Who is worthy?

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What a wonderful time of graduation! So proud of Jaden, Douglas, and words can’t express the pride in Rochelle.
Ever thought about what being a graduate means? Ever got META about it? Thinking above it, really wondering about it.
What does it really mean that a person gets a diploma or a certificate. It means that a student took the classes that a group of elected people or a business said, “This is what it means to hold this degree.”
A graduate at their essence obeyed the authorities and showed somehow that they were wiling to do the work and past the tests so that someone would say, yeah you deserve a degree. A graduated obeyed.
If you don’t finish the classes they told you to take, take different classes they didn’t want, ordo the classes in the wrong way, then no degree.
Graduates obey, Graduates get the degree.
Jesus kind of had a line like this with a very powerful metaphor about our own spiritual journey of faith.
Luke 6:46–49 (CSB) 46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the river crashed against that house and couldn’t shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The river crashed against it, and immediately it collapsed. And the destruction of that house was great.”’
This is really, really powerful, so let’s go back and look at it more carefully,
Luke 6:46 CSB
46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say?
Lord, the only time we really hear that title is “Lord Vader” as in Darth Vader or in some kind of British history thing or when someone says “Oh, Lord” “Lord Jesus” and it seems like a nothing word, like Mr. or Mrs. a title that isn’t that important, but it’s more like Dr., You guys know that Doctor often means medicine, like this person can make you well or knows a lot. Lord in Jesus means something. It means something crucial and if we miss it as Americans in 2025, almost two thousand years after it was written we miss something that should make a difference in our every day, in how we treat our kids, job, everything in our world.
This is the verse in Greek as the language it was originally written in
Luke 6:46 NA26
Τί δέ με καλεῖτε· κύριε κύριε, καὶ οὐ ποιεῖτε ἃ λέγω
If you look at the underlined words, It says Kurie which comes from the root word, Kurious
Kurious means chief, head, someone who is not told no. Honestly, if the Kurios would say jump, the response is this high enough. Their is no debate, their is no question, their is obedience.
I could go into a huge rabbit hole of how intense this word Kurios, our word, Lord is but we can see the opposite of it by how some Christians thins.
I have had several conversations with people who were frustrated that God never answered their prayers. They asked God for something and it didn’t happen. Therefore they were struggling with or not even sure if they believed in God anymore. Some even claimed to be like Job, from the Bible. They were mistreated. They believed themself to be good because they know a lot of people who do worse things than them. Yet nothing that they find difficult happens for them, as they view life. Everything that happened in their life they believe they did on their own and God didn’t do anything for them.
You see in their world view God needs to uphold his end of the bargain because they have prayed. They believe that the brain they made that choice with, the mouth they spoke with, the legs they stood on, where all things they just have, not part of God’s grace. That they deserved it and whether God had a part in that is irrelevant. That any bad things that happened to them or good things didn’t come were God’s fault and the good that did come to them because of their talents, gifting, the many wonderful people and circumstances that had happened in their life had nothing to do with God. They did it.
God never ever suggested He works this way, in fact, he rejected it over and over.
Mark 8:11–12 NLT
11 When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had arrived, they came and started to argue with him. Testing him, they demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority. 12 When he heard this, he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, I will not give this generation any such sign.”
I told them and I will tell you if that is how you view the world of your faith please re-read the book of Jonah and Job. Because Job understood what it meant for God to be Lord of your life. He understood obedience. He understood that he was owed nothing. Jonah understood making God work for him and being very frustrated when God shows that He doesn’t work for us.
This is God’s story, God is the main character, God is what your life is about, What your mom’s life is about, and ever your great great great great grandpappy’s life is about.
God is the constant.
Today we have many who like Jesus. They will try and make deals with him. They will take the parts of God they like and ignore the rest. But Jesus is pointing out, in this statement, if you call him Lord that means something. Lord means obedience.
One really intelligent writer wrote the definition of Kurie, which means Lord like this, it

denotes the union with Christ which a person possesses who has found and laid hold upon their life in Christ, and possesses it in Him, who therefore resorts continually to Jesus, and draws supplies from Lord Jesus in life, in conduct, and in experience,—in a word, who can or would no more separate Christ from themself than could separate their salvation from Christ; thus the statements made concerning the Christian subject who is in Christ coincide with those concerning the object, i.e. the salvation, the life which is in Christ. For him who is in the Lord, or who is anything in Him, and for that likewise which is done in the Lord, Christ is the foundation and the spring, the strength and stay, or in the fullest sense the sphere in which both he (subject) and it (object) exist.”

