Let’s have a conversation this morning. I have lots of questions. The word “doctrine” gets thrown around and sometimes it is misused but it’s important that we use it right because it simply means what we believe. Obviously, it’s important to know what we believe and to know that what we believe is true. So, let’s make sure our doctrine is right and based on scripture, especially about the most important stuff.
Knowing what we believe is important: Jonathan Whitfield was preaching to coal miners in England. He asked one man, "What do you believe?" "Well, I believe the same as the church." "And what does the church believe?" "Well, they believe the same as me." Seeing he was getting nowhere, Whitfield said, "And what is it that you both believe?" "Well, I suppose the same thing." Jonathan Whitfield.
Let’s start off big. The first question is, how do we get to Heaven? Now, before you answer, you have to know that almost everybody in the world thinks they are going to Heaven. I have talked to very few people who believe in Heaven and Hell who believe they are going to Hell. Now, I promise I get very little of my doctrine from rock ‘n roll song titles, but I will say that Highway to Hell and Stairway to Heaven are pretty good indicators of the expected volume.
So, what is our doctrine on getting to Heaven? What do I have to believe? What do I have to do? Who do I talk to? How much money does it cost? What role does baptism play? What role does church, the Holy Spirit, the Lord’s Supper, good works play?
What are the differences in this life in people that are saved and going to Heaven and people that are not saved and going to Hell? How good do you have to be? Do you lose your salvation when you sin? How often can you sin and still be a Christian? Can you be a Christian and smoke cigarettes? Drink? Do drugs? Look at porn? Overeat? Dance? Cuss? I could do this for days. Is it a sin to miss church? Can gay couples be members of our church?
Some of you are sitting there with your eyelids fluttering and your eyeballs are about to roll back into your head. I have more questions but I’ll stop there. I bring all of this up because those are common questions and we need to be able to answer them. Sometimes we can get bogged down in knowing all the names of the disciples or how the Trinity works or if we are pre-trib or post-trib when all your neighbor cares about is if can he still drink beer and go to Heaven.
Don’t you know Jesus was asked a lot of these kinds of questions? In John 3, Nicodemus comes to Jesus with questions and Jesus gives him what is probably the most commonly quoted verse in the Bible. He told Nic at night, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus plainly said that all we have to do to get to Heaven, to be a Christian, to be saved or whatever you want to call it is…to believe in Him. Just believe in Jesus and have eternal life in Heaven. It’s so simple.
But because it is so simple, it’s a problem. It’s a problem because so many people obviously don’t understand what it means to believe. James 2:19 says that even demons believe. The dictionary says that belief is just accepting something as true. But Jesus tells us in the last part of the Sermon on the Mount that not everybody who says they believe will go to Heaven.
Turn to Matthew 7:21. This is a scary passage, or it should be scary for lots of people. If understood, this passage should rock the world of a lot of people, especially good people; moral people and people that have spent their life in church and are very religious. In the passage that we read last week, Jesus warned of false prophets and false shepherds, the leaders of the church. This week, we see his warning about false sheep and all the people that say they are Christians but don’t do what is required and those that hear what is required but don’t do.
Jesus ends His Sermon on the Mount by saying, “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. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'LORD, LORD, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' 24"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." 28When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
And with that, Jesus drops the mic and walks slowly down the mountain. At least, that’s how I picture it. He has told them everything they need to know in three short chapters. Want to be happy? Do the opposite of what the world says. Don’t be a hypocrite. Know that God sees your heart and knows your motives and they matter. Get your doctrine right. Know what is truth. Know how to pray. Know what is important and what’s not. Now, you know what to do. Don’t just say it and don’t just hear it. Like Nike says, just do it.
Let me ask you another question. What is the very least I have to do to become a doctor? I’m thinking about becoming a brain surgeon because I hear there is a lot of money in it but I don’t know how to begin. Do I really have to go to school? I’m pretty smart. I know right where the brain is in most people. I think I can do it but I don’t really want to go to school all those years. I want to make a lot of money so what is the very least I have to do to become a brain surgeon?
That’s not a very good question, is it? That’s wrong on several levels. Brain surgery is pretty important. It could easily affect your life or cause death. And yet, that is the same attitude a lot of people have when it comes to their eternity. “What’s the least I have to do to get to Heaven?” Nobody really asks that question, but their intentions are clear when they don’t do what scripture says to do.
Look closer at what Jesus said. In verse 22 He says, “Many will say to me on that day, 'LORD, LORD…” What day is He talking about? That day is judgment day. In Romans 14 it says, “For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11It is written: “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before Me; every tongue will confess to God.” 12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.…”
Now, the good news for Christians is that our good deeds are the only thing that will be judged. We will be rewarded when we get to Heaven for all the good things we have done. Our sins were judged on the cross when Jesus died and we are forgiven and made right with God because of that.
But, for everybody else, there will be what is called the Great White Throne Judgment. In Malachi 4, Malachi the prophet wrote, “‘Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,’ says the LORD Almighty.” That is the day Jesus speaks of here and some people are going to be very surprised to be there.
