Hey everybody, I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. And if you didn't listen to yesterday's episode, this one's gonna be rough because it's just blatantly picking right up where I left off as we ran out of time. So we put a neat little snip in the middle and we're gonna resume right from the cutoff point from yesterday. So you might want to go and catch that one if you haven't already, so you're up to speed on everything. All right, let's get after it. Now at this point, when I hear somebody talk about this passage, there's a thing that a lot of times happens, not all the time, but a lot of times, where this passage effectively becomes a license for whoever has the microphone in front of them to just go on a tirade about all the things that would be unfaithful and make you outsiders. And it just tends to be an opportunity for pet preferences of the person with the mic to be like, and all the people who are like this and think that and do that and vote that way and think these dumb forbidden thoughts, they're gonna be out. And all the people who just happen to be exactly like me, they're the ones who are in. I'm not gonna do that because I think it's really screwed up. And I also think you're really smart, and you can read this for yourself and try to figure out what it looks like the values of the kingdom are and what it looks like it is to be a representative of the kingdom, instead of me just basically restating what all of my dumb opinions about everything are and then trying to jam those into the mouth of Jesus, which I think is like bad or something you're not supposed to do in Christianity. So I'll let you think about that for yourself. But the one thing that we can see is very, very clear is that positively, the person who does the will of the Father is the one who has some kind of thing to point to to be like, aha, that is not how I became an agent, a son, a daughter, an heir of the kingdom. But that is how somebody who's keeping track of this gate would know. That is how I might know that I'm actually in. It sounds a lot like that threefold test that we've talked about over the last two episodes in 1 John. Conversely, what we also see is the one specific example of what getting it wrong looks like is Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name and drive out demons and perform many miracles? So those are some very impressive sounding, mystical, magical, miracle-ish things that they're describing. But clearly the impression that we get is just pointing to those things and being like, I did some religious stuff, even stuff that impressed people. That is not some automatic punch of the admission ticket through the doors. Clearly, the key to being admitted to this kingdom is knowing the king. I never knew you. That's it. It's not you were bad, you were naughty, you said the F word and the A word way too many times. You were only allowed to say those 413 times, and you said them 417 times, you are out for naughtiness. No, it's just I don't know you, which circles us all the way back to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus sets up this conundrum where there's this beautiful kingdom with beautiful upside-down values and this beautiful currency, and there's a role to be played by people who are a part of this kingdom. And then people are no doubt wondering what do we do with the rest of our existing religion and how do we get into this cool kingdom that we want to be a part of? And Jesus is like, well, your righteousness would have to surpass that of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And people are like, oh no, nuts. I don't know if I can really do that. And then Jesus goes on to round out the idea of him as the fulfillment of the law, and the fulfillment of the law is that Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus as the ultimate high priest or go-between between God and man is the way flawed, not righteous people, which is all people, gain access to this kingdom. So very close to the front end of the Sermon on the Mount, we get that point driven home. And then very close to the back end of the Sermon on the Mount, we get that point driven home as well. I think for me, with the ups and downs of my Christianness or lack thereof at other moments, this might be the scariest passage in the entire Bible. You think you're getting stuff right, you really care about these things, you're in a religious setting, you do religious internet things, you don't do naughty things, and you're pretty sure you've put together this resume of Christian-y stuff, and just the idea of trotting that out at the metaphorical gates of the city, the metaphorical gates of the kingdom, at the moment in which a person faces judgment and all of this gets sorted out, and having the king be like, Well, okay, yeah, those are things a person could do. Uh, sure, yeah, great. But I don't know you and you don't know me. And this kingdom is for sons and daughters and heirs, and therefore you will get to keep the default setting of humanity, which is outside these walls, but not receive admission to it. That is mortifying to me. And I understand that there's this age-old debate within different pockets of Christianity about the role of good behavior in being a Christian or becoming a Christian. And you have some groups who would look at that question and they would focus maybe on the book of James and be like, wow, faith without works is dead. Would a dead faith really get you into heaven? So, therefore, admission to the kingdom of God must be a combination of knowing Jesus and being able to assent to or desire to assent to the Lord's prayer, and also then doing stuff that demonstrates through those actions that your faith is alive. And somehow, in combination, these things come together, and that is how someone is a Christian, is admitted to the kingdom. Other people would look at stuff more like Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 and be like, hmm, looks like it's by grace that we're saved, not by works, so that no one can boast. And even really good Christian stuff is works. And I tried to say that in such a way that there'd be some of you who are like, oh yeah, obviously the first one. And some of you would be like, oh yeah, obviously the second one. And then all of you would be like, wait, which one are you saying? I gotta turn over my cards here. I definitely believe that Ephesians 2, working through the book of Romans, the big picture of the teachings of Jesus, all point to kingdom admission happening only through grace, and that any Christian behavior or activity that comes after that, in keeping with the spirit of what we see in chapter six about religious activities, that all such things are an outgrowth, an expression of a spiritual reality that has already occurred, as Jesus the king has regenerated the fallen individual and made them no longer an object of rejection from the kingdom, but a son, a daughter, an heir, someone who is welcome into that kingdom. I don't think good behavior plays a role on the front end of that. The criminal on the cross certainly did not amend all of his behavior or have time to fix all of that. Yet his literal admission to the kingdom of heaven that day was assured by Jesus. So I am strongly in that camp. If you are in a camp where you would say, no, it is more of a combination of the grace of God along with human agency and good behavior. I would respectfully disagree with you, but hey, it's the internet. I'm in charge of nothing, the arbiter of nothing. And you can have a point that I don't see. But either way, I got to disclose that because that is a core, central, vital assumption of how I read this text. And if you don't know where I'm coming from and you can't detect and factor in my biases, it might be harder for you to get a clean read on what this text is really saying as we do it. So there's my disclosure, and I'm unashamed of it. I think the whole thing hangs together if the only way that righteousness that Jesus says is necessary to gain admission to this beautiful kingdom is achieved simply and exclusively by the proactive work of the infinite being in the equation, and has nothing to do with the effort and energy and self-perfecting attempts of the finite character in this equation. The finite can't make itself infinite, the broken can't make itself unbroken, the imperfect can't, by its own effort, make itself perfect again. Only that which operates outside the system, God, the only thing that operates outside the system, can speak into the imperfect and make it perfect. And right there, we're gonna do it to you again. I'm gonna do the hyper abrupt cutoff thing. We will resume exactly where we left off tomorrow and we'll round out this last chunk of the Sermon on the Mount together. Looking forward to getting after that tomorrow. I'm Matt. This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour Podcast. Let's do it again soon.