What beautiful piece of writing about what it means for Jesus to be Lord of your life, but that was complicated.
Let’s see it again as something simple let’s look at a Peanut M&M. If you are a nut and some of you are kind of nuts, just ask your doctor. Anyway if you are a nut and Jesus is the chocolate, that is a peanut M&M. You can’t have a peanut M&M if they are separate. Take away the nut, you have a chocolate m&m. If you take away the chocolate, you have just a peanut.
A person who says that Jesus is Lord can’t be identified without Jesus. A person who claims Jesus is Lord takes all their life direction from Jesus. Their ways pursue the ways of Jesus. A true follower doesn’t have a vacation from Jesus. Jesus is how they do life.
So if someone takes all their life direction from Jesus, because He is Lord of their life, how could they stop believing in Jesus, because they don’t like where their life is now? A true faith commitment to Jesus as Lord can’t be separated. The title lrod Really matters. It matters what we really mean when we say Jesus is Lord because Jesus makes an agreement with it.
Romans 10:9 CSB
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
It is stated with the mouth but that statement comes with a commitment of the heart, mind and soul. A commitment that we do not talk enough about in church and to each other. We don’t talk enough about what it means for Jesus to be Lord of us. Jesus needs to be all of us. You don’t walk around and see your peanut separating from it’s milk chocolate candy shell whenever it feels like, that Peanut m&m are one and the same!
I have failed. I know why this happens in the hearts and souls of others.
I have tried to convince and sell Jesus as have many, many others. But Jesus didn’t sell himself. Jesus didn’t make himself easier to handle so I shouldn’t either. It’s great and difficult to follow Jesus.
while there are blessings in this life, following Jesus has cost. It is a life of purpose, a life of healing, love, joy, and peace. But it’s not about making it as easy as possible.
Those who call Jesus Lord, they will be saved. Those who call him Lord, Lord and don’t do what He says, have they ever really made him Lord?
My friends all over the world today people are following Jesus because they know He is God, they are not still asking Jesus to perform for them, to convince them of His worth and His Honor that is due him. They are coming to Jesus to learn more of what He is doing in their world. There following of Jesus, making Him their Lord comes at a great price.
Now tragedy comes to us all, no matter if you are amazing Christian or an immoral person doing horrible things and believing horrible things. The rains come. Hard times come. But what happens during the hard times, what happens next that makes a huge difference in what it means to follow Jesus.
Jesus said it likes this,
Luke 6:46–49 CSB
46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the river crashed against that house and couldn’t shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The river crashed against it, and immediately it collapsed. And the destruction of that house was great.”
I’m fifty now which to some of you is still young and to others of you is ancient. I have seen how following Jesus as Lord, not for blessings, for easiness, or for comfort but following Jesus as Lord gives a foundation that can stand. It can stand against loss of jobs, loss of life, and give hope where there isn’t hope. Healing where there is trauma.
Do you have that kind of faith in the Lordship of Jesus?
From our friends at Voice of the Martyr’s comes what it means to walk with Jesus as Lord of your life and also the healer for what comes. In recent years, Islamists invading the West African country of Burkina Faso have displaced two million people and killed many. While the Islamists have killed indiscriminately in the majority-Muslim nation, they usually target Christians first.
The effect of the murders, displacements and assaults is so widespread that pastors often struggle to care for all the Christians suffering from mental and emotional wounds. In August 2024, Islamic extremists killed 26 Christian men in the village of Kounla after binding their hands and forcing them into a church.
“Christians have likely suffered greater emotional turmoil than the general [Burkinabe] population,” a front-line worker said. “For this reason, the need to provide emotional care in areas such as Kounla becomes more pressing because the health of the future church in Burkina Faso may depend upon counseling interventions performed during the aftermath of such attacks.”
Yacouba Odineneka, a government worker, has survived multiple Islamist attacks. It had never occurred to him that he might be suffering from trauma.
“After the terrorist attacks, I realized that I was changed,” he said. “I became nervous. Sometimes I could be sitting alone and talking to myself.” Yacouba stayed mostly indoors, and he struggled to sleep at night.
During one attack, Islamists murdered an elder at Yacouba’s church and abducted his pastor. They held the pastor hostage for several days before finally killing him. Yacouba found his body, along with those of several others who had been killed, and buried them.
In another attack, Yacouba and two of his children were held hostage in their own home by two extremists. Yacouba thought they were going to kill him and his children, but the Islamists eventually left, presumably annoyed by the screaming of Yacouba’s infant child.
Yacouba was invited to a gathering of other Christians to hear how God can heal inner wounds. As he listened to the teaching of local pastors, he realized that both he and his wife were suffering from trauma. He recalls one specific teaching that helped him see the depth of his problem.
“For me, it was the lesson on forgiveness,” he said. “Because of what I went through, it was very difficult for me to forgive.”
As Yacouba studied biblical forgiveness, he came to realize that God’s forgiveness of his sins must lead to his own forgiveness of others. “I was able to forgive some people and to let some things go out of my heart,” he said.
When Yacouba told his wife what he had learned from the pastors, she too gained a new level of peace. He then shared what he had learned with others, including a doctor who was suffering mental and emotional distress from treating so many attack victims. Through their discussions, the doctor regained the strength to continue providing medical care.
Yacouba requests prayer as he seeks to comfort more people with the comfort he has received. “I want people to pray for me so that … I will be able to use [the lessons I learned] to help many people,” he said. “There are many people who are traumatized. May God give me more compassion, more strength to help all these people.”
In the face of intense horror Christ strengthens,
Luke 6:47–49 CSB
47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the river crashed against that house and couldn’t shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The river crashed against it, and immediately it collapsed. And the destruction of that house was great.”
My friends, Yocouba shows just a glimpse of what it means to have a life built on the foundation of Christ. Some of you have gone through many horrible things.
Jesus calls you to follow Him. Follow Him as Lord, give Him the leadership in your life, the dreams of your life, the direction of your life so that you will do what He says, love God, love others, forgive others, live in hope in God, live with peace and live in kindness. Seek Jesus, Hunger and thirst for his ways, make it first in your life.
Or choose your own way. Admire Jesus but realize that He isn’t your Lord. By the way Jesus says, You are not saved. For him to be Lord, we must follow. With our beliefs, actions, money, time and purpose being changed into Jesus’ beliefs, actions, money, time an purpose. Don’t misunderstand me, don’t follow me. Don’t think I’m saying obey me or something like that. I’m saying hunger after Jesus, know Jesus, make Jesus Lord of your life. .
Romans 10:9 CSB
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Then this promise is yours
2 Corinthians 12:9–10 NLT
9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Today, Yacouba is strong. Today, all who call on the name of the Lord are strong, because he honors the obedient.
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