Disilluisioned or Discipled

Intro

This morning, I would like to start by considering what is and consequently what is not a disciple. By disciple, I mean someone who has surrendered their life to following Jesus Christ and seeks to know him and glorify him in their daily life. To be a disciple, first of all, is to be in a relationship with Jesus. It is to say, “he is mine,” every bit as much as, “I am his.” A disciple seeks to know Jesus, to understand his heart and his will. A disciple desires to obey Jesus, to faithfully live out His Word in a manner that is worthy of the gospel. Finally, a disciple loves Jesus. All other aspects of being a disciple come from this one. We desire to be his, because we love him. We desire to know him, because we love him. We desire to obey His Word, because we love him.

Consequently, a disciple is not someone who seeks to follow Jesus only for what they might gain from him. Consider the crowds that followed Jesus after he performed miracles and fed thousands with a few loaves of bread and some fish. They sought to make Jesus king, because of what they would stand to gain. Instead, Jesus says he is the bread of life. We don’t seek what we can gain from Jesus, but it is Jesus himself that we seek. A disciple is also not someone who has earned the right to be called a disciple. We love him, because he has first loved us. We are saved by grace through faith, and this is not the result of works. Just as Jesus called the twelve to follow him, Jesus called you. You did nothing to merit his calling you. You were called out of sheer grace. Even the faith you have to believe can only be attributed to the grace of Jesus.

Much more could be said on the matter of who is and is not a disciple. I only brought it up so that you could consider for yourselves what it means. Earlier in our chapter in Matthew Jesus speaks of two gates, the broad and the narrow. The broad gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. For the narrow gate, however, the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. What we will see in our text this morning is there will be many that have entered through the broad gate that leads to destruction that believe they have gone the correct way. They will have professed faith in Jesus Christ. They will have seemingly done great works in the name of Jesus. They will call themselves disciples and yet, he will say to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

It Is Not Enough to Profess Faith In Jesus Name

V.21 “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

It is possible to profess faith in Jesus Christ and still enter the gate that leads to death and destruction. It is not only possible, but what is even more frightening is that Jesus says there will be many who do just that, who call Jesus Lord and yet Jesus will say to them, “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” I say this in all seriousness and somberness, there are some here today that are living deceived about their own salvation, who on the day of judgement will say, “Lord, Lord,” and he will respond, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

We are conditioned to live in disillusion about the current state of our own salvation. We don’t want anyone to think even for a second that they might not be saved, but what good does that do? If someone comes to me and says, “I’m not sure that I really am a Christian. I’m starting to seriously doubt my own salvation.” What good does it do that person for me to say, “Oh, well I’m sure you are saved. I wouldn’t worry about it.” No, my first response to that person is going to almost always be, “Well, maybe you aren’t and the reason you feel that way is because God is working on your heart to lead you to salvation.” We can’t assume someone is a Christian, just because they’ve made a profession of faith.

This is the problem with becoming obsessed over our number of professions and baptisms. I grew up in this culture, where we would go to conferences with big, flashy productions and entertaining, charming speakers. Every one of the them always had this moment where we would be told to close our eyes and pray this prayer and raise our hands if we wanted to receive Jesus, and that was it. If you prayed and you raised your hand, congrats you are a Christian now. I am not trying to knock the sincerity of all those “conversions.” But many of those students, myself included, were led to believe that was all we needed. If we profess faith in Jesus as Lord, then we are saved. How many students do we then see graduate and go to college, never to return to church? Why do they leave? Why should they stay? They’ve done all they need to do already? They made that profession. They’ve got that fire insurance…

Apparently, not. Jesus makes clear for us right here. When the day of judgement comes, if all you have to stand on is a profession of faith you made when you were 8 at Vacation Bible School or 14 at Beach retreat, then what do you expect Christ’s response to be? You will say, “Lord, Lord,” and he will respond, “I never knew you.”

There must be something more. We put such an emphasis all the time on who is in and who is coming in, that we never address who may not be in. We never take salvation deeper than a profession. You want Jesus, you are in. If you pray this prayer, you are in. If you come to this alter, you are in. Then we give no concept of counting the cost of discipleship, recall in Matthew 18:19-22 “And a scribe came up and said to him, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Another of the disciples said to him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’”, no concept of taking up your cross and following him, Jesus says in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”, and no putting to death our old selves and waging war against the power of sin and temptation in our own hearts, Paul commands us in Colossians 3:5-8 “Put to death therefore what is earthy in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.” Salvation must be more than a verbal profession, never less, but certainly more.

It Is Not Enough To Do Great Works In Jesus’ Name

A profession of faith is not what it takes to be saved. To be clear, you must still profess faith in Jesus Christ. Everyone who enters Heaven will have professed faith in Christ alone, but not everyone who has professed faith in Christ will enter into Heaven. These then who have been seemingly turned away even though they profess Christ is Lord respond by saying in V.22, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?"

The act of prophesying did not exclusively mean making known something that was hidden, like some secret knowledge about God or predicting some future event. Prophesying could simply intel proclaiming the Word of God. These men could have been prophesying in the supernatural sense or they could have been evangelists, regardless they believed they were doing the work of Christ. They assumed that because they were proclaiming the Word of God, that they were serving Christ and therefore gaining his goodwill.

