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A Warning to Professing Christians: Understanding True Faith

Albert N. Martin / Audio Sermon

Summary by Paladin.kor
Audio Sermon by Albert N. Martin

This moving sermon on preaching, published during the midst of the First World War, focuses on the dangerous divisiveness between lip service and godly living that Jesus identifies in Matthew 7:21: Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Introduction to the Signpost

The signpost points the way, like a beacon on the path of faith, towards that which will lead to eternal life and wholeness. This signpost is lifted up by the teaching of Jesus, who said that our salvation is found in real faith, not words alone. It calls us to consider our lives in light of Christ.

The Selected Text

And the centrepiece of his teaching is the verse: ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.’ This text is crucial because it reveals the shallowness of faith that is ever-present in religious circles, and puts believers on notice about the authenticity of their lives as followers of Christ.

Understanding the Signpost

This signpost is not simply a warning; it is an invitation to the life that comes with listening and obeying to the One to whom these words are addressed. ‘Lord, Lord’ signals loyalty and addresses the question ‘Who is your master?’ The demand for doing the Father’s will, however, makes clear that what matters is not only what we say, but what we do.

The Sobering Prophecy

The signpost’s sobering proclamation – that not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven – serves as both admonition and wake-up call. It beckons Christians to take a long, honest look at their lives and ask whether their professions of faith are genuine or hollow.

  • The prophecy underscores the reality that many may be deceived by their own professions.

  • It emphasizes the importance of aligning one's actions with their professed beliefs.

  • Ultimately, it serves as a reminder that salvation is not guaranteed by mere verbal declarations.

The Necessity of Profession

Although the prophecy is a warning, however, it still expresses the truth that we cannot be true Christians without a profession of faith. Very few Christians would say outright that we can simply “perform” the rite of baptism and then live as we please after that. One must still declare Jesus as Lord; faith must be avowed. Romans 10:9-10 tells us that ‘[i]f you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’

  • True faith is characterized by both belief and confession.

  • It is not enough to believe silently; one must publicly acknowledge their faith.

  • This open profession acts as a testament to one's commitment to Christ.

Confession and Salvation

Confession is not merely a ritual that one performs before God, for communal solidarity or for mere habit. Rather confession is an acknowledgement of belief, a proclamation of an act of faith, a commitment to live according to God’s will. Jesus points to this tension between confession and salvation when he declares in Matthew 10:32-33: ‘Whoever therefore confesses me before men, him will I confess also before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven.’ Reciprocity is absolutely necessary.

  • Confession reflects a heart transformed by the Gospel.

  • It is an outward manifestation of an inward reality.

  • True confession is bold and unwavering, even in the face of adversity.

The Danger of Mere Profession

By contrast, there is great danger in professing faith without corresponding action. This can produce a sense of false security, and may breed spiritual complacency. Many may claim the name of Christ, yet fail to lead their lives according to his way.

  • This discrepancy between profession and practice is what Jesus warns against.

  • Such individuals risk being among those who hear the sobering words, "I never knew you."

  • True faith is evidenced by a life that seeks to do the will of the Father.

The Many Who Will Be Rejected

And the number of the lost in light of our salvation is immense: Jesus says that when many will say: ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?’ etc, and then he says: ‘I will declare to them: “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”’ We should sense our spiritual life is threatened when we hear Jesus say this.

Perhaps the heaviest truth of all is this: those who feel confident they should be welcomed in are likely to be rejected. This would include those who look religious, those who do good deeds, even those who have been faithful church-goers – and who have all along thought that God was with them, present with them, and that their faith would see them through. Yet somehow their hearts are far from him. They find themselves rejected.

The Day of Judgment

That Day of reckoning will be a day of revelation, for all pretensions will come to light. That day every sort of profession of faith will be open to the scrutiny of God.

And on this day, religious pharisaism will also be stripped away. What’s left in the end will be a lot of people wearing a professed love for Jesus, in His day of judgment, whom He will say to: ‘I was naked and you clothed me not: I was sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ And they will respond: ‘Lord, when did we see you naked and clothed you not?’ And Christ will reply: ‘I never knew you, depart from me.’ This will not be an individual case but a mass phenomenon.

