The Verdict No one Wants to Hear Matthew 7:21-23

where we are left out of something. We had hopes to be included in special occasions, but our hopes were dashed.

When this happens, we feel defeated and humiliated. This is a devastating experience that all of us have probably experienced.

I remember when I played Little League baseball, I made the All -Star team, and I was all excited.

But when it came time to play our first game, I was left out of the lineup.

I sat at the end of the bench feeling defeated. I would not have played at all unless my dad said something to the coach who finally put me in for pity's sake.

Some of you may have had an experience of being left out of a big celebration of some kind.

You thought you were invited and you showed up only to find out that you weren't invited. And you were humiliated.

Your name wasn't on the list. Moments like these are devastating and no one wants to experience this.

But a day is coming when people will be left out of the greatest event of all.

The time that all human history is working toward. A day is coming when the

Creator of the universe will officially divide the world into two different groups.

The saved and the lost. The sons of glory and the sons of hell.

The blessed and the cursed. The ones who will live in joy forever and the ones who will live in misery.

The invited and the uninvited. Now on this day, when everyone knows that there is a

God and Jesus is His Son and the Bible really does tell the story of life, some will immediately know their destiny and know they are doomed forever.

Think of the wretched atheist who denied God till the very end of their life.

But here's the tragedy about the final judgment day. There are going to be many people who think they should be in heaven, but in reality they will be left out of paradise and cast into outer darkness.

It is hard to find a more sobering passage in the whole Bible than the one we are going to look at today.

In this passage we're going to see that some will be left out. Some will be doomed forever.

At this point, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew chapter 7.

We'll be looking at verses 21 through 23. If you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 965 and 966.

This sermon is titled, The Verdict No One Wants to Hear. The verdict no one wants to hear.

And we will begin by reading this passage. Matthew 7, 21 through 23.

Jesus is speaking here to this crowd as He overlooks the Sea of Galilee and He says,

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 I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.

This is what the sermon is calling each of us to do this morning. Do not be tragically surprised on that fateful day.

Do not be tragically surprised on that fateful day. We're going to see three observations in this text.

But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of last week. We looked at the problem in the church of false prophets and false teachers.

Jesus described them as wolves. The Apostle Paul explains in Acts 20 that these false teachers aren't going to come from the outside.

These are false teachers that come from the inside of the church and they bring in destructive heresies.

They teach for selfish gain and lead many down the path to hell. Last week, the sermon called us to recognize these wolves in the church, whether locally or around the world.

Jesus gave us one clear warning sign to look out for. We are to recognize them through observing their character, through words and deeds.

Over time, a false teacher will show that he is not bearing good fruit, but only bad fruit.

So this we must look out for. Now this leads us once again to our text this morning. Before we dig in, we need to understand where we are in the context in order to shed light on these verses.

Last week, as I already mentioned, we looked at false prophets and false teachers. So as Jesus says this in the

Sermon on the Mount, he chiefly has in mind false teachers. False teachers believe they are working on behalf of the

Lord, when in reality they are working on behalf of the devil. But we know he has more in mind than false teachers from the fact that in Luke chapter 13, verses 22 through 30, that's the passage

I read for the call to worship this morning. Jesus is not just referring to false teachers.

He's referring to all kinds of people. So this sermon today applies to people of all different stripes who are going to have this experience at the judgment day of hearing the words,

I never knew you. So as we can see here, this is for everybody.

This is for the ordinary people throughout history. It's for the well -known people. It's for the not well -known people.

It's for everybody. Now, what we notice in verse 21, as we've already read, is that those who are going to hear this dreadful verdict from Jesus thought that they belonged to him.

Let's read verse 21 again. 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.

In this verse, what I want to highlight is how they address Jesus. True believers and false believers are going to address him with the same words,

Lord, Lord. We know this because Jesus says not everyone who says this is mine, but some who say it are mine.

This is why life can be confusing. Many people confess faith in Christ who do not belong to Christ.

Their doctrine is correct. They believe that Jesus is God. They believe that Jesus died and rose again.

These people are not addressing Jesus as a respected teacher from history, but rather as who the

Bible says he is in whole. As my old pastor used to say, not all who profess faith in Christ possess faith in Christ.

About two -thirds of America, even more than that, identify themselves as Christians.

