Enter the Kingdom...

A sermon based on Matthew 7: 21-27

Preached by Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership,

January, 31th^th, 2021.

 

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

 ²² 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 deeds of power in your name?'

 ²³ Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'

 ²⁴ "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.

 ²⁵ The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.

 ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

 ²⁷ The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell -- and great was its fall!" (Matt. 7:21-27 NRS)

We are continuing the series on the most important subject of Jesus’ own preaching; the Kingdom of God.  Let’s quickly review what we’ve covered thus far.

We’ve understood first, that the kingdom Jesus preached about is the ‘nearness’  of the long awaited Jewish hope that God’s eternal kingdom would one day  be established on earth, through God’s people Israel.   This was envisioned by the major prophets and especially late, in the book of Daniel.

Of course, Israel rejected Jesus’ preaching, ministry and mission of the kingdom, but Jesus had already passed on the ‘keys of the kingdom’ to Peter and to his followers, who are today identified as the church, the spiritual heirs, who are the living body of Christ.  We become part of Christ’s body and the coming kingdom when we reorient our lives in hope of God’s saving presence in this world.

Jesus then clarified in the opening of his Great Sermon,  that this kingdom does not belong to the power brokers of this world, but it belongs to those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, are meek, are hungry to do what’s right, are pure in heart, and are being persecuted for it.  The kingdom belongs to them, not the places of power in this world.

Then, we learned how Jesus taught us to pray for the kingdom to come into this world, not only with thoughts and words, but by doing God’s will and  living by the most basic, doable priorities of  feeding the hungry and forgiving those who sin against us, so that we and the world too, can lead away from evil’s temptation and destruction.

Finally, last week we learned that God’s kingdom demands we establish certain priorities in our lives, which are both spiritual and ethical.  For Jesus, God’s kingdom is primarily about heaven’s priorities being done on earth, as in heaven,  becoming our own earthly priorities, rather just making some other worldly priority to go to heaven when we die.  We are to put God’s kingdom first in our lives new, by how we live and how we behave, so that God’s righteousness and holiness are salt and light for the world that so desperately needs God’s saving and redeeming love and light.

So now, in this message we are going to see just how this Kingdom has come to us in the life and presence of Jesus Christ.  In today’s Scripture Jesus reminds that the kingdom of God is about his life, his ministry and his saving work.  You cannot enter the kingdom except through the door, who is Jesus Christ, God’s Son who is our Savior.  But you enter this door, not simply by calling him your Savior and Lord, but by doing what God’s will, which has been clearly laid out in y thy he patterns of living expressed in the Sermon on the Mount.

Now, with this very long introduction, let’s get to what Jesus was saying about entering the kingdom.

WHO SAYS TO ME…

Our text begins with a series warning.  How many of you remember the  friendly robot on the 1960’s TV  series, Lost in Space?  Maybe you younger folks saw the updated movie.  I haven’t seen the movie, but I can still see and here the Space Family Robinson’s robot announcing impending danger by waving his robotic flexible pipe-like arms saying, Warning! Warning!

 

Well, that’s how I’ve always approached this saying from Jesus about entering the kingdom.  Warning!  Warning!  Not everyone who says Lord, Lord (to Jesus) will actually enter the kingdom of heaven.   I took this as a most serious warning because I heard a lot of revival preachers using this to get us to make sure we had truly decided to follow Jesus so that we could go to heaven when we die.

 

But of course, this isn’t exactly what Jesus was talking about.  I’m not saying you couldn’t imply something like this, that we need to be sure we mean what we profess about Jesus, that he really is our true Lord, but the kingdom of heaven Jesus meant is God’s kingdom that we are to pray to come to on earth, as it is in heaven so we can enter it right now, by how we actually live. 

 

Besides this, Jesus was primarily pointing back to false teachers or prophets who were could were the most dangerous professors of faith around.  Just a few lines before, leading up to this text, Jesus warned about these false prophets who were like trees bearing bad fruit (15-20).  Sounding like lawyer Timothy Welborn who’s very confident  TV commercial says: ‘You’ll know when You need us.’  Here, Jesus says about false teachers, ‘You’ll know them by their fruit.’   It’s also something Jesus declares again and again.

