Not Everyone Who Says, 'Lord, Lord'

Matthew 7:21 (BSB)

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

A famous cartoonist passed away recently. He had battled a long illness and knew he was about to die. Before he died, he wrote a public statement. He said, “Many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I’m not a believer, but I have to admit the risk/reward calculation for doing so looks so attractive to me. So here I go: I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and look forward to spending an eternity with Him. The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in Heaven. I won’t need any more convincing than that. I hope I’m still qualified for entry.”

It’s been sobering to me, and frankly, extremely distressing to not only read that man’s statement, but then to see the number of Christians online who think that simply by saying the words: “I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and look forward to spending an eternity with Him” automatically guarantees salvation, even if you admit you don’t believe them.

Is that all it takes? Like the cartoonist hoped, is it enough to agree that if Jesus turns out to be real, then you will believe in Him? Some people think so, and they even use Bible verses to support the idea. They cite the man in Mark 9 who cried out to Jesus, saying, “I do believe, help my unbelief” as one proof. Or they cite Thomas, who said he wouldn’t believe Jesus rose from the dead unless he could touch the nail holes. Neither of those examples support their argument though.

First, the man who asked Jesus to heal his son is not about salvation. The disciples tried and failed to cast the demon out of his son, and so he asked Jesus to help him. Jesus told him, “All things are possible to him who believes!” In response, he asked Jesus to increase his belief that Jesus would heal his child. I think all of us Christians can relate to that. I know I can. I have faith in Jesus and follow Him, and yet all the time I pray that Jesus would increase my faith so I can trust Him more. I need more faith to trust at all times. It’s a constant prayer we should all pray: Lord, cause my faith in You to grow more. 

Second, Thomas knew who Jesus was. He believed and followed Him. He was a disciple. Unlike Judas, who rejected Jesus and betrayed Him, Thomas never did that. When he says that he needed to see Jesus in the flesh to believe He rose from the dead, he’s not expressing that he doesn’t believe in Jesus, he’s expressing that he doesn’t believe the other disciples’ testimony that they had seen Jesus. Those are two very different things.

The problem is, if people think that merely wanting entrance into Heaven is enough to be saved, then the Church is failing people. We have not explained salvation properly.

So, if saying “I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior” doesn’t automatically grant us salvation, what does it take to be saved? The Bible makes it very clear about what it takes to be saved. So today, I want us to examine what Scripture says so we can be prepared to give a clear answer to people who are confused on this most important of issues.

First, let’s address some of the misconceptions.

#1 We can’t be saved simply by repeating certain words.

Despite what some people seem to think, Jesus clearly says in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” That tells us that we cannot gain salvation simply by repeating words. Stating that “Jesus is Lord” or “Christ is King” or “I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior” isn’t a magic formula. Saying those words does not give us access to Heaven.

#2 We can’t be saved simply by believing in facts.

James 2:19 explains that even the demons believe that Jesus is God; they believe and tremble, but they do not have saving faith. It says, “You believe that God is one. Good for you! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”

Belief becomes saving faith only when it moves from the head to the heart and the will. Demons are not surrendered to God even though they know He’s real. That’s why it’s not enough to think that if Jesus turns out to be real, then you will believe. That will be too late. After death, everyone finds out Jesus is real.

#3 We can’t be saved by performing religious actions.

We shouldn’t think that simply attending church, being baptized, or taking communion saves us. In fact, even doing all three things does not guarantee our salvation, because none of those things apart from faith in Jesus will save us. Performing religious actions does not make us righteous before God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please God. For anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” Religious actions without faith are meaningless to God.

So, what does it take to get into Heaven? In John 3:3, Jesus gives us the answer. He says, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

I’m sad that the American church has stopped using the phrase “born again.” I don’t know why it went out of use, but it’s far more accurate than saying “saved.” If we say that we are born again, then it helps us better explain what exactly has taken place. And it makes it a lot easier to identify and help people who think they are Christians but actually aren’t.

There is a real problem within Christianity where we have a lot of people who identify as Christians, but they have not surrendered their lives to Him. They’ve thought about Jesus, but they haven’t met Him. They’ve repeated the “Sinner’s Prayer,” but that’s as far as they’ve gotten.

Saying formulaic words, or even attending religious services, does not mean that we’ve encountered the Lord and been born again. It could only mean that we’ve just been thinking about it.

In his book, Pensées, Blaise Pascal captures this idea well. He says, “Men often take their imagination for their heart, and often believe they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted” (Pascal, Pensées, p.347).

