Four pictures close the Sermon on the Mount, and they look like four warnings. They are one test asked four ways: what does a person do?
Start with the gate. 13"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many." Two roads, easy and hard, and Jesus says only a few find the narrow one. That was a sterner version of the old image than many of his hearers expected. The narrow way is also a gate, an entrance, something you go through. A little later in his teaching Jesus says of himself, "I am the door" (John 10:9). The way in is a person, and the narrowness is the narrowness of one door that opens for anyone who comes to it. The road after the gate is where the doing begins.
Then the trees. 15"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing." 16"You will recognize them by their fruits." What grows out of a life over time is the test, however large the following or convincing the voice. The disguise covers the outside only, and the fruit shows what is inside. Fruit takes seasons to show, so the test rewards patience. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a diseased one cannot fake good fruit for long.
Then comes the hardest line in the sermon. Many will say, 22"Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?" Prophecy, exorcism, and miracles, all under Jesus' name, make a resume most congregations would be thrilled to see. Jesus answers, 23"I never knew you." That claim is more absolute than losing track of someone over time. It describes a relationship that, despite everything visible, was never there. Only God gets to say that about a human heart, which means Jesus quietly claims an authority the rest of Scripture reserves for God.
Finally the builders, and the test is plain. Both men hear the same words. One does them and one does not, and that is the whole difference between the house that stands and the house that falls, and 27"great was the fall of it." The storm, rain and floods and wind, is a picture the prophets used for God's own coming judgment. Hearing without doing is building on sand.
When Jesus finishes, the crowds are astonished, 29"for he was teaching them as one who had authority." Even that fits the sermon's argument. The scribes built their authority by quoting other authorities. Jesus simply spoke, expecting to be obeyed, because that has been the difference all along: what a person goes and does beneath everything they hear, say, or even perform in his name.
Ask which of your words have not yet become actions, and start with the smallest one.
Prayer
Father, thank you that Jesus asks for more from us than words, however sincere, or performances, however impressive. Let our lives be known by their fruit. Give us the courage to do what we have heard. And when the storms come, let us find that we built on something solid enough to hold. In Jesus' name, amen.