The Danger of Profession Without Submission

Introduction

I want to invite you this morning to open up in your New Testament to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7. Uh that’s where we’ll be taking our study from this morning. The 7th chapter of Matthew is the final chapter in what we typically refer to as the Sermon on the Mount.

It goes from Matthew chapter 5 um most of the way or all the way through Matthew chapter 7. And this sermon that Jesus preached is probably one of the best-known portions of Jesus’ teaching. Uh in this sermon, we learn some important principles about what it means to to live as a citizen in the kingdom of God. In fact, I’m not sure that there’s another part of the New Testament that really gets to the heart of what it means to be a Christian like this sermon does.

I don’t That doesn’t mean the other parts are not important. They’re all important. But this strikes in the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. And so there are a lot of things that we could talk about this morning that come from this particular sermon, but I want us to talk about what Jesus said as he brought this sermon to a close.

So we’re going to look at the last couple of chapter and I last couple of paragraphs rather of what Jesus said. And in these two paragraphs, it seems to me that Jesus wasn’t as concerned with things like adding to the instructions that he’d already given, you know, he’d already given them a lot of detailed instructions about a lot of things about the kind of people they ought to be and so forth. But rather what he did in essence was try to assure a proper response to what he had already taught them. In essence, he will say at the end of this sermon “What are you going to do with what you’ve heard?” Of course, that’s always a a good question to ask.

And so the Sermon on the Mount, not to mention the Bible as a whole, really is of no value unless we respond to what is said in the right way. And so Jesus addressed that as he brought this this sermon to a close. Let’s start in verse 21. Jesus said, “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.

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?’ And I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell. And great was the fall of it. Now, just before this, we won’t read the verses, but in in verse 15, Jesus, you know, talked about uh false prophets there, you know, they look like sheep, but really they’re wolves, he would point out. But in these verses that we just read, he he turns from the deceivers really to the self-deceived, you might say.

People who sincerely believe that they belong to him, but who are completely mistaken about that. And so he encouraged his listeners to to obey his words at least in part. And he did that by by warning about two unacceptable alternatives. There are some other things that we can do other than listen to the words of Jesus and put them into practice.

And Jesus warns about that in these verses we just read. And and these warnings, of course, are no less needed today than they were when the Lord first spoke them, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 years ago. Nothing can take the place of an obedient faith in the Son of God, at least not if we expect to hear the words that Jesus talked about in Matthew 25 and verse 21, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s what we want to hear. And again, Jesus wasn’t warning about wolves in sheep’s clothing here.

You could say he was warning about goats. That’s what Jesus talked about in Matthew chapter 25 and verse 31 and following. He says, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory on the final day, comes for for judgment, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne, and before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” And the picture that Jesus paints from that point forward is you you want to be on one side of that.

You want to be on the right side of that in every sense of the expression, not on the left. And so, the final two paragraphs here of the Sermon on the Mount and and in some ways they’re very similar to one another. Both contrast the right and the wrong response to the teaching of Jesus. Both show that neutrality is impossible, that a decision has to be made.

Both stress that nothing can take the place of an active, practical obedience to the will of God, but there’s always a danger that we settle for something less. That that is is throughout scripture we see that principle. But we can’t afford to do that. Because both paragraphs teach that the verdict that’s going to be rendered on the day of judgment is going to be determined by our response to Jesus and to his teaching.

1. The Danger of Profession Without Submission

And so in these paragraphs that we’ve read, I want us to first see that Jesus warned about the danger of profession without submission. Isn’t that what he was talking about there in verse 21 and following? 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.” And 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 and I’ll declare to them I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Now, I’ll just go and tell you this morning there is nothing wrong with the sincere confession of faith in Jesus as the son of God or an open acknowledgement that he is Lord.

In fact, when you look at what is said in the New Testament, that’s that’s part of what it means to be a true disciple. That needs to be there. In Romans chapter 10 and verses 9 and 10, Paul would say there that if you if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For the heart or with the heart a person believes with a view to righteousness and with the mouth he confesses with a view to salvation.

Now, he’s not saying here, “Look, this is all there is to it.” There are too many other passages that tell us there’s more involved, but this certainly also is involved. And the tragedy is when that confession of Jesus as Lord is not accompanied by a life that’s lived in keeping with the truths that are inherent in those very words. It doesn’t help us to acknowledge that Christ is Lord when that acknowledgement is not accompanied by submission to him. You know, Jesus would once ask the question in Luke 6 and verse 46, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I tell you?” And that’s a great question.