But when you look at the number of those who attend church regularly, the number drops down quite a bit.

One mark of a true Christian is that one desires fellowship with other believers.

In the letter of 1 John, when the Apostle John gives evidence of faith, one thing he says is, you love the church.

He doesn't mean the building, he means the people. You love the people. And you can't imagine life without them.

That's a mark of a sincere believer of Jesus Christ. And so true believers see the importance of the body of Christ.

So we know that many who profess faith in Christ do not take their faith seriously. And church attendance is one of many ways to see this.

A much smaller number in America truly possess faith in Christ. Now, not only do false believers call

Jesus Lord, Lord, but verse 22 tells us something else about them. On that day, many will say to me,

Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons, and do many mighty works in your name?

So once again here, we see that they call Jesus Lord, Lord, they say it twice.

And by the way, the word Lord, it can mean master, or it can mean

God, it can be the name of God. If you look at the Old Testament, the

English translation of the name Yahweh, which is the name of God, is translated

Lord. And in the New Testament, we see Jesus called Lord. So when

Jesus is called Lord in the New Testament, they're not just saying master, they're saying, we believe you are who the

Old Testament says God is. So it's a claim to deity for Jesus Christ.

So once again, these people do not have false doctrine, they understand who Jesus is, they believe him to be the

God man. But that's not the mark of true faith. That's just one of the marks of true faith in Christ.

And what we see here is that they list off things that they did, that they supposedly did for him.

It says they prophesied in his name, cast out demons, and did many mighty works. Once again, in our context,

Jesus is primarily talking about false teachers. These teachers prophesied in Christ's name, and they cast out demons, and they thought they did it all for him.

So it's interesting that these people were able to do some extraordinary things in Jesus' name.

But this was not because the one pronouncing it was from God. You will notice here that they use

Jesus to gain power, to be able to prophesy, to be able to cast out demons.

Some of their works may have been from demonic power and not even God's. It may be that some didn't even have this power to do these mighty works, but they claimed to do during their life, kind of like a magician, right?

They don't really have this magic, they're just able to manipulate people into thinking that they're able to do things that are magical.

It may have been that as well. As I mentioned last week, there are false religious leaders out there who say they do all these things.

Like they say they're a prophet, but they do this because it boosts their ego and they want power where they go.

Whether these people did these extraordinary works or not, none of what they did was done for the glory of God, but only for self -glorification.

Their pride and full range of wickedness confirms their unbelief and not true faith in God.

Now in the parallel passage in Luke 13, in verse 26, the people said, we ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets.

These were people who were present in the body of Christ. You wouldn't have known that they were a false believer.

Now this morning in Sunday school, we talked about Judas. Judas was one of the 12 disciples. They didn't know that he was a false believer.

He was there. He fit in with everybody. He did the things that they did. He had the conversations that others had in the group.

And when Jesus told them that one of you is going to betray me, what is very interesting is that they didn't point out

Judas and say, okay, we knew it was him the whole time. They thought, is it me, Lord? Am I the one who's going to betray you?

That's how well Judas fit in with the group. And that's a sobering reality to think about.

So these were people, Luke 13, 26, these were people who were present in the body of Christ.

But the problem with the surprise on the day of judgment is that none of their works were true works for God.

They followed Jesus for the wrong reasons. It may have been that they saw

Christianity as a good way to live. Life is better when you are surrounded by good people and you can work on your outward morality yourself in this environment.

What a better place to do this than the church, right? But none of these works were done from a pure heart.

No works were done out of a sincere love for God. There were selfish reasons for doing works and God is the one we cannot fool.

As Hebrews 4, 13 says, no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

God sees through everything. He knows if our heart is pure and He knows if it is not.

Galatians 6, 7 and 8 says, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.

For whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from flesh reap corruption.

But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. If one's works are only done from one's own strength because the

Spirit does not dwell in one, God sees that. He also sees the one where the

Spirit is working. God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows.

People can fool other Christians about the authenticity of one's faith, but no one can fool

God. He knows what our deepest desires are and the believer's deepest desire is to honor

God with their life as imperfect as it is sometimes. Because it isn't perfect.

It's a process. The false Christian does not have such a desire though.

This desire to love God, to please God with all their heart. But rather, the false

Christian has as their deepest desire satisfying and glorifying self.

