Matt 7.21-29
true or false?
2: proof and blessing
(matthew 7.21-29)
Jason Procopio
We’ve finally arrived at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has said many things, on a wide variety of topics, but all the while, he has been leading us to this one conclusion.
Last week, in v. 13-20, Jesus displayed two examples of what I called “false faith”: he told us about two paths we could take, two doors we could walk through. There’s a wide door, and a wide path; these paths are easy and many walk on them, because they require little of us as we walk. But in the end, both paths lead to destruction. On the other hand, there is a narrow path, and a narrow door; they are difficult to walk, and there is only one way in—Jesus Christ himself—but this path, and this door, lead to life.
He also warned against false leaders who would come in to harm the church, seeming to be sincere disciples of Christ but who would in fact be “ravenous wolves”; and he told us that we would recognize these people by their “fruits”—that is, we can see the health of their leadership through the lives they live.
Jesus is going to continue these topics in a similar way today, but backwards; he’s going to give a teaching which is parallel to that of the false leaders in v. 21-23, and a teaching which is parallel to that of the paths and the doors in v. 24-27.
The Proof of True Faith (v. 21-23)
We left off last week with Jesus warning against false leaders; and we pick up the thread again in v. 21, where Jesus warns against being false disciples. V. 21:
21 “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. 22 On that day [on the day of judgment, when we’ll all stand before God to be judged] 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?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
So you see the slight shift he’s made here, between what he was saying last week about false prophets, and what he’s saying now. Now he’s not talking about success in ministry, but spiritual power—something that is for all of us, if we have received faith in Christ. Or to put it another way, when he talked about wolves in sheep’s clothing, he was helping us identify signs of danger in others; here, he’s helping us turn the mirror on ourselves, and identify signs of danger in our own lives.
Now the first thing that scares us here is that we almost always assume that this kind of supernatural power must come from God…but that’s not the case. We see things which seem miraculous in plenty of other religions or practices; it’s quite easy to give a message and simply say it comes from the Lord; and it’s easy to imagine why a demon would let itself be cast out in order to give credibility to the person who did it—who could then enter into the church and hurt her.
So we shouldn’t assume that simple manifestations of power is itself a sign that God is at work; it’s not.
But for a lot of us, that might seem like a moot point: you might look at the examples he gives here and think, Well that’s fine; I’ve never once cast out a demon. I’ve never once prophesied. So clearly he’s not talking about me.
Not so fast.
One of the most startling things we see in the New Testament is that after Jesus is raised from the dead and ascends to heaven, when he sends the Holy Spirit to his church, he doesn’t only send the Spirit to the apostles, or to the “leaders”; he sends the Spirit to everyone who is saved. That’s how they know they are saved, that Christ really has done this work in them: their faith is accompanied with power.
Now most of us would agree that the kind of “power” we see today is a little different from a lot of what we see in the New Testament; something specific was going on there, which was necessary for that place and time, and we’re no longer in that same place and time, so the kinds of powerful manifestations we see in the book of Acts aren’t necessary quite so often today. Sometimes they do still happen—my cessationism goes no further than what I just said—but they are not the norm of the Christian life.
However, if you have received faith in Christ, your faith will also—and necessarily—be accompanied with power. Even in the New Testament, crazy miracles like casting out demons and healing sick people are not the only works of power the Holy Spirit performs—quite the contrary. Paul tells us on multiple occasions, but particularly in Romans 8, that the normative power the Spirit gives us—that is, the power that all Christians at all times and places receive—is the power to believe in the gospel, to repent of our sin, and to live in obedience to God. So this power is a little more subtle, perhaps; it may be a little harder to see; but it is definitely there, if we have faith in Christ.
I said all that so that we won’t brush off Jesus’s words too easily here: he gives examples of powerful works some people will want to claim before God—things they can put on their “spiritual C.V.”, so to speak—because those were the things the disciples would see a lot of in the first years of the church. But we shouldn’t see the examples he gives as exhaustive. You could insert anything which should be attributed to the power of the Holy Spirit, and it would come out the same.
So let me rephrase this, to show you what I mean. If Jesus were to come to us physically today, and give this exact same teaching, but tailored to our specific context, he could also say something like:
“On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did I not share the gospel with many people, and see them come to faith in you?’
“‘Did I not stop looking at porn, stop getting drunk, stop swearing?’
“‘Did I not spend time with other Christians and talk to them about you?’”
“And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”
Here’s his point, and here’s why I gave these examples: not all who claim to be Christians—not all who call Jesus “Lord”—are Christians. Not even those who seem to live with great spiritual power have faith that is necessarily authentic. Manifestations of power—no matter what area they happen to be in—are not proof of faith.
