True or False?

Matthew 7:15-27

May 6, 2018 (Confirmation) • Mount Pleasant UMC

So, late last evening we returned home from a whirlwind trip to northwest Indiana, where we got to celebrate with our firstborn in his college graduation. While in my mind I am still young myself, I am now the father of a son with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Graphic Technology from Purdue University Northwest, and we couldn’t be prouder of him—especially since these last three years, he had to learn pretty quickly to navigate life on his own when, as he likes to tell it, his parents moved out on him! Nevertheless, yesterday was a huge moment of transition, for Christopher and for us as his parents. And though we tend to think of graduation as an ending, in reality it’s only a new beginning. It’s a moment, a transition, a time for reflection but more importantly, a time for moving on into the future you have been preparing for.

This morning, in our second service, we’re going to be celebrating a similar moment of transition, one we in the church call “Confirmation.” And while this is a significant moment, and while the four youth who are going to be confirmed in their faith this morning have completed a class, they are not graduating. Confirmation is a moment when these youth—Carter, Addyson, Baylee and Emma—have a chance to declare to their friends, family and this congregation that they are ready to take their baptismal vows personally. They are confirming their faith, making a public profession of their faith to the world—something that happens not just once, not just in this place, for every day for the rest of their lives as they live out their faith. Confirmation in the Christian faith draws heavily from what is called bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah in the Jewish tradition. In both cases, once their profession takes place, we consider these youth to be “adults” in the faith. They are making promises to God and to this congregation that from this day on they will walk with Jesus, seek to be his disciples, and no longer rely on their parent’s faith. So, this is not a graduation. It is much, much more.

Here’s the main difference: when you get a degree, generally you take a final exam and you either pass or fail. You get a grade, they hand you a diploma, and you’re out on your own, into the world to sink or swim. In the life of faith, though, all of that is turned upside down. I did tell the Confirmands that there would be final exam, that I could, this morning, ask them about anything they had learned in their class with Jess, but today is not really when the final exam takes place. In reality, the “final exam” is the rest of your lives, the way you live out this faith you come to profess this morning. There are no grades, and while we will hand you some paperwork this morning, there are no diplomas. But the best part? You aren’t sent out into the world to sink or swim on your own. Instead, you are becoming part of a larger family. This church family will also declare their willingness to walk alongside each confirmand this morning, and even more importantly, Jesus goes with you. As he said to the disciples long ago, he also says to every person who has chosen to follow him this morning: “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

So, in a very real sense, this is not an ending; this is a beginning. This is a fresh start, a moment of transition, meant for reflection as we move forward together. And lest we think otherwise, the world into which our confirmands are moving is not all that friendly to people of faith. History shows that it never really has been, but these days seem especially challenging to those who want to faithfully follow Jesus. There are opportunities to compromise, to drift off the path without realizing it, to cave into the challenges that might come against us. So, too, was the world Jesus came into. It was a difficult time, and so at the end of his inaugural address to those who wanted to follow him (an address we call the “sermon on the mount”), Jesus gave three “case studies” for life that provide instruction for all of us as we seek to live out this faith in the world we find ourselves in.

In essence, Jesus gives a final exam at the conclusion of the sermon, only it’s entirely made up of “true-false” questions. I once took a final like that. When I was in college, I took Horsemanship as one of my physical education credits. Don’t laugh. It was great fun; every week we went out to a local corral and learned the essentials of riding and caring for horses. Sure, there was a textbook, but you don’t learn how to ride from reading a book. The instruction we really needed was found on the days we were at the corral. At least that’s what I told myself, so I didn’t even open the book—until near the end of the course, the instructor told us the final exam would be made up of 210 true/false questions, taken entirely from the textbook and half of our grade would be from that test. I still remember the name of the textbook: “Happy Horsemanship.” I’m here to tell you: I was not a happy horseman when I took that test. It was the worst grade I got in all of my four years at Ball State—horsemanship. I’ve barely been on a horse since then, I was so traumatized! Jesus has a much shorter test in mind: three scenarios, three questions. He wants us to be alert for three falsehoods that show up in our world: false prophets, false disciples and false foundations.

“Watch out for false prophets,” Jesus says (7:15). In the Old Testament, there was a test to tell the difference between true and false prophets. Are you ready? It’s pretty complicated. Here it is: wait and see. If what they said was going to happen came to pass, they were true prophets. If it didn’t, they were false prophets. And that’s typically the way we think of prophets, but Biblically, the office or job of a prophet is so much more than that. Prophets don’t just tell the future; in fact, you could say a prophet’s job is more “forthtelling” than it is “foretelling.” They speak forth the word of God boldly, clearly and give direction to a community. The Old Testament prophets would speak about the nation of Israel and how they had strayed from God, then they would say something like, “Destruction will happen if you don’t turn away from your bad behavior and start listening to God.” Every one of them would have loved to be wrong about the future, because if the destruction didn’t come, that would have meant the people had listened. That was their real goal, their deepest desire. A prophet is only concerned about telling the future as it impacts the present and the people’s relationship with God. Now, Jesus has a more direct method of detecting truth and falsehood in someone who claims to be a prophet: look at their lives. Does the life of the person who is offering you advice match up with what they say? Do they walk the talk? Or, to use Jesus’ own words, “By their fruit you will recognize them” (7:16; Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part One, pg. 77).

