Sermon for September 6th, 2026
Matthew 7:7-29 (NT p. 7)
7 ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10 Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
12 ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.
13 ‘Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. 14 For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
15 ‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits.
21 ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only 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!’
28 Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, 29 for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
Higher Education, Part VI
Right now is a very important time in our culture: College football season started this week! I'm reminded of the story of Bubba and Tiny--two college football players at Texas A&M University who had failed their agricultural engineering course three times in a row. Finally, their professor told them that if they didn't pass the final exam, they couldn't play in the big game, and certainly wouldn't graduate. He sat them down in a room, just the two of them, handed them each a piece of paper with one fill-in-the-blank question, and then left the room. Before he left, he said "you have exactly one hour to complete the exam."
Well Bubba was already pretty nervous, but when he flipped over the piece of paper and saw the question, he turned white with terror. The question read: "Old MacDonald had a _________. I did mention this was an agricultural engineering exam, right? After staring at the question for a few minutes, Bubba looks over at Tiny with a helpless expression on his face, and asks Tiny for the answer. Tiny looks back at Bubba and says, "You sure are dumb, Bubba. Everyone knows that Old MacDonald had a farm."
Relieved, Bubba says "Oh yeah--Now I remember!" He begins to write the answer on his paper, but then pauses. He turns to Tiny again and says, "Tiny...how do you spell farm?"
"Geez, Bubba--You're even dumber than I thought! Everyone knows farm is spelled E-I-E-I-O!"
Fortunately, their professor was an Aggie, too. Bubba and Tiny both passed the test, graduated with honors, and went on to distinguished football careers playing for the Dallas Cowboys.
For the past six weeks, our two congregations have been on an educational journey of our own, as we have been studying the difficult teachings in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Today is the final exam, the day of judgment. Don't worry, though. It's an open book test. And Jesus already gave us all the answers.
But right before our passage begins, Jesus tells his audience, "Do not judge others, so that you yourself may not be judged. But then he spends the rest of the chapter (today's text) talking about the road that leads to destruction, the bad tree that bears bad fruit; and people who cry out, "Lord, Lord!" only to have the door shut in their face. I don't know, Jesus... that sounds kind of judgy to me!
Of course, Jesus, the Son of God, is the only righteous judge. The whole reason we aren't supposed to judge others is because that would be putting ourselves in God's place. Sinners judging other sinners is like the blind leading the blind, or the pot calling the kettle black.
I remember when I was in high school, and sometimes at the end of a test, the teacher would say, "Now pass your paper to the person on your left." I loved that--it meant your paper was going to be graded by someone just as clueless as you, and therefore you had a chance for mercy and grace, especially if the person on your left was your friend.
But then as I got older, my perspective changed a lot. When I was in graduate school, the thing I hated most was "class discussions." I wasn't going hundreds of deep into student loan debt just to hear what Bubba and Tiny had to say, often at great length. I wanted to hear from the expert, the one who could actually help me understand the subject matter. I didn't want the Teacher's Assistant to grade my paper--most of my TA's had all of the attitude of a professor with none of the experience. No, I wanted to be judged by the only person in the room who was actually qualified to judge me.
So when Jesus talks about judgment, I think he's doing what any good teacher would do right before the final exam: Here's what's on the test. Don't do this... do this instead. A passing paper looks like this, while a failing paper looks like this. In teaching, we call that a rubric. A rubric is an evaluation tool, a judgment tool, but it's also a teaching tool, a preparation tool that tells you where you're going and how to get there.
And in the last 23 verses of the Sermon on the Mount, the Rabbi, the teacher, the judge, condenses his entire sermon, his entire teaching, into a cliff-notes version of the whole. So if you're just showing up today for the first time, of if you've already forgotten everything that Pastor Nick and I have been preaching, you're in luck. Pay attention. You can still make the grade.
He starts with a pep-talk, and some great advice: "Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you." In other words, if you really want this, you've got this! Just raise your hand and ask. In the beginning of his sermon, Jesus said that if you're poor, you can still have an entire kingdom. If you're meek, you can still inherit the earth. If you're hungry you can still be full. If you have been persecuted, you can still come out on top. But now he also tells us how: Ask. Seek. Knock. You don't have to know all the answers, but you have to at least be curious enough to ask the questions. You may still stumble your way through life, and get lost sometimes... but you have to at least be searching for the path. Not every door will be open to you... but you gotta at least knock on a few. You don't have to carry the team (that's God's job)... but you've got to pick a side and get your head in the game.
Verse 12: "In everything do to others as you would have them do to you." Remember all the stuff Jesus said about how "the law says this, but I say this?" Love your enemies, don't let your anger get the best of you, give to everyone who begs from you, be perfect like God is perfect..." Not only does he summarize all that here, but really the entire Old Testament law wraps up neatly into one simple rule of thumb: Don't be a jerk. Treat other people (even the ones you don't like) the way you would want to be treated yourself.
