MATTHEW 7:21-23

“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’

Solid miss

I was teaching a class to future pastors and had given a final assignment of preaching a sermon on a text from one of four different New Testament books. One student shared the NT text they were using as their Scripture and then proceeded to preach a message based completely out of the book of Genesis. The sermon content itself was good, the delivery was fine, and the message was true, it just did not line up with the text or the assignment. The student gave a good sermon, but received a bad grade because they did not follow the directions and preach from the assigned text.

It seems as if Jesus is telling us to be sure we know what the assignment is before we go off and begin serving. Service that is good, solid and even beneficial to others may not be God’s will for my life. God may call me to something different. Before I can serve I need to know what God’s will is. Skipping this vital step makes me an independent contractor, instead of a servant of Christ.

Lord, show me your will for my life today that I may live in obedience to what you want me to do. I do not want to do anything that is not centered in your will. - Dan Jones

Living toward the high standard

Jesus is serious about me making what he teaches the defining factor in my life; very serious. He’s gracious and patient, kind and open to receive anyone who comes to him. And he’s very clear about his purpose for all this – bringing every person into the experience of the Father’s will.

The location of this warning makes it clear that Jesus intends his teaching, especially in this sermon, to be the expression of God’s laws that we follow. Trouble is, his teaching sets an extremely high standard for obedience. So high, in fact, that I am always falling short of it.

If Jesus were a critical perfectionist I’d be sunk. There is no way I’ll enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The way Jesus handled his slow-to-get-it disciples and those sinners who came to him gives me hope. Still he doesn’t pussyfoot around his demand that following him will radically alter everything about me.

I think understanding the contrast between doing religious things and experiencing a changed life is the key to Jesus’ words. Prophesying, casting out demons, and miracles don’t impress him like they impress us. Measuring my experience of God by religious activity, no matter how good and no matter how many others think me spiritual, will only distract me from Jesus’ true intention for me.

Commitment to things like a pure heart, resolving anger, clean thoughts, forgiveness, loving enemies and the like; this sets me on the path toward the Kingdom of Heaven.

Final Judge, grant me your powerful grace to live fully open to you and what you want to make of me. – Mike Leamon

MATTHEW 7:15-20

“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

Make me fruity!

Of course Jesus’ words are true. It’s a common sense reminder. But what kinds of actions does he consider good fruit? Since Jesus insists we don’t want to listen to those who do not produce this fruit then we better know what we’re looking for.

Confusion over who we should listen to demonstrates the importance of accurately identifying actions that reflect a “true prophet” – a trustworthy person who builds up rather than destroys. Church leaders have informed me that I was dangerous to their children because I would not preach that drinking a beer was sin. Others have dismissed my spiritual trustworthiness because I view “R” rated movies, read Dan Brown and JK Rowling books, or even not renewed the contract for a church staff member. If these are not actions, or lack of actions, that define good fruit, what are? What should people look for in me or I in them, in order to determine whether or not either of us are dangerous to the other?

The narrow gate verses begin Jesus’ conclusion to his Sermon on the Mount. Using three word pictures, gate, tree, and foundation, Jesus hammers home the point that he and his words are the only truth by which to live. What he taught that day on the Galilean hillside is the good fruit.

The upside down logic of the Beatitudes, the audacious claim that Jesus fulfills the entire Old Testament and then has the right to change things with words like “you’ve heard it said…but I say… ,” loving enemies and growing to perfection in that love – amazing fruit impossible to grow unless Jesus is Lord of my life. Amazing fruit that, should it be growing in any life, renders that person someone worth listening to.

Teacher about good fruit and the Power behind its production, I submit my life to you again today. Make my tree – my life – good. What you teach in this sermon will be the truth that gives shape to my life this Thanksgiving week. May my words and deeds give life rather than take it. - Mike Leamon

MATTHEW 7:13-14
“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

My journey into God’s amazing love
As a boy I bought the implicit teaching of those around me that only people who experienced our brand of Christianity would populate heaven. Jesus words today were one of our proof-texts. Then I began to realize that the gateway to eternal life was narrow because it was one man wide, not one Christian tradition wide. Jesus saw himself as the way, truth, and life through whom everyone must go in order to arrive at the Father’s House (John 14). Anyone who lived “Jesus is Lord”, however imperfectly or in ways disagreeable with my tradition, was a fellow traveler on this narrow road.

