BUILT TO LAST

Good morning!

You know, I’m not a guy who knows a lot about cars. I’m learning! But I’m not really the guy you want to call with car trouble, which can sometimes cause problems for me, since my car is finally old enough to vote in the presidential election. When a car is that far along, you better hope that it’s built to last! And when you think about cars that are built to last, I already know that a great many of you are thinking of my 2004 Toyota Corolla!

Now, obviously “built to last” is a slogan used by Ford, and I definitely don’t know enough to enter into that debate. But I will say this: There are a lot of things I don’t love about my car, but one thing I do love is that when my car starts making a weird noise, if I ignore it, it just magically goes away. And 178,000 miles later, we’re doing just fine!

Of course, we all want things that are going to last. When it comes to buying a car, the most important question you can ask might have to do with the make and model; but when it comes to your life, that most important question changes. Having a car that is built to last is convenient. But having a life that’s built to last is the most important thing you can do during your time on this earth. And when it comes to building a life, I believe that the most important question you can ask is: What will I do with Jesus?

Here at Open Door we’ve been studying Jesus’ life in the book of Luke for almost a year now. And today as we continue our study, Jesus is going to wrap up this sermon that we’ve been reading, and as He does, He’s going to beg this question: How are you going to respond to my words? What are you going to do with Jesus?

So turn with me to Luke Chapter 6, and as you turn, let me remind us of where we’ve been. We’ve been reading one of the longest uninterrupted blocks of Jesus’ teachings, this sermon that we call the Sermon on the Plain. In this sermon, Jesus has been casting vision for what it looks like to live as a citizen of God’s kingdom. He started out by talking about blessings and woes, using it to flip our understanding of what’s really valuable in this life. Next, he began teaching about loving others, even our enemies, and challenging us to expand our circle of love. And then most recently He’s been posing some discipleship questions to challenge us as we respond to His words. So now we’re going to pick things up in verse 46—and having come to the end of this teaching, Jesus says:

Luke 6:46–49 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Isn’t that an interesting way to close the sermon? A little bit of a downer there—“complete and utter destruction!” Why would Jesus end the sermon this way? I mean, can you imagine sitting there, and Jesus says, “The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete” ...and then He just walks away? What would that have been like? What is Jesus getting at in these final words?

Well, I challenge you to go home today and read through the whole Sermon on the Plain. I did it this week, and it took me about five minutes—and I’m a slow reader! Actually the whole thing is only thirty verses! But what you’ll notice as you read back through is that Jesus’ teaching is consistent; And, that Jesus’ teaching is difficult.

He’s not exactly pulling punches. He’s got blessings and woes; He’s got difficult calls to love, He’s got challenges to hypocrisy, and He’s got these questions that He’s begging that get to the root of our resistence to God’s kingdom. And for those of us who have spent so long living for ourselves, this teaching is like a shock to our system.

But Jesus doesn’t get to the end and apologize for His words, because He knows that in them, and in Him, we can find life! And apart from Him, we will find only death and emptiness. See, we’re trying to answer this question and think about why Jesus would say it this way, and we always know: Because Jesus is full of grace and truth, because we know that He’s come that we might find life and life abundant, even when the teaching is difficult, the teaching is pointing to life. Jesus came to teach us how to live a life that’s going to last. And so, what is He trying to do with these words? He’s trying to introduce us to life, because He knows that how we respond to Him is a life and death issue.

The early Christians knew this about Jesus’ teaching. In fact, there’s a document called The Didache, or “The Teaching of the Twelve” that is one of the earliest existing summaries of Christian teaching. It’s from the early 2nd century AD, and it served as a bit of a spark notes version of how to be a Christian. And the opening line says this, “There are [only] two paths, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two.” That is their opening line, and it cuts to the heart of the matter. Jesus is showing us the only path to life, but it is a challenging path at times. It’s the narrow gate, right? Jesus Himself says, “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Mt 7:13-14).

