Profess or Possess are you really a Christian?

Philippians 3:17-21 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example.  For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ.  They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.  But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.  He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control. New Living Translation

Mt 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' NIV

"The cross does not give us a minor shift in our lives with regard to our ethical, moral or religious values. The cross radically disrupts the very center and citadel of our lives from self to Christ. If the cross has not done that, you are not a Christian. My friend, face it. Young or old, you are not a Christian until the cross has radically disrupted the very center and citadel of your life and brought you from a life of commitment to serve self, whether it is religious self, moral self, proud self, covetous self, lustful self, prideful self, unforgiving self, lazy self, it doesn’t matter.” Albert N. Martin

Just because you say you know Jesus and you are a Christian, does that make it so?  In Matthew 7:21 the phrase “Lord, Lord” is an interesting phrase. When a name was repeated twice in the
Bible it is a term of endearment. These people really felt like they knew and loved Jesus.  We all know profession is not possession.  You can say it and not live it.  You can speak it and not have it! Does your conduct show that you really know Jesus?  When your desires and appetites for things do not please God, do you really know him? When your primary life is focused on your job, business and success, when you are concerned more about this life and less about the next, are you a Christian? When church attendance and service to God’s people is secondary and you work God around your own schedule, you cannot make it to a small group because you’re too tired?  Lord helps us! We make excuses while people around the world are afraid of their lives simply because they are a Christian. They would love to be in a meeting with a full copy of the Bible in their hands which many do not possess! 

Are you hearing his voice calling you, young man, to symbolically cut off the right hand and eye of lust indulged in the chambers of your mind with magazines, book,s music and internet porn sites that you have hid from mom and dad and perhaps your wife? God knows I’ve sinned and so have you, so deal with it!  Has your relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend gone over the line? Ladies, do you entertain mental fantasies nurtured by a television set in your daytime soaps with their sordid, crude, vile and filthy adulterous-laced programming?  Do you fill your mind with books on fantasy instead of God’s word?  You see, the cross is not only a saving place symbolically, it is a place of death to self.  The Word of God kills the evil so the good may live.  Being a Christian means dying to self.  That is the purpose of the law of God. Galatians 2:17-21 "If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!  If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker.  For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" 

Now mind you that doing or not doing certain things or a standard of conduct does not save or condemn you. It does, however, show where you are with God! It is a warning sign to go to Christ! I am a media person, but watching TV and movies is getting too much like dumpster diving.  You wade through a lot of garbage to get to the good stuff.  Listen, I know a lot of us have been burned on the list of do’s and don’ts, but this is different. Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.” So in light of that scriptur,e how do we fare with the media we allow into our minds? Let the Spirit guide you by his word.

  

Romans 8:12-14  So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life.  God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

Colossians 3:5-11. And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That's a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God. It's because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger. It wasn't long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it's all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.  Don't lie to one another. You're done with that old life. It's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire. 10 Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete.

They said ‘Lord, Lord,’” because they believed by one means or another that they had an attachment to Jesus Christ in faith and love. They claimed to be able to do the supernatural and that they knew his name, but they did not do the will of the Father. What is the will of the Father? John 6:28-29 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."  True faith and conversion is different than commonly preached. Faith is an absolute, desperate clinging to Christ for salvation. Be careful that your so called morality and goodness doesn't get in the way of being truly saved. The beginning place of doing the will of the Father is coming as a helpless, hell deserving, needy sinner who owns up to his sin, turns from it and throws himself into the arms of a compassionate and and almighty Savior who alone saves sinners.

Jesus said he “never knew” these people. Now, that is not an intellectual knowledge. God knows the identity of everyone on earth. But the knowing in Greek here is an intimate knowledge. The word knew is akin to the intimacy of a husband and wife in Greek language. So the use of the word here is used as an illustration of a deep, close, cherished knowledge of Christ.  The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 8:3, “But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.  And in Galatians 4:9-10, “But now that you have come to know God, or rather  to be known by God,  how can you turn back again to  the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?” Also in 2 Timothy 2:19 it says, “But God's truth stands firm like a foundation stone with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are his," and "All who belong to the Lord must turn away from evil."

It is interesting that these people who Jesus said had no intimate knowledge of him point to what they did know  Jesus did for them. This proved they did not know God.  True and saving faith is not raising your hand in a church service to Jesus. It is not that you were already on your way to heaven and Jesus just helped me over the hump to get the rest of the way. Saving faith is the desperate thrust of a helpless soul upon the arms of an almighty Savior. It is clinging to Christ crucified in a death grip saying, “Save me, Lord, or I perish.” It is totally and complete trust IN Christ to save. You say I am a good person? The Bible says different:

Ro 3:10-18 "No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.

 All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one."

 "Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are filled with lies." "Snake venom drips from their lips."  "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." "They rush to commit murder. Destruction and misery always follow them. They don't know where to find peace."  "They have no fear of God at all."

“I want you in that day when you stand with me before the judge of the world to have him say, “Come you blessed inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” I don’t want to look at you standing there saying, “Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, I named you in earth. I named you before the pastor. I named you before the church. I named you in prayer meeting. I named you in witness. And, Lord, now, Lord, Lord, did I not do this, did I not that?”  Foolishly, you have trusted in yourself and your own good works to get you into heaven. Church attendance, charity work, being a good person does not get you into heaven.

I don’t want to hear him say, “Depart from me. I never knew you, you worker of iniquity. You never were made a doer of the will of God. You learned enough, and you learned what to say properly enough to be accepted for what you professed yourself to be on earth. But now the Day of Judgment is come and the truth is now to be known.”

Let us pray. Father, we are sobered by the words of our Lord Jesus. They are so plain that we cannot get around them, underneath them, over them -- and we don’t want to.  We want to be found out now rather than to stumble, deceived into hell.  God, take your Word today and make it effectual to bring some to the place whereby your grace may begin to do the will of the Father in heaven and turn to you through the Lord Jesus and trust only in his virtue and the merits of his life and death upon the cross. 
 Oh, Lord, may some begin to do the will of the Father as they repent and believe the gospel. For those, our Father, who have thought all was well, but whom you have found out and who even now feel great discomfort, Lord, help them not to try to pull out the arrows that you have sent into their hearts for their good, but may they find a place to get alone and seek you out until, indeed, they can say, “By the grace of my God, I am a doer of the will of the Father.” Oh, Lord, bless your Word. Oh, bless it we pray and have mercy upon us as a church. Have mercy upon me, upon each one of us that with renewed zeal and determination we may set our faces like flint to do the will of our Father in heaven no matter what the cost may be.  Bless your Word. Seal it to our hearts for Jesus’ sake and for our good. Amen.