Check the Foundation

Introduction

We are so thrilled to have Jonathan and Emily and their sweet family with us this morning. They are/have led us in worship and during our SS hour, and they will also be with us this evening.

They are going to teach us about Family Worship.

How do we teach our little ones to love Jesus, worship Jesus, and obey Jesus?

As we contemplate with Emily and Jonathan what it means to lead our families to know and cherish Jesus, might we contemplate how we build our lives upon the rock that is the word of our Lord.

This is a fantastic day to process how you do this in your own life, but also, how you do this in your family.

Read Luke 6:46-49

Luke 6:46–49 ESV

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

We have been talking about Jesus as a teacher. He is wrapping up His Sermon on the Plain where he has taught some pretty radical things: (1) Love your neighbor as yourself, (2)Love your enemies, (3) remove the log from your eye before you look to your brothers eye, etc.

He finishes this sermon by saying that you really only have two options as it comes to his teaching - you can obey it or you can disobey it. To obey God’s Word is to find eternal life and security, while disobedience reaps a chaotic life and a graceless, eternal death.

Explanation

Luke 6:46 ““Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”

The final lines of Jesus sermon are not about knowing but DOING. He is telling those who hear Him that for those who follow Him, He is not giving them a moral suggestion but a command.

I have heard this text preached often. The dichotomy of the text is often whether we find God’s word true or not. That is not what is happening here. The dichotomy is whether or not we find God’s word trustworthy enough to act upon it.

It isn’t God’s Word verses anything else. It is acting upon God’s Word or not acting upon God’s Word.

To get below the surface, He asks a question, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?”

Jesus says, “You are saying the right things, but you aren’t living the way I have asked you.”

Even in Jesus day, it was easy to pay lip service to Jesus without actually following Him.

Make no mistake, Jesus is not Your Savior if He is not your Lord. And He is not your Lord unless you do what He says.

The measure of your life before God is not what you say about Jesus but about how you act because of the word of Jesus in your heart.

Don Whitney “10?” : Are you increasingly governed by God’s Word?

Christians are often more interested in the new discoveries that they find in their Bibles than the new life that it commands.

Luke 6:47-48 “Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.”

(1) Comes to me, (2) hears my words, and (3) does them.

“Comes to Me” // You can be around Jesus and the things of Jesus and not dwell safely in Him.

“Hears My Word” // You can hear Jesus teachings, memorize them, and attend Bible studies about them and not dwell safely in Him.

“Does Them” // Those who know they are His and secured in Him are those who obey His words.

One of the truths that keeps me awake more than anything is that the Bible belt is full of people who live within the shadow of a steeple, have heard the message of the gospel, but they have never responded to His word.

The the problem with building your life obediently upon the word of God is that it often doesn’t make sense to the people around you.

Abram heart the word of the Lord, left his family and city, and he went to a far away country promised to Him.

Noah built a boat in the middle of the desert.

Moses, late in years, returned to Egypt, the land that had oppressed his people.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel took a message of judgment and grace knowing that their audience would not listen.

And while the Word, the Word of the Lord that we build our loves upon might make no sense to the world around us, we know that to build upon anything else is to build upon a flimsy, temporary, fleeting, and broken promise.

Luke 6:49 “But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.””

If the foundation of the house is bad, it doesn’t matter how beautiful the house is.

Dug deep and laid his foundation on the rock.

In Mississippi, we have a problem with foundation in many of our houses called “Yazoo Clay.”

Yazoo Clay is known as expansive clay, which means that when moisture gets into that clay, it expands and busts the foundation of your house. If the Yazoo Clay is shallow, it can severely and irreversibly damage your house.

The interesting thing about Yazoo Clay is that every house in a subdivision could be sitting on Yazoo Clay, and one day, one is colossally damaged while the others are fine.

When you remove the action of your life from the commands of word of God, you are building a house upon something that cannot hold it.

APPLICATION - How do we obey Jesus?

We have to have a relationship with Jesus. Only as we abide in Him (John 15) do we grow in Him.

We saturate our lives with the Bible. We sit under the authority of the Scriptures. We don’t attempt to put our preconceived notions into the Word, but rather, we confidently go to the Word knowing that an infinite God gave it to us.

We labor towards holiness. Our Lord grants us grace to walk towards Him. What do we do when the work is hard? Thomas Brooks (Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices) - What do we say to ourselves when Satan tells us the difficulty of obedience?

We dwell more on the necessity of obedience than the difficulty.

Let’s pretend, its snowing outside, and you have to take out the garbage. You can whine about it, you can talk about how hard it will be, you can study it intently

When you have faucet that is broken and flooding your house, you don’t dwell on how hard what you have to do is - you just focus on doing it.

We look forward to meeting the Lord Jesus in our obedience.

The invitation of obedience is the invitation to know Christ more.

When that step is hard, know that you will find Christ on the other side of it.

And the more we step, the closer we step to our gracious and perfect Lord.

We dwell upon the hard and difficult things that the Lord Jesus endured for our temporal, spiritual, and eternal good.

When obedience is hard, think of the cross. Think of Christ silently walking up the road with His cross to Calvary.

Remember the death of Jesus on the cross.

We remember that obedience are only difficult to the worse part of a saint.

There are two types of you that go to the grocery story.

There is the you that wants to eat healthy.

There is the you that wants to eat not very healthy.

That’s why we all drive through McDonald’s on the way home from the grocery store. Because nothing tastes better that fast food when you just bought 380 dollars worth of kale and fruit you just put in the fridge.

When we are tempted to disobey, we have to ask the question, “How will I feel 5 minutes after doing this?” or “The me that really wants, worships, and adores Jesus - would that me do this?”

We consider the great reward that belongs to those who cleave to the service and the Lord in the face of all difficulties and discouragements.

Brooks, “The work is hard, but the wages are great… One hour’s being in heaven will abundantly recompense you for cleaving to the Lord and his ways in the face of all difficulties.”

Invitation

Give your life to Jesus. That is the first step of obedience.

Devote your life to Christ. Take the next step.