Matthew 7:21-23 (Outline)

Introduction

What is Christianity?

Look at Bible, way early church practiced is way different than today

Majority of establishments called churches have turned from the way to what is acceptable to world

Does Christianity change with culture or trends or timeless like object of our faith?

A Christian can be defined as follower of Jesus

Many churches have made up their own Jesus (just like them)

Their Jesus is contrary to real Biblical Jesus

How could you tell who the Christians were in the time of Jesus?

We see that they believed Jesus and what he said

Andrew followed him and told Peter this is the Messiah

The woman of the discharge of blood in her faith approached Jesus to be healed

Faith was not mere words but resulted in action

Leads us to question “How much of American Christianity actually follows the Jesus of the Bible and his teaching?”

Group named Barna conducted a survey amongst Christian denominations and what they found was astonishing

According to this survey

48% believe a person who is good enough or does enough good works can earn eternal salvation

44% claim the Bible is ambiguous in its teaching about abortion

43% maintain that when Jesus was on earth, He sinned

42% do not identify and confess their sins on a daily basis

40% do not believe that human life is sacred

40% accept lying as morally acceptable if it advances personal interests or protect one’s reputation

34% reject the idea of legitimate marriage as one man and one woman

34% argue that abortion is morally acceptable if it spares the mother from financial or emotional discomfort or hardship

32% do not thank or worship God each day

Despite Bible being clear on these issues, these people rejected God and his teaching and embraced law of land all while calling themselves Christian

Leads us to question

Will everyone who calls themselves Christian be saved?

Our text deals with this question directly

Before we begin let us go to Lord in prayer

Prayer

Matthew 7:21-23

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 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.’

Text shows theme of saving faith

Not everyone who calls Jesus Lord will be saved

Not everyone who prophecies, casts out demons, miracles in his name will be saved

On day of judgement, will tell many of these people to depart from him

Today we will see

What is saving faith

What saving faith is not

How to determine if we possess it

“Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven”

I have seen churches that do something like a massive baptizm where people just line up to jump in the tub on this day.

Do you believe Jesus is God?

Well then, I baptize you for forgiveness of sins

Simple as that

Many churches say pray this prayer, ask Jesus in your heart, you will be saved

What passage teaches that?

Don’t worry I will wait

This method is superficial

Many who have done it will receive response on judgement day, “Depart from me I never knew you.”

You may be asking, “What is wrong with this method?”

Doesn’t Bible call us to baptize people and believe in Jesus Christ?

You are absolutely right

Bible tells us believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved

Make disciples baptizing them in name of Father, Son, Holy Spirit

Problem in churches is that salvation has been organized into quick little unbiblical process then they pronounce you saved

Then people think they can go back to living how they were

They are already saved, already done all they need to do

In other words, A lot of baptizing apart from discipleship

A lot of sign the dotted line without reading the fine print

If baptism saved, I am all for throwing as many people as possible in the water

Lets get as many as we can in there

But that is not what saves

Genuine faith in Lord Jesus is what saves

We see in text, saying Jesus is Lord with your mouth is not enough

Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of God

I know many who call themselves Christians

They say they believe in Jesus, do nothing about it

If I believed building was on fire, would I stand here as if nothing pressing was happening

That would be foolish

It would show that I didnt really believe the building was on fire

One who believes in Jesus must believe he means what he says

Just like a fire calls us to action, the one who believes in Jesus is called to action

Saving faith is more than just a confession but is expressed in our action

James tells us faith without works is dead

If you consider yourself Christian just because you profess him with your mouth as Lord, you need to evaluate whether truly in faith

“Did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?”

Just saw faith without works is dead

Now we see, works without faith is dead

Even if you were to prophecy, cast out demons, miracles, it is still not enough to make it to kingdom of heaven

Poll earlier showed 48% of people believe a person who is good enough or does enough good works can earn eternal salvation.

What better works could you do than cast out demons, miracles, prophesy?

Even the greatest works are not enough

Absolutely impossible to earn salvation

Text shows those who appear to be saved aren’t always

Look at Judas for example

Present in Jesus teaching

With apostles casting out demons

To the outsiders, would have appeared model disciple

Inside, Judas was a devil

If you today have been counting on good works, think about what is being said here

If best works done are not enough, then any works you have done wont be enough

If you trusted in works all this time, your hope is in vain

You must believe in Lord Jesus to be saved

“Then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me you workers of lawlessness”

Could you imagine

Spending all this time thinking you were saved by works or dead faith, only to hear from Jesus Depart from me I never knew you?

On day of judgement, when sheep will be separated from goats, people of God from people of devil, Jesus will say to some “Depart from me I never knew you”

That would be devastating

According to survey in beginning, quite a bit of American Christians will be getting that response

There are some here today in this room that may get that response

Maybe people in our families

If Bible says it, we are to believe it

Clear from this passage, this scenario a reality

What is the issue here?