In other words, many people think that simply thinking about becoming saved means they are saved. They’ve imagined in their minds that maybe Jesus is real and so they think that is enough. But they haven’t actually been converted. They haven’t actually met Jesus yet and been convicted of their sin. They stall out right at the beginning of their faith. A person who is merely thinking about becoming a Christian is not a Christian. We must be converted. This is what Jesus says in Matthew 18:3. “Truly I tell you,” He said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Or as the KJV says it, which is how I’ve memorized it, “Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Do you think this is why there are so many people who loosely call themselves Christians, yet they do not live in any way that shows that they are followers of Christ? Yet, if you asked them, they would confidently say they are going to Heaven when they die. We must do a better job in explaining to people that Heaven is only accessed by becoming born again.

When we are born again, we are fully changed. We become a new person. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!” Once we believe in Jesus, the way we know we have been born again is that we see evidence that our faith in Jesus has changed us.

How this works is that when we encounter Jesus, we learn who He is. And if we’ve truly encountered the Lord, then we are convicted of our sin. That’s how we know if we’ve met Jesus or not.

When we first met Jesus, we see Him for who He is, and He tells us who we are. As the truth of who Jesus is sinks into our hearts, we are convicted of our sin and we repent and change. That’s how we know if we’ve been born again.

That’s why we see in the Bible that saving faith starts with repentance. At the beginning of His public ministry, Mark 1:15 records Jesus saying, “‘The time is fulfilled,’ He said, ‘and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the gospel!’”

We must repent of our sins, believing in our hearts that Jesus is Lord. We must believe that because He is sinless and perfect—the Son of God who died and rose again—He was able to become the ultimate sacrifice for our sins.

But we can’t just repeat those words and think they unlock Heaven. Romans 10:8-10 says, “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: that if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved.”

This verse is probably why the “Sinner's Prayer” was created. But Paul is not giving us words to repeat. He’s using that as a marker to show a way to know if someone is truly born again or not, because only someone who truly believed would dare confess to being a Christian.

The Benson Commentary explains this. It says, “The confessing Christ being so necessary, and at the same time so difficult a duty, the apostle very properly connected the assurance of final salvation therewith; because it was the best evidence which the disciple of Christ could have of his own sincerity, and of his being willing to perform every other act of obedience required of him. There is a difference between the profession and the confession of our faith. To profess is to declare a thing of our own accord; but to confess is to declare a thing when asked concerning it.”

In other words, only someone who has faith in Jesus would dare make that confession. It’s not about reciting words as a risk/reward gamble. Paul is describing what happens when saving faith is present. If we believe, then even at the expense of our very lives, we will confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord.

I like what the Benson commentary said, too, about a true believer being someone who is “willing to perform every other act of obedience required of him.” That’s because saving faith produces good works. James 2:17 says, “So too, faith by itself, if it does not result in action, is dead.” Again, to gain entrance into Heaven, we need to believe in Jesus, but the only way we will know that we have saving faith is if we see evidence that faith has changed us. That evidence is displayed by our obedience to God’s will. As I said last week, we are not saved by obedience, but we are not saved without a faith that obeys.

While we owe a lot to the work that Martin Luther did, I’m afraid he also caused some problems. When he translated the Bible into German, he added a word to Romans 3:28, which originally says, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” Luther added the word “alone.” He said that man is justified by faith alone.

It makes sense why Luther wanted to make such a strong point: he was trying to combat the errors of thinking that merely performing works—like giving indulgences to the church—could save a person. But in doing so, later generations have flattened what he said into something unbiblical. By grasping on to the idea of “faith alone” we’ve opened the door to a watered-down Gospel message.

Because today, if we use the words “faith alone,” then suddenly it seems like Paul is contradicting himself. For example, in Romans 2:13, he had said, “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but it is the doers of the law who will be declared righteous.”

Right before that verse, and quoting Psalm 62:12, Paul said in Romans 2:6-8, “God ‘will repay each one according to his deeds.’ To those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow wickedness, there will be wrath and anger.” Paul is not teaching salvation by works, but he is saying that our actions matter. But sadly, many Christians have been taught that we don’t need to do what God’s word says because all we need is “faith alone.”

Now, some people might be thinking, “Well, even if we take out the word ‘alone,’ it still says that we are ‘justified by faith apart from works of the law,’ so works don’t save us.” That’s true: works don’t save us. But let’s go back to that famous verse in Romans 3:28. If we keep reading, we discover that Paul is speaking about religious actions, and specifically about circumcision. He says that circumcision (a work of the law) will not justify us before God. He is saying that we can’t do religious works and think those works will save us. Which, as we’ve been studying, is exactly what Psalm 50 was stressing.

Paul explains this more in 1 Corinthians 7:19, which says, “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commandments is what counts.” Paul wouldn’t contradict himself, though, so it can’t be “faith alone” that saves us if we think that faith alone means we don’t need to obey.

That’s why, when James 2:24 says, “As you can see, a man is justified by his deeds and not by faith alone” it is not contradicting Paul as so many people think.

