The Proof Is In The Pudding (2)
Notes
Transcript
Doxology:
This is my Bible. It is God’s Holy Word. It is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and I will hide its words within my heart, that I might not sin against God. Amen!
Scripture Reference: Matthew 7:24-27
Context
Context
We started in the Sermon on the Mount at the beginning of the year, and we have finally made it to the final passage here in Matthew 7.
I know its been a long journey, but I think it has been a wonderful journey. I was talking with someone this week, and I told them that this set of Scriptures, the Sermon on the Mount, is probably one of the toughest set of Scriptures in the New Testament…Not because they are difficult to understand, but because they force us to step back, evaluate our heart with God, and give an honest report of where we stand spiritually with Him.
They challenge our understanding of who God is. They challenge our understanding of God’s will for our lives. They challenge our understanding of how sin impacts us and our relationship with God. They challenge our doctrines. They challenge our personal relationship with Jesus. They challenge our motives. They challenge our desires. They challenge our goals. They challenge our salvation.
That is what we are going to be looking at today…this thought of salvation. When we closed last week, we ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger. Jesus said:
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’
23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
These are some very tough verses to swallow. This is proof that there will be many who stand before Jesus at judgment, thinking that they are about to be received into heaven, but who in actuality get turned away. They will stand there thinking that they are about to be received into His presence, but they will rather be banished from His presence. He will say, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
That is one of the saddest, and most unfortunate, truths of Scripture. Many people have come to believe, whether it be because they were deceived by a false teacher, deceived by Satan, or simply too lazy to seek out truth from themselves, that they are eternally secure in Christ when they are actually not even in a relationship with Him at all.
Today, I want to do everything in my power to make sure that no one under the sound of my voice has to hear those words. Now when I say in my power, let me be clear what I mean. I do not have the power to save you. I do not have the power to convict your heart of sin. I do not have the power to point out which of you are saved and which of you are not. I do not have the power over anything concerning your salvation. But what I can do, is present to you the truth of salvation, to the best of my ability.
That’s all I can do. The rest is up to God and to you. God has to draw; God has to convict; God has to save. You have to be honest with yourself, be honest with God, and be willing to admit where you are spiritually in your walk with God.
24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:
25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:
27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Let’s Pray!
Content
Content
Salvation Is By Grace, Through Faith, In Christ
Salvation Is By Grace, Through Faith, In Christ
The salvation of our souls is, and should be, the most important topic of understanding. Regardless of what this life offers us; regardless of where we end up in this life; regardless of what things we are permitted to do in this life; regardless of the wealth that we are permitted to accumulate; regardless of it all… if we do not know Jesus, we will die and go to hell. Anyone who dies, not having a relationship with Jesus, will end up in hell.
This is why we consistently preach the Gospel. This is why Jesus is the focus of every message we preach, and every lesson we teach. Knowing Jesus is everything. Without that, we have nothing.
But how does that happen for an individual? How does one come to know Jesus?
To answer that, we are going to use Ephesians 2:8-10:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Salvation is a work of God. It has to be. How could we ever save ourselves…from ourselves? The very thing that we need to be saved from is the sinful nature that makes us who we are as humans. We are born with sin in our hearts…therefore, we sin. In order for us to be saved from that sinful propensity that lives within each of us, something outside of us must save us…from us. Not only must it be something outside of us, but it must also be something that is better than us. Another being, that is just as prone to sin as we are cannot lead us into a path of righteousness of which he does not know.
That is why it says that salvation is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast (vs. 8-9). We cannot do enough good works to earn salvation. Salvation is not about having our good outweigh our bad. Salvation is about realizing that there is no good, and only bad.
10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Even the works that we might consider as good, are not good, when performed apart from God. They are distorted in some way to serve our own conscience, or maybe someone else’s conscience, but not God’s.
Only something from God and in God can truly be considered good, for only God is good.
In our natural state, the sinful nature that we are born with, we are far from God and far from anything good. That is why we need grace.
Grace can be defined as unmerited favor or an undeserved gift. The best illustration of grace is right here in this text:
1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
We did not deserve anything of God, but because He loved us with such a great love, He chose to act anyway. He made a way for the sinful nature within each of us to be replaced with a nature that is driven towards Him. Notice that He did this because He loved us that much. He did this so that the barrier standing in between Him and us could be broken down and our relationship could be established…not just for now, but forever. He not only loves us now, but He wants to love us forever. He wants to be able to pour out His love on us for the rest of eternity. Isn’t that wonderful? Amen!!!