Since this person is involved in religious activities and has a positive view of religious activities, this person believes that he or she is saved.

Think of Judas. Judas was a lover of money. Once he knew that Jesus was going to be crucified, he gave him up.

He betrayed him. And he wanted to get something out of it. Judas' greatest desire was not his love for Christ and his desire to follow

Him all the days of his life and to spend forever in glory with Him. That's a true believer.

But that was not Judas. Now think about this. This is very dangerous. To have a positive view of Christ is not the same as surrendering your life to Christ.

To have a positive view of Christ is not the same as treasuring Christ. We already heard

Jesus say in Matthew 6 .24 that you cannot serve two masters. Either Christ is the

Lord of your life or He is not. And if He isn't, then something else is. Everyone has a

Lord. Everyone has a God that they are living for. The question is, is it

Jesus? And if it isn't, then this is a false Christian. If your deepest desire in life is to follow

Christ, then you are saved. But if it's not, then you are self -deceived.

It doesn't matter if you sign a card to say you're a Christian. It must be real for you to be a genuine believer in Christ.

The reason this text is so frightening is because these are professing Christians. A few weeks back, we looked at the text where there are two paths.

The wide path and the narrow path. In that text, we talked about how people from false religions and secularists are on the wide path that leads to destruction.

And in passing, I mentioned that some professing Christians are on the wide path. This text that we have today is focused on these very people.

These are the people who call themselves Christians in this world, but they really weren't, but self -deceived.

So I ask you, is living for Jesus your deepest and strongest desire?

Is He the treasure of your life? Anyone who has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them has

Jesus as their greatest hope, as their greatest love, as their greatest treasure.

And Jesus said, if you love Me, you will do what I command. If you love

Me, out of the outflow of that will be obedience. So when

Jesus tells you to do something, you don't say, oh, I have to do this. You say, you know what? I want to do this because I love

Him. And I trust Him. And I know He has my best in mind. But those who have a positive view of Christianity, but have not surrendered their life to Him are self -deceived.

Their works will not show that they had sincere faith in Christ. And they may have a laundry list of things they did, but none of their works were done for the glory of God, but for some ulterior motive.

And you do not want to be in this number. And I pray that no one in this room is. So do not be tragically surprised on that faithful day.

And the first observation is that the surprised are self -deceived. The second observation is this.

The surprised are many. This is a clear observation from this text of this horrific experience at the judgment will be the experience of many.

In verse 22, let's read this again. Jesus says, on that day, many will say to me,

Lord, Lord, and then they list off the things that they did. They will say,

Lord, we did all these amazing things for you. Some were cultural

Christians who checked the Christian box when asked what religion they were. Some were loosely connected with the church.

Others were more connected with the church and took part in church activities. Some attended church every week because they thought going to church was what good people did, but failed to recognize only through Christ's work is one reconciled to God.

Some were church leaders who built churches, but they did it for their own praise and not

God's. Some grew up in a Christian family and thought Christianity was their birthright.

Some prayed a prayer to receive Christ, but their life later showed that they weren't a

Christian because faith is proven over time. It's a test over time.

Some thought well of Christianity because it was closely aligned with their political party.

That's a lot of people in America right now. These professing Christians were outwardly decent people.

Which looked like good works for Christ, but none of the works came from a pure heart for Christ.

What the sobering words of Jesus tells us is that this will be the experience of many at the judgment.

There are millions of people right now in America and around the world who call themselves

Christians, who are on their way to this horrible surprise. Several weeks back when we looked at the wide and narrow path, what

Jesus said is that many are on the wide path and these professing Christians are on this wide path.

Even thinking that they were on the narrow path. Now as a personal testimony,

I've seen so many people who thought they were Christians show themselves not to be

Christians over time. Some still call themselves Christians, but others don't even do that.

The ones who call themselves Christians are only Christians by their own definition. It's not by the biblical definition.

These are people who were in my youth group growing up. In this youth group, they led music, they preached sermons, they shed tears, which people thought showed a true work of God in their heart.

I can't tell you how many times there was music playing, people were crying. I remember thinking, I'm not crying.

Is God not working in my life? Emotions can be very deceiving. You think, you know, that's so, it's so, that's such a problem, by the way, in the church today.

