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Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23, ESV

Pastor Skyler’s sermon on this passage is called “It’s Personal.”

If you appear at a private wedding without an invitation, you will be politely asked to leave. If you then announce, with great self-importance, that you are an admirer of the couple, that you follow them on social media, that you diligently like, subscribe, and retweet everything they ever say, and that this gives you the right to enter the celebration, you would still be rightly denied access. The couple does not know you.

When it comes to entering God’s kingdom of heaven, it is the same way. Muslims believe they must follow The Five Pillars of Islam to earn paradise. Buddhists hold to their eightfold path to achieve personal enlightenment. Christianity is unique among all world religions in part because a true Christian is one who has seen that there is nothing to be done to earn a ‘ticket’ to heaven. You cannot even cast out demons to impress God.

Jesus, in the passage above, gives the key when he says, ‘I never knew you.’ Those who enter heaven are known by Jesus. Notice that it is not the other way around. Jesus does not say, “You never knew me.” Clearly, the people in the text did know Jesus. They cast out demons and prophesied in his name. They were big-time fans of Jesus. They liked all his posts, so to speak. But Jesus didn’t know them personally. There was no relationship.

One of the fundamental truths of Christianity is that God knows us before we can come to know him. God chooses us. He loves us first, enabling us to love him in return. Elsewhere, Jesus again touches on this when he says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27, ESV). Notice the chain of cause and effect. The sheep do not follow until Jesus knows them, until he calls out to them. God is cause of salvation so that he alone gets the glory, leaving nothing for us to boast about. Then, once we are known by Him, it is our joy to ever grow in our knowledge and love of the one who loved us first.

 

Go Deeper / Questions