Josh’s Thoughts

Sunday I read Matthew chapter 7, and I’ve been thinking about it all day yesterday and today–especially verses 13-29:

Mat 7:13-29 NASB
(13) “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
(14) “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
(15) “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
(16) “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
(17) “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
(18) “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
(19) “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
(20) “So then, you will know them by their fruits.
(21) “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
(22) “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
(23) “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
(24) “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
(25) “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.
(26) “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
(27) “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell–and great was its fall.”
(28) When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching;
(29) for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

My Ryrie study Bible put a section header at the top of this passage. They called it “The Proof of the Kingdom.” That’s a good way of putting it.

You see, this passage is the conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount. All throughout the Sermon on the Mount (Mat. 5-7) Jesus tells people how they are expected to live if they are going to be part of the Kingdom of God. But in this passage He swaps focus and starts telling them how to know whether or not they’re in the Kingdom.

There is so much that could be said about these verses, but the part that’s the most fascinating to me is verses 21-23:

Mat 7:21-23 NASB
(21) “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
(22) “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
(23) “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

I read this and I thought, “Wow, Jesus, that’s really harsh.”

But then I started to think about and I realized that there are really two classes of Christians.

The first class are the ones who claim to be Christian, but their actions don’t support their claim. The second class are the ones who claim to be Christian, and their actions do support their claim. Let me give a very simple illustration to put it all in perspective.

I could claim to be an astronaut. It would be pretty simple to pull off the claim. I know a little bit about space and astronomy, and I even know a little bit about astronaut training. To the average person I could, with a little work, persuade them that I either am an astronaut or that I was one at one point in my life. I could even watch shows about space regularly, talk about space a lot, and go to the planetarium every weekend. Of course, my claim to be an astronaut would still be completely false, because the American Heritage Dictionary defines an astronaut as being “A person trained to pilot, navigate, or otherwise participate as a crew member of a spacecraft.” Little old me has never done that, so I guess I’m not an astronaut, no matter how much I claim to be.

Jesus makes the same point. You can call yourself a Christian, but if you’re not showing the fruits (verse 16) then you’re not a Christian. You see, believing that a man named Jesus lived and died does not–in itself–make you a Christian any more than believing in space makes me an astronaut.

Now, before anyone gets mad at me, let me say this: I firmly believe that we are saved by grace through faith, apart from works (cf. Eph. 2:8-10; Rom. 4:1-8). But I also believe that true belief manifests itself in a changed lifestyle. Look at how James, the half-brother of Jesus, put it:

Jam 2:17-18; 26 NASB
(17) Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
(18) But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”
(26) For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

Of course, all of this is really interesting, but a lot of people don’t understand why faith manifests itself in works. They understand that it does, of course. They understand that when people are truly saved their lifestyle changes. But they don’t understand why. It’s a source of endless debates. Now I could explain it by throwing around a whole lot of theological terms like justification, sanctification, regeneration, and all the other “ations,” but that would just overcomplicate things. I’ll explain it in a way that I think is really simple and straightforward.

My explanation is this: It’s all about believing that Jesus is God.

The key part of that statement is the “God” part. I’ll come back to that in a moment, but first let me say this: A person can intellectually believe that there was a historical man named Jesus, and that He lived a good life and that He died. Some might even believe that, by some twist of fate or supernatural action, He came out of the grave after lying there for three days. Does this make them a Christian? No. The reason is that they do not accept that Jesus is God.

What makes someone a Christian is their belief that Jesus is God and their acceptance of Him as Lord and Savior of their life. Like John said:

Joh 1:12-13 NASB
(12) But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
(13) who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

See what John said? “To those who believe in His name.” What’s His name?

Mat 1:21-23 NASB
(21) “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
(22) Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
(23) “BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.”

His Name is “God with us.”

The upshot of all of this is that when we accept Jesus as God then that means that He gets all the rights and privileges of God (the very first privilege being that He gets to be the boss).

He’s the biggest fish in the pond.

The toughest dog in the kennel.

He’s the ultimate Big Cheese.