It's like if we don't, if we don't have this emotional experience, it's not from God. Maybe it's just the music that made you feel emotional.

Now, we should have emotions for God, but is it, does it come from the Word of God? Does it come from the truth?

If it doesn't come from a strong conviction in who God is and what he has done, then we should be very suspicious of emotionalism.

And my fear for these people, in fact, one of them just messaged me on Facebook and is very interested in atheist ideas.

I fear that many of these people are on the white list. And some of them clearly are. 1 John 2 .19 says, they went out from us, but they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

What I can honestly say is that from my upbringing, the Christianity that I was in and maybe many of you were in, there were some problems in it.

The fruit of it is not good. So many have fallen away. Why is this?

Was there something wrong with the Christianity that I grew up in and the Christianity maybe that you experienced growing up?

I submit to you that the experience of me and many others was a shallow Christianity.

It was really an Americanized Christianity. Now, it is true that you can have biblical depth in a church where the whole counsel of God is taught and preached and people will still not believe and there still will be immaturity in such a place.

Because at the end of the day, God is the one who gives the growth. He's the one who gives new life to people in salvation.

However, a healthy church that has biblical depth and realizes the implications of what the whole

Bible says is the one that is going to have more mature believers. And you know what?

When you come back 20 years later, you'll see, wait, these people are still walking with Christ.

But this other ministry, there aren't people walking with Christ. And it should be a surprise because one is done by the book, by the

Bible, and one isn't. One maybe grabs from the Bible a little bit, but not enough.

And you're building a church for self -deceived people. And my fear is that so many churches in America are setting people up for this surprise at the final judgment.

People will hear the words, I never knew you, because they believe for the wrong reasons, because they weren't taught the whole counsel of God.

They weren't taught to count the cost of following Jesus. And so my desire here at Eureka Baptist is

I want to build a church, and we've been doing this for almost four years, where we have

Christians who are tested, who stand the test of time, who love Jesus with all their heart, who want to tell others about Jesus, who 50 years from now have a church that will be healthy because we built the right foundation.

I mean, Sean can tell you, and I'm getting a little ahead of myself with next week's sermon, the foundation must be right.

If the foundation's bad, it won't stand. Right, so we need to follow true

Christianity based on what the Bible says incomplete, in full.

Now, 1 Corinthians 3 talks about building on gold, silver, and costly stone rather than wood, straw, and hay.

And at the judgment, it'll be tested by fire. Wood, straw, and hay will be burned up, but gold, silver, and costly stone will stand the test.

And personally, in my own experience, I don't know when I was saved. I may have been saved as a child, but I didn't start seeing significant growth in my life till I was 19.

When I was 19, there was a night when I felt very convicted for my sin, and I was afraid.

I saw myself as deserving of hell, living a sinful lifestyle while professing faith in Christ.

And by God's grace, I started to turn from sin. I started to hunger for God. Then more and more growth came, and I'm on the path of growth by God's grace.

But it wasn't the magical prayer that convinced me that I was saved, but rather a sincere sorrow for sin.

And when this sincere sorrow was there, what the Bible calls repentance, my life started to change.

The environment I grew up in, and frankly, took over America, sowed the seeds for many to be deceived at the future judgment.

And I am so grateful that God woke me up from my slumber to assure me that I won't be one of those who hears the words,

I never knew you. I have that confidence today because I've seen the work of God in my life.

But as we look at this, we should see that there are many false Christians out there. And everyone who professes faith in Christ needs to examine oneself to see if there is true faith there.

So do not be tragically surprised on that faithful day. And the second observation is that the surprised are many.

And here's the third and final observation from this text. The not surprised showed true fruit.

Okay, the not surprised showed true fruit. Verse 23, Jesus says,

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

Okay, so what Jesus makes clear here is that those who are surprised on that day will be characterized as those who did not bear true fruit for God.

They're described as workers of lawlessness. Now, what is lawlessness?

This is referring to God's universal law that is laid out in the 66 books of the

Bible. People take part in wickedness when they break God's law. And one is marked by this.

This is who they really are. They're known as lawbreakers. So in our third point, what we must see is that genuine believers are not marked by this.

But they are marked by keeping God's law. They don't keep God's law to be saved.

