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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

The Will of God

Father in Heaven, thank You so much for this new week, this week to the end of it that You brought us to.

Thank You Lord that You've been watching over all of us, that You've been providing for us, that Lord we're able to come and study Your Word together this evening.

And Lord I just pray that you please guide us now as we're about to study your Word, these holy words.

Father, we need the Holy Spirit, otherwise our time together will not be profitable, that it will be empty words unless you are the 1 that is teaching us.

Help us, Lord, that you might open our eyes, that we might behold wondrous things out of thy word this evening.

So please tell me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 7.

This is actually our second last study that we are doing on the Mount of Blessing, the sermon from the Mount of Blessing, and we've gone through a lot.

We did not start together right at the very beginning of the Beatitudes as we usually study this on a Friday night, but now we're at the end, Matthew chapter 7.

We have 1 more study next week on Matthew 7 and then we're going to be starting a new series What that will be I don't know yet, but do stay tuned and please continue to join us But Matthew chapter 7 we're starting in verse 21.

Matthew 7, 21, the Bible says this, Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

But he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Friends, who are those in these 3 verses that call out Lord, Lord?

You don't hear people calling out Lord, Lord in the movie theaters, at the shopping centers, except when they're taking God's name in vain, right?

These people that are calling on the Lord in verse 21 and 22, they are Christians.

And yet we're told here that not everyone that calls themselves a Christian will go to heaven.

We studied last week about false prophets.

We studied about false Christians, those that have the form of godliness but they deny the power thereof.

These people that have crept in unawares, that are turning God's grace into lasciviousness, cheap, filthy grace, and those that hold tradition above the Word of God.

We saw last week that there are these groups of people out there and friends, it is a long list.

And we come to the concluding section here in Matthew 7.

You know, some people like to put it together and yes, it's part of what we studied last week.

However, I thought that this section was so important that we better study it separately this evening.

But friends, there are people that will have gone to church maybe all their life, that grew up in a Christian home, that will call out unto God and say, Lord, Lord, and look at what it says in verse 22 it says here look at this Matthew 7, 22 Lord, Lord have we not prophesied it in thy name?

There's the preacher and you know what I'm talking about myself I'm the 1 that's preaching this evening.

But then it says, and in thy name cast out devils.

And in thy name done what many wonderful works.

There's all the other works that we do from being the greeter at the church and leading out and singing up front or leading out in the pastoral prayer or being the deacon that cleans the church, you know?

There's this long list and they point to their works and they tell God, Look, look at all that I've done for you.

I've been at church, I've preached, I've stood on the pulpit, maybe I've even gone to mission trips, I've fed the homeless.

Then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity.

Yet these are the people that call themselves Christians.

These are the people that have been going to church every single week and they've been there on the right day, the Sabbath it seems.

And what does it, what makes Jesus to say, I don't know you?

I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity.

So even though they've done all these seemingly good works at church, they seem like they've served God.

And you know friends, we can do these things out of habit.

Growing up, I learned to play piano in church.

I still remember when my mum put me and the church put me on the piano there.

But over the years, the more you do it, the easier it gets.

So it's easy to get into these sort of habits to start serving God, but yet God says what?

So friends, these people, they're coming to church every week, week in and week out, and yet somehow the other 6 days, they're still living in sin.

You know, friends, it's not enough just to do good works in church.

Don't think that good works are not important, okay?

We're going to get to this eventually, but these people are doing good works in church.

They're saying, look, I preached, I cast out devils, I did many wonderful works in a sense.

You see, they're serving God in church and maybe sometimes in the community through the church programs that are organized, but yet Jesus says, look, it's not good enough.

To live for me 1 day a week is not good enough.

And you know sometimes we like to do this balancing act between our good works and our sins.

We feel like we need to do more good works Because we committed sin sometimes.

Yes, there's another group that commits sin and they want to throw everything off, but there's also this group that remains in church that even though they commit sin, they come to church and go, okay, I've got to be at church this week because I was just extra bad.

And you know, verbally we don't say it out, but that's really our thinking sometimes, isn't it?

I've got to spend double the time in my devotion today.

Or I better go to care group this coming Friday because I've just been a really bad person and haven't been in church for weeks and you know we look and focus on these sorts of things and we try to balance between righteousness and sin and to us righteousness is what?

Going to church, going to care group, making sure you pray and you read your Bible, but yet somehow throughout the day that we live on each week, we're still committing sin.

And sometimes the motivation for us to do good works at church are motivated by our sins.

Because I sinned, And we don't say this out, but it's in our psyche, it's in our mind.

We think about it and we allow it to affect us.

And you know, friends, it's possible to seemingly do good works at church and still be unconverted.

He went with another disciple, 2 by 2, preaching from town to town.

He rubbed his life and stayed with Jesus and was counted part of that 12 for 3 and a half years, but yet his love for money, covetousness, and pride was still cherished in his heart.

That after 3 and a half years this man would still betray his master.

After 3 and a half years and could it be that many of us today are still repeating the sins of Judas?

So this evening friends we want to know what is the distinction between and listen to this carefully the true Christian and the false Christian.

Because remember there was that parable about how Jesus, he went and sowed good seed in that field and an enemy came at night and sowed bad seed and they sprang up these tares, right?

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The Will of God

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