And what is implied in that question is that those words and a failure to act upon them doesn’t make sense. He was saying that some people failed to match with their actions with they profess with their mouths. They say that Jesus is Lord, but they don’t really live like Jesus is Lord. They may even make bold claims about their service to him as as we read there in verse 22 of Matthew 7, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

And that sounds impressive, doesn’t it? But apparently it was nothing more than empty words. And those who those who aspire to to walk the narrow way must be very clear on this point. In the kingdom of God, nothing will be received as an as a as a substitute for obedience, for submission to the will of God.

Again, 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. That’s who will enter. And it seems to me that we could illustrate this point in a variety of ways with a number of examples, a number of examples from scripture. But I want us to to look this morning from one example from the life of King Saul.

I want you to go back to 1 Samuel chapter 15 for just a moment. 1 Samuel chapter 15, and I want us to read a little bit from that chapter. 1 Samuel 15 and start with me in verse 1. And Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel.

Now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, oxen, sheep, camel, and donkey.

That’s the assignment, Saul.” And so these instructions are not difficult to understand. They would have been difficult to follow through with, but not difficult to understand. The Israelites were supposed to destroy everyone and everything. That’s That’s pretty clear.

But, I want you to notice what they did instead. Look down at verse 7 of the text. And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt, and he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword, but Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction.

And yet, despite this, God says, “Go and destroy everything.” And And he goes in, he destroys some things, and he keeps back the best of everything. And despite that, when when Samuel comes to Saul following all of this, I want you to notice what Saul says to Samuel. Verse 13. “Blessed be you to the Lord.

I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” Was that true? Well, not really. But, you wouldn’t have known it from listening to Saul. But, here’s the thing.

Samuel didn’t listen to Saul. He looked at the situation objectively. I want you to I want you to notice what he says there in verse 14. I I love I love Samuel.

He’s one of my favorites. You know, Saul’s like, “I have I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” And Samuel responds in verse 14, “What then is the bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” If you’ve done it and the Lord told you to do to destroy everything, why am I hearing these animals in the background? Great question. The reality is that Saul didn’t obey the voice of the Lord, and he he lost his kingdom as a result of that.

You go down to verse 20-2, >> [snorts] >> uh and Samuel says to him, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.” You didn’t follow through with what God said.

You did something that sort of vaguely looked like it, but you didn’t do it. That’s kind of where we are in Matthew chapter 7, isn’t it? And and what I want us to see in this morning is that disobedience will cause us to lose the kingdom. Not in the same sense Saul was king, but Jesus says there again in Matthew 7 and verse 21, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” The eternal kingdom.

And that doesn’t mean that we we earn our salvation or anything like that, because he says that the one who does the will of my father will enter in. That that’s That’s not possible. Jesus was talking about the person with single-minded faith. The person with undivided loyalty.

The person with absolute trust. And there will always be mercy from the Lord for those whose hearts are fully set on pleasing him in all things. There always will be. But there’s nothing that can be done for people whose professions of devotion and service are not matched by the way they choose to live their lives.

That’s just something you can’t find in scripture. From the way the people in our text spoke of the Lord, many observers would have likely judged them to be among his most devout disciples. They call him Lord. They talk about the things they do in his name.

And yet, can you imagine what it would be like to to make bold claims about serving the Lord only to have him respond to you, “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. You know, this event will occur before all gathered humanity on the judgment day. And can you imagine a more humiliating experience than that? And of course, this isn’t the only place where the Lord talks about people crying out for recognition at the final judgment.

If you look at, for example, Luke chapter 13 with me for a moment. Luke chapter 13. And I’m going to begin reading in verse 22. Says that Jesus went on his way through the towns and villages teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.

And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door saying, ‘Lord, open to us.’ Then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil.’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves cast out and people will come from east and west and from north and south and recline at table in in the kingdom of God and behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.

These people will be unwilling to, you know, to strive to enter through that narrow door. But they do call him Lord in this passage. But the basis of their claim for him acknowledging them wasn’t wasn’t that, it was that, “Hey, look, you you taught in our streets and you you had meals with us. We kind of had a you know, some kind of relationship here.” And this is a picture, I think, even more startling than the the we’ve been looking at.

People who for a lifetime had openly rejected the Son of God and yet still they’re hoping, even believing, he’s not going to reject them. Talk about self-deception. There are people like that today, people who believe that their their repudiation of Christ has been accomplished with such politeness and such civility that it’s not going to cost them on the day of eternity. They’ve been very kind as they said to the Lord, “I’m not doing what you want me to do.

