AM I TRULY SAVED ACCORDING TO MATTHEW’S GOSPEL?
Won’t you join me and take a little trip through Matthew and see if I am truly saved.
You’re reading along, you’re reading chapter 1 about Jesus Christ genealogy and His birth. You come into chapter 2, you read about the homage paid Him at His birth and the wonderful visit of the Magi, and you’re all into that. And so you found out who Jesus is, Son of the Highest, God in human flesh, Jesus, Savior of people for her sins. We know who He is. All right, we’ve been introduced to Jesus Christ.
We come into chapter 3 and what is the first thing we run into? John the Baptist and what’s he doing? He’s preaching. And what does he say in verse 2? “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Now what is the first thing you need to do if you’re going to get into the Kingdom. What is it? Repent. You don’t really have to be that scholarly to figure it out. It just hits you right there between the eyes.
And then you just follow a little longer and you get into chapter 4 and all of a sudden Jesus comes along to pick up where John left off in verse 17, and from that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Now the first condition that you’re just hit with like a bolt is one word, “repent.” It means basically to turn from your sin. And later on in chapter 9, verse 13, Jesus says you still don’t understand that I am come to call sinners to…what? Repentance.
So, the first element of entrance to the Kingdom is repent. What does that mean? Recognize your sin and desire to turn from it. Recognize your sin and desire to turn from it. That’s where it starts. That’s where salvation begins in a recognition of sin and a desire to turn from it. You’ve got to be sorry for your sin and desire to turn from it, to repent.
Well, you read a little further, you come to chapter 5. And it begins this way, “He opened His mouth and He taught them,” in verse 2. And verse 3 says, “He said, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” And now you’re saying to yourself, “O, here’s another element of entrance into the Kingdom. What is this? Poor in spirit?”
In other words, a sense of unworthiness. This is a beggar. The Greek term means to beg. You’re not earning your own way, you’re begging. You have no resources. And so you say I want to turn from my sin, I repent, I’m sorry for my sin, but I..I am unworthy to enter into Your Kingdom. I…I am a beggar. I have nothing in my hand. I have to cry out for anything.
And you see that same beggar in verse 6 and he’s hungry and he’s thirsty. And he wants to be filled and he wants to be quenched but he knows that he doesn’t have any resource. Then this is the second thing that strikes you strongly in Matthew about getting in the Kingdom. There’s a sense of inadequacy triggered by the conviction of sin. And a bankruptcy of personal character, you just don’t…I mean, you want to turn from your sin and you want to come in the Kingdom but you know you’re not adequate for that. And you know you have no resource.
And the third thing that hits you is in verse 4. You mourn and then verse 5, meekness. That’s lowliness and humility. It’s the kind of meekness, verse 7, that can show mercy to other people. The kind of meekness that seeks purity in heart in verse 8. The kind of meekness that makes a peacemaker. The kind of meekness that is willing to be persecuted. And you see humility here.
And so, just reading through at face value to get into the Kingdom, you must repent. To get into the Kingdom there’s a poverty of spirit that must be recognized. To get into the Kingdom there must be humility that says I’m nothing in front of you, I’m nothing, I’m nobody. You’re not offering to God some great thing when you come to enter His Kingdom.
And I read a little further and I got into chapter 7 and I found out something else. Verse 21, “Not everyone that says unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom.” Oh, and now I learn it’s more than talk. It’s more than just saying you want to be in. “But He that doeth the will of My Father who’s in heaven.” It’s an obedience factor here. There’s a willingness to submit to God in obedience.
So, here we find‑‑first of all‑‑repentance, a sorrow for sin and a desire to change. And then out of that comes a sense of unworthiness knowing you don’t have any resource for that, you can’t change. You’re personally bankrupt. You can’t do anything to deserve it. And then you feel humble before such an awesome God and an awesome Kingdom. And then you learn that you’ve got to do more than just say you want that. It’s not just saying you belong to the Lord. It’s not external, it’s something deep inside. And it’s obedience to the will of God. And there you have submission to Lordship…submission to deity.
And you go to chapter 8 and you find the same thing. A guy comes along and he says I want to follow You, Lord, in verse 19. I want to be in Your Kingdom. I mean, I want to follow You. And the Lord puts him off and says, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests and the Son of Man has no where to lay His head.” And another disciple would be came along and said, “Permit me to go bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Follow Me but let the dead bury their dead.” And here you know what He’s talking about? Submission, dropping the things of the world, coming and following in obedience, letting go of the world. So, if I want to be in His Kingdom, I can’t be fussing around with the stuff that doesn’t matter, I’ve got to be willing to follow Him at any cost.
