Matthew 7:13-29 - Four Lines in the Sand

You are listening to Recast Church of Madawan's podcast. Join us as we are in a sermon series entitled,

Not Your Average Savior, A Study in the Book of Matthew. How's everybody doing this morning?

Doing good? Alright, glad to hear it. I'm really glad that you're here. I don't think it's by any accident that you are here this morning.

I'm also very glad that I'm here. I want to let you know, I love this church. I really do. I alluded to that in my prayers earlier, but just the idea that I wake up on Sunday morning and I love to come here.

I feel like I get the opportunity to come and serve you, but I'm serving friends.

And I'm not sure that every pastor gets to say that when they get up in the morning. Sometimes it can be drudgery and it can be work.

And to be honest, churches go through hard times. That's reality. And I am so blessed to be a pastor here at this church where I really sense that there's unity.

I really sense that we're glad to be together. So I appreciate that. It's not an obligation that brings me here.

I hope the same can be said for you. I hope this isn't some kind of like fulfilling a duty or marking off a checklist, but that you actually come in order to come in contact with God's people to learn, to grow in faith, to have an opportunity to worship together.

We're wrapping up a sermon, wrapping up the Sermon on the Mount. So Jesus for the past several weeks has been speaking to us.

He's been speaking to his followers. We're in that portion of text where he's taken his followers up onto a hillside and talked with them about what life means now that you have given your life over to Christ or now that you're a follower of him.

What does that look like? How has your life changed or different in light of that? And he's gonna wrap up his sermon by appealing to people to take a significant stand with him.

Now what you need to picture is that where he took his followers up onto a hill, the crowds began to gather.

So that he's still addressing those who are followers of him, but now a huge crowd has showed up here on this hilltop.

And as he has been speaking, more and more people have gathered. So he begins to address not just his disciples, not just his inner circle of followers, but now there are others who are following and listening, or not following, but are listening in.

And he's gonna challenge everyone that is there on that hilltop and everyone here in this room to consider what it means to radically follow him.

And he's gonna do so by giving four illustrations. In essence, four lines in the sand.

And he's gonna say, you know the whole thing, draw a line in the sand and who's with me and who's against me and step across the line and where are you at?

That's the title of the sermon here, four lines in the sand. Four decisions that all of us have to make.

So what I want you to do is I want you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter seven, verses 13 through 29.

If you use the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you, that's 691, page 691. And one more time, that Bible is a free gift from us to you.

If you don't own a Bible, please take that one home with you. But it's on 691 barely. You're gonna find one line of text at the very bottom and then the rest of it's over on 692.

Follow along. The very words of Jesus Christ himself here in 13 through 29.

Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction.

And those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life.

And those who find it are few. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. 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 many 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 wind 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 had finished saying these things, or 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.

Let's pray. Father, we come to a text where your son,

Jesus Christ, puts before us some ways of checking our life, some lines in the sand.

And Father, I ask that you would open our eyes, each one of us, as I've had to take assessment of my life this week and look at where do

I stand, which side of the line. I ask that you would help us to be honest in the conversation that happens in our own minds this morning.

I pray that you would remove any distractions but help us to focus on this text, that we might genuinely do business with you this morning.

Understand who you are, understand what you have done for us. In Jesus' name, amen.

You know, there's two types of people in the world, right? If you ever heard those jokes, two types of people, like there are two types of people, types of people who think there are two types of people and those who don't.

Can you fill in the blank with your own joke there? You got some of those in there? Jesus is not telling jokes here.

I don't wanna start off by doing a stand -up routine here. It would be ugly anyways. But he's not telling jokes.

What he's doing is he's drawing some lines in the sand, some reality that there are two types of people in regard to certain issues, certain things that he's gonna draw out here, like two foundations, two gates, two types of trees, those types of distinctions.

But would you agree with me that we live in a culture that's uncomfortable with lines in the sand? Would you say that that's accurate?

We don't like to draw lines. We don't like to say you're for us or against us.

Like on November 6th, 2001, President Bush made that statement. You guys remember that?

Do you know that? Have you heard that? He said, in the presence of the French President, Jacques Chirac, regarding all of the nations, you're either with us or against us.

