Are You Worthy?

Revelation 3:1-6 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. ² Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. ³ Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. ⁴You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. ⁵ He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. ⁶ “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’

The words of Jesus above were spoken to the Church at Sardis.  This is the so called DEAD church.  Jesus says they are dead and that their works are not perfect.  The Lord reminds them to prepare and watch for His return and calls them to hold fast to the truth they first received and to repent from their sins.  The Church of Sardis is akin to those people and churches that are Christian in name only.  At one point they knew the truth but they have fallen away from grace and back into the world.  This defines much of the false, religious sounding yet powerless Christianity that is practiced today that wants to take comfort in the false teachings about grace.  They pretend to follow Christ, they live in the world,  place their comfort above all, pay not any price in being a disciple, worship the Lord with their lips only and when all is said and done DO NOT follow the commandments of God,  

By saying “anyone who has an ear” should listen to this message, Jesus was speaking directly to us today in 2009.   Just like the current “church” there are some that have not defiled their garments with sin and apostasy and remain steadfast in their focus on God and His will.  These are the only ones that will be deemed worthy to enter the kingdom of God and spend eternal life with the Lord.  We must be pure and spotless, totally undefiled to enter the kingdom, there should be NO confusion on what Jesus said to us in this passage.  We must be found worthy or else our names will be blotted out the Book of Life.

How We Are Made Worthy

We are indeed born with the sin nature of Adam.  Unless and until we repent of this nature and the lust of deceitfulness and turn to God we will remain unworthy and not go into the kingdom of Heaven.  We must be pure, holy and blameless to reap eternal life.  We do not however do that on our own initiative or under our own power.  This transformation from our sinful nature to the divine nature of Christ is brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit in us. 

Our sanctification comes about when we cleanse our hands and purify our hearts with true repentance.  This comes as we decide to Love God with all of our heart.  Anything less is not true repentance.  Once we fully surrender to God,  the Holy Spirit will do its work and we will be Born Again, transformed into a new creation in Christ.  That is how we are made spotless and remain spotless.  True Christians do not break the law as a matter of practice, they walk upright following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Only those led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  Everybody else is a non believer or if a sinning believer, an illegitimate son. As we will see below, God knows our hearts and we will not be able to sneak into His wedding feast.

I subsequent to this post wrote about how we put on the divine nature of Christ and are sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit.  Click Here.

Jesus told us in several other places in the Scriptures that “many” will not be worthy of Him.  Being worthy is not about believing in God or a confession that Jesus was God’s son and died for your sins.  Yes our walk of worthiness must start with belief, but the long and difficult road to salvation requires so much more.  Understanding the Lord’s teachings on being worthy should make it amply clear of our need to defeat sin in our lives and meet the conditions He placed on the gift of salvation and what it really means to follow Him.  In the parable of the Wedding Feast, which is what His return for His bride represents, tells the sad story of the majority that will not be found worthy.

Matthew 22:1-14 And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, ³ and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. ⁴ Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.”’ ⁵ But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. ⁶ And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. ⁷ But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. ⁸ Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. ⁹ Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ ¹⁰ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. ¹¹ “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. ¹² So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. ¹³ Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ¹⁴ “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

I believe God calls all of us to spend eternity with Him and receive His grace that enables salvation.  Here in the story, those invited to the wedding were to busy with other pursuits.  They were not focused on God but followed their own paths and worse persecuted the messengers (real Christians) sent to invite them.  As Jesus states here, those called, were not worthy.  God calls both the good and the bad to come as they are to worship Him.  By trusting in God and denying ourselves, He cleans us up for the wedding.

What I find interesting is the man who slipped into the wedding anyway.  He was quickly spotted as the man did not have on a proper wedding garment.  He was cast out into outer darkness and away from the presence of the King.  As we saw with the passage about Sardis above, Jesus is telling us our wedding garments must be undefiled.  This means we must be pure and spotless, without sin.  The garment is white in color in this parable and in all other scripture references that refer to our heavenly garments.  The slightest speck will soil a white garment.  Have you ever worn white pants and remember how careful you were not to soil them?  That is how we are to live our lives for Christ. 

To call Jesus Lord, call ourselves Christians and live in sin is playing church as I have written about many times.  But doing this also disqualifies us for the Kingdom.  If we spoil our garments we will be readily spotted at judgment day and denied entry into the Kingdom.  Jesus will say to those with spoiled garments:

Matthew 7:23  ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’  

Few are indeed chosen of the many that are called.  This is the same things Jesus said in Matthew 7:14 “small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.  Are you worthy my friend?  Are your garments spoiled by sin, unrighteousness and lusting after the world and its treasures that rust and are eaten by moths?  Jesus was very serious about the costs of following Him and the 100% total dedication He requires.  There can be no idols before God.  He must be our all in all.  We must indeed love the Lord thy God with all out heart, all our mind and all our soul.  All is the operative word here. 

The cost of following Jesus is indeed quite high by worldly standards.  We must lay it all down for Him.  Jesus even told us that we would not be worthy if we loved our own family more than Him.  We must love God so much and even be willing to sacrifice relationships with our family if they got in the way of loving God.  Thankfully we are not tested the way Abraham was who was tested by God and was about to kill Isaac in obedience when the Lord intervened.  Abraham passed this severe test of faith the Lord put before him.

Matthew 10:37-39 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸ Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹ Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

Many of us that claim to love God above all, are quick to elevate issues with our spouse or children as being above God’s law and His absolute #1 commandment for eternal life.  We rationalize that its okay as everybody does it and it is because we love them.  A classic example is fornication of our youth or even worse the murderous sin of abortion.  I know of people who say they are Christians yet when an unwanted pregnancy popped up they were quick to lead their child to the abortion clinic so as not to disadvantage them and burden their worldly life.  This is an extreme example but we could list 100 things here regarding rationalization of sin that self professing Christians make when it affects their earthly family.   Sin can never be rationalized and unless we repent of it, disqualifies us from the Kingdom as it spoils our garments.   Jesus ended the above passage with a statement that defines what we must sacrifice to be worthy of Him.  The answer is EVERYTHING.  We must be willing to lose our life including the rejection of our family or the fleshly burdening of our child in order to  do the will of our Father in heaven.

There is no escaping the trials of life here on earth, they are tests of our faith and our worthiness before God.  We must persevere and endure to the end to be saved.  I pray this message will spark those it needs to spark to repent of all unrighteousness and idols that we have placed before God. 

2 Thess 1:6-11 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you ⁷and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. ⁸He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power ¹⁰on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.  ¹¹With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.

May God Bless You Richly!