And so here at the end of His sermon, knowing that how we respond to Him is a life and death issue, He drives the point home, and He begs the question, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord!’ and not do what I say?” What are you going to do with my words? How will you respond to my teaching? What are you going to do with me? As my disciples, you’ve traveled all this way, you’ve begun to follow me around so you can catch my teaching; and now you’ve had your fill. What are you going to do now?

And as we look at our text this morning, we find that Jesus uses four different words to describe ways that people respond to Him. He’s not intending to talk about four different groups, but I think it’s interesting , if you look at each of these words, they describe four different ways that people respond to Jesus.

Look with me at verse 46 and 47 again. Jesus says, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” So first, Jesus is talking about people who are acknowledging Him, but not obeying Him. So one response is simply acknowledging Jesus. And then continuing on, Jesus says in verse 47, “As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like.” So here we get three more words that describe what people are doing with Jesus. And if we put them together, we see that you can come to Jesus, you can listen to Jesus, you can acknowledge Jesus, and you can obey Jesus. These are the four ideas that Jesus presents.

Because, the reality is that not everyone who comes to Jesus listens to Him. You can come to Jesus, you can have an encounter with Jesus, and choose to reject Him. Actually, most people who encounter Jesus choose to reject Him. Jesus is willing that none should perish; He knows that in Him we find life, and so He makes Himself available, He dies on the cross for our sin, and He sends us out to tell the whole world about who He is and what He’s done! But even in Jesus’ own day, the vast majority of those who encountered Him continued to go on their way.

Yet in our passage today, Jesus is talking to those who have come to Jesus, and rather than rejecting Him, they come in order to listen to Him. They’ve come to hear Him teach! Actually it says back at the very beginning of this sermon in verses 17 and 18, “A large crowd of his disciples... had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.” So they’ve come to hear Jesus’ words.

The problem is that Jesus’ words aren’t magic. They’re powerful; but they’re not automatic. They don’t work by association; they don’t work by osmosis. Listening to Jesus’ words is important and necessary, His Words are the words of life, but you can be interested in or entertained by His teaching without believing in Him and finding life. So this second group is full of those who receive Jesus as one good teacher among many, or as an entertainer or a person of interest. These are people who study the words of Jesus like they study the words of Plato and Socrates. They sprinkle him as a topping onto the pizza of their life, or as the spice of life. Throughout history, there are thousands of people who have come to Jesus and listened to Him, only to incorporate Him into their own life and agenda. They listen, but it ends in curiosity rather than commitment. They find Jesus to be a great teacher, not realizing that while this is true, Jesus came not merely to inform us, not merely to entertain us, but to save us. Like many of those who came to hear Jesus speak from the coastal regions, and down in Judea, they treat Jesus as a spectacle, but not a savior.

And this may describe some of you hearing my voice today. Maybe you’ve come to church your whole life; maybe you’ve come recently. You find it interesting. You enjoy it. But your curiosity has never materialized into a commitment. You listen to Jesus, but if you’re honest with yourself, He’s nothing more to you than a teacher; His words nothing more than a suggestion. If that’s you, I’m so glad you’re here today. Because I believe that Jesus wants to call you to a deeper response this morning. We’re going to talk later about digging and digging deep. Jesus is calling you to dig and dig deep today, because what you’ll find under the earth of your curiosity is the bedrock of a Jesus who is worth building your life on. Jesus is calling you to a next step this morning.

But for many of us, we’ve take that step: We’ve moved beyond curiosity, and into a confession. We’ve come to Jesus, we’ve listened to Him, and like those in this passage, we call Him “Lord, Lord”—a term of extreme reverence. This is the group who acknowledge Jesus.

This whole idea of calling Jesus “Lord, Lord” comes out of verse 46. And as I dug into this passage, one thing I noticed is that, in the Greek, there’s a conjunction that doesn’t get translated at the beginning of verse 46 which can be translated “but,” “and,” or “now.” So we could read this verse like this: “now, why do you call me…” And if we read it in context, it would go like this, starting in Luke 6:45 “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. But why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord!’ and not do what I say?” So, Jesus is saying that the mouth speaks what the heart is full of, and your words are calling me Lord Lord, but those words aren’t evidenced in your life. Jesus is building on this idea from last week about bearing fruit and He’s pointing out is that there are some who are following Him who would rather give Him lip service than actually give Him their lives. See, it’s very easy to say “Jesus is Lord.” Living like it is an entirely different thing.