Not saying that just to Jacques Chirac, but to the nations of the world. And in our culture, what did they do?

They cried foul. You're not allowed to say things like that, right? You're not allowed to make black and white distinctions like that, that's unfair.

We're not allowed to do that. But Jesus does. Jesus is gonna do that in our text.

He's gonna draw four lines in the sand, four lines that everyone in life must consider. All of us are called here this morning to consider these things.

And Jesus is gonna give very picturesque illustrations of each of these distinctions. What does it look like to be on this side?

What does it look like to be on that side? And I think Jesus wants everyone here present to think deeply, to contemplate and consider which side of the line are you on at each one of these points?

Where do you stand? And then consider this. How does your life reflect which side of the line you claim to be on?

Because we can say all we want, we are on this side of the line, but does our life match up?

Does our life support what we say with our mouth? Because we all recognize, would you agree that we recognize we can be inconsistent between our mouth and our behavior?

Have you experienced that in your life? I think everybody has experienced that. So number one, the first line in the sand that Jesus draws, you can look at verses 13 through 14.

Pretty clear distinction that he draws in the sand. He is gonna talk about two gates to illustrate this.

It's a picture as though all of humanity is on a path. And you got on the path that you are on based on entering a certain gate.

So there's these two gates. Just a picture, just an illustration, not literal gates. But an illustration that Jesus is making.

One of the gates is narrow, difficult to find, and it leads to a path that is not very spacious and not very roomy, kind of hard to navigate.

The other one is a wide accommodating gate that leads to a highway, and many, many people are traveling on that gate, or travel through that gate on that wide path.

Jesus says, however, in no uncertain terms, that this wide path is a path that leads to destruction.

There are many who travel on it. The word that's translated easy, as you see it there in verse 13, for the gate is wide and the way is easy.

The word translated easy doesn't speak to the difficulty of actually walking through the gate, not that it's difficult to walk through the one gate.

It's talking more about how spacious it is, how roomy, how many people does it accommodate. And in this sense, it's saying it's easy to find oneself on the path of destruction.

That's easy. So the contrast is a narrow, hard to find gate that opens into a tight path that leads to life, and contrasting that with a wide, spacious path that is very comfortable and ultimately leads to death.

So think about this. Got a narrow, hemmed in, hard to find path or a wide, easy to find path with lots of friends along the way.

Which one sounds best? Well, maybe for the here and now, the easy one, the wide one sounds best.

But knowing where its destination is, is that a little fearful? Which one describes us?

Which gate have we entered? Which path are we on? There's a couple of points

I wanna make. The way that leads to life is narrow and hard to find because Jesus is the gate.

He is the way into the path. He is the gate itself. And what makes that difficult then?

What makes that hard? What makes that hard to find? I believe it's because he is so offensive to so many in our culture.

Would you agree with me? Would you agree with that? Would you say that Jesus creates offense in our culture? That if somebody is, it's one thing to talk about God, and I've said this many times, but it's one thing to talk about God in your workplace, but mention

Jesus and watch people cringe and get uncomfortable. You guys experience that? Now, obviously,

I'm not in your workplace, so I actually need your feedback. Raise your hand if you would agree with that. In your workplace, because in my workplace, it's right back there, and I can say

Jesus a lot, and the plants like it. Or if I'm meeting with one of you for lunch, and I say

Jesus, you're like, he's a pastor, that's cool. But yeah, it's tough, isn't it?

Isn't it tough out there to mention Jesus, and now all of a sudden, the minute you mention him, yeah,

I follow God. Go to church, okay, that's cool. Yeah, and I believe in Jesus, and I believe that he saves people from sin.

Whoa, you're one of those. All of a sudden, that puts you in a different category altogether. You're weird. How bizarre.

He's offensive. Even some preachers are afraid to speak of Jesus being the only way, of him being the gate, and him being the narrow gate.

Even preachers get scared of saying things like that. But Jesus wasn't shy to proclaim that those who want in must come through him.

He is the gate. He is the way. And I think one of the reasons that the way is narrow and the path is hard is because humility is so difficult for us.

And entering the gate requires humility. It requires recognizing that I can't do this on my own, and I had to have

God provide a way for me. That takes humility. That is hard. That is difficult for us.