N.T. Wright, in discussing the book of James, wrote in his book The New Testament in its World, “We are certainly not ‘saved by works’, but James’s point is that neither are we saved without them” (p. 754).

In other words, we are not saved by obedience, but we are not saved without a faith that obeys. If we have faith in Jesus and believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that He is Lord, then the proof that we believe is that we will obey Him. Our faith will be expressed through what we do.

Theologian Alexander MacLaren, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 7:19, wrote, “Paul and James shake hands here. There is a ‘faith’ so called, which does not work. It is dead! Let me beseech you...[not] to rely upon what you choose to call your faith in Jesus Christ, but to examine it. Does it do anything? Does it help you to be like Him? Does it open your hearts for His Spirit to come in? Does it fill them with…a love which proves itself by obedience? Plain questions, questions that any [person] can answer; questions that go to the root of the whole matter. If your faith does that, it is genuine; if it does not, it is not.”

Do you see why “faith alone” can be easily misunderstood? By saying faith alone, we have a whole lot of people thinking that all they need to do is repeat some words and then they will get into Heaven when they die. We also have a whole segment of pastors who preach that sin doesn’t matter because only faith matters. But the kind of faith that matters must be a faith that is alive, producing obedience.

No, our works do not save us. But yes, we must do as Jesus said in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Our wills must be surrendered to Jesus. Obedience must follow our confession of faith.

MacLaren also wrote, “That submission of will is the sum and the test of your Christianity. Your Christianity does not consist only in a mere something which you call faith in Jesus Christ. It does not consist in emotions, however deep and blessed and genuine they may be. It does not consist in the acceptance of a creed. All these are means to an end. They are meant to drive the wheel of life, to build up character, to make your deepest wish to be, ‘Father! not my will, but Thine, be done.’ In the measure in which that is your heart’s desire, and not one hair’s-breadth further, have you a right to call yourself a Christian.”

But how do we do this? How do we surrender our will to Jesus? First of all, we won’t surrender our will to Jesus unless we love Him. But if we are truly born again, that’s the easy part. Because as soon as we understand what Jesus did for us by dying on the cross, then we are filled with love for Him. That’s why Jesus says we must believe in our hearts: we cannot get into Heaven unless we love Jesus.

Mark 12:29-34 contains a very important conversation between Jesus and a scribe that explains this. The scribe had asked Jesus which commandment was the most important. It says, “Jesus replied, ‘This is the most important: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” No other commandment is greater than these.’” The scribe then repeated what Jesus said and concluded that doing those things “is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And Jesus agreed and said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Did Jesus say that the commandments are no longer important? No. He’s saying we can boil down all the commandments of God to two main things: Love Him with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

Paul basically repeats this same thing in Galatians 5:6 when he says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. What matters is faith expressing itself through love.”

It’s not “faith alone” that saves us, if that only means mental assent. It’s faith expressing itself through love. And if we love Jesus, then we will obey Him. Our love for Him is expressed through our obedience to God’s Word.

And how can we not love Jesus? Not only did He endure the cross for us, taking away our guilt and shame, but He declares us holy and righteous. He has given us His Holy Spirit to dwell inside us, giving us the power to resist sin. He has made us new creations so we can surrender our wills to Him and obey Him. He doesn’t leave us on our own to try and bend our will to His. Through God’s grace, He gives us the ability to obey His Word. Remember, grace is not permission to do what we want; grace is the power of God which transforms our lives, helping us to overcome sin.

It is God’s love and mercy toward us that motivates us to live in obedience to His will. And when we fail to obey His will, if we humble ourselves and confess our sins, He is always faithful to forgive us and help us follow Him again. None of us can follow Him perfectly, but the longer we walk with Him, the more His grace will transform us and change us more and more to be like Him. Someone who is born again isn’t perfect. But someone who is born again isn’t going to be at peace continuing in sin.

So, do you see why, given our modern culture, I think we should probably stop saying “faith alone”? It’s confusing to people because it makes them think that all they have to do is mentally agree that Jesus exists and that’s all that is needed to go to Heaven. But the reality is, if we don’t believe in our heart—if we aren’t born again—we won’t be saved. We must collectively do a better job of explaining the way to Heaven, because so many people’s eternity is at stake.

Back to the cartoonist, the last thing I want to say is that I really hope that before he died, he came to saving faith in Jesus. I hope that what he wrote was not what he thought in the end. I hope he did as Romans 10:9 says we must do to be saved. It says, “that if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved.” I hope he believed in his heart before he died and didn’t just recite the words his friends urged him to say. I hope he was born again by asking Jesus to forgive him of his sins.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we humbly bow before You and thank You for loving us so much that You sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, so that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Thank You for the forgiveness that Jesus purchased for us. Please fill us with grace each day to overcome every sin and obstacle we face so we may obey You in all things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.