 

But what exactly is the ‘bad fruit’ that a false prophet drops people’s feet?   Well, put simply, what follows here is a clarification that a the qualification of a false prophet is someone who claims to know and call Jesus the Lord of the kingdom, but doesn’t follow or live by the kingdom ethic or principles Jesus is has taught.  

 

And what’s most frightening and sobering about this  warning and clarification is that even some of those who claim Jesus and preach the kingdom with Jesus will not discover that they were not really preaching or living the way of the kingdom until it’s too late.  It’s not until they stand before the Lord as Judge on the last day that they get the word that they missed the kingdom and did not and will not enter God’s eternal kingdom.

 

Now, you see why this word from Jesus is serves as a special warning to both false prophets and those who decide to follow them.  If they,  if you, and still today, if we aren’t careful we can say all the right words, and even use the language of  Jesus and his kingdom, but still fail to enter His kingdom.

 

There are specifically two warnings being expressed here.  You don’t want to miss either of them, or you could miss God’s kingdom.  The first part of this warning has to do with Jesus himself.   Did you catch how these false prophets and their followers miss entering the kingdom.   To put it most simply, they don’t ever get to know Jesus.  Jesus is the ‘key’ to the kingdom, and he is the ‘door’ to the kingdom too.  

That’s why Jesus makes this warning very personal.   Jesus says ‘Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven…. Did you catch that?  These false prophets have expressed their respect for Jesus, and they have even served him by casting out demons and as their Lord and used his name to do miracles and  mighty deeds of power in his name.  Still, Jesus makes the entrance to the kingdom very personal, saying to them, no matter what they claim or have done, ‘I never knew you. Go away you evil doers.’

 There are too things that make these false prophets and false professors evil doers.  First, Jesus doesn’t know them, because they really don’t know him. Jesus is trying to bring forgiveness, justice, love and mercy to the people.  Everyone knows that, except those who don’t want to know that and get to join with him. 

So, these false prophets become evil by choice because they don’t want to have a living, daily, saving and healing relationship with him.  Since they don’t want to know Jesus because of who he is and what he is doing,  Jesus warns them (and us too) this way because he is the entrance to the kingdom.   We can only enter God’s kingdom by having a redeeming, healing, and living companionship with Jesus.

Isn’t this what the gospels make clear from the very start?  The gospel of Mark starts out even with demons recognizing the importance of Jesus, calling him ‘son of the most high’.  At his birth, Luke has angels naming, ‘a savior who Christ the Lord,  and then the gospel of Matthew has an angel naming him Emmanuel, God with us.  Then finally, in the gospel of John Jesus himself declares to his disciples just before his death,  ‘I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.’   When you consider what each gospel is saying, each in its own way, there is no mistaking that everything points to Jesus as the way to enter God’s kingdom.

Of course, this is no surprise to this of us who have grown up in the church, hearing the gospel story over and over again, but what comes next is still a bit shocking and can still be a warning to us.   This is Jesus’ warning that just like  false prophets who preach and do good in the name of Jesus, but can still miss knowing the real Jesus and also miss entering the kingdom. 

While Jesus spoke this warning to his disciples then, it is a warning that should still warn us now.  This is exactly what those fiery evangelistic preachers were preaching about.  They were warning us that you can ‘speak’ Jesus but still not really ‘know’ Jesus in a personal, healing, and life-changing way.  But here’s the question ‘what is this personal, healing, and life-changing way?

THE ONE WHO DOES

Well, according to Jesus the ‘authentic’ way of knowing begins when we are truly with Jesus as we ‘do the will of the Father in Heaven.’ 

Jesus’ point is simple and clear.  Words are not enough.  Saying the right words isn’t enough. Hearing the right Word isn’t enough.  Reading the right Word isn’t enough.  Finally, and here’s it gets tricky, even believing the right word isn’t enough.  No,  what Jesus is clearly saying and warning is that entering God’s kingdom is only through doing the will of the Father’.

Since what Jesus says hear is a warning and can seem to be tricky and vague because many fail to connect this text to what Jesus has been saying in this great Sermon on the Mount, we need to stop a moment and connect the dots.

