Matthew 7

Jesus kind of bounces around here at the end of the sermon and hits on a variety of topics.

Again, Jesus reminds us that we are in this together. All of humanity has sin and is in need of God's grace, so how can we judge one another. For every one little thing that we find wrong with someone else, God has another big thing wrong with us. Only the one that is perfect is fit to judge, and that means that only God is fit for the job.

Additionally, He reminds us that God give graciously to those that ask. He doesn't judge us for asking. He judges us for not asking. And just like we take care of our kids when they ask for help, of course, He will take care of us. So many people ask what will happen to the South American tribe that never heard of Christ, and Jesus is telling us right here that if they want to know Him, they just need to ask.

Finally, He says to watch out for false prophets. Look out for bad fruit that comes from a nice looking tree. Just like James says, we can't judge anyone's heart, but we can see evidence in their fruit of their relationship with God. It's not an end-all-be-all thing, but it's an indicator that we can use. If someone is not producing the fruit of the spirit, then we probably don't want them teaching in our churches. It doesn't mean that they are necessarily not a Christian, but it does mean that they could be dangerous to our spiritual health.

Just because someone calls himself a Christian and says that they pray to God, doesn't mean that they have any relationship with God. Jesus says that there will be plenty of people that use His name but that don't really understand what it means to have a relationship with Him. This will be no different than when Christ walked among the Jews as the Messiah. They had studied and prayed for so long and they truly believed that they understood God, but they couldn't even recognize His son when He was right there. How many people are in the church today that don't recognize Christ? How many people talk the talk but still have no idea what a relationship with Christ really looks like?