[0:00] I can turn back to our reading in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 6. We're going to look at the end of the chapter, verse 46, that last section, build your house on the rock, verse 46 to verse 49.
[0:18] We read there at verse 46, 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.
[0:31] He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been well built.
[0:44] 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.
[0:59] Although we're looking at this last part of chapter 6, this well-known, I'm sure, parable that Jesus tells about building a house upon the rock, we want to see the setting of where Jesus is sharing this with the people.
[1:15] And it's quite a scene. It's quite a scene when you look back there to verse 17, and we see just the kind of crowd that had gathered around to hear what he was saying to them.
[1:28] People had come, all kinds of people from all kinds of places with all kinds of desires. They were hearing about Jesus. They were hearing what he was doing, and they wanted to see this man and experience this man.
[1:44] But you see that for many people who came, they came with this desire to be helped in a specific way. In verse 18, it says, So there's this amazing thing that was happening.
[2:12] Jesus was healing many people of many diseases. And what Jesus does, though, as he's gathered this crowd together, is not just bring them to see that he has amazing power to offer in the healing of diseases, but what he does here is he preaches to them.
[2:31] And that's what you find as you go through the rest of this chapter, beginning at verse 17 there. He is preaching to them. So it's quite the scene.
[2:43] It's quite the crowd that's gathered. And in our island experience over the years, there's been many of these kinds of settings. If you look back into the 1800s and read about the history of the church, you find that it wasn't just people coming to gather in a building like we are here, but that there were places all over the island where people used to gather and hear the Word of God preached.
[3:08] Even when you look out the moon as you go home after the service, you look out to the hill, Mornag, and people used to go out there and listen to preachers preaching the Word of God.
[3:20] You imagine that. Would you set off this afternoon to go to an evening service to hear a preacher out at Mornag? We're quite happy to come and be comfortable here.
[3:31] But the important thing is that wherever we are and wherever we gather, that we come to hear what God is saying. And that's really the point that Jesus is making in this sermon as he's preaching to them.
[3:47] You see, he goes through so many different things. The Beatitudes telling us where blessing is found, the woes, the warnings that people are given, the idea of loving your enemies, not just doing the things that are easy, judging others, the tree and its fruit.
[4:05] So he's got so much to say. There's so many points in this sermon. But the conclusion to it, we see in verse 46 to verse 49. And it's in the form of a challenge.
[4:19] It's in the form of a challenge. And the challenge behind it all is Jesus is saying, are you listening? Are you listening to all that I am saying to you?
[4:33] And you can imagine the people listening, just as you may be listening just now. You may nod in agreement. You may add your amen. You may take these words with you and talk about them afterwards.
[4:48] That's the kind of situation that Jesus had here. And I'm sure it's the same for us today. We talk about the things that we hear. We maybe add our amen. We're in agreement with much of it.
[5:01] But what Jesus is asking and preaching about here, it goes beyond that. It's are you applying this word to yourself?
[5:12] Are you hearing what I am saying, but are you doing what my word is saying? There's a lot to be said in being able to say, well, Jesus is our savior.
[5:25] There's a lot to be said in saying, well, I believe in God and I believe in Jesus in the sense that they are real. But it goes deeper. It goes beyond that.
[5:37] As Jesus is preaching to this crowd and to ourselves today, it's asking more than that. It's not just, do you believe in God? Do you believe Jesus is our savior?
[5:50] But it comes to the heart, to your heart, to my heart. Is he your Lord? Is he your savior? And that's what Jesus is getting at through all of the preaching of this word here.
[6:05] And that's what we want to focus on as we look at the end of the sermon, building your house on the rock. And you see, his sermon goes straight to a challenge.
[6:19] And the challenge, the first thing we see is, is he Lord? When you look at verse 46, you don't just go straight into the parable of building your house upon the rock or the sand.
[6:34] Verse 46, Jesus says, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? So there is the challenge.
[6:46] Straight away, Jesus gives a challenge. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? Are you listening?
[6:58] Is what Jesus is saying. A man called Peter T. Forsyth was once said, the first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom, but its master.
[7:13] The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom, but its master. But we live in a world, and we know in our own hearts, so often we are looking for our freedom.
[7:24] We are looking, how can we enjoy life? How can we live life? How can we do what pleases me? But he was right in saying, it's not to find our freedom, it's to find our master.
[7:37] And who is our master? Who is our Lord? And is he Lord? Is he Lord of our lives? Is Jesus the Lord of your life today?
[7:49] Here Jesus is challenging the people, who is your master? They can show all the outward signs, they can talk the talk, but are they walking the walk?
[8:04] And in many ways, as you see them gathered, they're showing they are really interested in learning more about Jesus. But it's not really for their own hearts, it's for healing from disease.
[8:16] And you see, that's the case so often when Jesus is meeting with people. They want healing so they can live their lives in their own free way. But what Jesus always gets to is the heart.
[8:29] And who is Lord of their heart? Are they living for him? Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?
