Faith In The Ordinary

The most frightening words Jesus ever spoke — and who He was speaking to.

1. The Shock of the Verdict

There is a moment at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that should make every churchgoing, Bible-quoting, ministry-active believer pause and take a long, honest look in the mirror. Jesus, the one who knows all things, draws back the curtain on the final day — and what we see is deeply unsettling.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”  — Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV)

These are not atheists standing before the throne. These are not rebellious sinners who had no exposure to Christ. These are people who called Him Lord. People who moved in prophetic gifts. People who cast out demons. People who did mighty works in His name.

And yet the verdict is devastating: I never knew you.

The judgment is not rendered on the basis of their sins. It is rendered on the basis of the relationship. Or rather, the absence of one. This is the shock of Matthew 7. You can have all the outward marks of Christianity and still hear those words. You can be active in the church, fluent in the language of faith, even visible in ministry and still be a stranger to the King.

2. Known vs. Knowing

The word Jesus uses for ‘knew’ in Matthew 7:23 carries enormous weight. In the Greek, it is ginōskō — a word that speaks not of intellectual awareness but of deep, personal, experiential knowledge. It is the same word used in the Septuagint when Genesis says that Adam ‘knew’ his wife Eve. It is intimate. It is relational. It implies access, closeness, and mutual recognition.

Notice that Jesus does not say, ‘You never knew Me.’ He says, ‘I never knew you.’ The distinction matters enormously. You can know about someone without being known by them.

The question Jesus poses — implicitly and unmistakably — is not ‘How much did you know about Me?’ The question is: ‘Did I know you?’ Were you someone I recognized? Were you in relationship with Me? Was there a genuine, living, mutual knowing between us? That question deserves more than a confident nod. It deserves a searching, honest, unhurried answer.

3. The Danger of Religious Credentials

If the people in Matthew 7 had submitted a ministry résumé, it would have been impressive. Prophecy. Deliverance ministry. Mighty works. These are not small things. These are signs and wonders. And yet Jesus looks at the whole portfolio and calls them workers of lawlessness — a phrase that points not to obvious immorality but to a fundamental absence of alignment with God’s will and ways.

How is this possible? Because spiritual activity and spiritual intimacy are not the same thing. You can preach and not pray. You can serve and not surrender. You can be visible in the kingdom’s work while remaining a stranger to the King. Ministry can become a substitute for the very relationship it is meant to flow from. And when that happens, what looks like devotion from the outside is, at its core, a form of performance — carried out for an audience that was never really the Lord.

The church must reckon with this. Busyness in the house of God is not proof that God is at home in you. Attendance is not intimacy. Titles are not testimony. The frightening reality of Matthew 7 is that it is possible to be deeply embedded in Christian culture while being only superficially connected to Christ Himself. This is not a comfortable word. But it is a necessary one.

4. The Shepherd Who Knows His Own

If Matthew 7 is the warning, John 10 is the counterpart — the picture of what genuine relationship with Christ actually looks like. And it is beautiful in its simplicity.

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.”  — John 10:14-15 (ESV)

Jesus speaks of knowing His sheep as something active and ongoing. He knows them by name. They know His voice. The relationship is mutual, recognizable, and expressed in a pattern of life: His sheep hear, and His sheep follow.

There is no ambiguity in the sheepfold. The sheep are not strangers to the Shepherd, and the Shepherd is not a stranger to them. The relationship is not merely on paper; it is lived. It moves. It responds. The sheep do not just know the doctrine of the Shepherd; they know His voice. And knowing His voice, they follow Him.

This is the positive counterpart to Matthew 7. Where those in Matthew 7 had activity without intimacy, the sheep in John 10 have relationship without performance. They are not trying to impress the Shepherd with their works. They simply know Him — and they follow.

The question is not whether you have a ministry. The question is whether you know His voice. Does something in your spirit stir when He speaks? Does His Word feel like a letter addressed to you personally, or like a document you process from a distance? Are you following, or are you simply moving in religious circles?

5. The Parable Jesus Told About This Very Moment

Jesus did not leave this warning in Matthew 7 without reinforcing it. Just days before the Cross, in one of His final extended teachings, He returned to the same question, this time in parable form. The Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25 is not a separate concern. It is the same crisis, dressed in different clothes.

Ten virgins are waiting for the bridegroom — who represents Christ at His return. All ten are invited. All ten carry lamps. All ten are, by every outward measure, part of the wedding party. But when the bridegroom is delayed and midnight comes, a difference that was invisible to everyone — including the virgins themselves — is suddenly and permanently revealed. Five have oil; five do not.

“And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.”  — Matthew 25:10-12 (KJV).

There it is again. I know you not. The same verdict. The same language. The same locked door. Matthew 7 is not an isolated warning but it is part of a pattern that Jesus returns to repeatedly, because He knows the human tendency to substitute proximity for intimacy, and religious activity for relationship.

