Known By God, Matthew 7:21-23

1. Read Matthew 7:21-23. Discuss what stands out to you most in this passage.
2. What does knowing Jesus and being known by him look like?
3. What are some ways you can be around Church and participate in working for God but completely miss him in all the activity?
4. In what ways does being part of a community of believers help us realize when we veer off course?

We've come in our study to the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

It consists of four graphic images that are designed to distinguish Christianity from religion.

You can hear the sermon on the mount and hear it two different ways. The first is a religious way. You hear the sermon and want to do your best and take it as a personal challenge. You think, “I can do better.” Maybe more than others.

It’s easy to create an outer image that you have to maintain. Jesus looks at these Pharisees and says this:

There’s a blindness to religion that doesn’t see this inside of the self.

Religion is a tomb that appears beautiful on the outside, but is full of bones and death. It’s self-indulgent, competitive, critical, arrogant.

But then there is the Christian way that Jesus is trying to explain. It would sound like this: “My best would never be enough.” “I need a heart change.” “I need to be infused with a love so extravagant that I no longer focus on myself.” “Then I will become the person he wants me to be.”

A religious person came to Jesus by night because he didn’t want to do it around his buddies. He was a Pharisee, someone who keeps the Law, but something was missing.

The first words out of Jesus’ mouth is this:

It you’re a religious person, you’re disconnected from the idea of rebirth. You’re going to come alive in a new way, in relationship to me, intimate and personal.

In other words, to a religious person, Jesus would say there is a deadness to you, because you’re not even alive to God’s reality.

We’ve had two different gates, two different roads, two different trees.

Lots of people choose the religious way. It keeps them from fully surrendering.

Book: $3 worth of God.

“I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.”

The Pharisees wanted $99 worth of God. Whatever the number is, you become convinced that the number you put on it enough.

There’s a contrast between what people say and do.

There’s a category in Scripture of someone who claims that Jesus is Lord––they look the part so well they deceive everyone, and most tragically themselves.

What you discover about the heavens here when we talk about entering the kingdom, there’s an authority over you.

Jesus is claiming God as his own Father here.

If you don’t want the will of God now, you won’t want it later. If you don’t want Christ’s presence to fill that reality, you won’t be able to breathe in heaven.

C. S. Lewis addresses this topic. He says there are only two kinds of people in the end. Those who say, “Thy will be done.” And those who God says to them, “Thy will be done.” Hell is where you get what you ultimately want.

These folks at the end seem to understand that Jesus has this divine authority.

Religious folks will call Jesus Lord, but never really surrender their lives. Jesus tells people how that is going to go in the end.

Jesus is speaking on your behalf, knowing what you’re going to say. You expressed devotion, but he never really ruled your life.

The “not” here connects back to Jesus’ “not” in the last verse.

Jesus brings up people doing a host of amazing things in his name. The focus for these people, though, is on what “I” did. There’s no request for mercy. It is a resumé.

Your religious resumé may include going to church or getting baptized. Maybe you’re around for a while, you’ll see a lot of incredible things, and sometimes you’ll make that yours even though it wasn’t yours. You were just a part of it. You may say, I learned some things and I cried at times.

This is Jesus’ response to their resumé. He’s making a public declaration against them.

There’s two parts: a renunciation and an excommunication.

This is a real and honest assessment of the relationship we didn’t have.

To be in relationship with God is to be known by him.

Listen to how Jesus describes the dynamic between the Trinity and each one of you.

Anyone who wants the joy of God’s presence will have it.

Jesus is talking about this intimate, close relationship.

You know him now, but you will know him fully later.

When Gail and I were in school, we went to school with Toby Mac and the other guys from D.C. Talk. I was Toby’s RA.

When they had just gotten started, I took my boys to one of his concerts in the area. I didn’t expect to get to see him. They gathered us all in a room and his security guards brought him through for a meet and greet. There were too many people screaming his name. So I yelled my name, “Pete Chiofalo!” Toby tells the security guard to go find me. He knew me.

Do you have a relationship or not?

Do you know the songs, but not know the person?

These religious people worked the system as if God was obligated to them. They used the system to break it. They didn’t worry about the inside, but did a few things well on the outside to get by.

Dallas Willard said, No one need worry about getting the best of God in some bargain for him, or that we might succeed in using him for our purposes. Don’t underestimate his intelligence and agility. He won’t be tricked. Any arrangement God has established will be right for him and right for us.

It’s possible to live on earth with this self-delusion that they’ve done enough good for God to be obligated to work on their behalf. Everything here is personal and very real, where the light of his penetrating presence exposes you.

This is why Dallas Willard said the fires of heaven burn brighter than the fires of hell. You can’t have an inside and outside life in heaven, because you are completely exposed.

In the end, that face which is the delight or terror of the universe must be turned toward us.