And throughout generations, God’s people have often entertained the messengers who bring His word, and said nice things about them. We’ve been reading about this exact thing in the book of Ezekiel, where God says to the prophet,

Ezekiel 33:31–32 “My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to hear your words, but they do not put them into practice. Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice.”

And this is how many church people treat Jesus. What we need to recognize is that merely acknowledging Jesus isn’t the point. Talk is cheap. What Jesus wants is for us not merely to say that He is Lord, but to surrender to Him as Lord. Jesus cares about whether or not we obey His words because, like we learned last week, our actions reveal who actually has our heart. And you build your life on what you give your heart away to.

If all that is true, then let’s pause for a second. Can you identify where you’re at in this progression? How have you responded to Jesus? Have you come to Jesus, but not truly listened? Have you listened, but not truly confessed? Have you confessed, and not truly surrendered?

Because this is a question we have to answer every single day: What will I do with Jesus?

I had a highschool teacher who would always tell us at the beginning of class, “Every day, you and Jesus stand in the throne room of your heart, and before your there’s a throne, and there’s a cross. And every day Jesus turns to you and says, ‘Where would you like me to sit today?’ “

Jesus wants your heart. Does He have it? Because, again, you build your life on what you give your heart away to. And how we respond to Jesus matters.

And because He knows all this, Jesus wants to press the issue. And as we continue in our Text, what we’re going to see next is that what we’ve done with Jesus will be revealed. So let’s continue reading:

As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.

But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.

Earlier I mentioned that this passage is connected with our passage from last week, where Jesus is saying that a tree is known by its fruit: The kind of tree that you are is revealed in the kind of fruit that you bear. The point in the previous passage has to do with the fact that your actions reveal what’s going on in your heart; and here, Jesus is continuing to drive home a similar point, but He’s using a different illustration that, rather than emphasizing the source of the matter, emphasizes the stakes in the matter.

So He tells this story of two builders. One builder digs down deep and lays His foundation on the rock, while the other just builds their house without a foundation. And when the flood comes, the house built on the rock remains, while the other house is totally destroyed. And Jesus actually explains the picture as He goes: The builder who lays a foundation is the one who obeys Jesus’ words, while the builder who does not lay a foundation is the one who listens to Jesus but does not obey His words.

And you can see right on the surface here that Jesus is making a contrast, and the heart of the contrast has to do with what we do with Jesus, but specifically, whether or not we put His words into practice, whether or not we surrender to Him as Lord. And as the parable continues, you can see the stakes in that decision.

So what Jesus is saying is that simply talking a good talk is not the kind of response that leads to life. Rather, we show that Jesus is Lord by our obedience, not just by our words.

See, what Jesus is doing is pointing out an inconsistency that He sees in His followers. You’re calling me “Lord, Lord” with your mouth. You’re trying to give the impression that you know me, that you love me, that you respect me, that you consider me your king, your authority, even your God! And yet, your heart is far from me, and I can tell because as soon as you walk out the door, you go your own way.

To put it differently, when we confess with our mouth “Jesus is Lord,” that confession has concequences. In the First Century, it meant “I am no longer going to give my loyalty or commitment to the Emperor of Rome; instead my loyalty and commitment belongs to King Jesus.” And in a world of kings and emperors, the word that was used to describe this is idea is the word allegiance—which is another word that can be used to translate what we often translate “faith.” So you can write down, true faith includes allegiance, and not just ascent.

Anybody can get to the end of the document and say, “I have read and agree to the terms of service.” All they’re asking you to do is assent! But it’s living by the agreement that actually matters. Assent is not what Jesus is looking for; He’s looking for surrender, He’s looking for allegiance.

