The Lordship of Christ: Introduction

John MacArthur 90-20

— “Christ has been my Savior,” you hear people give testimony and say, “and now I want to make Him Lord of my life.”

— You need to make Christ Lord of your life.  You hear this often.

“Christ has been my Savior,” you hear people give testimony and say, “and now I want to make Him Lord of my life.”  Very often we would go to a conference or a retreat, or there would be some kind of a special emphasis meeting, and people would say, “Yes, I’ve been a Christian and Christ has been my Savior, but He’s never been Lord of my life.”  And usually people like that are trying to explain how it can happen that at some time in their life they accepted Christ as Savior and nothing ever changed, basically.  In fact, that might be an experience that many of you can identify with.  You go back to some point in your life as a child or a young person when you “accepted Christ,” made a decision for Christ, and you look at that as the moment of your salvation though basically nothing really changed in your life.

You came to another point in your life, a crisis point, and maybe someone told you that you needed to make Christ Lord of your life and you did that thinking that was some second step, and things changed.

To demonstrate this type of thinking, one well-known preacher said:

“The point at which you really become a disciple, the point at which you really make Christ Lord of your life, usually comes sometime in your 30’s.”

—This thinking is frankly, behind almost all contemporary evangelism.

— Almost all contemporary evangelism reflects this mentality, whether it’s television evangelism, crusade evangelism, stadiums, tents, churches, whatever it is.  Most evangelistic tracts and books and things like that are based upon this kind of thinking.

— You want to use a lot of emotion.  There is often subtle pressure and very often manipulation, singing multiplied verses of lilting songs endeavoring to get people moving.  There is even the strategy in many, many evangelist crusades where people are instructed that when the invitation is begun, and this is pretty common in churches too, there are certain people selected to start coming down the aisles to get the flow going and what these people are doing is really priming the pump to get people in the flow to make it happen.

— There are parents who cling to the fact that at some point in their child’s life they made a decision for Christ, and even though they are presently living in gross sin and defiance of God’s law and do not even acknowledge Jesus as Lord, they are still saved because of that decision.  They’ve just never made Him lord.  I’ve had parents say to me, “I know my son is a homosexual.  He has chosen that lifestyle.  I know my daughter has absolutely no regard for the things of Christ, but I know they were saved.  I remember the time they made their decision.”  Parents cling to this.

— It conveys the idea that salvation is some momentary transaction that secures forever but doesn’t necessarily transform your life and does not involve acknowledging Jesus as Lord of your life and submitting your life to Him

— When do you hear someone say, “Are you willing to repent of your sin and bow your knee in submission to the Lordship of Christ? Are you willing to allow Jesus Christ to take over as King and Ruler of your life?”

— What you hear is accept Christ, receive Christ, make a decision for Christ

Many influential Christians deny the need to receive Christ as Lord and Savior

— One writer, a writer who is leading the parade against the Lordship of Christ, wrote:

“It is precisely this impressive fact that the Lord asks for no spiritual commitment that distinguishes the true gospel from all its counterfeits.”

— Did you get that? 

— He says, “It is precisely the fact that the Lord asks for no spiritual commitment that distinguishes the true gospel from all its counterfeits.”  In other words, if you ask anybody to commit their life to Christ and turn from their sin and follow Christ, be obedient to Him, you have a counterfeit gospel.

— Another writer says, and I’m quoting, “It is possible, even probable, that when a believer, out of fellowship, falls for certain types of philosophy, if he is a logical thinker, he will become an unbelieving believer.  Believers who are agnostics are still saved.  They are still born again.”  Listen to this one, “You can even become an atheist, but if you once accept Christ as Savior you cannot lose your salvation even though you denied God.”

— Jesus said in Matthew 10, “You deny me before men and I’ll” – what – “I’ll deny you before my Father.”

— Paul writing to Timothy, 2 Timothy 2:12 –“If you deny Him,” same idea, “He’ll deny you.”

I was absolutely shocked to discover the writer who was most prolific in this is saying that if you believe at the moment of salvation, you never need to believe again the rest of your life because it’s only that moment that counts.  Frightening.  Let alone submit to the Lordship of Christ.  You could even become an unbeliever, agnostic, atheist.  He said, “Persevering in faith, that is continuing in belief, is not a factor of true salvation.”  It isn’t?  My Bible says in Colossians I that you’re saved if you continue in – what – in the faith.  Every call to discipleship, they say, every time Jesus says leave father and mother and forsake all and follow me – he says that over and over again.  Take up your cross, deny yourself, be willing to die.  If you put your hand on the plow and look back you’re not worthy to be my disciple.  If you have to go and bury your father and you’re not willing to follow me at all costs, you can’t be my disciple.  You know all those calls to discipleship, calls to death, calls to sacrifice, calls to lay your life down, calls to obedience, calls to submission.  They say all of those are Jesus calling already redeemed people to the second step.  So they take the whole ministry of Jesus and instead of it being evangelism, it becomes calls to people who are already saved to come to the second level.  The problem with that is Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but” – what – “sinners to repentance.  The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”  You have just taken the Lord Jesus out of His evangelistic ministry if you have that view, but I’ll tell you what.  You can’t hold to the non-Lordship view unless you do that to all those invitations of Christ because every call to discipleship He ever gave was so strong.

