sixty-four
thousand dollar question, “What about other people in other religions?”
Well I have to say I’m not going to dodge the issue, except to say it
would probably take me two or three sermons or a couple of classes to
talk about it; but I am often asked, “Well who’s going to hell?” And I
say this, “The fact is I don’t know, because it is not my business to
determine who is and who isn’t. But what I do know and what we should
affirm is that people need Jesus.” People need Jesus. That’s what he’s
really trying to say, “People need Jesus Christ, himself.” “I am the
gate.” He says that over and over again, “I am the gate.” The narrow
gate is Jesus himself. So the best path is not always the wide one.
Now I have to confess something, I have been working on the B’s; you’ll
see some more B’s. I had to look up in the Thesaurus for a long time to
find the best B here.
The next contrast is between the
good fruit and the bad fruit. (Matthew 7:15-20)
“Watch out for false prophets. They
come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious
wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes
from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears
good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad
fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not
bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their
fruit you will recognize them.”
Think for a minute with me of people
who influenced you most in your faith. What kind of people were they?
If you feel like answering that, use one word. What word would you
describe those people; a Sunday school teacher, a father, a mother, a
friend, people who influenced you?
Response: Loving.
Chris: Loving. O.K.
Response: Patient.
Chris: Patient.
Response: Humble.
Chris: Humble. I like humble.
Yes.
Response: Serving.
Chris: Serving.
Response: Forgiving.
Chris: Forgiving. Trusting.
To some degree it is not all that
hard to tell a false prophet from a true one. There are certain things
that we look for and see. We see first of all fruit in their own lives,
don’t we? Then as they teach us, if it’s a pastor or a teacher or a
friend, over time they too will bear fruit. I really am convinced that
one of the problems we have, I think it’s almost genetic, is that we all
seem to need some kind of guru. We need to have somebody who can tell
us what to do. We need to have somebody we can believe in to put up on
a pedestal, and say, “At least that person’s good.” Well guess what?
There ain’t nobody, excuse my English, who belongs on a pedestal. If
that person sets themselves up on a pedestal, you ought to run. That’s
one of the things you can judge between a false prophet and a real one.
The false ones, in some way or another, usually set themselves up as the
way, the truth, instead of pointing to Jesus. They’re humble. They
know themselves. They’re not perfect. That’s how you tell, often.
In the end, I think we need to
beware of the voices that we listen to. You know, if you think about
it, we can tell the difference, but if you look at history, thousands of
people have been led astray by all kinds of prophets, whether they’re
religious or not. All we have to do is look at the last couple hundred
years and we see religious prophets who have started new religions,
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Sun Myung Moon, the Moonies,
David Koresh. We’ve seen others like Charles Manson or Hitler or Sun
Myung Moon, or Karl Marx, prophets who have a message that lead people
astray. We see it everywhere. It is a very important issue. It’s
important for us to see that success has to do with the kind of voices
we listen to. I’m not saying we shouldn’t listen, but we need to be
discerning about what they say. I’ve always said to my children, “I
don’t care what kind of music you listen to; but what I want you to do,
is listen to the words in that music. Because it is in the words you
find the message.” For example, we’ve been talking a little bit over
the last couple weeks about some of the hip hop music that’s out there.
Well there is some hip hop music that actually has a pretty good
message. But there is a lot out there that is just devilish because it
treats women as objects, it says shoot cops, it says take drugs. It’s
not just hip hop. It’s all kind of stuff out there. People try to give
it a pass because “well, that’s just art.” But it’s art from the pit of
hell. Now I have to admit that there is a generation gap here and I’m
not going to listen to hip hop. I’m not going to listen to rap. But
you know if the kids want to do that, but listen to the words. We had
to do the same thing in our generation, listen to the words. It is
interesting that a lot of kids say “well I don’t care about the words; I
just listen to the music.” That’s just absolute trash. They do listen
to the words. We all listen to the words. We do. We have to think
about those voices. I wonder what kind of voices that kid listened to
that killed all those people. I wonder what kind of demonic voices he
listened to, because there are demonic voices out there, through
philosophy, through music, through T.V., telling us all kinds of
messages about ourselves and others and to do things that we do. We
need to be aware of the voices that we listen to, because they’re false
prophets. Success depends on it.
The next contrast is between true
Christians and pretenders. (Matthew 7:21-23)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord,
Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of
my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord,
Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out
demons and perform many miracles: Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I
never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
Another contrast, true followers and
pretenders and a very controversial question, how can you tell if
someone is a real Christian? I want to be real careful with this one.
I don’t think it’s in some ways up to us to go around judging people,
and to say “I don’t like the way Chip looks, so he must not be a real
Christian.” How do I know? We can’t tell by appearances sometimes, can
we? We can’t even always tell if a person is a Christian or not even
when they might do a bad thing or say a bad word, or make a mistake.
It’s the same thing we just talked about with fruit. Fruit sometimes
takes a long time to grow in someone’s lives, sometimes several years.
If you think of a person who is a Christian, who just becomes a
Christian, and they’re a young Christian, I remember that, when I was a
young Christian. I was not much better than I was as an old pagan, but
I was at least walking in a different direction. It took me a long time
to grow and I’m still growing. We’re all still growing. We are all in
different places along the path. What Jesus is talking about I think is
really about judging ourselves than others. Again, we still have to be
careful there; we’re not here trying to scare ourselves because we have
to remember that we are all saved by grace. But we need to be aware of
what the Lord is saying. That we need to believe, we need to
bow, and we need to belong. Now here’s what I mean by that.