Ascent is like saying “I believe that the chair will hold me.” Faith is like sitting in the chair. But allegiance is like saying “this is the only chair for me, and I will give up everything to sit in this chair.” That’s pretty extreme when it comes to chairs, but it is absolutely appropriate when it comes to the Lord and foundation of your life. And if you are under the impression that just checking a box at the end of a prayer is what grants you salvation, then you need to seriously reconsider what you’re building your life on. Let’s be reminded that, as it says in the book of James, “Faith without works is dead.” Faith that doesn’t change your life has missed the point. Rather, it’s faith that works itself out in action that shows that you’ve built your life on Christ.

Now don’t get me wrong: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved! And for those of us who have been saved, it can be said that we are saved by grace, through faith, and this is not from ourselves. It’s a free gift of God—It’s not by works, so that no man can boast! Our salvation is in no other name but the name of Jesus, and our only hope is that He would offer it to us based on His perfect life, and His death on the cross in our place; otherwise our sin and our waywardness would disqualify us over and over again! Salvation is FREE.

But salvation will also cost you everything. It will require you to pick up your cross daily.

Because Jesus is not just calling you to eternity; He is calling you to Himself.

He is calling you into a kingdom where He is the king. Merely adding Jesus to the kingdom of our life is meaningless. Because at the end of the day, it’s still our kingdom, and our kingdom is headed for destruction.

Friends, Christianity is not about adding Jesus to our spiritual shelf with the other things that make you feel good about yourself; Christianity is about putting to death the parts of me that constantly vye for sovereignty, and bowing everything I am before Jesus, the only King. And we show that Jesus is Lord by our obedience, not just by our words.

Thinking back to the Text, I want to make another observation for us. And the observation is this: As Jesus is telling the story of the builders, the question that He poses is not whether or not you’re building; the question is what you’re building on. In other words, everyone is building their house on something. Everyone is a builder. The only question is whether or not you’re building on the rock.

You see, the picture of building your house is a picture of what you’re depending on. What are you ultimately trusting in for your livelihood, for your safety, for your identity, for your future? Jesus isn’t talking about people building a vacation home. It’s our life: the place we are going to live and eat and sleep and work and raise our family. Every single one of us is trusting in and relying on something or someone for our life, our security, and our identity. We all depend on something, and we can show that Jesus is our Lord by depending on Him.

If you want to know what you’re building your life on, all you have to do is look at what you depend on. In a small way, I build my life on the assumption that my car is going to get me to work. I depend on it. I rely on it. That’s what it was made for.

But when it comes to our life in general, put simply, we build our life on what or who we obey. Because who or what we obey has our heart. Your obedience, your habits, what you choose to do with your life is an investment of yourself, and that investment matters.

And so the question is: Are we building on something that will last? Are we depending on something that is worthy of our trust? Can the ground that we’ve chosen to build on bear the weight our life, our security, and our identity? Because this is where so many people go wrong. We set up our life and we try to support it with all these things that were never meant to hold the weight. My spouse cannot bear the weight of my life, my security, and my identity. My kids cannot bear the weight of my life, my security, and my identity. And it is totally unfair to them to expect them to. My sexuality and my physique cannot bear the weight of my life, my security, and my identity. My success cannot bear the weight of my life, my security, and my identity. My political affiliation and my American citizenship cannot bear the weight of my life, my security, and my identity. My career, my feelings and emotions—nothing on this list can hold up my life and who I am. Yet we try and prop all these things together in the hopes that we can build a life out of it, but at the end of the day they crumble and break under the weight.

Go down the list, and at the end of the day there are only two categories: Christ who is our strong tower, and everything else. Christ is the only one who can bear the weight of my life, my security, and my identity.

And in the story it seems so obvious! Why would anyone build their house on anything but the rock?! And yet generation after generation, we try to find cheap substitutes for the firm foundation. Because it’s much easier not to dig. Jesus says that the man who laid the foundation had to “dig deep,” and He actually uses two verbs here that emphasize the effort that it took. See, it’s much easier not to dig and dig deep. It’s much easier to take short cuts.