So what makes a Christian a Christian is not just their belief in Him intellectually, but their willingness to receive Him as Lord. When we do that we recognize that we no longer live for ourselves. Like Paul said, we realize that we have been “bought with a price” (1 Co. 6:20). Since we’ve been bought with a price, and since we’ve accepted Jesus as boss, we now give ourselves over as His servants (Rom. 6:16-20).

In short, we live like we do because we’ve received Him as God, resulting in our salvation.

And, in giving ourselves to Him completely, we find the only true freedom.

Today I saw this passage in a way that I have never seen it before:

Mat 5:11-15 NASB
(11) “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
(12) “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
(13) “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
(14) “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
(15) nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

Most Christians are pretty familiar with this passage. Jesus was preaching His most famous sermon ever–the Sermon on the Mount. He goes through the Beatitudes, and then He says these words: “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you…Rejoice and be glad.” Now that’s hard enough for us humans to swallow, but what I realized today put this passage in a whole new light.

You see, right after Jesus gets done saying to be glad when people persecute you, he says, “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world…A city set on a hill cannot be hidden…nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.”

Think about this for a minute. We think of those two passages as being separate. When we’re sitting around in our small study groups we’ll talk about how we need to be glad when people give us a hard time because we’re a Christian. Then in another conversation we’ll talk about how we’re the light of the world, so we need to be a good witness and evangelize.

But Jesus says that our response to persecution is the evangelism.

Look at it again:

Mat 5:11-15 NASB
(11) “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
(12) “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
(13) “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
(14) “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;
(15) nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

See? There’s no separation. Jesus tells his followers to be glad when they’re persecuted, because they’re the salt of the earth. When I was thinking about this earlier today I remembered a quote I had heard somewhere. I was able to find it after a little digging. This is what it says:

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

The man who wrote that wasn’t some modern philosopher / theologian who just got done drinking his morning coffee as he drove his $80,000 luxury-mobile to his comfy office. No, the guy who wrote that was a man named Tertullian, and he knew about martyrdom firsthand. Most people know his name–he was one of the early church fathers. He wrote his famous statement in about 198 A.D. Here’s a couple of other things that he said in the same book:

You say we are just another spin-off of philosophy, then. Well why don’t you persecute your philosophers, then, when they say the gods are fake, or bark against the emperors. Perhaps it is because the name of ‘philosopher’ does not drive out demons like ‘Christian’ does.

We are not a new philosophy but a divine revelation. That’s why you can’t just exterminate us; the more you kill the more we are. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. You praise those who endured pain and death – so long as they aren’t Christians! Your cruelties merely prove our innocence of the crimes you charge against us. When you chose recently to hand a Christian girl over to a brothel-keeper rather than to the lions, you showed you knew we counted chastity dearer than life.

And you frustrate your purpose. Because those who see us die, wonder why we do, for we die like the men you revere, not like slaves or criminals. And when they find out, they join us. [1]

Can anything be added to that?

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

I have never lived in persecution. I was raised in the United States, and the only countries I’ve been to are countries where Christianity is allowed. But sometimes I think that the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity was its acceptance. The more that we’re accepted the less that we realize that Christianity is about living–and dying–for One greater than ourselves. I do not feel worthy to make that statement, but it needs to be made…even though I don’t know that I would have the courage to die like a Blandina or a Polycarp.

But maybe I can live like one.

Maybe I can live in such a way that my life becomes the seed of the Church. Maybe I can live my life in such a way that people see me and want to know the God that I serve.

And maybe, just maybe, if I am persecuted before I die, and the executioners demand that I deny Christ, I will have the courage to quote Polycarp and say:

“Fourscore and six years have I
served Him, and he has done me no harm.
How then can I curse my King that saved me”

I am reading through the Bible this year, and I have decided to start writing down some daily thoughts from the Word. My goal is to write something every day, but between school, work, church, and my other commitments I will probably end up writing 2-3 times a week. It is my prayer that these random thoughts from the Word will be a blessing to anyone who reads them.