But how is this grace enacted? It tells us right here in this text, that grace is enacted by faith:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
When we come to a place in our lives to where we realize there is no hope for us outside of Christ (we cannot save ourselves and we cannot earn heaven by our own goodness), we begin to understand just what God did for us. He moved on our behalf.
He sent Jesus, His only Son, to live a perfect life. By living a perfect life, He accomplished what we could not accomplish. He lived a life that was perfectly in the will of God, never committing sin. And He then laid down that life as a sacrifice, which served as the atonement for all sin, for all man, forever. This created a way for us, who are natural born sinners, to be forgiven of our sin and be reconciled to God, but only if we choose to believe in the work that Christ accomplished for us and place our faith in Him as the redeemer of our souls.
21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
To place our faith in Jesus means that we know and believe that the blood He shed served as the atonement for our sin. This is why we sing that song, “Are You Washed in The Blood”. When we voluntarily come to the foot of the cross and kneel to the One who hung there, His sin atoning blood falls upon us and cleanses us of all sin. The wrath of God against sin will pass over every individual to whom the blood is applied, because the sin of that individual has been atoned in Christ.
To place your faith in Jesus is to acknowledge that He alone is the source of your salvation. You did not earn it, work for it, wish it into being, or anything else. You are saved only because Jesus loved you enough to die for you, and in doing so, secured a means by which you could come into fellowship with God.
Salvation is by grace, through faith, in Jesus Christ.
Works cannot save you and will not save you:
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Again, I say that works cannot and will not save you! Can we all say Amen!!!
With that being established, we must understand that our works for God are very important. This leads us to our next point:
Genuine Faith In Christ Produces Works For Christ
Genuine Faith In Christ Produces Works For Christ
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Verse 10 states that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus…” We were saved by God, not ourselves. In that salvation, we were “created in Christ Jesus”. We were reborn, created anew by God, in Christ, for His glory. “We are His workmanship”, meaning that we are a work of His hand.
And what has He created us to do? “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus…for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
We were saved…to serve. Do you see it? We were created…for good works.
Now I need you to pay close attention for this, because this creates a lot of confusion for a lot of people, and I do not want you to be confused. Matter of fact, the purpose of this message is to take away any confusion that might exist.
We do not work unto salvation, but we do work from salvation. Works cannot save you, but salvation will produce works.
Let me show you how important works are:
Last week, we spoke about false prophets and how dangerous they are. They appear in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. I want you to look at these verses in your own Bibles, the ones there in your laps. Look at Matthew 7:15-16. I want you to look at it in your own Bibles so that you can see it for yourself, right there in the Word of God, and so that you can underline it, or highlight it, or mark it up however you see fit to do so for your own studies. Look at it.
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
What does Jesus tell us will be the one way that we will be able to see them for who they are? He says, “You will know them by their fruits.” He says it again in verse 20, “Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
See… “The Proof Is In The Pudding”. It is by their works that we shall see them for who they truly are.
What about those whom the Lord denied entrance into heaven in the very next verses? What did He say to them? Look at it in your Bibles… verse 23:
23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Do you see it? Those who “practice lawlessness”. That sounds like works to me.
Or what about those who were accepted into heaven, here in the same verses. Look at it again in your Bibles…verse 21:
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Who is going to be admitted into heaven… “he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Do you see it? Do you see the importance of works?
What about our text for today? What separates those whom Jesus refers to as wise and those whom He refers to as foolish? Look in your Bibles at verse 24, and then verse 26:
24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:
Those who “does them” are wise. Those who are obedient to Jesus’s Word are wise.
26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:
Those who “does not do them” are foolish. Those who are disobedient to Jesus’s Word are foolish.
Do you see the importance of works?
Now listen closely. We have already established that salvation does not come by works. Works cannot save you.
But genuine faith in Christ will produce works. Genuine faith will produce a longing in your heart for the presence of God, as well as a desire to please Him. This longing and this desire will produce Godly works in your life. Not because you are trying to earn something from God, but rather because God has already given you everything. These works will stem from your salvation.
In other words, works does not provide salvation, but works does prove salvation.
26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Genuine faith will produce Godly works.