There comes a point where we have to bow our knee before God and say, you have provided a way, and the way is

Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. And that is the way in. The first line in the sand is a line that stands between those in the kingdom and those following the path of the world.

All of us have to deal with that line. According to Jesus, then there are two types of people. Those who have entered the kingdom of Christ through the sacrifice of Jesus, and those who are following the masses to destruction.

Not a comfortable distinction. Where do you stand today? I stand here every week hoping to proclaim the narrow path, hoping to put up some neon signs for us, hoping to point arrows towards Christ as the gate.

This is the way in. This is the way to enter. I hope that that's clearly communicated from up here every week.

Please heed the words of Christ and enter through the narrow gate.

The second line in the sand, from verses 15 through 20, has an illustration that draws the line between those who are in the kingdom and those who want to pretend to be in the kingdom.

There are pretenders out there, those who are really not. And it's important that I draw a distinction between verses 15 through 20, which shows people who are literally, know they're not in the kingdom, and they're literally trying to come in and harm the church.

And there's a distinction between verses 15 through 20, where those people are out, not in the kingdom, and know it, and they are called wolves in sheep's clothing.

Inside, they are ravenous. They are trying to devour the sheep. And then there's another category of people we're gonna see in 21 through 23.

Jesus addresses those who think they are in the kingdom, but are not. That's gonna be coming up here in a second.

But these people in our text are called wolves in sheep's clothing. And they are not people who are hoping they are in, and just keep messing up on accident.

But they're declared to be false prophets. See that in verse 15? Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

Hard to believe that there are people like that in churches today, but there are.

There really are people who come in and try to stir things up. They are intentionally being false.

And those are the types of people that followers of Christ are told to beware of. They say that they've received a word from God.

They call themselves prophets. And they say things like, God has revealed something to me, and that often ends up being for their personal gain.

God has revealed to me that this congregation needs to give such and such an amount of money before a certain time, or else.

I've even heard this. This was an actual prophecy from a man in the church, a very prominent man. Some of you are gonna know who it is.

I'm not gonna say his name. But he literally said, if God does not give $12 million to my foundation by set date, he told me he will take my life.

How many of you, oh, this is wrong. How many of you would like to see that not happen, just to see if his life is taken or not?

He got the money. He got the money, so there's no proof of whether or not it was accurate or not. But wolves in sheep's clothing, wolves that would bleed the flock, wolves that would destroy and tear apart and rend churches, really are people like this.

These are people who have a significant agenda when they come into the church, but they blend in, because they are sheep, or wolves, in sheep's clothing.

They look just like everybody else. So if they blend in, how are they gonna be discovered?

Well, Jesus kind of mixes his metaphors and moves over to more of an agricultural terminology, where before he was talking more pastoral about sheep and wolves.

Now he's moving over to fruit and trees. They're gonna be known by their fruits.

The behaviors, the results of their life will eventually blow their cover. We've seen this in the media.

We see pastors who appear on the outside to be doing well, and then all of a sudden, boom, they're on the front page of the paper, having fallen.

We recognize that that kind of thing happens. But my question is, why all this conspiracy theory and cloak and dagger type of stuff going on?

Warnings from Jesus about wolves among us. Maybe you guys should be looking shifty -eyed at each other, like, is he, do you know what

I'm saying? Are you, hmm, kind of looking around, where are the wolves? Y 'all look like sheep to me.

Is that what he wants? Well, I think Jesus loved the church so much. And not only does he love the church so much, but he has told us to love each other in such a radical and dynamic way that this, he recognizes that we are, like sheep, we are completely susceptible to wolves.

But sheep don't have a lot of natural defenses, do they? If they're just kind of, you know, hanging out together and, you know, kind of doing what sheep do and grazing and stuff, you know, and a wolf comes in, boom, someone's gone.

And they're just running, you know, hoping that they're faster than all the other sheep, right? If we genuinely are loving each other as Christ has called us to, then it's gonna make this kind of difficult, right?

If we're genuinely engaged in each other's life, then in what place and in what room are we keeping our eye out for wolves?