Then I began to notice the wide, wide love of Jesus. His words, “If I be lifted up, I will draw everyone to myself” began to sink in. The verse my narrow minded Vacation Bible School leaders led me to memorize, “For God so loved the world” had sown a seed that began to crack the rigid shell of “ours is the only way” thinking.

About the same time I fell in love with the words and rhythm of a hymn that reflected the lavishness of God’s love and his clearly expressed will that “no one should perish but have eternal life”. “Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.”

So if this is the width and breadth of God’s love, and if his will for the salvation of all humanity compels him to offer himself in sacrifice on a cross, how could Jesus teach that few ever make it? Or does he?

I don’t think Jesus meant that only a few will come to the grand party God has planned while countless more writhe in hell. As he begins to wrap up the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists that following him and his teaching leads to life. His is the hard way, one that often provokes harassment and persecution because it is so different from the wisdom and ways of the world’s cultures. Few people, including many who sit in church each week, ever pay the price of traveling that difficult road. Most simply don’t get it. This doesn’t mean that they never will.

Like the thief on the cross next to Jesus, dieing breaths often clear the clutter off the broad path to expose the small gate and the narrow path. Even though barely a step or two may be left to walk, in his deep and broad love, Jesus imparts faith and accepts repentance. “Today you will be with me in Paradise!”

Father, I accept your call to difficult discipleship today. I will not travel the broad path through life, leaving moral and spiritual pain and death in my wake. Help me to faithfully call others to this narrow path, and warn them of the dangers of the broad path, but without ever becoming so graceless and miserly that I give up on your love for them. - Mike Leamon

Highway to Hell, or Stairway to Heaven

In 1970 Led Zeppelin released the famous song “Stairway to Heaven”. The song describes the pursuit of eternal security and peace through reason and meditation. Everyone finds their own path towards this nirvana if they try hard enough, with each road melding into one stairway to heaven.

Nine years late, the rock band AC/DC introduced the song Highway to Hell that made it to #17 on the charts and has been classified as one of the 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll. The song describes life in the fast lane with “no more stop signs, or speed limits.” A freeway to the bottom with a destination of “the promised land: Hell.”

Both songs are accurate commentaries on the human struggle to find meaning beyond life. No matter how hard we try, we cannot create eternity. Our attempts produce stairways to nothingness and highways to emptiness. Only through the narrow gate [accepting Jesus as Lord] can we find meaning in and beyond this life. The narrow gate is easy to miss, the road is difficult and few follow its path. The road of self-determination is broad.

Karl Barth, the great neo-orthodox theologian quoted a song when asked what the greatest truth of the Bible he had discovered was. He said, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Jesus, I thank you for loving me and providing me with the way to heaven. Thank you for reminding me it is not through human intuition or struggle that I can find satisfaction and hope, but in resting in your salvation. - Dan Jones

MATTHEW 7:12

“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.

A hidden truth wrapped in an obvious sentence

Perhaps no other command seems so obvious, so simple and straightforward as this one. This fundamental law of reciprocity finds expression in virtually every religion. One Wikipedia writer reports neuroscience research that suggests this “fair play” rule is hard wired into our brains.

I think, however, that the Golden Rule isn’t so straightforward as a casual reading might suggest. George Bernard Shaw captured this reality in his criticism, "Do not do unto others as you would expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same." He’s right, of course. For example, I’d love for you to take me out to a restaurant and a movie of my liking, not yours. And you might torture someone else by taking them to any movie!

I listened to a management lecture once during which the leader insisted he’d one-upped Jesus. His Platinum Rule went something like this. Find out what the other person would like and treat them that way.

Seems to me that this man, and Shaw, and perhaps most of us, haven’t stop to think through the Golden Rule. Taking time to discover who I am, what makes me tick, what makes me feel loved and valued, that is exactly what I most desire from others. Am I mistaken to think that is exactly what everyone would want? Beneath all the specific and surface acts or words is the underlying desire to be treated as a unique and significant person.

Trouble is, I don’t want to take the time and invest the effort to listen to others, to become a student of what makes different people tick, and to offer those deeds and words that resonate with who they are. I’m too busy living my life and dealing with my stresses and issues to have the energy, or honestly, the desire, to invest in others this way. It’s much easier, faster, and less involved, to offer some act that I, myself, would enjoy or find meaning in giving, and consider this Golden Rule fulfilled.

So I need to hear Shaw’s criticism. It reminds me of how fundamentally selfish I am.