There should be no vagueness or mystery to what Jesus means by doing God’s will.  God’s will is the ethics of the kingdom that Jesus speaks about all through Matthew 5-7.  Of course the kingdom of God is bigger than these chapters, but these chapters reveal the kind of ethic Jesus lived and it reveals the kind of ethic or lifestyle that invites God to be present in our lives.  And when we live this way, like Jesus lived, then we open the doors to allow God’s to rule our hearts and lives.  We are doing the word of Jesus, not just speaking or saying we believe in Jesus.

I can’t underscore enough how important it is to follow and live like Jesus.  In our Baptist Church Tradition we have put our emphasis on having an true experience with Jesus.  That is good.  Jesus is more than a religious tradition.  Jesus is also more than reading about him in the Bible. Jesus is someone we need to get to know personally.

The question that arises, is how do we experience Jesus.  For too many people the way of experiencing Jesus has taken them right back to tradition (how grandpa did) or to settling for reading Scripture about Jesus, rather than actually knowing Jesus by doing God’s will, which for Jesus, is living the way of Jesus, which is revealed in this Sermon.

In recent years,  major emphasis has been placed on Christian practices.  As our society has become more secular and less Church oriented, even Christian scholarship has been placing more emphasis on what it means to ‘being Christian’ by focusing more on ‘doing Christian.’   This has been a necessary development for our times, because even in church,  Christians of all stripes have put more emphasis on believing in Jesus than we have living and doing Jesus in our lives and world.

And what makes ‘doing’ Jesus so very important, if not most important, is that according to Jesus himself, it is only by doing what God’s will tells us through Jesus that we really enter into what it means to believe in Jesus.  Believing is Doing.  As Jesus words specifically  imply: There is no knowing Jesus only by believing Jesus, there is only a knowing and believing Jesus in your head or heart, but there is only a true way of knowing and believing by trusting Jesus enough to live as he called and commanded his disciples to live.

Understanding that the entrance to God’s kingdom is not just saying Jesus, but living Jesus can be a challenge to how we have understood Jesus before.  And that’s exactly why Jesus gave this warning.  He’s not only warning False Prophets, he’s also warning us not to be ‘false professors’ of Jesus, who say we follow Jesus, but don’t actually follow in the very challenging, demanding, and also life determining way he has called his followers to live.

HOUSE ON SAND

Since this warning of Jesus was spoken in a such a negative way, we need to now see how Jesus concludes with a story about m choice.  He ends with a  parable that opens with a much more hopeful opportunity.   

 

After Jesus warned the ‘false professors’ that ‘he never knew them’ because they did not try to live by the way of the kingdom,  Jesus wants his hearers and disciples to know that they, and we too, don’t have to end up like them—not entering the kingdom and missing Jesus altogether.  We don’t have to end up like them because we still have the chance to make the right choice.

 

This ‘right’ choice is, as Jesus says, is to ‘hear the words’ of Jesus, and ‘act on them’.   Jesus is not belittling having faith or belief in him, but Jesus is clarifying that this is what having faith, belief and love for Jesus means.  Again, knowing Jesus means ‘doing’ Jesus, which is, as the book of James also clarifies later, that  becoming a ‘doer’ of the word, and not a hearer only.  By the way the book of James takes us back clarify what it means to believe in  Jesus.  Even in NT times, people were already misunderstanding what it means to believe or have faith in Jesus. James clarifies for us again, what Jesus is saying here, that it’s not an either/or scenario, where you choose either faith or works, but it’s Faith is a way that can only be proven to be true and real through good works, deeds and acts that do the will of God in the world.  If you try to separate the two, as Jesus warned, you won’t enter the kingdom.

 

What Jesus hopefully clarifies, is that a wise, understanding and thoughtful disciple would not dare try to avoid following Jesus and putting into action His way of living and ethics.   A wise person will practice Jesus’ way because His way is the only way to build a life  on a foundation that can withstand the storms that are coming.   To build one’s life without following and doing Jesus way; that is by speaking Jesus without doing Jesus, is to invite disaster upon ones future.   For only the way of Jesus, which is hard now, but pays off later, will enable you to weather life’s  storms and enter the life of God’s kingdom, which has been opened up through the way being offered in Jesus Christ.