They build their case like any good defendant, highlighting all the evidence in their favor. Not only did they prophecy in Jesus’ name, they also say, “and cast out demons in your name.” Now this is a little more impressive. How can you deny one is from Christ when they are doing such a holy work as to cast out demons in the name of Christ? After all, Jesus himself tells his disciples in Luke 9, after they try to stop someone who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name that was not one of Jesus’ disciples, “Do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you.”

They prophecy in Jesus’ name, they cast out demons in Jesus’ name, and finally they claim, “[did we not] do many mighty works in your name?” Miracles. They were healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk again, giving speech to the mute. Not just a little. They were doing many mighty works. They built an impressible resume. “Jesus, you know who we are. You’ve heard of us. We’ve done all this stuff.”

Quickly, I don’t want to remove the lens scripture is placing on our own lives as we examine our own hearts here to see if we are like these pleading their case with Jesus, but does this not sound so much like the charismatic, prosperity gospel preachers we see on tv? They claim they must be from Jesus because of all these miracles they perform. Hundreds to thousands of people come to their services hoping to see or experience a miracle. All the while they proclaim a false gospel that through faith you will find health, wealth, and happiness. Beware the wolves that claim miracles as evidence of their faithfulness. As Jesus says later in Ch.24, “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”

The case they make points only to what they have done. “Lord, Lord, did I not prophecy, cast out demons, and perform miracles in your name?” Instead of, “Lord, Lord, I need you,” it is, “Lord, you needed me.”

What Is Enough

How can you be saved? If it is not enough to profess faith in Jesus Christ and if it is not enough to even do great works in Christ’s name, then what is enough?… V.23. “And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

What is enough? You must know him and he must know you. These guys knew Christ, right? They knew who he was. He is the Lord. They knew that if you call him Lord and you do great works in his name, then he will let you into heaven. Jesus says, “no, it’s not enough for you to know who I am. I must know you.”

Does Jesus know you? Jesus knows who you are, but this is not the same way in which Jesus speaks of knowing you. The way Jesus speaks of knowing here is liken to the Old Testament’s reference to the way that God knew the Israelites. It was a special relationship reserved only for His children. He listened to their prayers. He provided for their needs. He led them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. When God sends Moses back into Egypt to demand Pharaoh let the Hebrews go, he tells Moses to say, “Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.”’ He knew the Israelites as his children. For Jesus to say, “depart from me, I never knew you” means that he does not acknowledge them as a part of his family.

They say all the right things. They call him “Lord.” They do what appears to be significant works of ministry. Yet, they are still denied by Christ. Their shock is sincere. They were not hypocrites. They were disillusioned. They believed they had what they needed. They believed Christ would let them in heaven. By every measure and standard that we can see, they appeared to be good people. They would have fit in right at home here. They could have been Sunday school teachers, Baptist men, deacons, maybe even pastors. Yet, Jesus still says to them, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

While they got the profession right and had seemingly successful ministries, what they could not pass was the test of character. Another way to put it is to say they may have looked the part on the outside, but inwardly their heart belonged to sin. They may not have been murderers, thieves, drunks, or adulterers. None of them expected to see this outcome. They loudly, emphatically called Christ, “Lord, Lord,” in both word and great acts, yet Christ calls them workers of lawlessness. They may appear saved on the outside, yet inwardly they were still dead in their trespasses and sins. Their profession of faith and their good deeds in the name of Christ counted as nothing, and in the end they are judged justly for the sin that sits enthroned on their hearts.

The final part about being a disciple I did not mention before, is that it never leaves you the same. And this is how you can know you are saved. You don’t walk away from that moment of salvation the same as you were before. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come. All this is from God,” You have received the grace of God. Grace not only saves us from the penalty of sin, it changes our hearts and our lives. The reason that Jesus rejects these who professed him as Lord and prophesied and performed miracles in his name, is because their lives did not reflect the reality of the grace of the gospel. They could call Jesus Lord and they could do all these great things, but they could never give up the sin that was in their heart.

Now this should, and in fact it must, serve as a warning to all of us here. We cannot fool Christ. We can’t just say the right things. We cannot even do all the right things. No amount of putting on a good show will change our standing before Christ. The only hope that we have is that he is indeed the Lord of our life, not just by words of profession, but that we have totally and completely surrendered our life over to him and we know him and he knows us, deeply and intimately. We are his. We can’t just put on a show. We may fool one another, but we will never fool him. He knows who belongs to him.

This text serves as a warning, but may it also serve as our hope. If you know that you do not have that relationship with Jesus and you know that you are not saved, rejoice in the fact that it is not too late. Rejoice, especially in the fact that Jesus is not looking at how impressive a life you have lived. This is what it means to be saved by grace through faith, and not a result of works, so that no one may boast. We do not come before him trusting in our own righteousness. He is a savior that delights in saving sinners. This morning, if he is calling you to repent of sin and turn and follow him, to be his disciple, won’t you come? Not in word only, not just in appearances, but in complete sincerity and humility, won’t you say “Lord, Lord, I need you.”