— The fallout of all of this is defective doctrine

— This has also been described as a carnal Christian, that the carnal Christian is the one who made the decision to save, took forgiveness, got the guarantee of Heaven, and then lives a life of total disarray with himself still on the throne.

— There used to be a little booklet that Campus Crusade put out.  It had one circle with all kinds of chaos and self on the throne.  That was the natural man unregenerate.  The second circle had all kinds of chaos with self on the throne of the life and then the Holy Spirit stuck in the circle.  That’s the safe person.  The Holy Spirit’s there, He’s just not in charge.

— The third circle had perfect order in the life, a little throne, and the Holy Spirit was on the throne and self was in the corner.  That’s the spiritual Christian.

So the typical call to salvation comes like this, “Accept Jesus.  Ask Jesus into your heart.  Make a decision.  Believe.”  And that seems to be it.  Now all of those are biblical thoughts and concepts.  It’s not that in and of themselves they’re lies, it’s just that they’re so incomplete.  We hear people say, “Well, you need to pray to receive Christ.”  And then they say to someone who prays a little prayer, “Now you can be sure you’re saved,” and they give them a little assurance thing without talking about what kind of invitation Jesus would have used such as, “Follow me.  Forsake all.  Lay down your life.  Submit to my authority.  Turn from your sins.  Repent.  Obey.”

— Those who teach that no commitment is needed often go to John 3:14 .

— Verse 14:  “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.  And whoever believes may in Him have eternal life.”  And they say see, all you have to do is look and believe.  Just look and believe.  Just look and believe.  Quoting from one of them who says, “There is no idea of committal of life, no question concerning the lift of the looker, no possibility of surrender to the object of the vision.”  Just look, believe, that’s it. 

— They go to John 4, the woman at the well, and they say all Jesus said was, “Drink.”  But what they forget is when the woman said, “Give me the water that I may drink,” He didn’t give it to her.  He started to tell her about her – what – her sin.  There was something yet to be covered

— One very familiar writer to us who has even put together a very popular and wonderful study Bible says, “Christians can leave God out of their lives and live according to the old nature.”

In Matthew 19:16, here’s the single best illustration of the evangelism of Jesus.

Verse 16, “One came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good things shall I do that I may have eternal life?  How may I have eternal life?”  That’s the question.  How do I get eternal life?  Jesus said, “Why are you asking me about what’s good?  There’s only one who is good.  If you want to enter your life” – do what – “keep the commandments.”  Is that the right answer?  Is that the right answer?  If somebody came to you and said what do I do to get eternal life, would you say keep the commandments?  You say that’s works, that’s works, that’s works.  Why did Jesus say that?  Why didn’t he say, “Oh, believe, except make a decision.”  In a moment of time, believe.  No, he said keep the commandments.  He said, “Which ones?” verse 18.  Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness.  Honor your father and mother.  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  He picked out the second half of the Decalogue of the 10 commandments.  And he meant not only outwardly, but inwardly because of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, “Whatever the law said it said not only to action of a man, but to the thought life of a man.”

So He said keep those commandments.  The young man said, “All these things I have kept.  What am I lacking?”  See, he says when I look at my life, huh, I’m perfect.  I don’t murder.  I don’t hate anybody.  I’ve never committed adultery.  I’ve never had an evil thought about doing it.  I’ve never stolen.  I’ve never even coveted.  I’ve never lied.  I’ve never even thought about lying.  I’ve perfectly honored my father and mother all my life and I’ve loved everybody as much as I love myself.  Liar.  Listen, if salvation was a matter of believing some facts and grabbing on and getting forgiveness in Heaven, Jesus would have said to the guy, “Here are the facts.  Believe.”  But what He said to him is the first thing you have to do is acknowledge your what?  Your sin and repent, and he wouldn’t do it.  He wouldn’t do it.

Jesus then said to him, “All right” – verse 21 – “if you want to be complete and perfect, you want to get into God’s Heaven, go sell your possession, give to the poor.  You’ll have treasure in Heaven and come and” – do what – “follow me.”  The first test is when you admit your sin.  The second test, will you submit to my Lordship.  And the first command I’m giving you is sell everything you have and give it to the poor.  You say do you get saved by doing that?  No, but you demonstrate whether you’re willing to follow the commands of Christ.  He said I don’t want eternal life that bad and went away grieved.  He owned much property.  He took property, possessed his property and gained hell, tragically.  Jesus wanted two things to come clear to that young man.  When you want eternal life it is not as simple as just a decision, believing some facts.  There must be an acknowledgment and turning from sin, and there must be a willingness to submit to my authority even if I ask you to do the most difficult thing in your life, to give up that which you love the most.  Let’s establish, number one, the depth of your sinfulness and, number two, the height of my sovereignty.  That’s the issue.  The man left.  That’s a very, very lucid illustration.  When you come to Christ and are truly saved, the Spirit of God will move on your spirit and you will call Jesus – what – Lord.