MATTHEW 7:15-29 Lesson 12
CHOOSING LEADERS

I. Introduction:
Q Who has been the most influential person in your life?
Q What is it that was so influential. How did they influence you?
Note: We are influenced by others, by those around us and especially by those whose words we take seriously. All of us have had good examples and bad examples in our lives.
Note: The key thing is that we are free to choose “who will influence us”. We can decide who will speak to us the truth about life and about God. This is Jesus’ last teaching before His famous closing about the “house built upon the rock”.
Jesus says we must pick our leaders and because He loves us He gives to do it.

II. The Warning: “Practice” or “Action” Is The Key Factor. Matthew 7:15-20.
A. The Basic Warning: Matthew 7:15.
>>>> Have someone read Matthew 7:15.
Q What is the warning? What characteristic do such false prophets have?
An = They are not what they appear. Key = inwardly they are worse than they appear outwardly. They appear as gentle lambs, but inwardly want to destroy or use you.
Note: Jesus will not just warn us to beware of false leaders but show us practically how to discover them. So, He gave us three words of advice.
B. The Basic Criterion: First Word of Advice, Matthew 7:16.
>>>> Have someone read Matthew 7:16-18.
Q What does He mean: “You will know them by their fruits?”
An = The answer is in what follows in the rest of verse 16 and the next two verses.
>>>> Have someone re-read Matthew 7:16b-18.
Note: Jesus uses metaphors from the realm of nature: He used agricultural examples to illustrate His points. You do not get grapes from “torn bushes”. Jesus was teaching what a man did revealed who that person was.
Q Should young women believe everything a young man tells you?
An = Many guys have a lot of “great lines”. Experience shows you to believe little of what you hear. How a young man treats you as well as how he treats others is the key.
Q But in spiritual matters what fruit do we look for? Should it be Doctrine or how often they quote the Bible? What fruit is being referred to?
An = We are reading the Sermon on the Mount, and so all that went before should be our guide to what should be in a person who tells us about God. Let me illustrate:
>> Have someone read Matthew 6:1 If they are doing good things, do they show off? If they do then beware!! Do they tell you how good they are? Beware.
>> Have someone read Matthew 7:1-2 Are they constantly judgmental? Then beware. Are they always aware of others faults but never their own? Beware.
>> Have someone read Matthew 5:28. Do they scope women down? Beware.
>> Have someone read Matthew 5:4. Ever notice that those who are often the most profound are those who have suffered?
Note: You see it would be good to really know what Jesus says and wants so you can see if these qualities are in those who try and tell you about God. You have to know what Jesus says if you are going to be able to check fruit. You can not look for good fruit if you do not know what good fruit is!!!
>>>> Have someone read Matthew 7:19-20.
Note: Note that Jesus again repeats, so we will not forget, what is so important in determining good leadership. Check their fruit! Not how they talk but what is in their lives!
Q What is Jesus saying in 7:19?
An = That there will be judgment for those who do not live the life. You see it does not matter what you think of me as your leader, but what I really am. I will be judged, as all leaders will be in the end of time by what we truly are! It is not how leaders “image” but who they really are.
Note: There will be a judgment and that includes us leaders. Let us see how Bible study leaders, pastors, ministers, school leaders, etc., will be judged.
B. Coming Judgment on Hypocrisy: Second Word of Advice, Matthew 7:21-23.
Note: Jesus is a good teacher. He uses in the next few verses a very affective teaching device: an imagined “time-travel” into the future. He will transport His audience to the end of time and let them see the final judgment. This is so we can make good judgments now, since we are aware of what the “final” judgment will be based on.
>>>> Have someone read Matthew 7:21.
Q What does this verse mean? What does the phrase “Lord, Lord” mean?
An = In Israelite society of that time they were forbidden to speak the divine Name for God: “Jehovah”, “Yahweh” or “Yahve'” because they did not want to “take the Lord’s Name in vain”. If they did not speak the Name, they were less likely to violate its sanctity. Whether that was the best way to obey the third of the Ten Commandments is debatable, but what it did to their reading of the Old Testament is interesting and has bearing on our understanding this verse.
