Matthew 7:13-20 - Tests

7:13,14

There are many who will try and make the gospel “easy”, by lessening the moral demands, or saying we can give in to persecutors. Such a route will be popular, but leads only to destruction. Conversely the gate to life is small and leads along a narrow way. Few will find it. So we should not be surprised or discouraged if we seem to be on a lonely road.

7:15-20

There will be false prophets, they will be dressed in sheep’s clothing, adopting a sort of pseudo- Christianity. The give away will be the fruit of their lives, such people cannot produce anything good, we should not listen to such people. The fruit of someone's life, not their words, are a true test.

Matthew 7:7-12 - ASk, seek, knock

7:7,8

We should “ask, seek and knock”. We are not to be passive. God wants us to ask, seek and knock. We should pray, we should seek answers. Note that Jesus says “for everyone who asks receives”, We will be successful.

7:9-12

Jesus then gives his justification for this. He likens the situation to a father and son. A father would not maltreat a son, neither will God maltreat us. Note the casual words “though you are evil”. God is good and is for us. As well as a teaching on prayer, Jesus also draws a lesson on how we would treat each other.

Matthew 7:1-6 - Get your own house in order

7:1,2

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”This does NOT mean not saying something is right or wrong, but it does mean that we cannot say that someone else is better or worse than others. If we consider someone to be worse than us, then God will use the same criteria against us, and we will not come off well.

7:3-5

We must be most concerned with our own righteousness (or lack of it), we must be more concerned about getting ourselves right, than getting others right. Having a judgemental attitude is often an indicator that we ourselves have problems.

7:6

This is a difficult verse.Dogs is a term that Jews sometimes used to refer to Gentiles, and pigs were unclean animals. Perhaps Jesus is saying be careful about whom we share spiritual truths with, for they will not understand and it will not produce a good reaction. If we look at it in the immediate context then perhaps it is a warning that just telling people what is wrong with them will do no good.

Matthew 6:25-34 - The futility of worrying

6:25-27

Worry is something no one likes doing, yet is also something we are all prone to do. Jesus tells us plainly not to worry. Is worry a sin? I actually think not, for no one wants to worry. Someone might contemplate going out and getting drunk, or being sexually promiscuous, but no one sets out to spend the weekend worrying! Yet worry is a symptom of our sinful condition, our fallen nature. Life is more important than food or clothes. Jesus then points to the animals, they get the food they need, and do not worry like we do. Yet God feeds them, it is not necessary to worry, and nor doessi t do any good.

6:28-34

Then Jesus points to the flowers, they are more beautiful than anything man makes. God does not require us to worry. We are more important to God than flowers or birds. Life is actually very different than the devil would have us believe.God cares for us. It is not that our daily needs don’t matter, but that there is so much more to life. Worry can distract us from what is really important. We should seek first the kingdom of God.

Matthew 6:16-23 Whose reward do you want?

6:16-18

Next of the religious observances is fasting, there were both fasts mandated by the Law and “voluntary” ones, In either case the principle is the same, do it for God, not for your own reputation, So someone fasting was not to make it obvious that they were fasting, and suffering. Instead they were to try and look well. If they did it for show, then they would have received their reward in full, i.e. the praise of men, A far greater reward is available, ie the praise of God. We can apply the same principle to all matters of service, do it for God, not for human praise, we all need to be aware of the danger that Jesus is speaking of. 

6:19-23

This distinction between earthly and heavenly reward applies to all riches. Jesus does not shy away from speaking of heavenly rewards, they are also much more valuable than earthly rewards. They are also much more secure.Earthly rewards can easily waste away. What we do with money is also a key indicator of the state of our hearts. It indicates what we value as truly important. Moreover, when we give money to something we develop a commitment to that thing, it affects our heart.

“The eye is the lamp of the body”. How we look at things affects the soul of our being. If we look with bitterness or envy we will be full of bitterness or envy. If we have a godly outlook our souls will be full of light.

Sermon on Ecclesiastes and Colossians Chapter 1

Sermon on Ecclesiastes and Colossians Chapter 1 https://youtu.be/-Lnb0gdH2m4

Matthew 6:10-15 Prayer

6:10

“Your kingdom come ...” We were once rebels against God. Now we are still rebels, but this time rebels against the world. The Romans persecuted the Christians at various times ultimately because they would not say that Caesar is Lord, only that Christ is Lord. We are looking for the overthrow of the present world system. Of course, this is not a human rebellion, and certainly not a violent one, but we are most surely looking for the world to change, for rulers to be overthrown. We are looking for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. When the world goes down roads that are distinctly ungodly we must object. The sin affirming parts of the “church” are acting in disobedience to this prayer. Moreover, it is the Lord’s prayer that is truly radical, for it looks for the replacement of the whole world order with a new heaven and earth.

6:11

Later Jesus will say “seek first the kingdom of heaven and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you”  (Matt 6:33). This pattern is modelled in the prayer, for only after saying “thy kingdom come ...” do we get the prayer for our daily provision. We seek God’s kingdom first. This verse can be taken as saying meet our needs each day. There is value in taking each day as it comes (Matt 6:34), but we should not get too hung up on this. God does sometimes provide several days (or even years) worth at once!

6:12

Next comes forgiveness. If we wanted we could take this as a command and almost treat it as a Law, but I do not believe this is helpful (this is not in anyway to belittle in anyway the seriousness of having an unforgiving heart). Rather we should look at the spirit of this, as Jesus has done with the Law as a whole. Forgiveness is the oil which keeps the church going. A car engine, no matter how good it is, will cease up if there is no oil. Likewise any relationship, any church will cease up if there is no forgiveness. The church is founded on forgiveness. If God had not forgiven us the church would never have started, neither you nor I would be allowed into the kingdom. In the same way we need to forgive each other. Every church leader, every husband or wife, every mother or father, so or daughter, church member will get some things wrong and do some things wrong. If there is no forgiveness then when this happens relationships or churches will break down. There does, of course, also need to be repentance when things go wrong as well.

6:13

We can be very tied up in debates about why would God even think of leading us into temptation. “Temptation” can also be translated as “testing”. Perhaps we should take a more practical approach. We need help, left to our own devices. We will fall into temptation at some point, especially if we become proud or over-confident. We also need to be delivered from the evil one. We do need to fear Satan, but we do need to be aware of him, his plans and his power. And we need to pray for God’s protection. The “for yours is the kingdom ...” is only found in later manuscripts and is probably an addition.

6:14,15

We then get a very stern warning about the consequences of not forgiving others. We can view this legalistically, or we can view it as showing how the kingdom works. It is interesting that this is the aspect of the prayer that Jesus highlights. This may be because the religious leaders focused on proving how “good” they were. In reality, the kingdom works in a very different way. So we are not to be looking for reasons to condemn someone.