Ask Pastor Mike Live

Guest (Male): Hi, Pastor Mike. I got a question that I think I've misunderstood for a long time. I tend to oversimplify wanting to make everything black and white, and I miss the deeper meaning. The kingdom of God. There's places like in the Beatitudes where it says certain people inherit the kingdom of God. Then there's other places where there's warnings of will not inherit the kingdom of God.

I tend to think, okay, you'll go to heaven or you won't go to heaven. But I'm hearing that it also could mean that if you don't inherit the kingdom of God, it doesn't mean you necessarily won't go to heaven, but you may not have the power of God in your life here on Earth and now. Can I get your take on that?

Pastor Mike: People make a separation between inherit the kingdom or enter the kingdom, and I think that's a false distinction, and I don't think you should make that distinction. Now, people make that distinction usually when they're trying to say that you can become a Christian simply by believing the facts of the gospel, but it doesn't have to transform your life.

That's why you can go unchanged as a Christian and not have any real fruit in your life. Those are the kinds of people that aren't going to have any real rewards in the kingdom. They'll enter the kingdom, but they won't really inherit anything in the kingdom. That's how they talk their way through what it means to be a fruitless citizen of the kingdom but they won't get any real rewards in the kingdom.

Then they'll hope that maybe you'll go from being a believer in Christ to a disciple of Christ, and they'll say that's the second-tier Christianity. You go from just a rank-and-file Christian to a real varsity Christian. That's a false dichotomy that's been created in Christianity, and I reject it. I know 19 centuries of Christianity have rejected it. It's a modern creation and only the last 100 years or so of Christianity have even dabbled in that kind of dichotomy.

If you've heard it, and you may have heard it in a sermon or read it in a book, I have dove deep into hearing the argument and I have come out of it rejecting it completely. Every time you hear inherit the kingdom or enter the kingdom, there's no difference. To enter it is to inherit it. To inherit it is to enter it.

Guest (Male): So if I'm living a fruitless life—I say I believe in Jesus and I've trust him as my Lord and Savior—but I've got no fruit, it's possible that when it says you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven, that means you're not going to heaven. You're not a real Christian?

Pastor Mike: Correct. That's correct. James 2:14. What good is it, my brothers, to say I have faith and I don't have works? Can that faith save him? That's a rhetorical question that's answered in the rest of the passage, and the answer is no.

The whole book of 1 John is about that. If I say I have faith and there's no fruit, then I'm lying and deceiving myself. This has been a convenient way people have two-stepped their way through saying maybe there is a way that you can enter the kingdom but not inherit the kingdom. But that's not true. It's just not true.

Guest (Male): And in trying on your own power to make fruit, you can't do that unless you're abiding. It has to happen naturally. I tend to want to make some fruit to show that I'm saved.

Pastor Mike: Right, but here's the thing. People like to conform externally to their environment, and a lot of churchgoers say, "I'm going to try really hard to fit in here." But what we need is an encounter with God with real abiding trust in Jesus that changes us from the inside out.

This is the whole promise of regeneration. The Spirit of God invades our life, changes our heart. The Spirit envelops us. Here's how it's put in the Old Testament. The Spirit of God invades us in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. The Spirit of God indwells in our lives and moves us to keep the precepts of God. God is going to work from the inside of us to move us along.

As you just alluded to in John 15, we're going to abide in the vine and we're going to bear fruit. This is an organic thing. This is the Spirit of God working within us as though we're drawing that sap from the vine and we're going to bear fruit because we're connected to God. It's the Spirit of God within us that's going to produce this—the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians chapter five.

We're going to have the fruit coming out of us because God dwells in us. Does it feel like work? Of course it does. We're going to have to say no to the flesh. We're going to have to say yes to God's Spirit. But it's going to happen because God is going to make sure it happens because we're abiding in Christ and Christ is in us, and therefore it's going to happen.

But it's going to be work. We're going to have to do all that we can, as Peter says, making every effort to add to our faith, and then he lists all the virtues. So yes, it's going to happen. We can't say, like some people do, just believe the facts in your mind, and then if you want to get serious about this later, then you can do that, but you've got your insurance policy in your back pocket, so you'll be fine. That's not how it works. That's a false assurance.

Guest (Male): Is it oversimplistic or insufficient, the verses that say "call upon the name of the Lord and you will be saved"? Is that too oversimplistic? So you've got to take the whole of scripture, not just one of those that say, "Look, it says right here, just call upon the name of the Lord and you will be saved."