In the next two verses, Jesus talks about the narrow gate and the wide gate. Choose the narrow one. The harder one. Interestingly, the Greek word here for "wide" is πλατεῖα (plateia). It means wide and flat. It's where we get words like "plaza" and "plate" and "plateau." But when you "plateau" in your life, it means you've stopped going, you've stopped growing. Jesus says to take the narrower path, the harder path. And the Greek word for hard is τεθλιμμένη (tethlimmenē) which literally means squeezed, or pressed. You know what happens to carbon when it is trapped deep within the earth and subjected to massive amounts of pressure? It turns into a diamond. So don't plateau. Keep following Jesus higher up the mountain. Always choose the harder path, even if it means loving unloveable people, checking your anger or your anxiety, resisting the temptation to judge.
In verses 15-20, Jesus talks about good fruit and bad fruit. This is the same inner-outer dynamic we've seen throughout the sermon on the mount. Whatever you harbor and nurture deep inside you, all those secret things you think no one else can see--they will eventually come out and identify you to the world. We spend a lot of time on our outward presentation, trying to cover up or conceal our rotten fruit. Jesus says, uh, how about you just spend a little more time taking care of the tree (your heart, your mind, your attitude)? Then your fruit will take care of itself.
At the beginning of my message today, I was a little bit harsh on football players. But before I was a pastor, back when I was a high school English teacher, our school had a football coach, who was the very best kind of coach, a real mentor and compassionate teacher. He knew that some of his students would struggle in my English class (especially those for whom English was not their first language), and so every year on the first day of school he would make sure his athletes got to my class early, and he would tell them to sit in the very front row, as close to Mr. Locke as you can possibly get. You're still going to struggle, but he will know you, and see you, and hear you, and help you, the closer you can get to him. And that coach was 100% right.
When Jesus tells his audience, in verse 21, that some people who did great and good things, all in his name, aren't going to make the cut, that sounds a bit harsh to us. But I think these are the ones who sat in the back of the class. When Jesus tells them, "I never knew you" I don't think he's saying "I don't love you" or "I don't want you to succeed. He's saying, "You told everyone I was your teacher, you came to class and turned in your homework, but you never gave me the opportunity to have a relationship with you. You didn't raise your hand and ask me to help you. So I don't really know you, and now the class is over.
The very last teaching in the sermon on the mount, like in every good sermon, is a call to action.
Once again, we have the struggling football player at the front of the classroom. He might not be smart, but he's definitely gleaned some wisdom from his coach. And then we've got the kid in the back, who is really smart, but distant. Both of them showed up to class. Both of them listened. The one in the front built a relationship with the teacher. The one in the back took a lot of notes (we'll call him The Scribe). But this time, Jesus focuses on something else besides distance or relationship. He focuses on what each one does after he leaves the school.
The football player (we'll call him Sabio) takes the long and narrow path up the mountain, and builds his house, his life, on the rocky ridge. It's harder--he has to carry all the building materials up the mountain--but he's only a few blocks away from his teacher, who he calls sometimes to ask for advice (or help carrying things). He also carries the words and lessons of his teacher, in his head, in his heart, and in his hands and feet whenever he can help someone in his neighborhood.
The Scribe looks up at the mountain, sees how far the ridge is, and how hard it would be to carry things up there. And he still doesn't like to ask for help, so instead he builds his house (and his life) down in the arroyo. It's easier that way. Everybody is doing it these days. He forgot his notebook with all his notes back at the school, where they are sitting in his old desk, slowly gathering dust.
Both the Scribe and Sabio build their houses (and their lives) with the exact same building materials--good materials, solid materials--one down in the sandy arroyo, and one up on the rocky ridge. And then they live their lives. Good lives, doing good things, both of them. Sabio often thinks of his teacher, and sometimes calls him or has lunch with him. The Scribe often "talks" about his teacher to other people, and about how great his education was. This is in El Paso, so it's warm and sunny... 98.3% of the time. Until monsoon season. Until the rain that rains on the just and the unjust alike. The rain of tragedy, and hardship, and failure, and disappointment, and trouble. And all those things happen to both Sabio and the Scribe. No amount of education or hard work, no relationship or wise advice, can prevent the rain from falling. The question is not whether the storms will come. The question is what will hold you together when they do?
When the floods subsided, one of our protagonists still had a house to hold him in place. And relationships. And help from those he had helped. And hard-earned wisdom. The other did not. What was the difference? One took the things he'd heard, the things he learned in a sacred place, and carried those things into the world, putting them into action. The other one left them--in a notebook, in a desk, in the school, in the church--and took the easy path, the lonely path in the middle of the crowd.