Now before you start panicking, let me clarify.
I grew up in church. And here’s what I had understood from the many, many hours of teaching I had heard: Christians don’t get drunk. Christians don’t watch inappropriate movies or listen to inappropriate music. Christians don’t look at porn or have sex before marriage. So if you stop doing these things, you can look at that and say, “Excellent! I’m a Christian!”
Christians are kind. Christians smile. Christians are happy. So if you put on a smile and you’re nice to other people, they will look at you and say, “Excellent! He’s a Christian!”
Jesus has told us that this is absolutely not true. He said it almost all the way back in chapter 5. Remember? Take just one example, from Matthew 5.27 (and I’m using this example only because it’s easy to illustrate):
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
You see? He’s not just aiming at behavior, but at the heart behind the behavior.
Say a guy stops looking at porn. (I know girls struggle with this too, in my example it’ll be a guy because I’m a guy.) A guy stops looking at porn. Why? Because porn is bad, and Christians shouldn’t do bad things. So it’s difficult, but he manages to stop looking at porn. And he’s happy that he’s managed to stop, because now he’s not doing the bad thing he’s not supposed to do.
Now let’s say that same guy has met Christ and has placed his faith in Christ. He struggles with porn, and he prays that the Spirit would help him put that sin to death. He works hard to resist temptation; but that’s not all he does. He also works hard to know Christ better, and love Christ more, and enjoy Christ more fully. At the beginning he resists temptation out of willpower—and that’s better than not resisting at all—but over time, he starts to see a shift happen. He starts resisting temptation not because “porn is bad,” but because he loves Christ. He doesn’t want to commit adultery in his heart, because his heart belongs to Christ, and not to sin. So he resists, not from obligation but from love for Christ, and over time the temptation comes less and less frequently. He thinks less about his struggle to resist, and more about the joy he finds in Christ now that sexual sin isn’t clouding his mind and his heart.
Do you see the difference between the two? The first is no more than willpower put to work to achieve a change in behavior; anyone can do that. The second is a heart transformed by the Holy Spirit, who gives us new desires, and causes us to love Christ more than sin. The first is a determined person working hard to make a change in his life. The second is a transformed disciple, doing the will of his Father who is in heaven.
And that’s the crux of it. V. 21:
“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.”
What is the will of our Father in heaven? Jesus has already told us. God’s will is not that we obey his commandments because we want to stay in his good graces, or because we want to see ourselves as “good Christians”. His will is that we obey his commandments because we love him, and we love his Son, and we don’t want anything in our lives which will blind us from seeing his glory. His will is that we pursue an obedience that is deeper than simply doing great things and using the name of Jesus to legitimize them.
Faith worked out is proof of faith within. And faith worked out produces a particular kind of obedience: it is not obedience so that God will love us; it is obedience because God has so loved us. It is not obedience for salvation; it is obedience because of salvation.
God’s will is not that we “do the right thing,” but that we be new creations—transformed human beings, who do the right thing because that is who we ARE.
Most of you know I grew up in the United States. I’ve been in France for almost 18 years now. Nearly half my life. I’ve still got a lot of America in me, but over the years a lot of France has rubbed off on me too. And on top of those things, I’m a follower of Christ. I’m a husband. I’m a father. All of these things make up who I am.
Now, if you wanted me to give you the run-down on who I am, I could say, “Well, let me go home and get my passport, my livret de famille, and a testimony I wrote down, and I’ll prove it to you.” or I could say, “Let’s go have a cup of coffee and talk for a while.” At the end of a decent conversation, you won’t have to ask to see my papers to prove that I am a follower of Christ, a husband, a father, an American and an adopted Frenchman.
I myself—the way I am, the things I like, the way I talk, the way I live—is proof that I am what I say I am.
Not everyone who calls Jesus “Lord” actually submit to his lordship. Not everyone who does the things that Christians do have transformed hearts. Not everyone who do even impressive things—like writing a blog read by thousands, or posting YouTube videos that are viewed by thousands, or planting a church that is attended by thousands—will enter the kingdom of heaven. But only those who do the will of the Father.
And the Father’s will is not just that we do great things, but that we be transformed people.
The Blessing of True Faith (v. 24-27)
Before, we saw that if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven, we need to do the will of the Father: what Jesus showed us earlier in this sermon as the deeper obedience that doesn’t stop at behavior, but that obeys out of the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in us.
This deeper obedience is the proof of true faith. And now, at the end of his sermon, he shows us that this deeper obedience is also the blessing of true faith. v. 24:
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 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. 27 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.”