Pastor Mike: You're quoting Romans 10, and I'm all about that. But you've got to read all of that in context. The whole point is, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Everyone who believes will not be put to shame.

There's no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the Lord is Lord of all and bestows riches on all who call on him. This concept of him being the boss, the king, Lord. We're not used to that word, but that word means you're the boss, you're in charge, you're the one who is going to call the shots. I'm calling on him as my king.

We just throw that around today in religious contexts. At least if we would go back a thousand years, we would at least be living in the time of kings and lords and ladies and bishops. We don't have that anymore. But we need to think about when we use the word Lord, we're talking about the boss, the king, the one in charge.

If we read the whole context of Romans 10 and we're calling on the Lord, you're calling on the one who is going to now be in charge of your life. So it's not just saying, "I'm going to ring up the Roto-Rooter and he's going to fix my eternal problem." It's not just saying, "Hey, help me out here and give me my insurance policy so I don't go to the bad place."

This isn't just making a phone call. This is laying my life in the hands of the king, and now I'm saying I'm yours. I'm a servant of the Lord. I'm now a living sacrifice saying, "Take my life and I'm yours." That's how this works. The whole point of the book of Romans is saying now I'm a slave of the one who has redeemed me.

The whole concept of redemption is taking me out of the slave market of sin and becoming a servant and a slave of Christ. Again, you don't read Romans 10 until you've read Romans 6, and Romans 6 has already said I've become a slave of God. I can't think in those terms and then parachute into Romans 10 and think I just make a phone call to God at camp.

I've already grappled with the concept of no longer being enslaved to sin and being a slave to God. I just don't like the cherry-picking and some guy preaching from camp Romans 10. The book of Romans was meant to be read to the Roman church in the first century and understanding one chapter at a time. It's like reading Huck Finn and only dropping into chapter 22 and reading one paragraph and forgetting that it's part of a whole book. I'm not saying I'm against Romans 10. I'm just saying let's read it all in its context.

Guest (Male): What about someone who would say, "I believe in Jesus with all my heart. I worship him, I praise him, I count on him as my only hope. I truly believe that with my heart. And yet I deal with a sin problem." I know we all do, but for someone who has a sin problem, how do they get that assurance that, "Look, I'm not producing any fruit. I've got this sin problem and I'm afraid that I'm not going to heaven because it says here I'm not going to go to heaven, but I believe in Jesus with all my heart that that's my only way in and I can't earn it, but I've got this sin problem"?

Pastor Mike: A problem. I'd want to make sure it's the kind of problem that Peter describes in 1 Peter chapter two verse 11. He says we're sojourners and exiles here. First of all, I want to start with that. Is this problem the kind of problem I cozy up to? Because the Bible says in James 3 if I'm a friend of the world, then I'm an enemy of God. I've got to be a sojourner and an exile to the kinds of things that someone might call a problem.

I'm supposed to abstain from the passions of the flesh. Here's what it says in 1 Peter chapter two verse 11: "which wage war against my soul." If you're willing to call your problem a war that's waging against my soul because I really don't belong here in this world, I'm a sojourner and exile, then I'm fine with that.

You've got a problem with sin? Let's just call it what it is. I've got passions and I've got these desires. They're waging war against my soul because I don't even belong in this world. And I hate it. Then you can say with James in James 3:2, "we all stumble in many ways." I'm fine with that.

We have problems. We're sinners. He says in James 3 the easiest sin to commit is the one with our tongue as it flaps around as a deadly fire within our own mouth. I can hardly control it. So yes, I'm fine with Christians admitting that they're sinners as 1 John chapter one says. If we say we're without sin, we're lying. So yes, absolutely.

But I want to put it in its proper context because a lot of people shrug their shoulders and say nobody's perfect, but I believe in God. No, you've got to make sure you're putting it in its proper context. I want Christians to weep over their sin. I want Christians to say, "Yeah, I hate my sin. I hate the fact that I'm in battle over this."

And if that's the case, then I'm with you, man. Every Christian feels that way. And I'm a friend of every Christian who's fighting their sin. Absolutely. Because I am too and every Christian is, and we all hate our sin and we're fighting it every day. May God give us all the strength to fight it.

I often talk about being friended with the embattled saints because we are all embattled in this world. There's lots of scars that we bear because we fight the flesh, we fight the devil, and we fight this world as sojourners and exiles.

Guest (Male): Oh, thank you. There's a lot of hope in that and that really has helped me a lot. I hope maybe it's helped somebody else too.

Pastor Mike: I'm sure it has, Matt. Thanks for the call. Appreciate it.