The Unknown

Intro

Hey Everyone, hope you all are doing absolutly amazing! For those who may not know me since I am not around very often, my name is Austin and I am on the youth and young adults team here at Heartland. And it is great being here with all of you today.

We all like to feel like we belong somewhere right? Have you ever been in a situation where you do not feel like you are either welcome or belong? You may walk into this group and you can instantly feel like you are on the outside fighting to try and get in. And you may get to a point where you lose hope. Where you lose the drive to be a part of this group and prefer to be by yourself because it is easier. But then something changes! Something happens. You actually start to build a friendship with one of the individuals of the group you were trying to get into. And this then leads to you being welcomed into the group because you are brought in by someone and you’re not trying to do it yourself! I have experienced this. I spent grades 4-10 homeschooled and then went back to highschool. And I quickly found out that it would be hard to get into these groups that have been forming and growing together for years. But all it took was me building a relationship with one person at a time to be welcomed. Not trying to do it all myself.

Today we will be talking about something around this topic of belonging and not being unknown. For the past number of weeks we have been going through our series called Warning Signs. This is where Jesus gives us seven different waning signs that we must keep in mind as Jesus followers because of the potential dangers of those who don't go His way. And we are in the last few weeks of this series. Today we will be diving into Matthew chapter 7 which you can find as the first book of the New Testament. We will be looking at verses 21-23 today, so lets start by reading verse 21 together.

V. 21

New Living Translation Chapter 7

“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.

This is the first time in we can see in the book of Matthew that the use of Lord in regards to Jesus. And as we can see here, Matthew links Jesus with the enterence to Heaven. He presents himself as the one who decides who does and does not enter the kingdom of Heaven, which is based on the fact of an individuals relationship with Him. And we can see him decribe what this looks like in the second half of the verse when he says, “only those who actually do the will of my father in heaven will enter”. The barrenness of the faith that only consists of faith demonstrates someones true character. Has anyone heard the phrase, “lukewarm Christian”? This is the perfect example of what this means. You are in the middle. They call out to him but do not do the will of the Father. Revelation 3:16 says, “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

A faith that says but does not do is truly just unbelief. Jesus is not saying here that someone can be saved through works alone, but that true faith will not fail to produce the fruit of good works. We must have both faith and works. And this is what Jesus is meaning when he speaks about the will of the father.

V. 22

New Living Translation Chapter 7

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.

On Judgement day, Jesus already knows many will try to plead their case on why they should be allowed to enter heaven. Here, he expresses three things that he expects people to say. And the reason he chose these three things is because all three activities, Prophecy, casting out demons and performing miracles all in the name of Jesus are all accepted parts of early christian dicsipleship, and even practiced by Jesus when he was here on earth with us. The first one Jesus speaks about is prophecie in the name of Jesus. And for those who may not remember or were not here last week, Sam spoke to us about false teachers and prophets. If you really think about it, it would be quite easy to hide and cover up the fact that someone may be a false teacher by leading you astray. They may seem super enthusiastic, and in touch with what scripture is talking about but they are just looking at it all wrong. And if we look throughout history, we can see individuals who do this better than most. When I think of someone who leads people to the wrong conclusion, and being a history nerd, I think of Hitler. This man, spoke about wiping out a whole people group because they were ruining the countries economy. This is not something a normal person would see as a good thing. But by the way he spoke and how powerful he said things, it lead to changing a nations mindset on people who are not “pure blood” german. But on the other hand, casting out demons and performing miracles are less easily counterfeited, but it also doesnt state here that these claims were false. There were instances in Matthew, Mark, and Acts of moments that these moments happened outside the group of disciples. These people used the name of Jesus as power even though they didnt have a personal relationship with Jesus. And even though we use the name of Jesus, doesnt guarentee a genuine relationship and discipleship. For those who dont have this, He will respond like this.

V. 23

New Living Translation Chapter 7

But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’

This is the scary part. As a Jesus follower, I still think of this, I get worried that Jesus may say this to me when it is my turn to stand in front of him. The words know and knew in biblical literature is used fore much more than just being an aquaintance or recognition; it denotes a relationship with that person. So when Jesus says, “I never knew you”, it means that he does not acknowledge them as part of his true family. He does not accept their addressing him as Lord, and he utterly renounces them as his followers, which is why he exclames, “get away from me”. He also descibes them as people who are lawless or do lawlessness, which means that they take a lax view of the law and the need of obedience to it. Jesus came to fulfill the law. So, those who disregard the law, are not genuine disciples no matter how many spectacular deeds they perform. Jesus’ disciples must be on guard against these counterfeit prophets who will lead them away from the narrow road of repentance and down the wide boulevard of lawlessness.

Fine words can never be a substitute for fine deeds. There are two proofs of love, and those proofs are obedience and relationship. There is no point in saying that we love a person and then doing things which break that person’s heart. For example, when we were young, maybe we used sometimes to say to our mothers: ‘hey mom, I love you.’ And maybe our mothers sometimes smiled a little wistfully and said: ‘I wish you would show it a little more in the way you behave.’ So often we confess God with our lips and deny him with our lives. It is not difficult to recite a prayer, but it is difficult to live the Christian life. Faith without practice is a contradiction in terms, and love without obedience is an impossibility.

Conclusion

So do you remember that example i gave at the beginning? I spoke about when though we may try to fight in its impossible to be truly welcomed in without a relationship. They could look at you and say “we dont know you” and shut you out. But if you build a relationship with the individuals of the group, that is where the acceptance will come from. Same thing comes from God. We can say all the right things, we might say we do things in his name, but the fact is, there is more to a relationship than just words. We can’t live in contradiction. We must be consistent with words and actions in all areas of our lives. We do not want to get to the end of our lives regretting we did more. We don’t want to even flirt with the possiblity that Jesus could say, I never knew you.

Jesus strives to have relationship with us. He longs for it! But he requires us to take a step out in faith and follow him whole heartedly. The author of Hebrews said it perfectly in chapter 11 verse 6, And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him”. We must believe but we also must take that step to him and seek him.

So let me ask you, where in your life could God be asking you to turn from your lukewarmness? Where could you take a step of faith into the will of God? or even, do you know the will of God in your life? These are things that we all should be asking ourselves each and every day, and this is something that i need to do better. We should get up every morning and say “not my will but your will be done” over our lives each and everyday to keep our lives centered on Christ. We want to live a life where when we get to the end of our lives and we stand before God, he says, “welcome home son, welcome home daughter. I am so glad you are here.” So moving forward lets all live in a way where our actions and speach are consistent to the God we love and serve.

Lets pray.