And what’s more, standing side by side, the houses look pretty much the same, because the foundation lies beneath the surface. So you can fake it—for awhile. And if you were in a house-building contest, building without a foundation might actually look like it’s getting you ahead—for awhile. But at the end of the day, it is all revealed to be nothing more than a striving after the wind. We’re obsessed with building our own kingdom. But anything that we build on a foundation other than Christ will be washed away.

I remember one year we went to Myrtle Beach as a family with some of our friends, and our dads used shovels to dig out a huge sand fort. It was the coolest thing ever! But never in a million years would they have told us to get our bedding and suitcases and move into the sandcastle. Why? Because it’s dangerous. And because the high tide is on its way. Yet when it comes to the way we spend our time, and the way we spend our money, and the things we depend on, so many of us prefer a castle of sand over a shack on the rock.

But the tide is coming. And in the day of the storm, we show that Jesus is Lord by our response. What we’ve done with Jesus will be revealed, because the difficulties of life reveal what we rely on, and those difficulties are guaranteed.

There are not many promises in this life, but one of them is given by Jesus in John 16:33 “In this world you will have trouble.” Difficulty will come. It is not a question of whether the flood rages against the house; it is only a question of when.

But for some of us, we act like the world is ending when difficulty comes, because for us, our world is ending. When we fall into these fears, these worries, these anxieties, we demonstrate that we are standing on shakey ground.

And when we’re frantically trying to hold everything together, trying to hold onto the sand as the tide rolls in, it shows that we have invested ourselves and our lives into what is here today and gone tomorrow. We’ve built our life and our kingdom on things that will not last. And when the ground begins to shift under the life we’ve created, when the dreams don’t come true, when the expectations don’t materialize, when the market crashes, our desperation and our dismay reveal what was going on in our hearts all along. Because what you do in difficulty reveals your foundation.

And when difficulties come, the foundation already needs to be in place. You see, foundations are never built out of convenience; they are built for the day of trouble. But when the rain comes, when the river overflows its banks, it’s too late to go out and start digging.

And that’s why Jesus ends his sermon with this warning—because He loves you, and He made you, and He died to save you, and He doesn’t want you to build your life on anyone or anything else but Him. Everything else in this life will fail you! But Jesus Christ will never fail! HE LAID HIMSELF DOWN so that you could build your life on the rock.

And when you learn to trust in and rely on Jesus, when you depend on Him, you will learn to say with the Psalmist “God is [my] refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore [I] will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (46:1–3).

The difficulties will come. If you think back to Jesus’ early followers, difficulty came for them very quickly. The people who first heard this sermon lived through some of the most intense persecutions in the history of the Church. And yet, because they were built on the rock, they were pressed, but not crushed. They were persecuted, but not abandoned. They were struck down, but not destroyed. And they were faithful to pass along the words of Jesus so that you and I could hear them again today. What the early disciples understood was this: Trials will come for all those who believe. But no matter what happens in life, when our hope is in Jesus, our hope is secure. Apart from Christ, we have nothing. But if we have Christ, WE HAVE EVERYTHING! And when you’ve built your foundation on the rock, you don’t have to be afraid of what’s around the corner, because He will hold me fast!

So I wonder: What will you do with Jesus? And, what will you build your life on?

Because only a life built on Christ is built to last.

As you survey the life you’ve built, some of you may need to clean house. Surrendering to Jesus may mean tearing down a new addition you just put up. But in the end, that addition was never going to last anyway. The only thing that will remain in the end is what you did with Jesus.

Because after all, in a world of false hopes and dreams, Christ is the only rock that anchors the soul. In a world of great promises, Jesus is the only foundation that delivers. In a world obsessed with security, Jesus is the only strong tower. He is more than enough, and He is all that you need.

Will you come to Him again this morning? Will you listen to Him again this morning? Will you surrender to Him again this morning? Because when you do, you’ll be laying a foundation on the rock.

The rain will come. The wind will blow. But we will not be moved, because a life built on Christ is built to last.

Will you trust Him this morning?

Let’s pray.