A Call To The Unsaved Believer

By Rev John C. Orlando, Jr.

13 Jul 2003

Matt 7:21-23

Background:  The passage is at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.  The Sermon on the Mount is considered to be the greatest sermon ever preached.  In it we find the Beatitudes, Jesus exposition of the Law, guidance for kingdom living, and the way to eternal life.

Intro

We are all familiar with the clichés “Appearances can be deceiving” and “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”  What these little sayings convey to us is that there is something more than meets the eye, and that our initial impression of something may not always be correct or tell the whole story.  Consider the movie Catch Me if You Can…pilot, lawyer, doctor…

Most of us base all of our knowledge on how things appear.  We are more guided by appearances and our feelings than by facts, and thus our perceptions aren’t always correct.  This is what deception is all about.  When we are deceived, we have a skewed perception of reality.  We think one thing is right, when in fact it is wrong.  We think one thing is true, when in fact it is false. 

In our passage, we discover that things aren’t always as they appear, and there is more to the book than meets the eye.  We find people who had a perception of themselves as being saved, yet they were lost.  It wasn’t that they didn’t believe in Jesus.  They believed full well that Jesus was the King of kings, and the Lord of lords.  They believed He was God in the flesh.  They believed He lived a sinless life, performed miracles, died on a cross, and rose from the dead.  Yet they were unsaved believers.  An unsaved believer?  Yes, friends, it is possible for someone to believe all of the facts about Jesus, and still not be saved.  And it is with this mind that I have entitled this sermon A Call To The Unsaved Believer.  (Title borrowed from Alistair Begg’s sermon). 

What we want to do today is deal with reality. We want to examine ourselves, come to a right understanding of salvation and then act accordingly, so that if we are unsaved believers, we might become saved believers.

First, I want us to examine….

I.  What The Passage Doesn’t Teach

It doesn’t teach that one who is truly born again can lose his or her salvation - “'I never knew you;”  - Notice, Jesus doesn’t say I knew you once, but now I know you no more.  There was never a time when these persons were known by Christ in terms of personal relationship.  It wasn’t that these people were in a saved state, then at some point entered into an unsaved state.  It is that they were never in a saved state, but they thought they were!  (Cf with Jn 10:14-29). 

This leads me to the first point of what the passage does teach:  

II.  There Are False Perceptions Of Salvation

Those who have false perceptions about salvation first of all claim to know the Lord:

            A.  Verse 21 “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,'” -  They are calling Jesus Lord, Lord, indicating 3 things:

1.  They had a right understanding of who Jesus was.  They knew Jesus was the

Christ, God incarnate, which is made evident by the linking of confessing Jesus as Lord with the words “shall enter the kingdom of Heaven…”  Profession of Christ as Lord is linked with entering Heaven, where there is only One Lord, the Creator of Heaven and earth. 

2.  The repetition indicates a familiarity with the Lord. 

3.  Their utter amazement at their predicament

There are then people who have an accurate knowledge of who Jesus is.   If given an examine on theology, they would pass with flying colors.  And they claim to be intimately familiar with Jesus, yet, Jesus says that not every one of those will be entering the kingdom of Heaven.  They were believers, yet they were not saved!  We then discover that this is really a…

            B.  A Pervasive Problem: Verse 22 “Many…”  We might be tempted to think that this condition would be relegated to a mere deceived few, but the truth of the matter is that this is a pervasive thing, so pervasive in fact that Jesus says “many” of the “every ones” who thought they would be entering the kingdom would not in fact be entering it!

Jesus here is really just highlighting what He stated earlier in Matt 7:13-14.

Thus, we see they had knowledge of who Christ was, but it wasn’t a saving knowledge, and the sad thing is that these people really believed that they were saved.  They had a perception of themselves that wasn’t true.  They not only believed they were saved, but they also gave the perception to others that they were really saved. So, we discover that those who have false perceptions about salvation first of all claim to know the Lord. 

