Matthew 7:15-29 - The Will of God - June 14, 2020

Today we formally begin the second half of the Christian church year, the long season called Pentecost. The paraments are green, which is intended to make us think of vibrant life and growth. In the first half of the church year we focused on Christ’s work for us – which gives us life. Now in the second half we focus on Christ’s words to us – words which stimulate and create growth in our lives. Today Jesus answers a common question: what is the will of God for my life? This question has caused many people a lot of stress. Why? Because they’ve been taught to believe that God’s will is a great big secret hidden in a vault in heaven to which you must somehow find the correct combination of prayer and obedience and sacrifice in order to access. That makes the will of God something scary, something daunting, something that is a burden instead of a blessing. And that is all completely, absolutely false. The will of God, what God wants you to do and not do, is no secret; it is printed for us, plain as day, in Scripture.

If you’ve ever wondered about God’s will for your life, what exactly were you wondering about? In general, people wonder what school their kids should go to, what job they should take, what house they should buy, what person they should marry, where and when they should retire – and other, earthly, temporal issues. People get all worked up because they believe for some reason that there is only one God-pleasing choice in these things. But think about that for a moment. What kind of good and loving God would place countless choices in front of you (which all appear to be right and moral and godly) but there’s really only one right choice – which he has chosen to not reveal to you? Have you ever had a boss like that; who expected you to guess what he wants, what he’s thinking? It’s unbearable! If that were how God worked, how could you not go crazy with anxiety and worry? How could you not be driven to the brink of despair and even hating God? How could you ever be confident that you were making the right, God-pleasing choice? You couldn’t!

But you don’t have to live with that anxiety. God tells you clear as day what his will is for you in his Word. For example, in our text Jesus tells you that he wants you to watch out for false prophets. Don’t listen to or follow people who preach and teach falsely. That’s clear, isn’t it? Ah, but you might be thinking: “How will I know?” Easily, at least, easily according to Jesus: by their fruit you will recognize them. You will know a false teacher by what they teach – just like you recognize that grapes don’t come from thorn bushes. So stop thinking that everyone who comes to you in Jesus’ name is actually teaching the words of Jesus. Stop listening to preachers who point you away from the objective power of Baptism, Absolution, and Communion and point you instead to the subjective power of your faith. Stop reading self-help books that promote trust and confidence in yourself rather than in God. Most importantly, stop being spiritually lazy; test everything and everyone and don’t think that you aren’t possibly smart enough to discern which prophets are true and which are false. Jesus doesn’t say, you must recognize them, he promises that you will recognize them and that you should stay away from them (Romans 16:17). That’s God’s will for you. Have you been doing that? If not, repent!

Related to God’s will that you watch out for false teachers is his will that you don’t build your life on a false foundation, a foundation of sand (Matthew 7:24-27). God’s will is that you build your life – your marriage, your family, your career, your worldview – on His Word. So stop allowing the latest social media trends to shape your habits and routines. Stop setting your moral compass according to the values you find expressed in the popular culture. Stop trusting supposed scientific and medical “experts” – who are proven wrong time and again – to keep you healthy and safe. God’s will is that you would instead build your life on his Word. Have you been doing that? If not, repent!

I can hear the excuse: “Yeah, but the Bible is a big book. How can I possibly know all of it?” Fair enough. Then start with the chapters to which our text serves as a conclusion: the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5 through 7 Jesus speaks in crystal clear language about God’s will. He wants us to rejoice and be glad when we are insulted and persecuted because great is [our] reward in heaven (Matthew 5:11-12). He wants us to let [our] light shine…so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). He doesn’t want us to commit murder with our hands or in our hearts (Matthew 5:21-26). He doesn’t want us to lust, to get divorced, or to swear needlessly (Matthew 5:27-37). He wants us to turn the other cheek and love [our] enemies (Matthew 5:44). He want us to pray the Lord’s Prayer, store up treasures in heaven rather than on earth, and then not worry (Matthew 5:7-34).

That is God’s will for your life, as recorded in black and white in the Sermon on the Mount. If three chapters is too much, then go to Exodus 20. There God’s will is recorded for you in just 10 “words” (Exodus 20:1). God’s will is that you have no other gods, not misuse his name, remember the Sabbath day, honor your parents, not murder, not commit adultery, not steal, not lie and not covet (Exodus 20:1-17). That one sentence summarizes God’s will for you and me and all people of all time.