Jesus points out these people who were denied were workers of lawlessness or sin

These people said they had faith

Yet, these people still lived in their sin as if had no faith in Jesus or his teaching

These people said they believed

Yet, still found it acceptable for babies to be murdered in the womb

These people said they had faith

Still found same-sex marriage moral

These people said they had faith

Still found lying acceptable

Maybe these are people who sex outside of marriage

Maybe profess Jesus yet constantly drunk

Maybe angry abusive towards family

Jesus says

DEPART FROM ME YOU WORKERS OF LAWLESSNESS!

Did you not read in Scriptures where I said

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning

Thou shall not kill and children are a heritage from the Lord, a reward

God made them male and female, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 “9 do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

If you confess Jesus as Lord yet make a practice of these, you should expect to be told to depart from him on judgement day

These people will not inherit the kingdom of God

Do not mistake practice of sin with sinning

Bible says none are without sin and we are all sinners

If we tried as hard as we could to not be, we would still be

This is why Jesus had to come

This is talking about person who is unrepentantly living in their sin

as if God has not commanded us to repent

Where there is sin in our lives, repentance is a must for the child of God

We shouldnt take sin lightly because God doesnt

Because of sin the Son of God was nailed to cross for his people

Those of us who confess with our mouths Jesus is Lord,

must look at sin for what is is

Lawless, disobedience to the one who purchased us with his blood

Workers of lawlessness commanded to depart from Jesus

He never knew them

Not that he didnt know of them or didnt know who they were

but simply they were not his

If they were his, they would not have continued in rebellion

“The one who does the will of my father in heaven will enter the kingdom of heaven”

What is opposite of lawlessness?

Obedience

Will of God that we be obedient to his commands

What is will of God and how do we know what it is?

Do we hear a voice from heaven speaking to us telling what will is?

No!

This is something found in his word

It is also something that we would do well not to avoid

Ephesians 5:17 says, “Do not be foolish but understand what the will of God is.”

I want to look at four key passages that I believe explain will of God

There are many in Bible so I encourage to spend time on own reading them

John 6:40

40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

First and foremost, will of God, believe in Jesus

Why is this important?

Jesus our only way to be saved from eternal lake of fire

If you did rest of will of God and failed in this, you would come up short

I have spent a lot of time this sermon showing you that no matter how good works are, it wont be enough

No matter how good we are, we still have sinned against thrice Holy God

In order for God to be just, sin must be punished

Imagine the terrible thought Jesus had not come for a minute

If we face judgement day, everybody facing own sin, would be enough for every single person to spend eternity where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth

If you were somehow really good

If you somehow only sinned a few times, or way less than others, your judgement would be.

Wait for it...

Are you ready???

Eternity in hell

James 2:10 tells us, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of it all.”

Because of only one sin, guilty of whole law

Because of many sin, guilty of whole law

God would go down list one by one

Eternity in hell, depart

Eternity in hell, depart

Eternity in hell, depart

All mankind would be condemned

Separated from love of God forever

This is you without Christ

What makes Jesus so special?

Survey in beg shows a lot of Christians think Jesus sinned but Bible shows this not true

Jesus was only sinless one

Being fully God/Fully man

came to world born of virgin

Jesus kept the whole law perfectly

Not one sin

Not only was that enough for him, but enough for all his people

David represented Israel in the fact that when he sinned in consensus, all Israel suffered for it

Jesus, perfectly keeping law, all his people are blessed through it

After keeping law perfectly, nailed to cross

Upon cross God unleashed wrath towards the sin of those he came to save on Jesus

By faith in Jesus, our sin paid for by Jesus on cross

By faith in Jesus, his righteousness from keeping law perfectly given to us

We now stand before God blameless as he was

Not that we are righteous but that we are covered by his righteousness

This solves dilemma of us being sinners/not being able to keep the law

Faith in Christ is letting go of idea we can earn our salvation by any good thing we do and trusting in his perfect work for his people

Faith in Christ is letting go of sin in our life that had condemned us and believing it was paid for on cross by our savior

Faith in Christ is turning from sin and living obediently to master who bought us with his own blood

1 Thessalonians 4:3

For this is the will of God, your sanctification

Once you believe in Son of God and are saved

the Holy Spirit is given to help us become more like him

Process is called sanctification or becoming Holy

It is will of God that we should not only believe but become more like him

It is will of God that we not only believe in Him, but long to live like him

Sanctification happens over time

Arent just saved then all sin struggles go away

As nice as that would be

This is something we work at through power of Spirit

Sanctification happens until we are perfected

Not in this lifetime, but when we are with the Lord

When Reading scriptures, Holy Spirit convicts us of sin in our lives

AS you take inventory of life according to Scriptures, you will see you fall short in many places

If you continue in this sin, you will grieve the Holy Spirit

You are to fight the sin, you have same Spirit that raised Jesus from dead working in you to do so.