And that's where I think it's important for the leadership of the church to keep their eyes open, to keep their ears to the ground, to be kind of watching and just figuring out what's going on.

Where are people at? Are they coming in with just a heavy -handed agenda of trying to change this, that, and the other?

And, you know, it's something that's on my mind from time to time, but we cannot let that get in the way of genuinely loving each other.

Is that making sense to you guys? There is genuinely a time to be paying attention and watching and being wary.

But I wanna point out that Jesus actually cares for the wolves, too. Enough that he gives them a warning here.

He gives a warning to them. It's not for our benefit. He's saying, and it's not just, a warning is an understatement.

Verse 19, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Whoa, that's a significant, heavy picture of final judgment.

Just not pretty in any way that you look at it. But I would recommend that we figure out if we're bearing fruit in light of a pretty stern warning here.

Seem like a stern warning to you? So what is the line here? Things get kind of muddy as I'm talking about sheep and wolves and all this stuff.

What is the line? Just kind of boil that down. Ultimately, he says that you're gonna be known by your fruits, either we are diseased trees or healthy trees.

That's the line. Look at your life. Are you a diseased tree or are you a healthy tree?

Diseased trees produce bad fruit. Healthy trees produce good fruit. He goes so far as to say in verse 18 that it is impossible for a person who is a diseased tree to produce good fruit.

And likewise, it is impossible for a healthy tree to produce truly bad fruit. The real life breakdown on this then is to look at our lives and say or ask ourselves first, have

I entered the narrow gate? Ask that question first. That was his first illustration.

Have I entered the narrow gate? Then if I have entered the narrow gate, am

I producing good fruit? Do I see that? Is there evidence for that? If the answer to the first question is no, then go back and backtrack, figure out who

Christ is, whether he's worthy of your trust, and then enter through the gate, who is

Jesus Christ. Then go out and ask God to produce good fruit through you.

But what I fear is that our human tendency is to think, to get to this text and go, okay, well, I look at my life, man,

I'm not sure how much fruit there is there. I'm not seeing good fruit. I better start manufacturing some good fruit.

Is that our human tendency? To look at this passage and go, oh man, I'm not doing very well here, here, or here.

I better just kind of shore up and start producing good fruit. And what we do is we get the cart before the horse.

We start to become like thistles that are trying to produce figs, or thorns trying to produce grapes.

But the fact of the matter is, as much as we try to act like a fig tree, or try to act like a grapevine, if we are thorns and thistles, we will never produce grapes and figs.

Logical? Make sense? That's the truth. You see, the question of in or out in the kingdom isn't primarily about how you act, but how you have been made, or maybe

I should better say remade. We must be transformed into a healthy tree before we can produce good fruit.

So the second line in the sand is between those who bear good fruit and those who do not, those who are healthy trees, those who are diseased trees.

God forbid that we would have anyone here in our midst that is a wolf in sheep's clothing, that anyone here would have a plan to devour and destroy others in this church.

But I think the question that is more imminent for us here, where we live today, is which side of the line do we fall on?

Are we a healthy tree producing good fruit, or are we a diseased tree producing bad fruit? Again, if you look at your life, and there is no indication in your behavior that you belong to Christ, by your behavior, by the things that you do, backtrack your steps until you get back to the gate.

Because the gate that you entered determines the type of tree that you are.

So many, there are whole churches and whole denominations, and there are people out there who get this backwards. They try to go in reverse.

They say, I'm going to try to produce enough good fruit to get the label healthy tree, so that then in turn,

I might be worthy of entering the gate. Can you picture that?

Get it backwards. You enter the gate. Jesus Christ is the one who transforms and changes your life.

Without that transformation, we are hopeless to produce good fruit. Gotta grab that.

But to keep us from going overboard on the good works test, and just looking around and saying, I don't see good works in that person, this person, this person,

I don't even, and even overanalyzing. Some of us have sensitive consciences. Can you relate to that? So you're like, man, every time somebody talks about fruit,

I've never got enough in my life, right? So you might be someone sitting out there going, I've entered the narrow gate, but I just don't see enough fruit in my life.

Be satisfied with entering the narrow gate. Focus on that. Work through that, understanding who

Christ is, what he has done for you, and let him transform and change your life. But there's this other, this third line in the sand, verses 21 through 23.

