1. Why is the gate that leads to life in v. 13-14 narrow and not wide? 

2. How can we tell if someone is a false prophet? What kind of message would these people preach? Why?

3. If Christ came to redeem us, not condemn us (see Jn 3:17), then why does he take such a hard stance in v. 21-23?

4. What is the meaning of Jesus' example of foundations in v. 24-27? What might the different foundations mean? What could the rain and floods represent?

5. Thinking back to the whole of the Sermon on the Mount (starting in chapter 5) what are the key ideas Jesus is trying to convey?

6. Are any of these ideas contrary to our modern American culture?

7. How can we properly take heed of what Jesus has to say here? How do we build our house upon rock and not sand?

Hello everyone, welcome to session 12. This week we are finally finishing up the Sermon on the Mount! Can you believe we've been in this sermon for 5 sessions now! That's over a month on just one sermon. Now for this week I highly encourage you start switching up roles for your group. Pass around the baton for facilitating the sessions, make sure your people get comfortable with the materials and being able to facilitate a session. They don't need to be good leaders, just leaderish enough to be able to vaguely guide the discussion. 

Also don't forget the importance of fellowship AND deep biblical study. Be vary wary on airing on total fellowship or total study. This needs to be a group where life transformation happens, anything else is fruitless. To just study without fellowship is to build up the bible as a mere textbook and would reduce your group to a glorified book club. To just fellowship would make you a social group at best and a bunch of gossips at worst. The middle ground is what you need to constantly vie for. A place where there is a sense of family and love, which will come with the vulnerability and accountability required for actual change in our lives. This also needs to be a place devoted to scripture, because it serves as the vessel for our transformation. It is what challenges us and grows us, and the other Christians around us hold us accountable to those challenges and corrections.

Discussion Guide

1. Why is the gate that leads to life in v. 13-14 narrow and not wide? 

   • Jesus' ethic laid out in this sermon is quite hard to follow in our everyday life. We are expected to be humble and submissive. We are expected to seek God above all other things. We are expected to rely on God's provision rather than relying on our own two hands. We are to be all forgiving and not seek out personal vengeance. This is an ethic completely divorced from this world and one not easily followed.

2. How can we tell if someone is a false prophet? What kind of message would these people preach? Why?

   • These are people who fail to produce good fruit. In other words these are people who may follow Jesus in word and deed, but fail to ever find that inward transformation that is crucial. Yeah they may look pretty on the outside but inwardly they are grotesque. 

   • There are multiple routes these kind of corrupted spiritual leaders take. One would be the likes of the prosperity gospel in it's worst forms. It is truly a prideful love of wealth that many of these men seek. They chose their master to serve, and it wasn't God. 

   • Another route would be a very harsh "fire and brimstone" style of preaching that typically focuses on a particular sin. It's not too uncommon for a preacher to rail against a particular sin because it's the very sin they are guilty of. 

   • Yet another route would be the progressive gospel. Again they have chosen which master to serve, and for them it was culture and not God. 

   • Notice the running theme is that these kinds of leaders tend to be obsessed with something other than God, if your spiritual leaders are not obsessed with God alone then you should reconsider who you follow. 

3. If Christ came to redeem us, not condemn us (see Jn 3:17), then why does he take such a hard stance in v. 21-23?

   • Christ's second coming will be for judgement (see Mt. 25:31-46) and we will be held accountable for our failings. In this particular instance it is the false prophets who will be told this. Yet also this seems to also connect to us as well. Should we fail to see any actual inward transformation in our lives, then we have quite a reason to worry. Truly giving yourself to Christ comes with radical life transformation, if it doesn't then something has gone wrong.

4. What is the meaning of Jesus' example of foundations in v. 24-27? What might the different foundations mean? What could the rain and floods represent?

   • The rain and floods represent the storms of life. Life can go very wrong, and we can experience quite extreme lows. Yet if our foundation is built upon Christ's teaching then we will be able to hold firm and weather the storm. If we don't pay heed to Christ's teaching than we will be washed away when the storm hits. 

