Last week we discussed Jesus’ announcement that not everyone that calls Him Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said that those who enter the kingdom of heaven are those who do the will of His Father. For some people this statement is a battle because we stand firmly on Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one may boast.” We are saved by grace and yet Jesus says that those who enter the kingdom of heaven are those who do the will of God, is there a contradiction here? If there is a contradiction it is not in the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of Paul it is in our understanding and teaching of God’s will. If salvation is not of works and the kingdom of heaven is open to those who do the will of the Father then that must mean that the will of God for our lives is not about our acts and actions; it must mean that God’s will is not merely about where I live, who I marry, what occupation I choose or what steps I will choose to take today. God’s will must be deeper, it must be more grand, more eternal, more about the heart than the hands, more about developing a relationship than establishing a religious routine. That is not to say that God doesn’t concern Himself with where we live; He called Abram and told him to leave his country and go to a new one that He would show Him. It doesn’t mean that God is not concerned with who you should marry; He miraculously provided Rebecca for Isaac not to mention fashioned Eve from Adam’s rib simply because it was not good for man to be alone. It doesn’t mean that God is not concerned with your occupation; He gifted David to be a shepherd, a musician, a warrior and a king. What this means is that the temporary flows from the eternal, all of the steps of this life come from devotion to the relationship that will never end, when we are devoted to God our earthly steps are made more clear because they are less important to us. During a particular difficult time in the ministry of Jesus and the apostles Jesus asked the disciples if they were going to leave Him the way many others had left, Peter said “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.” Peter’s statement was, in this moment we don’t understand what is happening, we are not even sure we understand what you are saying, but we have come to know who you are and in that we have nowhere else we are willing to go. They had come to understand that the will of God was not what they did on God’s behalf or even God’s leading, the will of God was that they know Him, love Him, trust Him and follow Him. There is no contradiction, God wills that none would perish and so He is long suffering with us, He makes Himself known to all of us, Jesus was sent to die all of us because God has so loved all of us, those who enter the kingdom of heaven are not those who get God’s attention, they are those who give their attention and affection to God by receiving the grace that has been afforded to them. Denying ourselves is when we give up trying to get God’s approval; carrying the cross is when we come to believe that Jesus’ rejection became our approval, that God’s wrath upon Him was at the same time God’s grace upon us and following Jesus is when we, like Paul, believe that One died for all and as such, those of us who live should live for Him. We are not saved by doing the will of God unless we realize that doing the will of God is being saved. Today we are going to look at verses 22 and 23 of Matthew 7, we are going to look at them backwards and discover that the will of God is the absence of lawlessness, the reality of relationship and the freedom to watch everything in this world diminish as we set our eyes, our hearts, our thoughts and most of all our love upon our Father in heaven through the work and example of Jesus His Son.