Words like, right here in 21, not everyone. Does that sound like a line in the sand kind of phrase?

Does that sound like the kind of phrase that divides people into two groups right away? When you say not everyone, okay, well, some, yes, some, no.

Not everyone. Jesus says there are some who will emphatically use their mouths to call him

Lord. They even go so far as to double it up. Doubling in scripture is always for emphasis.

Lord, Lord. And there are some who will call me Lord, Lord, but they will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

What we see here is there's more than just some verbal transaction that occurs that constitutes the entering of the gate.

It's not just what we say with our mouths. Not just I prayed a prayer one time and so now I'm a

Christian. So many out there that would put themselves under the label of Christian have had some kind of a verbal interaction with God and think that that's it.

That's enough. It's not just I prayed a prayer one time so now I'm a Christian. We're gonna see in a moment, and I've stated time and time again,

Jesus is looking for people to enter into a relationship with him. Not some kind of a verbal contract with him.

Not some kind of business transaction. Salvation is not just business.

His illustration is a picture of the final judgment. Notice in verse 22 he says on that day, implies that day of judgment.

And Jesus pictures a throne room where people are standing before him. Notice who is doing the judging in the text.

Look at the text. Who's doing the judging? Real question. Who's that?

Jesus. Jesus is the one that's doing the judging. He is the one who is worthy to judge the nations.

And he is the one that is there. And some are gonna speak of some pretty amazing things. Some are gonna stand before him and say,

Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name. What does prophecy mean? Well, more often than not, we think about future telling, telling the future or something like that or some mystical thing.

More often than not, prophecy is just revealing, God revealing his word to people. And there are people who are gonna stand up and say, we prophesied, we told your word to others in a powerful and with a punch.

In your name we did this. We cast out demons. And we didn't just cast out demons, but we did it in your name.

And not only did we cast out demons, but we did many mighty works.

Word for miracles. We did many miracles in your name, Jesus. What does that count for?

Doesn't that get us some kind of credit? And I don't know about you. Anybody here ever prophesied?

Has anybody here ever cast out demons? I know I haven't done even a single mighty work.

I haven't done a single miracle yet. If God could do that through me, that would be awesome.

I haven't even done one. And these people are saying they've done many. And not only have they done many, Jesus doesn't deny it.

Look at the text. It's not like he says, no, you didn't, liars. You didn't do any miracles. You didn't do this, come on.

Come on, I know everything. I got the book open right here. I can read your life. You didn't do that. No, he doesn't deny it.

They actually did these things. It's what we're meant to believe in the text. They're gonna stand before him and they're gonna have done amazing things.

Things that would blow our minds. Things that from the outside we'd go, that person must be in the kingdom.

To do something like that, we'd just be like, oh, I wish I could attain to that level of spirituality. You getting this?

What's he gonna say to them? He declares what

I would call, I've said this many, many times. I would call this the most terrifying phrase in the entirety of scripture, the entire

Bible. What I would see as being just utterly terrifying. He says to them, depart from me.

We're just saying Jesus, Jesus at your feet. Oh, to dwell and never leave. And to have him look at someone and say, depart from me.

That's a horrible thought. Why, why depart from you?

Because I never knew. What does knowing imply there?

Relationship. Not, you didn't do enough for me. Not, you didn't feed enough poor people.

Not, you sinned too much. Or not even you sinned, your sins were serious sins, right?

Those aren't the kinds of things that are making the decision about who's in the kingdom and who's not. Not, you were too proud.

Not that he says, you sinned too much, but I never knew you. And ultimately, this is an extremely significant phrase, for at its heart is the difference between destruction and life.

It's heavy. To be known by Jesus is eternal life.

To be known by him. To be known by Christ is to have entered into a relationship with him.

To have seen in Jesus the answer and to give up all to possess him, all to be with him.

Jesus likens it to finding a treasure. He says, a man was walking along and he saw a treasure in a field.

He hurried and sold all of his property, everything he owned, to buy that field. So what?

So he could have that treasure. He likens the kingdom of God to that. Worthy of sacrificing all.

