Do You Trust Jesus Enough to Follow Him? | The Upside Week 7

In this message, Pastor Rodney concludes **The Upside** series through the Sermon on the Mount by asking one of the most important questions Jesus places before us: **Do we trust Jesus enough to actually follow Him?**

Throughout Matthew 5–7, Jesus has shown us what life in the Kingdom of God looks like. He has challenged the way we think about blessing, anger, desire, retaliation, loving our enemies, prayer, possessions, worry, trust, and what we seek first. But as Jesus reaches the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the question shifts from simply hearing His teaching to deciding what we are going to do with it.

In Matthew 7:13–29, Jesus gives us several powerful pictures: **two roads, two kinds of fruit, two professions, and two foundations.** Each one points us toward the same reality—there is a difference between admiring Jesus and following Jesus.

The broad road may be popular and comfortable, but Jesus reminds us that the size of the crowd tells us nothing about the destination. The narrow road leads to life because the King knows where the road leads. Following Jesus isn't about adding Christianity onto a life we've already decided to live; it's about surrendering the direction of our lives to Him.

Jesus also tells us that fruit reveals what is forming us. Spiritual language, popularity, influence, or outward religious activity aren't substitutes for genuinely knowing Christ. The question isn't whether we're perfect, but whether we are being formed by Jesus. When genuine followers stumble, they return to Him in repentance, receive His restoration, and continue following.

Finally, Jesus describes two people who hear His words and build two houses. One builds on rock and the other on sand. The difference becomes clear when the storm arrives. In the same way, we build the foundations of our lives through ordinary decisions—how we respond when we're angry, what occupies our minds, how we handle money, which voices shape us, how we respond to anxiety, and what we seek first.

The wise life isn't simply a life that **hears** Jesus. It is a life built on trusting Him enough to **follow**.

And why can we trust this King with our lives? Because the King who asks us to surrender our lives is the same King who surrendered His life for us. Through the cross and resurrection, Jesus shows us that the narrow road isn't about making life smaller—He is leading us away from the things that destroy us and into the life we were created to live.

The Sermon on the Mount eventually becomes Monday morning. The question isn't whether we can live everything Jesus taught perfectly. The question is whether we trust Him enough to build our lives on Him when His words confront us, when obedience costs us, when following Him puts us out of step with the crowd, and when the storms of life come.

**Don't merely admire the road. Follow the King. Because life really is better in the Kingdom.**

📖 **Main Scripture:** Matthew 7:13–29
📖 **Additional Scripture:** Matthew 5–7; John 10:10

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