“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 in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
“And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.” (1 John 2:17)
Judgment Day will be terrifying for some Christians, perhaps many more than we think.
Hopefully, it won’t be scary for you and me.
Imagine hearing Jesus say, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!” (Matthew 7:23). I can’t think of anything more devastating than staring into an abyss without God’s presence for eternity.
And yet, Jesus says it will happen to some who claim to follow Him. The question is, “Why?”
Matthew records Jesus’ disciple training session in chapters 5-7. It’s called the Sermon on the Mount. This section parallels Israel’s Mount Sinai experience. God gathered His people around Him at a mountain, sat down on it, and taught them His Torah; His commands and ways. “Torah” means “direction, law, regulation, teaching, instruction” (Kolenberger-Mounce). God’s commands reflect His will for His people.
In short, for Israel to be His people, His kingdom of priests, and a holy nation, the Israelites needed to obey God’s will by learning His kingdom’s laws and practices. Not only were they to learn God’s law code, but they had to do it, putting it into action, to survive as a nation through the storms of life. For the Israelites, knowing and doing God’s will proved they were God’s people.
The ancient Israelites’ encounter with Yehovah at Mount Sinai parallels what is happening with Jesus and His disciples during the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Jesus gathered His disciples around Him at a mount. He sat down and taught them how to follow His Father’s commands and practices. Here’s the summary:
Matthew 5:1-2. The Beatitudes: How to enter God’s kingdom and what it will be like for each of His subjects.
Matthew 5:13-16. Salt and Light: Just as the Father expected the Israelites to impact the nations around them (Deuteronomy 4:6-8), Jesus expected His disciples to impact the world around them.
Matthew 5:17-20. Keep following the Torah, the original commands and practices, but do them Jesus’ way. How do we, as Jesus’ disciples, impact our society? By learning and living God’s commands after we’re born again.
Matthew 5:21-48. Jesus teaches His Father’s commands about anger, lust, marriage (divorce), keeping our word, retaliation, and loving our enemies.
Matthew 6: 1-34. Jesus teaches how His Father wants us to give, pray, fast, and handle material goods properly.
Matthew 7:1-29. Jesus teaches His Father’s way of working out interpersonal relationships among believers and our relationship with Him.
Easy, huh? Well, maybe not so much. But we’re still supposed to keep practicing them to improve.
That said, did you notice Jesus’ underlying theme? The entire section is about putting our trust in Jesus into action. Doing. Not just thinking. Doing. Jesus sums it up in 7:21, “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 in heaven.” You can know all about your Heavenly Father’s will for you and what He wants you to be and do, but it means nothing if you don’t put it into practice.
In other words, the proof is in action, not inaction.
There’s a vast difference between Western thinking and the Bible’s Hebraic thinking. Western thinking values ideas and concepts for what they are—no action is required. However, Hebraic thinking values putting thoughts into action—action is required.
Therefore, a disciple’s profession of faith in Jesus doesn’t mean a hill of beans if there’s no acting on His King and Rabbi’s instructions. Jesus demands action. Again, “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 in heaven.” You can call Jesus “Lord” until the cows come home, but He’s not your Lord if you don’t do His Father’s will.
A person I knew who was familiar with Jewish culture pointed out a stunning difference between Western-thinking Christians and Hebraically-thinking Jews. Christians will take a scripture verse to their pastor and ask, “What should I think about this verse?” On the other hand, a Jew would ask their Rabbi, “How do I do this verse?”
There you have it. Precisely the type of thing our Jewish Rabbi and King is telling His disciples and subjects, Jewish and Gentile.
Biblically speaking, thinking must lead to action. Otherwise, our life with Jesus is just an intellectual exercise, a philosophy among all the world’s philosophies to be taken off the shelf, discussed and debated by intellectuals, academicians, and philosophers, and returned to the shelf.
According to Jesus, this means squat: zip, nada, nothing, per the late Rush Limbaugh.
The seeming dichotomy between belief and works has led to confusion between belief in Jesus and trusting Jesus. When people say they believe in Jesus, that can range from simple mental agreement to wholehearted trust. We can agree mentally with what Jesus reveals about salvation and never be saved.
For example, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). A mental agreement response would be, “Oh yes, Jesus. I believe what you say is true. Now excuse me while I go about my day with that information, living my very selfish and self-centered way.”
That’s a bogus faith. Generally speaking, mental assent leads to inaction, and genuine trust leads to action.
Come to think of it, the “mental assent” person is like a demon. James says, “You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe—and they shudder” (James 2:19). The only difference is the demon is afraid, and the person isn’t. That makes me shudder.
Just like the person with mental assent, demons believe but don’t obey God’s commands or guidelines. (Well, except when God’s authority and power cast them out. But that’s another topic.)
James goes on to prove how mental assent leads to inaction, proving that one’s faith is worthless. “Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works (inaction) is useless?” (James 2:20). James continues, “Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works in offering Isaac his son on the altar?” You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was made complete” (James 2:21-22).
First, “justification” in this verse carries the idea of proving something. The Key Dictionary of the Greek New Testament says justify means “to render (i.e., show or regard as) just or innocent,” among other definitions. The Mounce Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament says it means “to avouch to be good and true, to vindicate.” Wow! “Avouch” is a pretty fancy-schmancy word. The online Merriam-Webster.com website defines avouch as “to declare as a matter of fact or as a thing that can be proved.” There you have it. His offering of Isaac to Yehovah proved Abraham’s faith as commanded.