Through out the Old Testament is the phrase in Hebrew: “adonnai, Yahweh”. Simply translated: “Lord Yahweh”, in our English translations: Lord God. What it meant is: “Yahweh is Lord”. The verb “to be” is often left out in Hebrew. So “Adonnai Yahweh” is a confession of faith: “I confess that, Yahweh, He is Lord”.
However, since the Jews would not say the word: “Yahweh” anymore, the phrase someone would hear in a Jewish synagogue service was: “Adonnai, Adonnai” or “Lord, Lord”, or in Greek: “Kurie, Kurie”, or in the new coming Christian communities: “Jesus is Lord”, or “I confess Jesus is my Lord and Savior”. “Lord, Lord”, in the ancient communities, was a confession of faith, of professed loyalty to God.
Q So what is Jesus saying in Matthew 7:21?
An = Just saying I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, or just confessing Jesus Christ as my Savior will not be enough. “Not everyone who says to Me, I am Lord, will enter in the kingdom of heaven.”
In other words, many who confess, even to God that they believe, will not be a part of God’s kingdom. This also applies to us as ministers. I can proclaim God, pray to God all I want, but it will not be enough.
Q So what else is needed according in 7:21?
An = We have to actually do the will of God who is in heaven.
Q So what is verse 21 saying in a nut shell?
An = It does not matter what a prophet, a leader, a teacher confesses but also what he or she does! CHECK THE FRUIT!!
C. Not the Spectacular Gifts, But Faithful Obedience/Submission: Third Word of Advice, Matthew 7:22-23.
>>>> Have someone read Matthew 7:22-23.
Q What is this final warning about?
An = This seems confusing. So let’s break the metaphor down.
Q What four things did these people do in God’s Name?
An = Confess Him, prophesy in His Name, cast out demons, and do miracles in Jesus’ Name. Those who do such things must certainly be true teachers of the will of God!!!
Q Does Jesus agree?
An = Seemingly not!
Note: In the early church the most powerful spiritual gift was the gift of prophesy (see I Corinthians 14:1); being able to speak forth the will of God by divine aid from God. Prophesy is a public gift and the greatest of them all. Notice that casting out demons and doing miracles are also public displays of God’s power working through an individual. Public displays of spiritual power do not make us great men or great women of God. To be able to do these things is a gift from God. It is God who is great, not us who pass along the blessings those gifts have.
The key is not successful ministry but the key is that we are truly obedient to Him!
>>>> Re-read Matthew 7:23.
Q What does Jesus mean: “I never knew you?”
An = He did not know us personally. So even if we did the great spectacular works of God, but did not know Him we will be negatively judged. What does it mean to know Him? The NIV says you are “evildoers” and that is a good translation but the better translation is “depart from Me you who are lawless”. In other words, if My Word does not have authority over your actions then you are not “under the law”, you are in rebellion. In other words, WE MUST HAVE FRUIT as described in the Sermon on the Mount, not just successful religious service!! There might be many people who confessed Jesus as Lord and did healing or miracles and wind up in hell.
>>>> Have someone read Luke 6:46.
Q So how do we determine who should guide us and influence us?
An = Do such leaders actually listen to Jesus’ teaching, do they have the fruit described in Matthew 5-7. It is not enough to make a Christian confession or even to be used of God in a mighty way, but whether they actually obey the teachings on the Sermon on the Mount.
Q Is Jesus against miracles or confession of Faith?
An = Of course not! In chapters 8 and 9 of Matthew Jesus will do large amounts of miracles and exorcisms. He is just saying, there is no short cut to obedience.

III. Conclusion the Sermon On the Mount: Matthew 7:24-29
>>>> Have someone read Matthew 7:24-27
Q How does one build their rock or their life on solid rock?
An = He who hears and acts upon the words in this sermon. It not “being a Christian actually obeying His words”.
Q Does this metaphor refer to this life or the life to come?
Q Is there an option to obedience.
An = It is so sad to read “and great was its fall”. It is not optional.
>>>> Have someone read in conclusion Matthew 27:28-29.