The Kingdom ManifestoSample

Two Gates/Trees/Disciples/Builders

Choices lie before us every day.

Will I be a man of principle or not?

Will I treat my family well or not?

Will I work with integrity or not?

Will I honor the Lord with my words and actions or not?

And on and on the list goes.

As Jesus wraps up the Sermon on the Mount, He lays out four different opposing binaries:

· A narrow gate which leads to life vs. a wide gate that leads to destruction (v.13-14).

· True prophets, likened to good trees that bear good fruit, vs. false prophets, likened to bad trees bearing bad fruit (v. 15-20).

· True disciples, who know and trust the Lord, vs. false disciples, who lean on their good works but don’t truly know Him (v. 21-23).

· A wise man who metaphorically built his house on solid rock by following Jesus' teachings, vs. a foolish man who built his house on unstable sand by ignoring Jesus’ teachings (v. 24-29).

In each pairing, Jesus portrays the good vs. the bad, the true vs. the false in His Kingdom.

In this fallen world, people naturally choose the path of least resistance (the wide gate), but citizens of the Upside-Down Kingdom take on the harder job of finding the narrow path of righteousness in Jesus.

We naturally tend to be attracted to leaders who look impressive, but citizens of the Upside-Down Kingdom look deeper than the surface and examine the fruit beneath.

We might expect that good works will get us into Heaven, but true citizens of the Upside-Down Kingdom know that we can’t earn our way there; we only get in by trusting Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-9).

And while our natural tendency is to do our own thing, citizens of the Kingdom know that the words of Jesus are the very words of life (John 6:68) and take obeying and following Him very seriously.

There are two paths before every man: one leads to life, and the other to death (Deuteronomy 30:19), and we make choices towards one way or the other every single day.

Men of the Kingdom fix their eyes on Jesus, put their trust in Him, take His words seriously, and follow Him and His ways.

We do this because it is the very pathway to eternal life in the Upside-Down Kingdom of Heaven (John 14:6).

Prayer: Lord, thank You for the powerful teaching of Your Sermon on the Mount! Help me to take Your words seriously and follow Your ways, putting this teaching into practice in every part of my life. Amen.

Reflection: Which part of the Sermon on the Mount most impacted you this week? What steps must you take to live it out more intentionally in your life?

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