Do we see a relationship with Jesus Christ like that on par with selling all that we have to be with him?

To be sold out for Jesus and to be radically in love with him. That's the type of relationship that we're talking about here.

To recognize his sacrifice and genuinely ask him to be our Lord and Savior. You guys hearing what

I'm saying? Are you hearing it? It's this kind of relationship.

A life -changing relationship. A relationship with fire, with enthusiasm. A relationship that leads to doing the will of the

Father. The relationship leads to the doing. The doing is not synonymous with the relationship.

You get that? So how can someone call

Jesus Lord, do great things, and still be on the outs with him? I think the problem comes down to knowing him and really knowing him.

Can you relate to what it's like to have a professional relationship with somebody? We probably all have a professional relationship with somebody, right?

Is that different than a relationship with a spouse? I hope so, very much.

There's a world of difference between me knowing my dentist and knowing my wife, right?

Imagine that I run into somebody. Imagine that I run into somebody from, and I've never met him before, first time.

We get talking, finally I'm at the front of Battle Creek. I'm like, oh yeah, yeah. I was good friends with this girl in high school.

Her name was Amy. Her name was Linda Robertson. I'm like, oh, I know her. Wouldn't that be a weird thing for me to say since I married her?

Do you see the, oh, I knew her. I mean, oh, I know her. Yeah, yeah, I know her. That would be weird, right?

Wouldn't that be creepy? And then they find out you're married to her. I was like, what? No, I'm married to her. That is crazy.

No way, you went to school with Linda? That's my wife. That is so cool. We had a lot to talk about.

But that difference in professional relationship versus deep, passionate, concerned, love relationship.

That's what we're talking about here about entering the narrow gate. So this line is really between two types of relationship, this third line.

Between a professional relationship with God where you're doing great things for him, but you've never entered the narrow gate.

And the difference between that and a vibrant, life -giving, passionate, enthusiastic relationship.

And you know what? The guys in this room get squeamish. Don't you? You talk about love, loving God, and loving

Jesus, and all this stuff, and it's like, does that ever make you squeamish? All the talk about love in the church.

There's actually a book about that, Why Men Hate Going to Church, because all of it is kind of feminized and about loving and all this stuff.

There's a manly kind of love. There's a, you know, he is my king. He is my leader. He is my authority.

Do you know what I'm talking about, guys? Guys, are you kind of tuned out? I've already lost you because I said love too many times, right?

So you're like, whatever. This is not talking about, you know, when

I talk about being passionate for God, it's an enthusiasm that led people to give their lives, to actually put their head on the chopping block for him.

Some amazing sacrifices that have been made down through the history, out of love for Christ and recognizing all that he's done.

The question is, are you in a professional relationship with God? Are you in a radical, life -changing relationship where you do his will, moved by love and adoration for God?

Which side of the line are you on? The last line, verses 24 through 27,

Jesus gives a very memorable picture of another line in the sand. Two foundations upon which to build your life.

There are two foundations out there. Again, two types of people. One that, some that are building their foundation on the rock, some that are building their foundation on the sand.

And Jesus, as a builder, likely had a good mind for about 30 years, about 20 years he was a builder.

Probably had a good mind for proper building practice. But I don't have to be a builder in Palestine, or in Israel, to understand that sand does not make a good foundation.

How many of you already knew that? Right? You live in Michigan, there's plenty of sand around to figure that out. He says, if you enter through the narrow gate, if you bear fruit, if you are genuinely in a relationship with God, that is, if you do the things he has said, you will be like a wise man.

Anybody else kind of like the thought of being called wise? That's something that you aspire to?

I like the thought. I like the thought of somebody thinking I'm wise. But you would be like a wise man who builds his house on the rock.

Think like bedrock, like getting down to the foundation. The rain falls, the floods rise up, the winds hit, but the house stands because the foundation is solid.

It's not gonna be shaken. But you're here this morning, and it's possible that you're here, you listen to these words of Jesus, you take off for lunch afterwards, you don't give a much thought.

Jesus says you're like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand. How many of you have built a sand castle over at the lake before?

We think, then you probably know where this story is going, right? Build your house on the sand.