Secondly, they also have a misunderstanding of what it means to be saved.  This misunderstanding usually takes on 3 forms:

                        1.  Self Righteousness:  To be self-righteousness is to look to yourself as the measure of righteousness or to exalt in your own morality and good works as the basis for your justification before God.  In response to the question “Why should God let you into His Heaven”, the self righteous person would answer any number of ways, all of which would in the final analysis point to his own goodness:  I am save because I….kept the 10 commandments, I lived a perfect life, I kept the Golden rule, because I a good person, etc., and we see this illustrated in the text.  When standing before God, they answer:

“…have we not…”   - These words reflect the key difference between true religion and false, eternal life and eternal death.  Their reply to the Lord is focused and centered on themselves and on their own personal works of righteousness, not on the Lord Himself and His righteousness.  They were appealing to themselves for their justification.  Have we not…the statement also implies that there might be injustice in God.  How could God not allow them to enter the kingdom of Heaven, after all, look at all they had done!  God is not impressed.  Their righteousness is like filthy rags.

“prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?'” Here these ones look to their own works, and notice, they point to the most dynamic works that anyone could ever perform.  They didn’t merely feed the poor, the prophesied!  They didn’t merely cloth the naked, they cast out demons!  They didn’t merely visit those in hospitals, and comfort those who were in mourning, they did many wonders! 

You may be saying, well, I wouldn’t say any of those things.  But what things do we say? We may not say Lord, I have prophesied in your name, but maybe we say Lord, Have I not:

Preached Your Word?   Sang in the choir ? Worked as an usher?  Taught Sunday School and Wednesday night Bible Study?  Been baptized? Gone to church every Sunday?

2.  Easy believe-ism (License): These are ones who pervert the grace of God into

a license to sin.  They think that they are can continue to live however they want to.  They have their get out jail free card, and since this is the case, they reason that they therefore have a license to sin.  The person who is under this false perception says I’m saved so:

I don’t have to go church, I don’t have to be baptized, I can keep doing the same old things I’ve always done.

The danger of the altar call or the invitation to discipleship.  If you decide to come forward to the altar, you better make sure you know what your getting yourself into.  Look at Luke 14:25 – 27

Today many people are living their lives with the thought that since they have made a profession of faith in Christ, that they are therefore saved.  Yet, the truth of the matter could be very different. 

To sum these two up, we can say that they honor with lips, hearts are far from Him/Form of godliness, deny the power thereof...

                        3.  The Fence-Setter:  They would acknowledge the historical facts about Jesus, but also seem to have an understanding that a call to salvation is a call to change and a new life, and thus they are reluctant to the necessary steps of commitment.  They then begin to justify themselves by saying, “it’s not as though I’m an Atheist!  I believe in Jesus…”  And in the final analysis they are banking on the fact that they think that they are not bad persons, so God won’t send them to Hell.  Jesus said you are either for Me or against Me.

These all suffer from a false perception of salvation.  They may even give an appearance as being saved, but the truth of the matter can be different.  Consider this coin (nickel)…a foreigner reading the word "Liberty" stamped on this coin might have the perception that America has always been a place where liberty has prevailed for all people.  Yet, a cursory glance of our history reveals a very story. They might perceived from the words "E Pluribus Unum" (From the Many, One) that all of the many different ethnic and racial groups of America are unified in purpose and view each other simply as fellow Americans, and there is no racism or prejudice, yet, the fact of the matter is very different.  One might think that the States in America have always been United, but again, that hasn't always been the case. One might think America is a godly nation when reading the inscription “In God We Trust”, yet it goes without saying that the fact of the matter is very different.  And just as this coin has all these things stamped on it that would give a person a perception about America that isn't necessarily true, so many people walk around with "Christian" stamped on themselves, when the truth of the matter could be very different.

            C.  Misplaced Trust:  Ultimately, these all are trusting in themselves to get them to Heaven.  Prov 14:12-There is a way that seems right to a man, but the ends thereof are death

                 a.  The “way” that seems right to men, is that man is basically good, and if his good deeds outweigh his bad deeds, he might get to heaven. 

                 b.  This sums up the teaching of every false religion in the world                                           

                 c.  Different story in the Bible! 

