When God says, “I never knew you” S31e93 mt7:21

Join me to hear some of the worst words that will ever be spoken by God: "I never knew you."

Oh, dear podcast watcher, don't let this be said to you!  You have everything to say about this. To hear those words isn't a death-sentence.  It is worse than that. It is a sentence of separation.

Of all the things in your life, don't get this wrong. Upon the reality of your current relationship with God falls an eternal location and an eternal relationship. 

https://youtu.be/NrT2thbxxZI

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My brothers and sisters. When God says, I never knew you. So two days ago, we dispensed with the notion that all roads lead to heaven. In fact, one of the first steps on the road to destruction is the lie that all roads lead to heaven. So this is a passage to Scripture about a passage to somewhere, and it's about choices. There's a wide, there's two gates, one that's wide and it's easy, and many people go through it, but it leads to destruction. And then another one that's narrow and hard. Few go through it, but it leads to life. We're going to talk about that today. So it's the shrewd deceiver that lures with the assurance that the broad, well-populated, easy path does not lead to destruction. So we have to avoid that deception, specifically, that all roads lead to heaven. Nope. There's an easy way that leads to destruction. All right. Then yesterday we looked at wolves and we mixed two metaphors. One was about wolves, and the other one was about their checking on their fruit. So those two metaphors met yesterday, and we left, say, hey, consider the fruit of your life, the fruit of your behaviors, the fruit of your relationship. So not only be a fruit inspector, but also a fruit bearer. Alright, today's passage is from Matthew chapter 7, verse 21, and it has one of the most disturbing lines in Scripture. I never knew you, the Lord says, I never knew you. Watch for it. Here it is, verse 21. 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, this is God speaking, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So the truth of that passage is saying the name of God does not guarantee that you are in an ongoing heavenly relationship with the Lord. So certainly be careful about it. Three words that came to my mind were respect, reverence, and worship that name. So associated in the passage with the words is the will of God. Are you doing the will, obeying the principles, trusting in his word and provision? So there is a relationship first to know the will of God, and then there's obedience, which is to follow the will of God. So you remember early in the Beatitudes was the Lord's Prayer, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So let's talk about the Lord's will for a second. I want to ask the question where is the will of God done? Well, perfectly it's done in heaven. There's no arguments happening there. And we know that those who have argued, they're not there for very long. So that is, every angel or heavenly being that is not 100% obedient to his will, uh, you're never not going to meet in heaven. So anything less for an angel is irredeemable, and presumably they've been cast out of heaven. So at least we do not know of any way to redeem an angel. Now, fortunately for us, we have a redemptive process, and a hundred percent of us need one, so it's a good thing. Now, after our restoration, we seek the sanctification process, and this involves knowing and doing this will of God. So the obedience to God's will is what the Lord is going to build his house on. Come back for tomorrow's lesson for that. So the question is about the Lord's will being done here on earth. We know it's done in heaven perfectly, but here on earth there's a problem. That is, he's given us liberty to do his will, and he's also given us liberty to not do his will. And that's where the difficulty lies. So this is the true battlefield in our lives. So the Lord wants more than affirmation, he wants action. He wants more than declaration, he wants deeds. Why? Well, it's the deeds that demonstrate the declaration and the actions that put shoe leather, if you will, onto the affirmation. Now let's get to the uh disturbing part of the passage. Uh, didn't we prophesy in your name? Apparently, no. Didn't we cast out demons in your name? Apparently, no. Didn't we do mighty works in your name? Uh no. So wait, we can be so very wrong about the motivation and power and the power source. I'm reading a book by Tyler Staten, S A S T A T O N S. He has an excellent book called Praying Like Monks and Living Like Fools. And he writes, this is a quote, to pray in Jesus' name means to pray with recovered authority. He, Jesus, won back the authority that we were created to carry and lost. Unquote. So here, no, the prophecy, the casting, and the mighty works were then apparently done apart from the recovered authority from Jesus. And to me, this means one of two things. Either one, they were done apart from an individual's faith in the name and power and the person of Jesus. Or two, which I think is more likely, they were done in the sort of grand we sort of way. So yes, these things happen. We're not doubting that casting out and prophecy happened. But they were done on the basis of other people's faith. You were a part of the part of the group where you thought you were a part of the group, and you thought it was because of your faith. Similarly, when you go to heaven, you think you're part of the heavenly group, and the answer is no. So here's the Lord's assessment of for that person. I never knew you. Horrible words, horrible thing. And I don't want to make light of this, but I do want to make it memorable today. Now I've been writing songs for about five years, and this is a great title for a song. It sounds to me like this tragic country song, where this person goes on in what they think is a relationship, and the end result is, but I never I never knew you. So don't let the Lord sing this tragic, sad, sunk country song to you. He's given you, he's given everything to know you and to be known by you. So tell him, number one, and number two, show him you believe and trust by obedience. And then when you go to heaven, where his will is always done, he won't say, I never knew you. He will say, I know you and welcome home. Thanks for saying.