Let me tell you a story, it’s a fairly well known story. It is about a
guy who owned a country store. He was a pious man. He went to church
every Sunday and he tried to show that he was a believer because every
time someone would buy something he would quote a scripture verse. When
somebody bought a loaf of bread, he would say “Man does not live by
bread alone.” Well one day a very rich man came in who had a really
nice looking horse and he wanted a horse blanket. All the old cronies
were sitting back watching and talking with each other and they knew
there was only one kind of horse blanket the man sold that cost $10.95.
So the man came in and said “I’d like a horse blanket.” He showed him a
yellow one. “How much is it?” “$10.95”. He said “You know I’ve got a
really great horse, I want something a little better.” So he showed him
a red one. “How much is it?” “$15.95.” He said, “Well, I just really
have a great horse, I want something even better than that. Have you
got something better?” So he showed him a blue one. “How much is
that?” “$21.95.” So he sold it for that. His old cronies were sitting
back watching. What would he say here? So he quoted a scripture that
said “He was a stranger and I took him in.”
People are watching us. Are we
true to our word? It isn’t just a matter of believing, although
believing is important. Bowing, again the B’s, but what I mean
by that is that Jesus is not only our Savior that we believe in, he’s
our Lord that we confess. He’s always running around saying “Why do you
call me Lord, Lord, and don’t do what I tell you to do?” In the New
Testament, the word ‘Savior’ appears about fifteen times and ‘Lord’
appears over sixty. Paul says “if you confess Jesus is Lord and believe
in you heart that God raised him from the dead you’ll be saved.”
Obedience proves our faith. Then belonging, it’s the old idea of
having Jesus in your heart. Max Lucado tells a story, I think it was
about his own daughter who was in front of the mirror one time; and her
parents always talked about Jesus being in her heart. She looked in the
mirror and then looked at her heart and said “Are you in there?” That’s
a good question for all of us. “Are you in there?”
Last but not least, very familiar
words to us, the contrast between the rock and the sand. (Matthew
7:24-27)
“Therefore everyone who hears these
words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built
his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the
winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it
had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of
mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built
his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds
blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
The rock and the sand. Now, this
may seem hard, but the Sermon on the Mount is full of famous principles,
about fifteen or twenty of them, maybe more, that we actually all know.
So think about it for a minute and just call out things that you know
are in the Sermon on the Mount that everybody knows. What are some of
the famous teachings?
Chris: Love your enemies is one.
I’ll give you a hint. What are some of the others?
Response: Turn the other cheek.
Chris: Turn the other cheek, that’s
right. What else?
Response: Blessed are the poor.
Chris: Blessed are the poor. What
else?
Response: Be a peacemaker.
Chris: Be a peacemaker. Right.
What else?
Response: Don’t worry.
Chris: Don’t worry. Be happy….no.
What else?
Response: Blessed are the
persecuted.
Chris: Blessed are the persecuted.
Just phrase after phrase after phrase. Let’s look at some of them.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
You are the salt of the earth.
You are the light of the world.
Let your yes be yes and your no be
no.
If someone strikes you on the right
cheek, turn to him the other also.
Love your enemies.
When you give, do not let your left
hand know what your right hand is doing.
Our father which art in heaven.
Where your treasure is your heart
will be also.
You can not serve God and mammon, or
money.
Seek first the kingdom.
Do not worry about tomorrow,
tomorrow will worry about itself.
Do not judge or you too will be
judged.
Ask and it will be given.
Seek and you will find.
Do to others as you would have them
do unto you.
Enter the narrow gates, we just
talked about that.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing.
By their fruit you will recognize
them.
Is it any wonder that Jesus says
that to obey his words is like building on a firm foundation? This is
life too, isn’t it? You know I love to watch the Discovery channel or
the History channel and watch them build those big bridges or those big
buildings. What do they have to do? They just drive it right down to
the rock. Any house, anything is built on that. Our lives are built on
the rock and, in this case what Jesus has to say, Jesus himself. I like
to tell this story at weddings. It’s about a typical male man who
bought a bicycle for his kids and tried to put it together on Christmas
Eve and refused to follow the directions. Well about one o’clock in the
morning he had had enough. He got out the directions and, as if to
taunt him, at the top it said, “Best results if you follow the
directions of the maker.” And that’s true for us as well.
This is the last sermon of this
series and I think it is appropriate to close in a kind of benediction.
I’m going to ask you to sing, a cappella. You may know this hymn, you
may not. So I’m going to sing it first. I’m going to lead by example.
So if I see you doing this, I will understand. Then I would like us to
sing it and then sing the chorus.
Chris:
My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
but wholly lean on Jesus name.
One more time.
All:
My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
but wholly lean on Jesus name.
On Christ the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
Would you pray with me?
Lord, we thank you for the words of
Jesus. We thank you for Jesus. We pray Lord that you would just help
us to follow his words. That he may be our Lord as well as our savior.
And may we grow in him and learn more about him and follow him near and
clear. We pray in his name. Amen.
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