                             1.  Man is totally corrupted (Rom 3:10 – 18). 

                             2.  God is absolutely Holy:

God cannot, and will not overlook sin, rather, He has sworn in His wrath to punish sin.  Man cannot escape this judgment.  The only way that he can is if God Himself makes a way of escape for him.  And this is precisely what we find in Christianity.  Man is lost, and under the just condemnation of a Holy God.  This Holy God, out of nothing but His sheer grace and mercy, comes to us in the Person of Christ, bears the full penalty for the sins of people from every nation, tribe, and tongue, rises from the dead for their justification, and then offers to us the free gift of eternal life on the basis of the finished work of Christ.

Because these ones have not embraced the only true basis for salvation, we see…

D.  The Judgment:

1.  “depart from Me,” – Are there any more frightening words in all the

Bible!  The Creator of Heaven and earth, the One who has all power in His hands, the Holy One of Israel, tells them to depart from Him.  To depart from the Lord in this sense means that these ones were not to be permitted to abide in His blessed presence, but were to be cast into outer darkness, to experience His wrathful presence.   Hell is not the absolute absence of the presence of God.  Rather, as theologian R.C. Sproul states, “The problem for those in hell will not be separation from God, it will be the presence of God that will torment them.  In hell, God will be present in the fullness of His Divine wrath.  He will be there to exercise His just punishment of the damned.  They will know Him as an all-consuming fire.”

2.  “you who practice lawlessness!'”  - These words would surely come as an

astonishing surprise!  Not only does Jesus not accept their works as the basis for their justification, He tells them that in actuality they had practiced lawlessness!  Why? 

a. Bible says no one ever justified on the basis of the Law (Gal 2:16)

b.  Modern Reformation “The law comes, not to reform the sinner nor to

show him or her the "narrow way" to life, but to crush the sinner's hopes of escaping God's wrath through personal effort or even cooperation. All of our righteousness must come from someone else-someone who has fulfilled the law's demands. Only after we have been stripped of our "filthy rags" of righteousness--our fig leaves through which we try in vain to hide our guilt and shame--can we be clothed with Christ's righteousness. First comes the law to proclaim judgment and death, then the gospel to proclaim justification and life.”    

This is why we need to have a…

III.  Right Understanding of Salvation

            A.  Doing the Will of the Father: “but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”  Here could be a point of confusion. Jesus speaks of “doing” which implies personal works of righteousness.  However, as we discover in John 6:40, the will of the Father is that all who see the Son and believe in Him would have eternal life. 

            B.  True Conversion:  2 aspects: Faith and repentance

                        1.  Saving Faith: Trusting in and resting upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation

                        2.  Repentance:  genuine sorrow for resulting in change of mind and direction

            C.  Liberty:  The false perceptions of salvation result in legalism on the one hand, and license on the other.  True saving faith results in liberty. Those whom the Son sets free are free indeed.  Those who are truly free in the Biblical sense are consumed with the desire to do right and that desire consistently translates into fruit. 

D.  The Evidence: Fruit. 1 John 2:3-4.  Lifestyle marked by consistent personal holiness

1.  Holiness is an inward thing that must fill our heart, our core being, and it is an

outward thing that must spill over into every detail of our lives.

2.  Dusting furniture: You think you've cleaned away all the dust away, until the

sunlight shines into the room revealing all the remaining dust, and that dust keeps mounting on the surface. So the more the Son of righteousness shines in our hearts, even though we may be growing in holiness (and others may see it), we shall increasingly see the motives of our heart, and recognize just how far short of the glory of God we fall.

E.  Assurance: founded upon what Christ did. Our works merely show us we have a real faith.

IV.  The Need To Act on The Truth

            A.  Self-examination

            B.  Getting off the fence

V. Conclusion

Are you an unsaved believer?  Today is the day of salvation.  It is time for you to move from trusting in yourself and your righteousness, which is really just filthy rags, to trusting in the perfect and finished work of Christ alone.  It is time for you to come down from the fence of uncertainty unto the ground of salvation and blessed assurance.  The road to destruction is broad, and the way to eternal life is a narrow piece of wood upon which the Prince of Glory died.  It is time for all of us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ.    Amen.

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