We don’t often think of obedience as a blessing, but the image Jesus gives is so clear and simple that even a small child can understand it. Every kid who has been to the beach knows that sand is unstable because it’s always moving. It shifts underfoot when you step on it. It's constantly moving—even a gust of wind sends it somewhere else. Rock, on the other hand, is stable; if the rock is big enough, it’s not going anywhere—at least not for a very long time.
So we have these two pictures: one man builds his house on the rock, and another builds his house on the sand. The way Jesus describes it makes us think that the conditions of both houses are very similar; the casual observer might notice no difference at all between the two builders, or the two houses they’re building.
And we wouldn’t see a difference from the outside, because the main difference between the two houses is found in the foundation; it’s not the house, but rather what is under the house, that shows what it’s made of.
In the same way, two people who profess faith in Christ may look the same on the outside to a casual observer. (And to be clear: he is not contrasting a Christian who professes faith and a non-Christian who doesn’t; he’s contrasting two people who “hear these words of mine”—two people who have heard the word and claimed to accept the word.) They will mostly say the same things, and they will mostly do the same things; by all appearances, anyway, they’re building the same house.
But they are building on two very different foundations. The one who hears the words of Jesus—in context, everything he’s said in this sermon—and doesn’t put them into practice is building his house on the sand; the one who hears his words and does them, who lives what Jesus teaches, is building his house on the rock.
What has Jesus taught from the beginning of this sermon? He’s taught the distinction that will exist between his disciples and the rest of the world. It is a distinction that doesn’t settle for mere externals, but reaches the heart, driving his disciples not just to obey a list of rules, but to understand and love why the rules are there, and to make their decisions based on that understanding and that love.
The distinction is not just in what they do, but in the treasure they have—not a treasure of “stuff” they build up for themselves on earth, things that are here today and gone tomorrow, but a treasure they are building up for themselves in heaven, where nothing will take it away or tarnish it.
In other words, we prove the genuineness of our faith—we build our house on the rock—not by what we say, not what we profess, not even what we do…but by why and how we do it. We follow his commands, not because we must obey to be saved, but because we are saved. We follow his commands, not like people checking off a checklist, but out of transformed hearts which won’t stop at the mere commands, but which will go deeper, and love all the reasons why Christ gave the commands in the first place.
This is very different from the way many Christians today obey. So often we obey out of fear, worrying that if we don’t obey well enough, God will somehow love us less or even reject us. Or if we don’t have that problem, we obey mechanically, without really thinking about it, simply because that’s what we think Christians do.
Now there is some merit to both of these attitudes. We should have a healthy fear of God, and a healthy fear of judgment (as Jesus says in Matthew 10.28: do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell). That is one way God keeps us on the right path—like a parent telling a child not to touch the stove because it will burn him if he does.
And contrary to popular opinion, there is value to “mechanical obedience” too—that is, obedience not because we want to obey, but because we know we should. Even mechanical obedience is better than no obedience at all. And it has some very specific uses, which are incredibly valuable: this kind of obedience helps us build habits that will give us the structure we need to go deeper, the discipline we need to be able to stop thinking so hard about the thing we’re doing (whether it’s reading our Bible or praying or growing in a specific area of holiness), and start thinking about why we’re doing it.
But if mechanical obedience is all you have, if obeying out of fear is all you have, you will not stand: you may become an exemplary “Christian”…but you’ll be an exemplary Christian with the heart of a pagan, or worse.
This is one of the reasons why so many of you get so frustrated in your Christian lives, why obedience is such a struggle, and then you crash and burn so epically every time there is even a small trial in your lives. And then you have to pick yourself up again and dust off your knees again and try to climb back up to the top of the hill, and you’re just exhausted from the effort it takes.
Is it any wonder? Jesus said that if we hear everything he’s said here about the deeper obedience he calls us to, and we don’t put it into practice, we’re 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.
Is it any wonder our Christian lives feel like an endless loop of frustration and disillusionment, if we don’t take Christ seriously when he says that why we obey and how we obey are just as important as the commandment we obey?
If we want our obedience to stand in the storm, we mustn’t only do the right things, but do them for the right reason: because we have met our Creator, and because we love our Savior, and because we have our treasure in heaven with him, and because he has given us the glorious task of being salt and light in the world.
And when we do this—when we obey like this, for this reason—what we find in every single case is stability.
Stability is the great blessing of Christian obedience. It’s not the only blessing God gives us—far from it—but it is the blessing that comes from hearing Christ’s words and putting them into practice: if we do it, we are like the wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
If you’re young, hearing someone say that “the great blessing of Christian obedience is stability” may not sound very exciting. “I have a house that won’t fall down around me. Yippee.” You want something more adventurous than that, something more stimulating. The ordinary, day-in-day-out work of the Christian life—which is, yes, very much the same thing day after day—just sounds boring.