I will live my own life my way, thank you very much.” And they think it will be different on the day of judgment. It just won’t. Now, our text in the Gospel of Matthew, unlike the one here in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus, you know, well, in both there, I guess you could say they consider themselves disciples, but the in chapter 13 of Luke, they seem to be more casual. Here in in Matthew, they seem to be, “Look, we are doing this.

We’re doing what we ought to do. We we’re prophesying and and and and doing all these things and casting out demons, all these things in your name.” And and I don’t know that the words in verse 23 of Matthew 7, “I never knew you.” I don’t know that those are necessarily meant to to say that they had never been genuine disciples. Those words apply to their false professions. They apply to their lawless works.

It’s as if Jesus is saying that your disobedience has made you strangers. And so, for all their declarations and all their works, they were no better off than those who had just completely rejected the Son of God. You think of a greater tragedy than that? In the final analysis, they were still lawbreakers, as one translation puts it, or workers of lawlessness.

2. The Danger of Hearing Without Doing

And so, we need to be aware of the danger of profession without submission. But secondly this morning, we also need to be aware of the danger of hearing without doing. And that’s what Jesus goes on to address beginning in Matthew 7 and verse 24, “Everyone who hears these words of mine,” he says, “and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” And then he’ll go down and say in verse 26, “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them.” So, we’re not talking about people who haven’t heard anything. We’re talking about people who have heard in both cases.

In one case, it’s people who have heard and done something with it. In the other case, it’s the person who has heard and not done anything with that. And so, that’s what Jesus is talking about here. And I think one thing that is implied in all this, of course, is the importance of listening to Jesus.

There’s no question about that. In fact, it’s obvious that Jesus expected people to listen to him. Have you ever noticed that? Uh his listeners had no trouble recognizing that that he spoke as someone who had the right to be heard.

He would say, for example, back in the early parts of the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said, but I say to you.” You’ve heard some things about a variety of topics, but let me tell you what I say about this. And Jesus did that again and again. And so, these people understood that there was something different about Jesus. In fact, when you come to the very end of of the Sermon on the Mount, when everything has been said and everything has been done, when you get down to verses 28 and 29, it says that when Jesus finished these things, the crowd were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes.

There was something different about the teaching of Jesus. He expected you to listen to him. And these people understood that. In John chapter 7 and verse 46, his words would prompt some to say, “No one ever spoke like this man.

He he he teaches different than anybody else.” And Jesus, of course, wasn’t being arrogant when he said what he did. He was just telling the truth about it. The reason Jesus spoke as one having authority is because Jesus had authority. That’s why.

We know in Matthew chapter 28 and verse 18 that Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” After his resurrection, he would say that. But, Jesus had authority long before that. He was saying as much when he said things like John 5 and verse 43, “I have come in my father’s name.” He was saying at least in part that he had that he had come with the authority of his father. In John chapter 8 and verse 28, on a different occasion, he would say, “I do nothing on my own authority, but I speak just as the Father taught me.” That’s why doing the will of the Father and hearing the words and of Jesus and acting upon them, those are equivalent equivalent expressions in the passages or in the verses that we’ve been reading this morning from Matthew chapter 7.

It was God the Father who would say of Jesus in Mark 9 and verse 7, “This is my beloved son. Listen to him.” And so, in light of these facts, the only wise thing to do is to build our lives upon the teaching of Jesus. Wise people don’t build on insecure foundations. They build on firm foundations.

And the last thing Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount is that building a life based on his word is like building a house on firm ground. It is the wise thing to do. You know, I don’t know many people who who like being foolish. And I certainly don’t know anyone who likes to be considered a fool.

But, the thing is I do know a lot of people in this world who take a foolish approach to life to borrow the language of Jesus. And and sometimes they will still call themselves Christians. I mean, how many people do you know who would build a house without making sure that it was being built on solid ground? I hope not many.

People recognize that to do otherwise is to basically ask for it to all fall apart. And yet, many people do the equivalent of that with their lives. And as a result, their lives fall apart. Do you want to know why there’s so much unhappiness in our society?

I mean, we have a better standard of living than any people have ever lived, and yet we’re surrounded by unhappiness and misery. Why? The answer is sin. Sin promises so much, but it delivers absolutely nothing that is meaningful and permanent.

You know, sometimes I wonder if our view of why we ought to obey obey the Lord is maybe a little bit too narrow. We need to talk about obeying Jesus because it’s the right thing to do. No question about that. But we also need to talk about obeying him because it is the sensible and wise thing to do.

And so Jesus pleads with us to to build our lives on his teaching because they contain principles for living life that have been tested and proven. And so what Jesus offers is a firm foundation upon which we build our lives, and that foundation consists of the words that he spoke. Have you ever noticed that Jesus sometimes appealed to to people’s plain old common sense in order to teach them things about right and wrong? For example, you go back to to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 27.