And then you read a little further and you come to chapter 10. And you’re struck immediately by verse 32. “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father who is in heaven.” There’s that heavenly Kingdom with that heavenly Father. And if you want to have a relationship with Him, you’ve got to confess Him before men, the Lord before men. “And if you deny Me,” He says in verse 33, “I’ll deny you.” So there has to be an outward confession. There has to be a public taking your place with Jesus Christ.
How does someone enter the Kingdom? Repentance, turning from their sin and desiring to have a change, realizing their unworthy of such a change and such an entrance into a Kingdom, being left with meekness and humility and out of that a willingness to submit obediently to Christ’s Lordship no matter what it cost. And then to outwardly confess Jesus as Lord and be willing to state that He’s your Lord before men.
And then you’re struck by verse 37 where it says, “If you love your father or mother more than Me, you’re not worthy of Me. And if you love your son or daughter more than Me, you’re not worthy of Me. And he that takes not his cross and follows after Me is not worthy of Me. And he that finds his life will lose it and he that loses his life for My sake will find it.” And you come to the point of self‑denial, self‑sacrifice. It means you say no to everything. No to your comforts of like, no to your family, as we saw earlier, chapter 10, no to your own self will, your own desires, you’re abandoning yourself to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you’re outwardly confessing Him, you’re sacrificing everything, you’re selling everything to buy the pearl, you’re selling everything to take the treasure out of the field.
And then as you come to chapter 15, you see another ingredient. Verse 21, and Jesus is approached by this woman from Canaan and she cries out, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David, my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon.” And He doesn’t answer her. And He doesn’t pay any attention to her. But she kept up. And she kept up. And finally in verse 28, He says, “O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” This is another element. She wanted Kingdom blessing. She wanted to receive from His hand. And what was necessary was a sustained faith in the sufficiency of Christ…persistent.
The people who enter the Kingdom press their way in it. They go through that narrow gate and they walk that narrow way and there’s a price but they are persistent in their confident faith that there’s sufficiency in Jesus Christ. They can’t be distracted. They pursue it. Like the guy who keeps knocking and knocking and the Lord responds.
So Matthew has laid it out for us very clearly. If you would just sit down and read that, you would see that in order to enter the Kingdom there must be repentance. There must be a sense of unworthiness. There must be humility. There must be a willingness to submit obediently to the Lordship of Christ and confession and self‑sacrifice and a persistent pursuing faith. And may I suggest to you that that’s Matthew’s formula or as close as he’s going to get to one for salvation. All the elements are there. And let me also say, none of those are produced in the flesh. They are all the work of the Spirit of God. But they are nonetheless the elements, the constituent parts that occur in the soul that is brought to the Kingdom.
Now let me sum all this up that we’ve seen in Matthew and I’ll give it some theological definition. This is a very fast course in soteriology‑‑ the doctrine of salvation. Follow. Now this is an instant miracle, salvation is, but these are constituent parts. The first thing that happens is election. When Paul wrote the Thessalonians, he said, “I know you’re saved because I know your election from God.” That’s where it started. Election…salvation is a result of these elements…election, chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. Elect before the foundation of the earth…election.
Then comes instruction. “It is the law of the Lord that is perfect converting the soul,” Psalm 19, verse 7. “Faith comes by hearing a speech about Jesus Christ,” Romans 10 says. So, first is election, then comes instruction‑‑the coming in of the Word.
Then comes conviction. As the Word comes, it convicts. Psalm 119:59, “I thought on my ways and turned my heart unto Thy testimonies.” As a man begins to look at his own life in the light of the Word of God, he will draw himself to God. Lamentations 3:40, “Let us search and test our ways and turn to the Lord.” Psalm 78:34, I love this, “When He slew them, then they sought Him.” When they were devastated by the instruction, then came the conviction.
Election, instruction, conviction…conviction leads to repentance. When a person is convicted of their sin, they have the godly sorrow spoken of in 2 Corinthians 7:10 that causes them to want to turn from their sin to God. And repentance leads to conversion. Election, instruction, conviction, repentance, conversion…conversion is the turning to God prompted by the repentant heart. And that’s what our Lord is calling for here. And then following that is obedience. A willingness to submit obediently.
After this little trip I believe that I am truly saved, a believer in and follower of The Lord Jesus. What about you?
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