Father, as I interact with the people around me each day, help me to develop skills of listening and observation, so that I better give to them those deeds and words that truly nourish their value and personhood. - Mike Leamon

Fools Gold

Living according to the golden rule gets old real fast if that is all we have to motivate us. I have done good to people repeatedly and all I have received in return is an expectation to keep giving. After a while you feel like a cheap dish rag, used and worn out.

It seems like most everybody is in favor of the golden rule. We even see it in public schools. However, trying to live the golden rule for the sake of the golden rule never lasts very long. We need, I need, something deeper.

I think Jesus recognized this as well. The Golden rule is not left hanging in limbo; it is tied directly to the law and the prophets. The Golden rule is the essence of the law and the prophets, but it is not enough on its own. The law and the prophets all pointed in two directions: vertical and horizontal. The Golden rule describes how our horizontal relationships should be characterized, but left unattached to the vertical relationship a horizontal relationship will never be complete.

Jesus is not saying, life is all about doing good to others and that is it. No, Jesus places this rule of thumb in the midst of two vertical relationship guides: gaining our strength and purpose from God (ask, seek, knock) and discovering the pathway of relationship to God (enter through the narrow gate). The Golden rule is fools gold if we think we can live it out on our strength. We cannot do it. But in the power of God we can actually do to others as we would have them do to us, instead of doing to them what we think they deserve.

God of all power and grace, I need your grace and power in my life to enable me to love others as I desire to be loved. Help me not to react defensively, but in forgiveness and love when others take advantage of me or abuse me. Help me understand how you have acted towards me and to pass on your great love. - Dan Jones

MATTHEW 7:7-11

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Just ask

I do not like to ask for things. Perhaps that is why I struggle with a Christmas list every year. I really do not need anything. Karen and I are frugal with our money and we can buy what we need. The things I would like to have (tools etc.) I am a little particular about. I would rather wait and get a good quality tool than three cheap ones that break after one or two uses. I love to give things to other people, but struggle to ask for things in my own life.

This tendency to live “self-sufficient” meanders into my spiritual life as well. I too often find myself thinking if I would just work a little bit harder or longer I would be able to make things happen in the church. I don’t need to ask, I can do it myself. For this reason, I suffer at times with despair (depression?) when things do not go as well as I want them to. In my weakness, I realize if I had only asked, God would have provided.

Spiritual growth cannot be manufactured. Church growth, program growth, or financial growth can be, but spiritual growth is always a gift from God. It is humbling to ask God, but that is God’s desire for my life. Ask, seek, knock and then experience the open doors of blessing.

God, help me to understand my limitations not as failures, but as a gift that opens the way for you to enter into my life. Change my attitude from self-sufficiency to reliance on you. – Dan Jones

No “Do Not Knock Days”

I’m living in a parsonage right next to the church I pastor for only the second time in my 27 years of pastoring. This means I am re-learning what it means not to have much of a private life and very little personal space, except squirreled away inside and behind curtains. It’s kind of claustrophobic. Like the last church I pastored that plunked me down in the middle of public space, a few people (not many, thank God) have little conception of a pastor’s day off. Just yesterday I thought of reversing this passage and turning it into a day-off sign for my kitchen door.

Knock, and I probably won’t answer. Seek, and you’re trespassing. Ask tomorrow, and I’ll gladly make an appointment.

I am glad God doesn’t need to separate from his creation in order to be whole and healthy like I need to separate from my work, which is people from beginning to end. He’s available night and day without getting grouchy or offering muddled or tired thoughts. He doesn’t reach the end of the rope like I do. So there’s never a sign on his kitchen door begging to be left alone for a personal Sabbath experience.

I think we misunderstand Jesus when we use his words to hint that simple asking isn’t enough. He doesn’t intend to suggest that we need to build intensity in order for him to hear us and respond. He doesn’t mean that we have to keep after him because his busy schedule creates forgetfulness. I think Jesus ask-seek-know trilogy is simply a visual way of saying “I’m always available.” This isn’t a formula for effective prayer – just an invitation to share hearts, hurts, and hopes.

Neither is this an invitation to use God as servant to our wants, plans, and self-defined needs. God gives good gifts, not everything I ask for or when I ask for it. Sometimes, perhaps often, that wouldn’t be good at all. If we understood that God gives us that which is good according to his understanding, then perhaps we would give in less to the demands of needy people around us who expect us to give them what they want if we were truly good. After all, Jesus calls us to give good gifts just like the Father does.

Father, I am so glad you never need time off from me. I do, but you don’t! Help me to trust your goodness when I come asking. Thanks for welcoming me into your heart when I knock and making it easy for me to find you when I seek. - Mike Leamon