Paul will later use this same imagery when he talks about how we know the Holy Spirit is working in someone’s life. The presence of the Spirit shows up in distinctive ways: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). He calls those traits the “fruit of the Spirit,” and he contrasts them with “the acts of the flesh” (things like immorality, impurity, witchcraft, jealousy, fits of rage and so on). This is fruit that does not naturally grow in us; it is evidence of the Spirit’s work in our lives. I like the way I heard a Bishop put it many years ago: what is there in our lives that can’t be explained except for Jesus? Granted, we are all works in progress. None of us are perfect, but is there evidence of fruit that is growing? That’s what Jesus is asking. Growing fruit is proof we’re in the presence of truth.

I think we also have to be discerning when it comes to a prophet’s message. That’s one reason I’m so insistent on sound Biblical teaching, good doctrine, understanding our faith well. It’s why I harp on each of us reading and studying the Scriptures regularly. We have to be people who know the Bible well, who have it (to borrow words from the Psalms) hidden in our hearts (Psalm 119:11; Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, pgs. 201-202). When people in the financial industry are trained to recognize counterfeit bills, they don’t spend their time studying all the varied types of fakes. They spend a lot of time intently studying the real. They come to know the real so well that they can spot a fake in an instant. The same should be true of each of us. We cannot spot false teaching if we don’t know the true, and there is a lot of fake teaching out there disguised as “Biblical” or “Christian” teaching; it’s even marketed that way and sometime gains a following. Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s sound. It’s imperative that we learn the true so we can spot the false.

The second case study Jesus puts forward is similar, and that’s the difference between true and false disciples. A similar scene is played out later in Matthew’s Gospel (in longer form), but here Jesus paints a brief picture of the end of time, when some people are surprised to learn that they weren’t followers of Jesus after all. They will object: “We did all the same things as those Christians did, maybe even more. We even did miraculous works!” And yet, despite those incredible acts, Jesus will tell them, “Away from me” (7:21-23). What makes the difference between true and false disciples?

Jesus doesn’t say you’re a true disciple of his if you belong to a particular church or a certain denomination. He doesn’t say you’re a true disciple if you grew up in youth group or never miss a Sunday in worship. He doesn’t say it depends on what translation of the Bible you use or how you take communion. He doesn’t even say you automatically become a true disciple when you are baptized, go through confirmation class, or join the church membership. True disciples are those whose hearts are changed, and the outward evidence of that is found in the way they obey. It’s not about “doing Christian things.” Jesus says it’s about obeying the will of his Father (7:21). The key to discipleship is found in why we do what we do—our motivation. Is it about doing what we want, or doing what Jesus wants? Every new year, when we share together in the praying of the Wesleyan covenant prayer, there is one line that captures my attention. Actually, there are several lines that challenge me in that prayer, but this one begs attention this morning: “Christ has many services to be done…in some we may please Christ and please ourselves. But then there are other works where we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves” (BOW 291). There are all sorts of people who talk about Jesus, who may even do Christian things, but their hearts are not changed. Jesus says he does not know those people because they do not know him (cf. Wright 78). They are false disciples.

The third case study Jesus puts forward is a building project—something we know a little bit about here at Mount Pleasant, right? Jesus contrasts two different builders: one who takes time to dig down into the dirt and make sure the new construction sits firmly on a solid foundation. This builder takes the time to assure that the building is firmly anchored to the rock. Another builder comes alongside the first and is in such a hurry to build—maybe he wants to catch up with the first, or maybe he sees it as a contest—but he ignores the plans and just builds his house right on the sand. Now, I don’t know a lot (or anything) about construction, but even I know this is a bad idea. Sure enough, when a storm comes along, the winds blow and blow and the house on the sand falls down while the house on the rock stands firm. It’s a story some of us may have sung about when we were younger, and I always remember, “The house on the sand fell FLAT!” The contrast is obvious: there are false foundations to build our lives on and there is a true foundation.

