Almost Doesn’t Count

God told Isaiah, as Jesus later quoted to the Pharisees “This people honors me with their lips but their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 15:8).  This is a statement that haunts me as a preacher. Do I do the same thing? Is what I offer to God just lip-service? Do I put on a good show, but inwardly, I’m wicked and rotten? It’s easy to go to church. It’s terribly easy. You go and find a seat. You put on your best clothes, and sit down, and act as if all is well; you might shake a few hands, and hug a few necks, and everyone thinks everything is fine; that is a show! Jesus says people who do their acts of righteousness to be seen by others have already received their reward in full. He says not everyone who says to Him “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. THAT THOUGHT SCARES ME!

Loved ones, God’s gift of grace IS, indeed, freely offered by Christ. But it is the costliest gift you can ever receive. You can not enter new life with your old one intact. The invitation to Jesus is always: Come and die! To gain the new life, you must cast off the old one! This does NOT mean you will get it right, nor is perfection expected; there was only One perfect, and He was nailed to a tree for your sake. But you must cast off the old self. We must be made new. To have life in Christ, you must die to the flesh, even as He died in His flesh and rose again on the Third Day. He says, in no uncertain terms, that if anyone should come after Him, we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses, daily, and come after Him. “Almost” doesn’t count. We can’t almost die and live, we must be born again in to New Life. Choose New Life, for the old one only ends in death.

Matthew 15:1-18

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

“‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides.^c And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

Philippians 2:1-11

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.