No Posers

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Matthew 21:23

Matthew 7:21–23 NLT

“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’

This is quite possibly the scariest passage in the New Testament. I remember when I first came across this passage, of course as a new believer it shot fear across my heart, as I would question what if I am not really saved?

I was so scared that after commiting my life to Christ was it still possible to not be saved

Of course this knee jerk reaction was because I failed to see the intention of what Jesus is saying here.

See some have wrongly looked at this passage and said, “see evidence that your salvation is work based. Don’t follow the Laws of God and it doesn’t matter all the Good you did in His name you still won’t be saved.” But that interpretation not only flies in the face of all of Jesus other teachings and how we are saved by grace alone, it also fails to account for what Jesus was actually trying to do here.

So what was Jesus trying to do? It seem clear to me now what God is doing here is...

Flushing out the Fakers!

Have you ever met somebody who was really good at looking the part of a Christian. I mean they knew all the songs, and dressed just so, and maybe even they knew the scriptures inside and out, but never really got it on a heart level?

It was like, as the poem stated earlier, they were

“almost saved!”

There were not righteous but rather rightish.

This passage is supposed to serve as a warning to anyone who would rather go through the motions rather than be transformed by the grace of God.

Which leads me to the question I want to address tonight.

How can you know that you are not just going through the motions?

Check your heart

Me: I used to be a skateboarder. I know some of you may find that hard to believe but let me be clear. I never said I was any good. Only that I was a skateboarder. My friend Dustin and I used to go to the Hartland skate park and practice our tricks. I could Olli, that is jump up on a box that was 14 inces off the ground and ride off the other side. I could drop into a half pipe I could even 50/50 grind rails. I could ride up a quarter piper grind the top and drop back in without getting off my board and that was about it. I’ll tell you what it might look like a waste of time but it takes a lot of dedication, practice and skill to become a good skateboarder. And so on any one park there might be a bunch of people at different skill levels but all of them are skateboarders, if they are trying to improve. What was really annoying were those who would be referred to as poser.

Posers were the people who dressed like skateboarders, they even carried skateboards around, but they did not care about skateboarding. They couldn’t care less if they ever got better, or if they even rode their boards. They just wanted to look cool. Their heart wasn’t in skateboarding and advancing the sport. Their heart was all about making themselves look cool.

Unfortunately people would see these posers slacking off and lump us all in together. It was frustrating, because posers are the worst, they have the ability to make us all look bad even though they are not really one of us, they just dress like us.

Disclaimer I am no longer a skateboarder. If I didn’t break the board I would probably break my arm these days.

We: Did you know we have posers in the church. Note I am speaking church universal here. People who look like us, but who do not care about advancing the gospel. They don’t care about living life God’s way. They want the benefits of being a Christian without having to go through the refining process.

I guess what I am saying is their heart doesn’t belong to God, it is still only about what’s in it for them.

God: This is what this passage is talking about. People who never really offer their hearts to God, they just like blending in with the church. Trust me when I say, when things get hard these are the first to walk away because they are not really committed. Sure they may call Lord Lord on Sunday, maybe even pray for people but in their heart they don’t really care about God and what He wants. That is why on the day of Judgment if they still have not offered God their heart He will simply say I do not know you.

So how do you do a heart test to know whether you belong to God or not? Lets look at

Matthew 22:34–40 NLT

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:3

You: Want to have the assurance of knowing that God knows you. Ask yourself three questions.

1. Do I love God?

2. Do I love my neighbours?

3. Has that love changed how you live?

If your answer is anything other than yes to all three of those questions no amount of going to church is going to save you. Only surrendering your heart to God, but if your answer to all theree is yes, you have nothing to worry about. You can have the blessed assurance of knowing that God loves you.

We: But let us be clear if we say we love God shouldn’t that change how we live. If we love God and His desire is that all would be saved, shouldn’t we make sure we are doing our best to share the gospel?

If we say say we love our neighbours shouldn’t we do everything in our power to tell them the truth about life and sin and death so that they might choose life in Jesus Christ and turn from their wicked ways and be saved.

How much do we have to hate someone to turn a blind eye to their sin and say hey that’s their business. If they want to go to hell who am I to interfere.

If we say we Love God and Others our lives should reflect that.

Next Step:

Don’t be a poser just going through the motion. Make sure your heart is right.

Do you love God?

Do you love your neighbour?

How has that love changed how you lived?

If it hasn’t surrender your heart to Jesus.