Don't Kid Yourself
June 21, 2026
Have you ever heard of the placebo effect? It is what happens when a person’s health improves not because of any real treatment, but simply because they believed it would work. Most delusions are harmless, but Jesus warned about one kind that carries eternal consequences. And He is not talking to atheists or agnostics in this passage. He is not talking about those who are far from God—He is talking about people who walked an aisle, filled out a card, said a prayer, got baptized, and were absolutely convinced they were on the right road. As He closed the Sermon on the Mount, He said the most sobering words I have ever read: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21, NIV). Three warnings from Jesus will help you make absolutely certain you are not kidding yourself.
In this series
Get Used To Different
For many years, I have been thinking about preaching through the greatest sermon that has ever been preached: Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It can be read in roughly ten minutes and yet of all the things that Jesus taught, this sermon has been written about more, studied more, examined more, and talked about more than anything else that Jesus ever taught. We are going to entitle this series, “Get Used To Different,” because that is exactly what you are going to have to get used to if you are going to take Jesus seriously and trust in Jesus completely.