5. Thinking back to the whole of the Sermon on the Mount (starting in chapter 5) what are the key ideas Jesus is trying to convey?

   • We must be humble

   • We must be singularly obsessed with God alone, all other things are secondary to Him

   • We must change our wicked hearts. 

   • We must love and forgive others

   • we must seek only the praise of God and not the praise of man.

   • We must be changed from the inside out, refusing to just be actors.

6. Are any of these ideas contrary to our modern American culture?

   • Almost all of them, especially considering a commonly used modern phrase is "fake it till you make it"

7. How can we properly take heed of what Jesus has to say here? How do we build our house upon rock and not sand?

This week's session finishes out the sermon on the mount. Jesus has already made his main point, now he is just offering some extra information, primarily what to do with the wisdom that He has provided throughout his sermon.

Throughout the sermon Jesus describes a very difficult way of life. This is not the kind of difficult life we glorify in the multitude of stories of heroes who fight tooth and nail for a better life or what's right. Instead this is a difficult path because Jesus has demanded that we uplift all the comfortable things we have taken to in this fallen world. We are to live humbly, refusing the pride that comes naturally to us. We are to refuse personal vengeance. We are to willingly lay down our lives in inglorious ways for the sake of our faith. We are not to even be angry with people lest we commit murder in our hearts. Jesus is telling us to live lives completely obsessed with God and his ways, which inevitably consumes every bit of our otherwise mundane lives. 

This is why Jesus says to "Enter through the narrow gate" (Mt. 7:13 NASB). To live an ungodly life is really quite easy and undemanding of us. The reality is that Jesus, in this sermon, isn't calling us to be faithful in the huge moments of crisis, but rather in the quiet moments of life. Yes we are to be faithful in moments like Daniel in the lion's den. Yet in this sermon it's also emphasized that we are to also be faithful in the small moments, like Ruth collecting grain in Boaz' field. Every action and even every thought is being called into question by Jesus, both big and small. What Jesus asks of us throughout this sermon is quite hefty upon us, and it's only by the Spirit that indwells us that we have even the slightest hope of realizing the ideals Jesus set forth for us these past few weeks. 

In verse 15 Jesus goes on to give us a warning of false prophets coming to us like wolves in sheep's clothing. There are those who will come in the name of Jesus yet will proclaim falsehood and attempt to lead us astray. Luckily Jesus points out how we are to discern who is a false prophet. We must discern by looking at a person's life. Jesus has laid out what a good fruitful life looks like throughout this sermon, and He will expand on it even more as we continue on through Matthew. This is to say that if the leaders in your church are not living fruitful lives, then you must seriously question their positions. Remember that fruitful does not mean wealthy, but it means a life of spiritual growth as Jesus has suggested in this sermon as well as one dominated by good works. Both of these must be seen in the leader, v. 22 shows us exactly what happens if that leader even has the works right but doesn't have the right heart. 

In v. 24 we come to the last nugget of wisdom in this sermon. We are not only to hear Jesus' words here but live them out and build our lives upon them. Jesus has given a rather comprehensive personal ethic He expects us to follow, and this will be a solid foundation for our lives. By living a life fully focused on God we will be able to weather any storm that comes our way. If you don't believe me then look into the life of Horatio Spafford who wrote "It Is Well with My Soul." You'll learn that He wrote that song in response to his four daughters dying in a shipwreck (for more on his experience look here).

Sidenote from Jay

Congrats on making it this far! I can hardly believe it's already session 12. Around this time for me I'm getting ready to wrap up my MDiv and have concluded my internship that lead me to make this program. I trust that God will do with this program as He wills. Should He grow and prosper it, I will be here writing to you as I am now, completely captivated by Him. Should He not, then I will be sitting in awe of Him mostly by myself. Either way, it is well with my soul.