James continues, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). This verse has triggered many Christians who follow Reformation theology. “Why, everybody knows salvation is ‘by faith alone.’ No one can do anything to save themselves!” True. But this verse is not about gaining salvation. It’s about proving we’re saved. Capishe?
Abraham trusted God and proved it by living according to God’s word (actions). God saw that Abraham trusted Him (Genesis 15:6), and He knew Abraham would teach his family and servants how to trust God and live for Him (Genesis 18:19). But God wanted to prove to the world how much Abraham trusted Him. That happened when Abraham was willing to trust God in the face of an impossible choice.
When God started working in Abraham’s life, He promised Abraham a family, a nation, and a land if ol’ Abe followed Him (Genesis 12:2,7). Abraham would have never seen those promises fulfilled if God hadn’t first reversed the effects of old age on Sarah. But after God did that, didn’t Abraham and Sarah also have to prove their trust in God’s promise by acting on their rejuvenation? (C’mon. Don’t be silly. You know what I mean.)
Well, God blessed their faith in action. He created a son, Isaac, for the elderly couple. However, thirteen years later, God told Abraham to offer Isaac to Him as a sacrifice. Isaac was to die by his father’s hand at the Father’s command. The God who gave Isaac life asked Abraham to help return it to Him.
Abraham’s trust in God faced an impossibility. “But God! You promised me a family, a nation, and a land. You proved your word by giving us Isaac through a miracle. But now you want me to destroy the only way your promise can be fulfilled?” And yet, the writer to the Hebrews tells us Abraham trusted God so thoroughly that he figured God would have to bring back Isaac from the dead (Hebrews 10:17-19). Thus, Abraham acted without hesitation.
Notice that there are no words between verses 2 and 3 in Genesis 22. Verse 2 says, “‘Take your son,’ (God) said, ‘your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Verse 3 says, “So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took with him two of his young men and his son Isaac. He split wood for a burnt offering and set out to go to the place God had told him about.”
See that? God spoke (vs. 2), and Abraham acted (vs. 3). Quickly, I might add. There was no sleeping in or meditating for weeks on God’s command. Abraham set out early for the three-day trip. To me, there’s no doubt that as Abraham traveled, he was thinking about God’s earlier promise versus His latest command and how it didn’t make sense. But according to the text, action came first. Throughout the rest of the account, there’s no hint of hesitation. Abraham trusted God so completely that he unreservedly acted upon God’s command and didn’t quit until God yelled at Abraham to stop before Isaac was harmed.
That’s what Jesus wants from His disciples. He wants us to live our discipleship in action, not with inaction, and our actions must be tied to His word. God speaks, we act. Period.
In our culture, many Christians attend church services and receive much biblical information. But during the following week, do we roll what we learned around in our noggins (“Pastor, what should I think about this verse?”), or do we act on it (“Rabbi, how do I do this verse?”)? Do we let what we’ve learned shape our behavior so we can act more like Jesus?
Sadly, most Christians today show that their trust in God is mental assent, proved by their inaction rather than wholehearted reliance, proved by action.
That’s a crucial distinction because receiving God’s word, acting on it, and letting it change our lives is what being made into Jesus’ likeness is all about (Romans 8:29). And becoming like Jesus is the primary goal of our salvation.
In His sermon, Jesus says, “You will recognize them by their fruit” (Matthew 7:15-20). Not only is action expected of Jesus’ disciples, but good actions reflect the disciple’s born-again nature. A tree is proved by its fruit, not by its potential to bear fruit nor by the hope that it will bear fruit. The proof is the fruit: action. Real, tangible, verifiable, tasty fruit.
Jesus’ warning is clear. After teaching what His Father’s will is in Matthew 5:1 to 7:20, He closes the entire section with, “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 in heaven.” In other words, “Y’all better listen up and learn and do what I just taught you, for that’s my Father’s will for you.”
Why is it essential to put God’s will into action? “And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever” (1 John 2:17). Why does the person who does God’s will remain forever? The one who does the Father’s will prove themselves to be the Father’s child, and the Father’s child will live with Him forever.
Therefore, while knowing the Father’s will is essential, doing the Father’s will is the key indicator of whether or not Jesus knows us (salvation/relationship) and vice versa.
Because God’s will is embedded in His word, we must embrace it, chew on it, and digest it to understand it so we can act on it. The more we know God’s word, the better our actions become in quality and quantity for His sake.
What’s in it for us, disciples? A lot.
Jesus capped his disciple talk with, “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash” (Matthew 7:24-27)
Those disciples who put God’s word into action develop a foundation for their lives that will help them weather the storms of life. Those disciples who only think about God’s word but don’t use it as the foundation of their lives will eventually collapse and be swept away when troubles come. Why? Doing God’s will in all situations solidifies God’s trustworthiness in us, and that’s the rock upon which we stand when the storm breaks.
What do your actions, or lack thereof, say about your relationship with Jesus?
That’s something to think about today.
Wait a minute. Strike that.
That’s something we should act on today.
Source:
Kohlenberger-Mounce Concise Hebrew-Aramaic Dictionary of the Old Testament
The Key Dictionary of the Greek New Testament
Shining the Light of God’s Truth on the Road Ahead
Pastor Jay Christianson
The Truth Barista, Frothy Thoughts