The rain falls, the floods come in, the wind strikes, the house is shattered. And not just shattered, but what is the final words of Jesus in this sermon?

And great was the fall of it. How's that for the ending of a sermon?

We've been in this sermon for weeks. We had a couple breaks in there, Easter was in there, we had a guest speaker. We've been listening to him do some amazing teaching.

And I get up and I kind of fumble through it. His teaching is awesome. And he goes through this sermon on the mountain, and he ends it with this phrase, and great was the fall of it.

Whoa, kind of on a down note. But what a dramatic impact. Follow Christ, he says, follow me, or you're headed for a fall.

And not just any fall, a huge fall. Follow Christ. Notice that Jesus isn't saying build your life on the rock, there's gonna be no more stone.

No more storms, no more floods, no more winds. Is that what he says? No, not at all.

As a matter of fact, you'll notice that the terminology is exactly the same. What happens to the house built on the solid foundation, the house built on the sand, the exact same circumstances assail both.

But we build on the rock so that we can withstand the hardships of life, not so that we're exempt from them.

The final line in the sand stands between those who base their lives on Christ, the solid rock, and his teachings, and those who base their lives on shifting sands.

I could get into all different kinds of shifting sands. There's materialism, right? That's a big shifting sand in our culture.

I mean, the bottom drops out of the economy, and you recognize that most people's God has died. You seen that in our culture?

They were worshiping that. That was what their foundation, you drill down deep enough into them, and you find what their foundation is, and it was money, and they are destroyed.

All different kinds of things that we can put our life on. We can base our life on a spouse, right? You can base your life on your spouse, and eventually, they pass away, and what happens to that life when they are gone?

Well, it's devastating anyways, right? No more will to live.

All different kinds of things that we can base our life on. And some of them can be good, but not best, right?

Christ is the best foundation. So let me reiterate these four decisions before us.

Have you entered the narrow gate? Are you a healthy, fruit -bearing tree?

Do you have a vibrant, life -giving relationship with Jesus Christ? Are you building on the solid foundation?

If so, Jesus calls you narrow, fruit -bearing, known rock.

God forbid that there's anyone here who is comfortable being wide, diseased, unknown sand.

But there is always hope. There is always hope, as long as you have breath.

It is never too late to enter the narrow gate. He is there.

And hopefully, I served this morning, I've been given this opportunity to point the way, to reveal what was hidden by all kinds of weeds and all kinds of vines and all tangled, and this gate looks shabby, and you're like, why would

I wanna go down this path? It looks tight, and it looks narrow. This is a glorious path, and it is the path that leads to life.

And hopefully, this message this morning has served at least a little bit to clear the way, to clear some of those vines, to show that this is the path to life.

Verse 28 and 29 concludes the Sermon on the Mount. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished, amazed, appalled.

They had to pick their jaws up off the ground how awesome this teaching was. He was teaching as one who had authority, not as their scribes.

They were used to the scribes getting up and appealing to other people's authority, all the way back to Moses. Jesus gets up and says, you've heard it said by your authorities,

I tell you these things. He spoke with such authority that they were in awe.

Christ is the gate. He is the foundation, and he desires a relationship with you that will produce great things from your life.

Come and see me during or after communion. If you decide that today is the day for you to get serious about a relationship with Christ, if you decide that this is the day that you wanna cross that line and take a stand with Christ, I would love to be there with you.

You don't have to come to me. It's the kind of thing that you can make that decision in your mind right now.

I'd just love to be a part of that. I'd love to talk with you about that. But if you're here this morning, and you have not made that decision, you are looking at your life and you're saying, even if you're saying,

I don't know which side of the line I'm on. I'm confused. I would love to talk with you more about those things.

Come to me during communion. Come to me after communion. Go and talk about these things. But I do not take for granted that anyone here feels rock solid after a message like this.

I anticipate that all of us have some things to think about. All of us have some, we're on this line, and we're looking at these lines, four lines, four serious lines.

We're kinda going, oh boy, from day to day, I could kinda feel like I'm here or here. I encourage every one of us to sit back and take a few moments to consider which side of each line you are on this morning.

As we come to communion, this is a great time to take a personal assessment of your standing with Jesus Christ.