I understand that. I’m forty years old—so I’m not quite old, but not quite young either. I’m in that weird place where I still have enough youth to remember that desire for adventure (and to still feel it sometimes), but I also have enough age to have gained some of the benefits of experience.
So trust me when I say that the stability of your house will be much more appealing when a storm comes. In my life I’ve lived in several places where they have extreme weather on a regular basis; I have been in three major hurricanes, and two major tornadoes.
At that moment, when you see the wind actually lift trees out of the ground, roots and all, when you see flood waters start reaching the windows of the cars in the street outside, you are not blasé about the stability of your house; its stability is your life, and you are overjoyed to be safe inside your house while the storm rages around you.
This is what hearing Christ’s words and putting them into practice gives us: the possibility to keep going, both during the storm, and once the storm is passed.
We saw this recently in our home group: one of our members was diagnosed with cancer, and we saw what he was like during his chemotherapy, and all the uncertainty that came with it. During those months, his appearance changed, his energy level changed…but his discourse, his hope, his joy in Christ, never wavered. When we asked him how he was doing the first thing out of his mouth was always the things he was thankful for. He didn’t hide the difficulty, but he didn’t wallow in it, either. Why? Because he heard Christ’s words, and put them into practice, he was stable.
And he’s still stable now that he’s received a clean bill of health. His is the stability that Christ gives us when we live what he teaches.
It is the stability of a pure conscience—being able to go to sleep not guilty.
It is the stability of a promised reward—the knowledge that all of these tiny moments of obedience, every step taken to know Christ better and love him more, are building up treasures built up in heaven for us.
It is the stability of seeing the proof of one’s faith—of remembering what I was like twenty years ago, before Christ found me, and seeing what I’m like today, and seeing a difference that is so radical, there is no other explanation except that Christ’s Spirit has done his work in me.
It is the stability of knowing you’re doing exactly what you were created to do—no matter what career you end up pursuing or what family you end up having or where you end up living.
True faith gives eyes to see our Savior; seeing Christ clearly drives us to deep obedience; and deep obedience makes us stable. It gives us the ability to go about the hard work of living for Christ—which is in reality far easier than living without him—with joy, and without fear.
Authority (v. 28-29)
Matthew ends his retelling of the Sermon on the Mount with a 2-verse coda. V. 28:
28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, 29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
We know that these scribes, the main religious leaders in their day, could be authoritative, because they taught the Law that God himself gave to Moses after the exodus from Egypt. But we see on multiple occasions in the gospels that although they could be authoritative, they lacked authority. It’s easy to simply apply rules; it takes a leader to teach people why the rules are good.
Jesus spoke with authority because he got to the heart of the Law: he didn’t just regurgitate rules to his disciples, but showed them why the rules were given, so that they might be transformed people, set apart from the rest of the world. In his sermon we see teaching which sets the disciples apart for their own happiness (like the Beatitudes in chapter 5); and we see teaching that sets them apart for the testimony of the gospel (his call that they be salt and light in the world). John Stott wrote: “The world is like rotting food, full of the bacteria that cause its disintegration; Jesus’s followers are to be its salt, arresting its decay. The world is a dark and dismal place, lacking sunshine, living in shadow; Jesus’s followers are to be its light, dispelling its darkness and its gloom.”
Jesus gives this sermon in order to explain to his disciples what makes them distinct. And this distinction between them and the rest of the world goes deeper than mere externals. It reaches the heart, driving them not just to obey a list of rules, but to understand and love why the rules are there, and to make their decisions based on that understanding and that love. It gives us a new treasure—not a treasure of possessions we build up for ourselves on earth, things that are here today and gone tomorrow, but a treasure we are building up for ourselves in heaven, where nothing will take it away or tarnish it.
This distinction which Jesus exposes for us over chapters 5 and 6 and the beginning of chapter 7 is the groundwork for the choice he gives us at the end of the message—the choice we have seen laid out over the last two weeks.
Jesus forces us to choose, and we will choose:
Will we follow God, or will we follow the world?
Will we obey God, or will we obey our own sinful desires?
Will we take the easy, wide road (that ends in destruction), or will we take the narrow, difficult road (that ends in life)?
Will we merely profess Christ’s lordship over our lives, or will we submit to it?
Will our obedience be superficial and external, or will it be real?
On what will we build our lives?
Given all of that, v. 28-29 come as no surprise. People heard the authority of his teaching, which dug to the heart of the Law like no one they had ever heard…and they were astonished.
And so should we be as well.
The Lord of all creation, who has all authority, has taught us. He has set before us life or death, salvation or damnation, eternal happiness or eternal misery.
With that choice set before us, let’s take a moment of silent reflection under the authority of the Holy Spirit, and then we’ll pray.