Your sanctification is the will of God and extremely important to Christian life

1 Peter 2:15

For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people

Not only are we to turn away from sin, but seek to do good

I think a lot of people hang out to much around middle

Spend a lot of time trying not to do wrong while completely forgetting to do good

Little do they know,

best way not to do bad is to do good

If having trouble with anger in heart, what better way to solve than by loving neighbor

If having trouble with greed, what better way to solve than by being generous

Truth of matter is,

We called to be Gods representatives on Earth

Called to shine as lights in a dark world

The way world looks at Christianity, shaped by what is seen in us

If Christians are selfish, hoarding goods, while rest of community starves, does that show love of Jesus whom they follow?

Two greatest commandments,

Love the Lord your God with all your mind, soul, heart, and strength

Love your neighbor as yourself

By loving our neighbor well, that is testimony to one who loved us by giving his life that we may have life

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

We are called to believe in Jesus, turn from sin, pursue good works, give thanks in whatever circumstance we find ourself in.

We serve a sovereign God in control of every last bit of universe

There is not one thing that happens outside his power or control

Everything happens according to his good plan although we may not always see it that way with our finite minds

No matter if the situation seems bad to us or good, we are called in all circumstances to give thanks to God.

Bad is inevitably going to happen

For example: If you cant stand your job and your boss is always yelling, and you complain life is so bad

remember, not everyone has a job or way to earn income

we must be thankful for that

What if you have cancer and will die next week?

Some babies don’t even make it out of womb while 34% of Christians find no issue in their murder

You have had many more days than these

In whatever situation, you can see Gods blessing in it no matter what it may seem to you

Paul Washer says, “If everyone you have ever loved was taken from you, and your body lay rotting on a dung heap, and your name was slandered by friend and enemy alike, you should still find all the devotion you need to love, praise, and serve him in this one thing; he shed his own blood for your soul.”

Reflection

This text has shown us that all who confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

We see that all those who perform great works will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

We see that all of those who call Jesus Lord are not known by him

We see that entrance is denied to some who confess with their lips, do good works, but practice lawlessness.

Who is the one who enters the kingdom of heaven?

The one who does the will of God

We have discussed 4 different examples of the will of God

First and foremost, believing in Jesus

Our Sanctification

Doing Good Works

Giving thanks in all circumstances

My goal in coming to preach is making known way of salvation

I have seen so many in my life confess Jesus with lips while lifestyle says differently

I have had it on heart quite some time now to call attention to this error

This week, I finally have that opportunity

I dont want to offer fake assurance such as say this prayer and you will be saved,

but present what the Bible says on the matter

I dont want to leave here today without everybody in this room realizing they are sinners in need of the grace of God

Some of you may already believe and live out your faith daily but our survey tells us that about 48 percent believe they are good enough to make it to heaven on own, which is heresy and untrue of the gospel of Jesus

This being said, that we will not only be hearers of the word but doers,

its only right I provide practical application how to diagnose your spiritual condition

that you might not receive message depart from me I never knew you on judgement day

Application

The problem with the church and those in it is that they have become just like world and beginning of survey shows that

World is full of lawlessness and those who practice lawlessness are living like the world

James 4:4 tell us, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world, makes himself an enemy to God.”

1 John 2:15 tells us, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

What exactly is meant by loving the world and friendship with world?

The world is influenced by prince of power of air

It does what is contrary to will of God

WE can know what is worldly by knowing what is godly, they are opposites

If the Bible says thou shall not kill and the world says it is okay to kill babies, it is clear where the problem is

The problem is that we live in this world and a lot of times it influences us into thinking/acting the way it does

We easily fall into the traps of world if we are not spending time in word of God

My challenge to you for your application is to separate yourself from the thinking and practices of the world and seek the will of God

Are the things mentioned in the survey in beginning things you have always believed are acceptable to child of God?

If so, I challenge you to study what Bible says regarding this matter and realize no science or person will ever outsmart word of God

Whatever science, politics, or people say is okay that the Bible condemns as sin, we should trust in God who is incapable or error or sin

Evaluate your life

Not everybody who comes to Him in that day saying Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of God but one who practices the will of God

Separate yourself from the works of the world

Align yourself with the will of God

Believe in the name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ

Turn from the sin that you have recognized in your life

Pursue the good works God has called you to walk in

Finally, give thanks in all things

God is good whether you are rich or poor

Healthy or unhealthy

No matter how bad life can be, if you truly believe in Jesus, you have eternal life in his kingdom, in the presence of your savior