Notice what the oil represents. Oil in Scripture is consistently associated with the Holy Spirit — the anointing, the indwelling, the inner life. The lamps are the outward expression of faith: attendance, confession, participation in the community of God’s people. All ten virgins have lamps. But only five have the oil that keeps them burning. And here is what the parable will not allow us to escape: when the foolish ask to borrow oil from the wise, the wise refuse. Not out of selfishness, but because oil of this kind cannot be transferred. No one can give you their relationship with God. A parent’s faith will not substitute for a child’s. A church community cannot carry an individual through the door.

What makes the parable so searching is that the five foolish virgins are not godless people. They are not hostile to the bridegroom. They cry “Lord, Lord” and they mean it. The problem is not that they refused the relationship. The problem is that they assumed it without cultivating it. They had the form of readiness without the substance. They had the lamp, the invitation, and the expectation but no inner reserve to see them through the night.

And the shut door — the most sobering detail in the whole story — is not an act of cruelty. It is an act of finality. The window of preparation has closed. And the one standing at the door of history has the same answer as the one standing at the door of the sheepfold in John 10, and the same answer as the one at the great judgment in Matthew 7. The question is always the same question: Does He know you?

6. The Great Reversal

Paul’s letter to the Galatians contains one of the most quietly stunning phrases in all of Scripture. The Galatian believers, having come to faith, had begun to drift back toward religious observance — toward law-keeping as a means of standing before God. Paul confronts them sharply. And in doing so, he makes a correction that reorients everything.

“But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?”  — Galatians 4:9 (ESV)

Did you catch the correction? Paul starts to say: ‘Now that you have come to know God’ — and then stops himself. Or rather to be known by God. He pulls back the language and reframes the entire relationship from the other direction.

This is the great reversal. We tend to think of our faith as something we initiated as if we found God, as if we reached up and took hold of Him. But Paul insists on the prior reality: God knew us first. We did not choose Him out of nowhere. We were known, and in being known, we were drawn into knowing.

Assurance of salvation, then, is not rooted in how tightly you grip your faith. It is rooted in His grip on you. The foundation is not the strength of your knowing — it is the certainty of being known by the God who does not forget, does not abandon, and does not misplace His own.

To drift back to religious performance — to earning, to striving, to proving — is to abandon this foundation. It is to live as a stranger in a house you were invited to as a child. Paul’s astonishment in Galatians is precisely this: How can you go back to striving when you have been known by God?

7. So How Do You Know?

This post has raised a serious question. It would be irresponsible to leave it hanging in the air without providing some guidance for those who are genuinely asking: How do I know if I am known by Him?

First, let us be clear about what the answer is not. It is not found in ministry activity, attendance records, spiritual gifts, or public reputation. Matthew 7 has already closed that door.

The marks of being known by the Good Shepherd are simpler, quieter, and more internal than we might expect:

You know His voice. There is a living responsiveness to Scripture — not just an intellectual engagement, but a recognition. When the Word speaks, something in you answers. You have experienced the Holy Spirit pressing truth into your heart, convicting, comforting, directing.

You follow. Not perfectly. Not without stumbling. But there is a direction to your life. A trajectory of surrender. You do not merely know what Jesus taught; you are being shaped by it. The sheep do not just admire the Shepherd from a distance — they move with Him.

Your faith is in Christ, not in your Christian activity. When you think about standing before God, your confidence rests on what He has done, not what you have done. The Cross is your ground. His righteousness is your covering. You do not present your résumé; you present Him.

There is fruit. Not performance, but fruit — the natural overflow of a life connected to the Vine. Love. Repentance. Hunger for God. Care for others. These are not the conditions of relationship; they are its evidence.

None of these are achieved through effort. They are the signatures of a life that has been genuinely touched by the living Christ.

8. The Wake-Up Call

Matthew 7:23 is not in the Bible to terrorize the saints. It is there because Jesus loves His church too much to let her sleep through the most important question she will ever face.

He told us this in advance. He drew back the curtain on the judgment so that we would not be surprised by it — so that we would examine ourselves now, while there is still time. The warning is itself an act of grace.

But grace does not mean comfort at the expense of truth. The church in many places has drifted toward a version of Christianity that is long on activity and short on intimacy — full of programs, events, titles, and spiritual experiences, but thin on the deep, daily, personal knowing of the living God.

Jesus is not looking for a more impressive ministry report. He is looking for you — the real you, in relationship with Him. Not the version of you that performs on Sunday. Not the version of you that quotes the right scriptures. The you that kneels before Him in the quiet places. The you that hears His voice and follows, even when no one is watching.

The most frightening words Jesus ever spoke were addressed to religious people. The most reassuring words He ever spoke were addressed to people who simply knew Him and followed.

The question is not whether you know about Him. The question is whether He knows you.

Answer it now — before that day comes.

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