They will earnestly call out to Jesus as “Lord, Lord!” They will say, “Wait just a second here. You need to check your records again. See, I did a lot of good stuff in your name, so you have to let me in.” But if they did all those things in His name, why does Jesus say, “I never knew you” in verse 23? Well, going back to verse 21, Jesus said, only the one who does the will of my Father gets to Heaven. It takes more than just saying you are a believer. It takes more than just saying you are doing something in the name of Jesus. So, evidently, to Jesus, “belief” is more than just accepting something as true like the dictionary defines it.
Alright, I have another question. Do you always wear your seatbelt when you are in the car? Always? Why? It’s the law. Is that enough to make you wear it? I read the other day about a man in New Zealand who was ticketed over 20 times for not wearing his seatbelt. Finally, he made a fake seatbelt. It looked real but just draped over his shoulder and didn’t attach to anything. Know what happened? He didn’t get any more tickets. He died in a car wreck. Now, I don’t tell you that to make you feel guilty about not wearing your seatbelt. I want you to think about why you are obedient to God because the reason is all-important.
You can fake it. You can fool me and you can fool the church. You can say all the right things and give and smile and help out at the RV Park and serve on committees and do all those good things. And when you fool me into thinking you are a believer, it’s like that guy from New Zealand fooling the cop with his fake seatbelt. But it will wind up killing you dead in Hell for eternity.
You can fool me. You can fool the church. But the easiest one to fool is sometimes yourself. So, let me give you a test. The first question on the test is do you remember a specific time in your life when you asked God to forgive you of your sins and asked Him to be Lord of your life? Did that profession of faith include repenting from that sin; turning away from that lifestyle? I didn’t ask if you are sinless. I asked if you turned away from that lifestyle and went in the way you know God wanted you to go?
If you don’t remember that time in your life, it should send up a red flag for you. You may have forgotten the date and the time and even the exact place but you should remember some of the circumstances of that big decision. Who told you about Jesus? Did you go before the church and let them know? Where you baptized? You should remember some of those things.
The next question is did your life change? Was it a remarkable change? Did other people notice a difference in you? Your spouse, your co-workers, your friends should have noticed a difference pretty quick. If not, that’s a red flag.
Do you sin less than you used to? Does your sin pain you more than it used to? Are you still struggling with the same old sins month after month after month? Do you truly desire to please God with your life, even if nobody else sees? Those are the marks of a changed life; a life that hates sin and hates the old man in us, the flesh that still comes out every now and then.
Let me ask you this. Don’t answer out loud. Just think about it. In what circumstance would a small sin be acceptable to you? I’m not talking about murder or kicking a puppy – something horrible. I mean a small sin like lying or cheating on a test. Let me give you a scenario. You and some friends are on vacation at the beach and you see a member of the opposite sex walking down the beach looking hot. Is a little bit of lust acceptable to you in that situation? Is that okay?
What about on tax day when you know that if you just fudge the numbers a little bit, it will make a big difference in what you owe? That’s not a big deal, right? Sure, it’s a sin but God understands, doesn’t He? Okay, some of y’all are going to hate me for this one but that’s okay. The speed limit is 45 on the road by our church. Is 50 okay? At what point is it a sin? 55? 65? I know it’s against the law and scripture tells us to obey the laws of man but come on, is that really a sin?
Look, if all you are hearing me say is that we have to follow a bunch of rules and Christianity is all about legalism, you have missed the point. If all you hear is don’t do this and don’t do that, you have missed the point. If you think I am preaching about lying, lust and speeding, you have missed the point.
The point is that a true believer; a true follower and disciple of Jesus will want to do what Jesus said to do and what scripture says for us to do. A true believer WILL hunger and thirst for righteousness. A true believer WILL abide in Him. A true believer WILL be different today than he was yesterday. You can hear it all day long and you can say you are a believer all day long but the only proof is a radically changed life.
Now, if you think I am telling you that you need to live a better, more devout and moral life, you are wrong. Anybody can do that. There are good, moral, sweet people busting Hell wide open every day. You don’t get to Heaven because you asked God to forgive your sins and then you made yourself become holy and righteous.
You get to Heaven by asking God to forgive your sins and then declaring to Him that you can’t do it. You can’t be holy. You can’t be righteous. You can’t do one little thing that will make you deserving of God’s holy and precious Heaven. That is all Him. You have to decide that Jesus is going to truly be Lord of your life, meaning that if you read in the Bible that Christians are to stand on their heads for an hour every day, you’re going to stand on your head by God’s grace and with His help.
If God says not to lust, then by God’s grace and with His help, you won’t do it. If God says not to worry, then by God’s grace and with His help you won’t. If He says to set no vile thing before your eyes or let no coarse word come out of your mouth, then by God’s grace and with His help your life will change. And if you just can’t understand how that works then that, too, is a red flag because 1 Corinthians 2:14 says that if you don’t have the Spirit of God living in you then you won’t understand this stuff.
I have to tell you that one of the greatest fears of my life is thinking that somebody has gone to Christ Fellowship for years and been active and gave and sang the songs and gave a 3-minute testimony and all that stuff and then dies and Jesus tells my sweet friend, “Get away from me. I never knew you.”
Don’t let your house come down with a crash. If you have any doubt that you have once and for all asked God to forgive you of your sins, allowed the Spirit of God to live inside of you and asked Jesus to truly be your Lord and to change your life, then let’s make sure right now. That is what Jesus meant by “believe” and that’s what I’m asking you to do today. It’s free but it will cost you your life. Do it right now, as the music plays.
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