<p>7:21&nbsp;<em>Not everyone that says to me: Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven-&nbsp;</em>Mt. 7:21 = Rom. 2:13. Paul saw the &quot;Lord, Lord&quot; people of the parable as the Jews of the first century who initially responded enthusiastically to the Gospel. The contrast is between saying &quot;Lord, Lord&quot; in this life, and then in the future not entering into the Kingdom (&quot;in that day&quot;, :22). The contrast is between merely&nbsp;<em>saying</em>&nbsp;and actually&nbsp;<em>doing</em>. The Lord repeats the idea in His mini parable of the two sons; the one who 'said' he would be obedient, and the other who 'did' the will of his father (Mt. 21:30,31). The acceptance of Christ as Lord means that we are as His servants and slaves; it is for us to 'do' His will and work. This fits with the context of the preceding verses- that if He is really our Lord, we will inevitably&nbsp;<em>do</em>&nbsp;His will, and that doing will be actual, practical and visible. It is the false prophets who merely say but don't&nbsp;<em>do</em>, just as they claim to be good trees but don't have good fruit.</p>
<p><em>But he that pleases my Father who is in heaven</em>- Or, &quot;does the will&quot;. Allowing the Sermon to interpret itself, we see an obvious connection with our prayer asking &quot;Your will be done&quot; (Mt. 6:10). If that request was just asking for God to do His will, it would be easy to pray and also somewhat meaningless. But the connection with Mt. 7:21 means that we are asking that&nbsp;<em>we</em>&nbsp;do God's will. And doing His will is difficult, slow progress, building on a rock- as the rest of Matthew 7 records. The Lord's prayer in Gethsemane demonstrates the difficulty of praying for the Father's will to be done in our lives- prayed there with sweat like drops of blood (Mt. 26:42). So we are to pray for strength to do God's will, for spiritual strength to live obediently to the principles of the Sermon. 1 Jn. 5:14 encourages us that if we ask for anything &quot;according to&nbsp;[<em>kata</em>] His will, He hears us&quot;. But asking&nbsp;<em>kata</em>&nbsp;His will could just as well be translated 'in order to fulfil'. If we want strength to do His will in practice, He will give it to us. And His will is expressed here in Matthew 5-7 quite clearly.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&quot;The will of My Father in Heaven&quot; is a fairly common phrase with the Lord (Mt. 12:50; 18:14; John's equivalent seems to be 'to do the will of Him that sent Me', Jn. 4:34; 5:30; 6:38,39,40). The idea seems to be that we on earth can do the will of Him who is in one sense so far away from us, &quot;in Heaven&quot;; and thereby collapse that distance between us.&nbsp;</p>