The Claims of the Rejected

The rejected will then step forward and make a case for themselves before the judgment seat: ‘Did we not prophesy in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name do many mighty works?’ These claims would seem to evoke a life lived in service and ministry. But taken out of context, they too are unconvincing.

They will never know how serious their situation is until it is too late, when they can no longer depend upon their books and the affirmations of their preachers. Their claim to ‘know’ Christ will have been revealed as a deadly misunderstanding.

Christ's Rejection of False Claims

When the Lord encounters the rejected, He never challenges their deeds, nor the reality of the religious experience they have pursued: He simply says to them: ‘I never knew you.’ There is a difference between knowing Christ and knowing Him properly.

Christ’s rejection implies that knowing his name does not mean you have a relationship with him and therefore will go to Heaven; the relationship must be real, lived in obedience to his will and in a heart conformed to the divine will. If it is not, you are everlastingly separated from him.

Application of the Prophecy

It is a stark reminder that being familiar with religious practices does not mean you are saved. And makes very clear that many in the church today may be in this trap. This truth must be applied. It is a call to all believers to probe and examine if what they claim is truly saving faith in Christ.

In a church culture that sometimes privileges attendance and participation more than personal piety, this warning is even more important. The church must call us to reflect, to each one saying: ‘Do I really know Christ, or not? Am I really following him, or am I pretending?’

The Simple Contrast

Jesus puts at the centre of the pendulum the exciting alternative to the hideous possibility of rejection: everyone who does the will of my Father in heaven will enter the kingdom of my Father.The rhythm of the pendulum pivots on the believer’s doing.

‘Not every one who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven,’ Jesus goes on to say, ‘but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven’. It’s not enough to say ‘Lord’: one has to be able to show it by doing the will of God, which is the duty of all believers. This is the light that the disciples see, the way that leads on to life and that the Devil tries to hide by flashing the bright lights of hell. That ‘light’ in John 8:12 that comes to shake the darkness from the world is the Christian life that Jesus is living, the only possible life since he alone is the light of the world. And it is that same light, poured out into the world by the Holy Spirit who proceeds from Christ, and into the Church, which is his body on earth, that summons us to proceed towards it.

What It Means to Do the Will of God

To do the will of God is to order one’s life according to God’s plan and word. It is to make a deliberate dedication to walk in obedience to the Word, to incarnate one’s identity in God and to correspond to God’s character and purposes. In short, it is the daily practice of doing things God’s way.

  • Doing the will of God encompasses acts of love, mercy, and justice.

  • It involves a heart that desires to serve others and glorify God.

  • True obedience stems from a relationship with Christ, fueled by love rather than obligation.

The core of the call to do God’s will is a desire to glorify God in the world, a striving to love Him more deeply and faithfully. A striving made in a spirit of growth, a movement towards the realisation of his purposes by God’s grace and power.

Repentance and Faith

Repentance and faith form the basis of Christian life. Genuine faith first involves the confession of sin and turn from sin. It involves a renewal of the whole person, not just disembodied mental assent to certain propositions but the transformation of the whole person.

It begins by going in at the narrow gate: that is, by repenting for the forgiveness of sins and believing the gospel. ‘The gate is small,’ Jesus says, ‘and the way is hard, that leads to life.’ When we see that he meant for us to live a good life by cooperating with this divine providence through which God constantly seeks our perfection, we realise that his profoundly sobering words must centre on this life. ‘The gate is small,’ Jesus says, ‘and the way is hard, that leads to life.’ And what is the life or end for which Jesus tells us we must choose to take this life-and-death hard way? What will fulfil the will of the Father who has sent him to save us and to call us friends? It is that all may be one, on the way to eternal life with God.

  • Repentance involves a complete change of mind and heart.

  • Faith is the act of trusting in Christ for salvation, recognizing Him as the only way to God.

  • Both elements are interdependent; true faith cannot exist without genuine repentance.

The Nature of True Faith

True faith isn’t an abstract idea. Rather, it is an active and life-giving force towards Christ, the object of our faith: We speak of a true faith that works through love. It is true because it works, through love for God and love for our neighbour, since faith indeed works through love. Faith justifies, and charity perfects it; in this way the commandments of God are fulfilled.26 Faith is manifest when we do the will of God. It bears fruit in the form of obedience, which enables us to grow in holiness.