But genuine believers keep God's law because they are saved. Because they have the

Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit is transforming one to become more like Christ. What I always want to remind us is that we're saved 100 % based off of what

Christ did on our behalf at the cross and through his resurrection. But the fruit of our belief will show that we are his, that we have been transformed.

The Apostle Paul wrote this in Galatians 5 verses 22 and 23 about the fruit of the

Spirit. He said, The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control.

Against such things there is no law. I love how he says that. There is no law. Because if you do right, keep doing it.

Right? There is no law against this. Now you might be saying,

Pastor Seth, I sin sometimes. Does this mean I'm a worker of lawlessness?

Well, it is true that believers sin. They are not defined as lawbreakers. Revelation 21 .8

describes those who will be thrown into the lake of fire. That text says the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.

When I look at the landscape of America right now, the one that really stands out to me is liars. Think of all the deception that's out there.

Their portion is the lake of fire. Now what this text tells us is that people who continually committed these sins are correctly defined by these sins.

And when I say continually, what I mean is professing Christians stay in their sin without feeling any conviction.

There is no sorrow. And if there's no sorrow, then there's no growth. Because there's no spirit to transform as the person goes on sinning.

And what 1 John 3 .9 says about believers is that no one born of God makes a practice of sinning.

What this means is that no believer is comfortable sinning. So you do sin.

You just don't want to stay there. I think of the old hymn that we sing in this church sometimes,

Come Thou Fount. I know this is Sean's favorite hymn. There's a line in there. Oh, that day when freed from sinning,

I shall see thy lovely face clothed then in blood -washed linen. I shall sing thy sovereign grace.

Come now, Lord, no longer tarry. Take my ransomed soul away.

Come thine angels now to carry me to realms of endless days.

Isn't that well written? The hymnist, Robert Robinson, who wrote that, he's longing to be freed from his sin.

And this is the experience of believers. It's not that you don't sin. You do. But you're saying, I don't want to do this.

I want to be free forever from this. That's a true believer.

So while perfection is never achieved this side of heaven, growth does happen. And this will show at the judgment.

You will not be characterized as a worker of lawlessness, but as one who bore fruit for Christ's sake.

So as we see here in this sermon, as this text has shown us and called us to observe, we are not to be tragically surprised on that fateful day.

Do not be tragically surprised on that fateful day. And we've seen three observations. The surprised are self -deceived.

The surprised are many. And the not surprised showed true fruit.

This is one of the more sobering passages in Scripture. And this is a good time for each of us to examine ourselves.

It is wise to look at our lives, to see whether we are truly saved.

As 2 Corinthians 13 says, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.

Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves? That Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you fail to meet the test.

It is true that God wants us to have assurance of salvation. He doesn't want us always to be doubting.

Am I saved? But it is wise to still examine yourself and see is there true faith there?

Do I truly love Christ? Am I bearing fruit for Christ? And if you're not, you can say, you know what,

Lord? Maybe I've been self -deceived, but I believe now. And then on that day, you won't hear the words, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

And for everyone who truly knows the Lord, they will hear the words as Matthew 25 -21 says, well done, good and faithful servant.

And that's the goal, right? To hear those words from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, next

Sunday, we will be looking at Matthew 7, verses 24 -29.

And we've seen the two categories, right? We've seen two paths. We've seen two teachers. We've seen two disciples.

There's two ways to live. As that gospel tract says, there's two ways to live. And next

Sunday, we're going to see two foundations. What are you building on? And what is the wrong way to build?

Let's bow our heads in prayer this time. Father, this is what you call us to,

Lord, to be sincere disciples of Jesus.

And so, Lord, my prayer is that Eureka Baptist would be full of sincere disciples.

And I've seen good things, Lord. I've seen you work in people's lives. And I'm so encouraged by that.

But my prayer, Lord, is that everyone, Lord, who walks in these doors would not hear the words,

I never knew you, but would hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant. And that the people in our lives,

Lord, the people on the outside would hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant.

That we would see this take place in this community where we would have a multitude of sincere believers in Christ.

That we would see a revival. That we would see a wake -up call for people to follow you.

Truly follow you. Not to sign a card and have no fruit. Not to say this is your religion and have no fruit, but to truly be a follower of Christ.

I pray that we see that in scores, Lord, among us. In Jesus' name, amen.