God’s will for your life is not a great big mystery – he’s laid it out clear as day in his Word. But what God wants you to do is only half the story – there’s also a very important thing he definitely doesn’t want you to do. In the middle of our text Jesus takes us to Judgment Day and tells us that among those waiting in line at the pearly gates will be some pretty impressive-sounding people. They will be saying, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name?’ Are you thinking what I’m thinking? “What chance do I have compared to them?” I have a hard enough time finding 10 minutes each day to read my Bible and it’s a definite struggle to pay attention to a 20 minute sermon – and here are these people who not only heard the Word but preached it! I’ve found it impossible to reject the devil’s temptations to do things I know are wrong – and these people not only resisted the devil, but drove out demons! I have enough difficulty obeying the regular old 10 commandments – here these “super-saints” have not only done God’s ordinary will, they have done miracles! I’ll be standing in the line for heaven thinking that maybe I’m in the wrong line and these people will look Jesus in the eye and boast “‘Lord, Lord,’ look at everything we did for you!”

And Jesus doesn’t deny it! Jesus doesn’t say that they didn’t preach in his name, or didn’t drive out demons or do miracles. However, he does make it clear that their extraordinary “doing” of God’s will failed to gain them entrance into heaven. In fact, instead of earning them the right to skip to the head of the line for entrance into heaven, Jesus says depart from me, you evildoers. Why? They had thought they were building on a solid foundation by doing God’s will, but when judgment came, they found they had really built their lives on sand.

So what’s the point? That doing God’s will isn’t that important after all? Of course not. God is serious about his will – deadly serious that we do what he commands (Exodus 20:5-6). Paul makes the point for us in Galatians 2: we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law (Galatians 2:16). Simply put: God does not want you to try to save yourself. Why not? Because no matter what you do, how sincerely you do it, how long you do it, how perfectly your life lines up with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount or the 10 commandments – it is never enough (Romans 3:22-23). It cannot save you. No matter if you’ve done everything the “super-saints” in our text did; no matter if you’ve never had an affair, never committed murder, never stolen even a pack of gum, never perjured yourself – you can never be saved by what you’ve done. Your obedience, your works are a worthless, sandy foundation.

God does not want you to try to save yourself by your works. God’s will, instead, is to save you by His works. So before you ever think of asking “What is God’s will for my life; what does God want me to do?” – you should really ask “What has God already done for me?” Jesus makes this exact point in John 6. When the crowd asks him what should we do to carry out the works of God? Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God: that you believe in the one he sent...for this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the Last Day (John 6:28-29, 40).

Imagine again that you’re standing in line at the pearly gates on Judgment Day behind a group of “super-saints” bragging about all their good works – and all you can think about is how miserable your life looks in comparison. Do you see that that humble, penitent attitude is actually God’s will for you (Matthew 5:3, 6)? That the realization that you can’t do God’s will perfectly is the confession of a true saint in God’s eyes (Matthew 25:37-40)? If you’ve come to that realization, then you only need one more thing: faith, faith that while you haven’t done anything good enough for God, Jesus has. It was God’s will to send Jesus to this earth to do what you could never do: know and do the will of God perfectly (John 3:16; Hebrews 4:15). [Jesus] was handed over to death because of our trespasses and was raised to life for our justification (Romans 4:25). Now God wants you to pray to him boldly in Jesus’ name (Matthew 6:9). Now God wants you to stake your eternal life on the fact that while your good works are nothing but filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), Jesus’ blood and righteousness are more than enough to cover your sins and clothe you with the holiness you need to enter heaven (Matthew 22:11-14).

Our text makes one final point. The reason the evildoers are not allowed into heaven is because Jesus says I never knew you. Getting into heaven is not about whether you think you know Jesus or not; it’s about whether he knows you. How do you know if Jesus knows you? Jesus says that whoever has their sins forgiven in the Absolution has them forgiven in heaven as well (Matthew 16:19). Paul says that as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27). He also says that whoever eats the bread of Communion shares in his body and whoever drinks the cup shares in his blood (1 Corinthians 10:16). Jesus doesn’t know you by your works; he knows you by his work for you and in you. Through baptism, absolution, and Holy Communion, you can be absolutely certain that while Jesus will dismiss the boasting “super-saints” from his presence on Judgment Day, he will call you by name, take you by the hand and lead you into the kingdom of heaven.

So, what is God’s will for your life? I’m not going to pretend that I (or anyone) know what school your children should go to or what house you should buy or what job you should take or where you should retire. And yet, God’s will is really no mystery at all. His will is to save you through the merits of Jesus Christ which he gives to you in baptism, absolution and communion (1 Timothy 2:4). It is also his will that you follow the clear and explicit commands he has laid down in his Word, not in order to earn your way into his kingdom but because you are already there for Jesus’ sake. And when you build your life on the rock; the inspired and unchanging Word of God and the finished work of Christ – then nothing; not rain nor wind nor floods nor viruses nor protests nor an uncertain future can tear you from the solid foundation of your salvation. And living and dying with that faith is God’s will for your life. Amen.