 

This parable that Jesus told was a favorite parable taught to us as children in both Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, but this was not intended only to be a children’s story.  It was a story Jesus told because many of hearers and listeners didn’t want to follow his very challenging way of the higher righteousness, which Jesus explained as a way of  focusing on the heart,  turning the other cheek, going the second mile, refusing to retaliate and also loving the enemy.  These are definitely NOT childish behaviors.  These are very mature behaviors, which Jesus also called being  ‘perfect as your father in heaven is perfect’.

 

And do you know why Jesus was demanding such a higher, demanding, and almost impossible way of ‘knowing’ and ‘following’ him?  Because this was the only way to save his people from their sins. 

 

And the great sin that was about to come down hard on Israel, was that their was a religious and political movement getting ready to stand up against Roman Occupation head to head and  sword to sword.  To Jesus this was a way that would lead to complete destruction, and it did.  The people, as a whole, ejected Jesus’ way and followed Judas’ way, Barabbas’ way, and the Zealot’s way, which was to rise up against Rome to rebel and retaliate.  But this rebellion brought the wrath of Rome down upon Israel and so that the entire nation was destroyed.

 

But the miracle of that terrible moment of history was that the followers of the way, as the first Christians were called, who were of course followers of Jesus’  way, who lived as Jesus taught and did as Jesus did, left the city, did not join in the military fight against Rome, and lived to fight another day, in a completely different way. 

 

And that way is the way of Jesus that eventually did come to Rome and took Rome’s place as the kingdom that did not fall and will not fall—the kingdom of God which is still present in the world through those who trust, live and follow the way of Jesus Christ.

 

So, now, knowing that Jesus’ words and Jesus way was true for them, what about us.  How do we still enter the kingdom by following and living the way of Jesus today?   And how do we make sure we don’t fail to ‘enter the kingdom’ by failing to be with Jesus, and then facing the storms ahead without a true foundation and anchor?

 

As I was working on this sermon, a news flash came about an actress, Naya Rivera, who once was on the hit TV show Glee.  Her rented Pontoon boat was found with her four-year old child on board, wearing a life jacket. The actress was no where to be seen.  She was feared to be drowned.  This happened not long after she broke up with her boyfriend, and just two years after she divorced  the father of her child. 

 

Whatever happened, accident or not, we can surely say that we all need a way that anchors us, saves us, and offers us a firm, solid foundation to face the storms of life.  Just being beautiful, which Naya was isn’t enough.  Just having a child who is the light of your life, isn’t enough.  Just having success in life, isn’t enough.  Besides one of the major lead stars in that show, back in 2013, died of Substance abuse.  No, we all need a firm foundation to build our lived upon.  Without that foundation, Jesus teaches, the storms of life can destroy us, then and still now.

 

What we need to know, is that the foundation Jesus offers, and the kingdom that Jesus makes real on this earth, isn’t a kingdom like other kingdoms.  It’s not a kingdom that can be threatened by life’s storms, because it is a kingdom, that Jesus says, is not of this world.   

 

Now, don’t misunderstand what Jesus meant.  He’s not saying God’s kingdom isn’t in this world, but it’s not ‘of’ this world.  It’s a kingdom that is lived in this world by those who dare to enter God’s kingdom here and now, by following in this way Jesus teaches and challenges us to live. 

 

If we live this way, it can be a difficult, challenging, narrow and hard way at times, but it is still the only way to survive the winds, the storms and shifting sands of this world.   This is true because Jesus’ way is still the entrance into the eternal kingdom, the kingdom that has come near to us in him, and still offers us a way to live to survive the storms that we will face.

 

So, now let me ask, as this text does, and as those old evangelists did:  Do you know Jesus?  No, that’s not how I should phrase it.  The real question is: Does Jesus know you?  For only when we live in his way and we do what he taught, are we assured that he knows us, and we can face and survive the storms that will come to us, in both life and death.   Amen.