Do you remember what Jesus said back there? He said, “You’ve heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” And then he says in verse 29, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it’s better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” And what’s the point of all of that? If something is doing you harm, get rid of it. That’s the point. And here’s the thing.

Doctors perform surgery every day based upon the very principle that Jesus was stating in these verses, don’t they? If something is going to hinder your well-being, you might have to get rid of it. Same thing is true spiritually. And yet some people are putting everything in jeopardy because they’re unwilling to deny themselves in some way.

Just put it all at risk. And so the teaching of Jesus is intended for our good. That’s what he’s I mean, he’s trying to help us. But the key to it is that we have to do more than simply hear what he said, or even agree with it.

We have to do it. And that’s important, but it it has to be again accompanied by a willingness to translate what is heard into practice. Do you remember what James said? James 1 verse 22, he would say, “Keep on being doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” And that’s interesting.

He basically says it’s foolish to to sit at the feet of the master and listen to what he says, only to go away and not do anything with that. It is wise to build our lives on his teaching. And the thing is each of us will have to face the storms of life, whether we build our lives on on on solid ground or on sinking sand. And as far as I can tell, that’s the most significant difference between the two houses that Jesus describes here at the end of Matthew chapter 7.

One house is built on solid rock, the other’s built on shifting sand. I’m sure they both both basically looked alike when they were finished, but there was a a difference between the two of them. One was built to weather the storms of life, and the other was not. And again, the same thing can be said about people’s lives.

All around us, people’s lives are being built on fragile foundations, and they’re destined for trouble as a result of that. Everything may appear to be fine during the during the fair weather, so to speak. Everything may appear to be stable, but it’s when the storms hit we see the reality of it. And I think that’s why, you know, that’s why so many marriages fail.

They’re They’re not founded on solid ground. They’ve been They’ve been built upon weak foundations. And of course, it’s the same weak foundation that Jesus was talking about, not putting his words into practice. And of course, there are a lot of things that about which it can be said that that durability doesn’t really matter.

I you know, I’ll go ahead and tell you I In the last few months or so, I have enjoyed fussing about our washing machine. Why? Cuz you buy one and then it’s not but just a couple of years or so when it starts having problems. Eventually just It’s like you got to throw the whole thing out and just get a new one.

And that doesn’t seem like washing machines ought to be like that, you know? But in the whole scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter. It just doesn’t. But there are other things that do matter.

We need to be careful about the foundation that our lives are built upon because Jesus said they’re going to be put to the test. Not only in this world, but in the one to come. You ever Every now and then there’ll be some kind of uh disaster that takes place. I I think of the you know, a few years back there were storms in California and they kept showing houses that were built on hilltops and with the rains that came, those houses just kind of slid down the hill with the mud.

You know, I don’t know if you remember that or not. And I’m sure most of those people when that took place thought, you know what? Maybe Maybe I’m going to move somewhere else. This is not the place to put a house.

But there are other people who never seem to learn that. They’re like, well, we’re going to build right back in that same spot. Well, not the same spot cuz it’s not even there anymore, but right next to that same spot where it can slide down the hill next time that it rains really hard. And they just don’t learn the lesson from that.

Conclusion

But what I want us to see is that when it comes to to the life that we live, we can’t afford not to learn the lesson. The storms will come. And so let’s build our lives on the right foundation. I want to end this morning with a with an illustration.

It’s a real life illustration from the life of the Apostle Paul. You know, you read through Acts and you read through uh the letters that Paul wrote, and one thing you can’t help but be hit with is that Paul endured more in his life than most of us could even begin to understand. And if you want to know how he did that, how he made it through the difficult times and they didn’t destroy him, he gives us an answer to that in Philippians 4 and verse 13. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

There it is. If Christ is our strength, if our lives are built upon the firm foundation of his word, then we can overcome anything that may come our way. And that includes the judgment to come. Isn’t that what we want?

Isn’t that why we’re here this morning? Build your life on the words of Jesus. If we can help you in that regard this morning, maybe you’ve never obeyed the the gospel of Christ. I will tell you what, that principle applies right there.

Build your life on the words of Jesus. He said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” Just take him at his word. Do what he says. Or if there’s some other aspect of your life that you know hasn’t been built upon the words of Jesus, and you recognize the need to change that, and that’s the good thing.

We can change it. We haven’t been doing the right thing, we can turn around and go in the other direction and start doing what’s right. If that that’s a need that you have this morning, if we can help you with that, we want to do that. We just ask you to come as we stand and as we sing.

>> All things are ready, come.