This faith is made possible by a relationship with Christ — not simply knowing about Him, but knowing Him so intimately that our very desires are transformed, and all we desire is that He should be glorified.

  • True faith is expressed through action, not just words.

  • It involves a continual reliance on God's grace to empower our obedience.

  • Faith must be evidenced by a life that reflects Christ's character.

The Evidence of True Attachment

The outward sign that we really love Christ is this obedience. This is why Jesus said that his sheep hear His voice, and follow Him: not as servants who are merely satisfied with recognition of his authority, but in the spirit of children who follow their father’s guidance.

Our conduct should reflect this transformation as well, and our attitudes and actions, in general, should reveal Christ – if they are genuine, they will do so. If they don’t, then our faith is counterfeit.

  • Obedience is the tangible evidence of our relationship with Christ.

  • A genuine faith leads to a desire to please God in all aspects of life.

  • The absence of obedience may indicate a lack of true faith.

The Call to Obedience

Jesus calls us to a life of obedience that reflects our commitment to him and his will in every area of our lives. This call is not optional; it is our heartbeat as disciples. We are to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow him every day.

That obedience is not burdensome; rather is it the result of a well-pleased and grateful heart to the measure of love that has been bestowed upon it. The deeper our understanding of the grace of God the greater will be our desire to obey him… Here is the true practice of the Christian religion.

  • Obedience is an expression of our love for God.

  • We must actively seek to align our lives with His will.

  • True discipleship involves a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of following Christ.

The Reality of Imperfection

We are called to obedience, we are called to attempt perfection, and yet we must be cognisant of our imperfections. No one is capable of perfect obedience – we will all stumble and we will all fall. But should we cease to attempt to live within God’s will simply because we shall not, ultimately, achieve perfection?

Our fallenness should bring us to greater reliance on God’s grace. We confess our sinfulness, and we receive happily his forgiveness, for his mercy is greater than our infirmity. The child of God knows that he needs grace always and that what he needs never ceases.

  • Imperfection is a part of the Christian journey, but it should not be an excuse for complacency.

  • We must acknowledge our failures while pressing on toward maturity in Christ.

  • God's grace empowers us to overcome our weaknesses and pursue holiness.

Final Exhortation

When we think about ‘the summons to faith’, we are asked to look at our lives in light of Scripture and ask ourselves, ‘Do we have a profession of faith, a confession of faith?’ Would we be willing to come forward in the liturgy, confess our faith? Or is ‘a pure and genuine faith operative’ in our lives? The stakes are high: we don’t just want to go to heaven, but to get there because we are relating to Christ.

And now, as assuredly as Lazarus was raised up from the tomb, let us behold the deeds of our faith. Is the will of the Father fulfilled in us? Not in order to be perfect, but because our lives are going in the right direction, our hearts are in the right place. So let us walk in the way of Christ, and allow His Spirit to cover us – and then, wherever we go, we also go to join Him.

  • Examine your heart for genuine faith.

  • Commit to a life of obedience and service.

  • Seek to grow in your relationship with Christ daily.

Conclusion and Prayer

So, let’s conclude by urging ourselves that our confession of faith be not so much a verbal confession as a living one, and let us ‘strive to enter by the narrow door’, that we ‘repent’, and that we indeed ‘believe in the gospel’ so that ‘our lives be worthy of the Lord’, a life of obedience to the will of the Father, in Christ.

Let us meanwhile pray for grace to follow the truth in all sincerity. Lord our God, we thank You for having redeemed us by Your Son Jesus Christ, that He might be glorified in us: forgive us all our sins and mysteriously delight us with Your almighty goodness. Transform us by Your love and conform us through Your grace that we may reflect Your glory as Your children. Amen.

Albert N. Martin concluded 46 years of ministry at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey, in June 2008, and he and his second wife Dorothy relocated to Michigan (he lost his first wife Marilyn in 2004 after 48 years of marriage and a six-year battle with cancer). A recognised evangelist, counsellor, pastor and preacher, Al Martin had his first experience of street preaching before the age of eighteen, under the guidance of elders at the Mission Hall he attended. He taught all the courses in Pastoral Theology in the Trinity Ministerial Academy for 20 years until it closed in 1998.

 

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