Now here is where the confusion comes most of the time. People read these verses that we have just read, and somehow they get it backwards. They are convicted because there really isn’t any works in their life. But instead of seeing it as a problem with their relationship to Jesus, they see it as a problem of simply not doing enough “spiritual works”. So instead of seeing this issue as something solved by God, they see this issue as something solved by them. Their conviction is real, but their understanding of it is misplaced. So the result is that they decide to step up at church; they take another position, they decide to teach a class, they start a bible reading plan, they come to Sunday School the following week, etc. But before long, the fire slowly dies out and they are right back to where they were before the conviction of God set in. Why? Because they missed it.
Remember that your works for God is a direct result of your relationship to God. You cannot have sanctification if there is no salvation. If you are being convicted today because there are no works for God in your life, you can’t fix that problem just by deciding to do more stuff. The only way for you to fix that problem is to fix your heart, to fix your relationship with God, and then as a result of having your heart changed, the works will naturally follow.
Genuine faith in Jesus will produce Godly works.
But now, let me peel back one more layer of this onion for the spiritually active people in the room.
This is going to be our last point:
The Works of Christ Are Determined By The Will of Christ
The Works of Christ Are Determined By The Will of Christ
Just because your life is full of “spiritual things”, does not mean that these things are of God. Just because you do something in the name of Jesus, or for the sake of the church, does not mean that it was indeed for God.
John MacArthur points out that both of these groups of people here in our text for today are actually very similar:
24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:
25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:
27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Both builders have heard the Gospel (vs. 24, 26). They both know the way of salvation.
They both proceed to build a house after they have heard the way of salvation.
The wise man builds his house upon the words of Christ, while the foolish man builds his house upon something else, but notice the implication:
No one, would continue to build a house if they truly believed that there was any possibility of that house falling down. Although we know from what Jesus has told us that the foolish man’s house will not stand, he doesn’t know that. He continues to build his house, because he truly believes that his house is just as sturdy as anyone else’s house. He is not intentionally building his house in some weak manner. He has all confidence that it will stand the test of time.
Both builders build their houses in the same general location.
Notice that the text seems to imply that both houses are hit by the same storm. In other words, the outward circumstances of their lives were essentially the same. Neither one had some advantage over the other. They lived in the same town, attended the same church, listened to the same Bible Studies and preaching, and maybe even fellowshipped with the same friends.
Both builders built the same kind of house.
Outwardly, both of their houses were very similar. They were so similar in fact, that one might even be tempted to think that the same person built both houses. They were similar in structure, in size, in color, etc.
Both of these individuals were religious, doctrinally sound, good moral people who served in the church and supported it faithfully financially and in servitude. They both seemed to be very religious individuals.
Some might ask what makes me think that this second group is made up of religious people. Well notice the context in which Jesus shares this illustration:
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’
23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
See those who are denied access into the Kingdom of heaven here are religious people. Matter of fact, they have works. They not only have works, but works that you and I could only dream of. They are prophesying, casting our demons, and performing other miracles. These are what we would call amazing things.
See, its not about having your life filled with “spiritual” things. Its not about having a resume a mile long with “spiritual” accomplishments. Its about being in the will of God. Its about walking with Christ and doing what He would have us do.
Herein lies the problem. Out of all the similarities they shared, there was one major difference between them: One built his house upon Jesus, and the other upon religion.
Watch this… Most of us would call these things accomplished by these people who are cast out wonderful works, would we not? What did Jesus say? “Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
So if casting out demons doesn’t make the list… if prophesying doesn’t make the list… if performing many wonderful miracles doesn’t make the list… then what could possibly make the list?
You ready? Are you sure you are ready? OK… watch this:
24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:
25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
What is Jesus referring to when He says: “whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them…”?
He is referring to the last three Chapters that we have spent almost 3/4 of a year preaching through. He is referring to everything He has just preached to this crowd.
Recap the Sermon on the Mount briefly.
See, these are the works that Jesus speaks of. We do not read through these things and naturally consider them to be works, but this is what Jesus says, “Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
Whoever is intentional about their relationship with Me, I will liken him to a wise man.
Whoever hungers and thirsts after righteousness, I will liken him to a wise man.
See, its not about accomplishing great spiritual feats, its about faithfulness, and true, genuine faithfulness will produce Godly works in our lives, and these godly works will be according to the will of God.
Commitment
Commitment
As we come into this time of invitation today, I want to ask you, as I often do, please be honest with yourself today. Please be honest with God today. Come and talk to Jesus. Come and get your heart right with God.
Let’s stand.