Tom Wright points out that just a hundred miles or so south of where Jesus is sitting, the largest building project in Israel at the time was taking place. Herod the Great, Israel’s king who loved building projects, had started rebuilding and remodeling the Jewish Temple somewhere around 19 BC, using some 10,000 skilled laborers. It was to be his masterpiece, and construction was ongoing during Jesus’ ministry (it was in it’s 46th year at that point, John 2:20). Everyone knew about this project, built as it was on top of a rocky outcropping. It was a house for God built on the rock. Undoubtedly, as Jesus talks about having a firm foundation, many people’s minds would have thought of the Temple. What could be more secure, in their minds, than this house that pointed toward God? What, indeed? And yet, a few chapters later, Jesus will tell his followers that the Temple will come crashing down (cf. Matthew 24:1-2)—which, indeed, it did in the year 70 AD, only 7 years after its construction was completed. The Roman army showed the Temple no mercy; the only piece left standing was a retaining wall along the side of the rock, a wall now known as the Western Wall or the Wailing Wall. Jesus, by his very words, is showing that the things we think we can trust in, structures and rules and regulations and even human-made religion, will all come crashing down. Along the way, Jesus had told one of his disciples that he would be a rock, a stone, or, as Michael Card calls, him a fragile stone (Matthew 16:13-20). “You are Peter,” Jesus says, “and on this rock [‘Peter’ means ‘rock’] I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (16:18). Now, contrary to our Catholic brothers and sisters, we don’t believe the church is built on Peter himself, but instead on his confession of faith in Jesus. That’s what forms a firm foundation: confessing Jesus as Savior, trusting him as Lord. Whether we’re just being confirmed or have been walking this Christian journey for a long, long time, we need the same foundation. True disciples hear Jesus’ words and put them into practice (cf. 7:24).

True or false prophets. True or false disciples. True or false foundations. The difference in every situation is Jesus. Faith in Christ is what gives purpose to our lives, what gives direction to our days and what gives us truth for the journey. Jesus didn’t just come to give us eternal life somewhere and somewhen. He came so that we could live eternal life, an adventure-filled life, right here and now. That doesn’t mean everything is sunshine and roses when you’re confirmed or when you choose to trust in Jesus. In fact, it almost seems as if it’s just the opposite. When we begin to follow Jesus, sometimes things get more difficult because all of a sudden we have an enemy who wants to see us fail. At the end of this passage, Jesus is describing a storm that comes up suddenly, one that blows and beats against our spiritual house. Earlier in this sermon, he says we are blessed when (not if) “people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you” because of him (5:11). In times like that, he says, we can “rejoice and be glad” (5:12). And you want to say, “Are you nuts, Jesus?” No, he’s a realist. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Not “you might” or “it could happen.” You WILL have trouble. Standing with Jesus does not make life easy or the road less rocky. But it does give us someone to walk with, someone who will hold onto us when life gets hard. And he gives us a family—his family—to surround us when the skies grow dark and the storm gathers.

As I thought back over my twenty-five years as a pastor, a lot of names and faces came to mind, of faithful followers of Jesus who nevertheless found that life wasn’t always easy. Ethel was one of those saints. When I met her, she was in her eighties. She had quit driving voluntarily when she realized she couldn’t back out of the church parking lot safely, so her kids brought her to church every week. She had a large family, but in the years I was her pastor, I buried two of her children, and one had died before I got to that church. She told me once, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen. I’m not supposed to still be here when my kids die.” The second funeral I did for her family, I watched as the grief nearly broke Ethel. She literally fell to the ground at the cemetery because of grief. And yet, her faith never wavered. The promises she had made to Jesus at her baptism and confirmation many decades before held true and held onto her through a difficult time. Her Savior and her church family walked with her through the valley of the shadow of death. And when she was 92, Ethel went home to see the savior who had been with her through it all. She could face the storms of life because her life was built on a true foundation, Jesus.

Carter, Addyson, Baylee and Emma come this morning to publicly affirm and confirm what is already true: that Jesus is true and we can build our lives on him, just as they are. He is the firm foundation. He is a savior who is true and who loves all of us beyond imagining. For each one of them this morning, this is not an end, not a “final exam,” not at all. This is only the beginning of the great adventure, of a life lived with Jesus.

(8:30) So this morning, to affirm our faith and our standing in the truth that is Jesus Christ, we’re going to share in the act that he left us with, the practice he said to do often. This morning, we’re going to come to the table and share in the bread and the cup, these two tokens Jesus said to share as a reminder of his love for us. The bread—his body. The cup—his blood. This act—a reminder that he gave everything he had and everything he was for our sake, to show us how much he loves us. It also reminds us that we’re called to give everything we have and everything we are for his sake. So let’s come to the table in gratitude and worship this morning as we celebrate Jesus, the firm foundation.

(10:45) In just a few moments, our four confirmands are going to come and we’re going to celebrate their faith—but in doing so, we mean to remember as well the promises and commitments we have made to Jesus. You may remember your actual baptism, or you may only remember that you have been baptized. You may remember your confirmation or you may not. Ultimately those events are only pointers anyway, reminders that we belong to Jesus. That’s what today is about: belonging to him. The apostle John was writing to a friend of his, and in celebrating what he had heard about this friend’s faith, John wrote words that Christian parents have used for centuries to describe their own feelings: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are waking in the truth” (3 John 4). As these youth come to confirm their faith, I pray that each and every one of us will find ourselves, once again, confirming our faith as well.