[8:43] Ezekiel, when you go back to the Old Testament, in Ezekiel chapter 33, you see it, it's not a new problem. In Ezekiel 33, verse 30, it says, As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.
[9:07] And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say, but they will not do it. For with lustful talk in their mouths they act, their heart is set on their gain.
[9:23] So you see, even in Ezekiel's day, back in the Old Testament days, the same was through. People were coming, and they were hearing, come, and hear what the word of the Lord is saying. And they came, and they sat, and they hear, but they did not do it.
[9:41] There's nothing new under the sun. The same is through hear of Jesus. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? And so there is this challenge.
[9:54] Who is Lord? Because you see, obedience to Christ is not something optional. It's not an addition to your faith that you can pick or choose if you have.
[10:08] Obedience is at the heart of our faith. Faith is key, of course. But the foundation of it all is obedience as well.
[10:19] And you may say, wait a minute, faith is all that I need. Faith, not obedience, is the foundation of the Christian life. You just have to look at Ephesians chapter 2.
[10:31] We are saved by grace through faith, not of any of our works. It's nothing that we do, and that is true. But if you look at Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 and 9, that's where it says, you're saved by faith through grace, not of yourselves, but for what purpose?
[10:54] If you fail to go on and quote verse 10, you're missing out there as well. For we are his workmanship, it says in verse 10, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
[11:09] So the faith and works go together. We're not saved by works, but we're saved for works. And why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?
[11:22] And he's preached to them here. He's preached about so many different things. He's preached about who our Lord is. He's preached about loving our enemies.
[11:33] He's preached about the challenges that we face in life in so many different ways. But in it all, he's saying, but are you submitting? Am I Lord?
[11:46] He is saying. You know, outwardly, they would look like people who were obedient to the Lord. They were following him. Even doing that was putting yourself in the midst of a challenge because people would see that you are challenging, that you are following Jesus in some way.
[12:03] Just like coming to church can be seen as a challenge. People, what are people going to think? Are they going to speak about me? What are they going to say about me? They might think, I'm a Christian now and they might look down on me for that.
[12:19] So there's a challenge. But it's all about inward as well. Not afraid of what people will think, but afraid of what the Lord thinks of us.
[12:31] We're not just coming to please somebody or just to do it out of habit or routine. We are coming to hear what the Lord is saying to us.
[12:43] Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? Is he Lord? There was a man who joined the Navy. He was a young man, a new recruit, but shortly after he joined, he was going to go to a wedding, a family wedding.
[13:02] And he had to go to his officer to ask for a pass. And the officer gave him a pass to go to the wedding on a Saturday it was.
[13:14] But when the young man looked at the pass, it said, you must be back by 7 p.m. And he was shocked by this. He said to the officer, sorry, you don't understand.
[13:27] This is a family member. I am part of the wedding party. I have to be there. And the officer just looked at him and said, no, you don't understand.
[13:39] You're in the Navy now. You have a different master. And who is our master? We kind of try to live our life as we please.
[13:52] In one hand, saying, yes, Lord, Lord, but not doing as he says. So we have the challenge there for us.
[14:03] Who is Lord? And then we're seeing the testing of Lordship as well. And this comes in the form of a command and an illustration.
[14:15] The illustration is the obvious one that we have here. The house or the two houses, one built on rock and one built without foundation.
[14:26] But even that is in the midst of seeing that there is a command here in verse 47. So he says in verse 46, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?
[14:42] Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like. So there's this command.
[14:53] You come, you hear, you do. These are the important things. Come, hear, and do.
[15:05] To have Jesus first as your Lord, you must come to him. That's the great invitation of the gospel. It's always about coming.
[15:16] In Matthew, Jesus says, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. The gospel is about that great invitation of coming.
[15:29] And so you come, but you come with a purpose. You come to hear. You come to hear. That's what he says here in verse 47. He hears my words.
[15:43] You listen to what the Lord is saying. We come to the Lord through his word. Just like we see this great multitude of people.
[15:54] And even as we think of today, how great a multitude gather to hear the word of God preached all over the world. People come. But do we come to hear?
[16:07] Are you listening? This is important too. You look at verse 27 here in the middle of Jesus' sermon. But I say to you who hear, are you listening?
[16:18] Even halfway through his sermon he's saying, are you still listening? Are you still with me? Are you hearing what I'm saying? Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.
[16:29] And suddenly people would sit up and listen again if they had stopped. Because this was so strange. Love your enemies. How can we do that? Well, it's because we see who the Lord is.
[16:44] We see what he does for us. And there are many distractions that the people could face here as well. You think of what we said earlier about verse 18 and 19.
[16:56] They were coming to be healed. You can almost imagine them. Yes, yes, we're hearing what you're saying. But let's get to the main bit. When you come and heal my disease, that's what's important.
[17:07] Jesus is saying, no, it's the other way around. What's important is that you hear what I am saying because that is your greatest healing. That is where you begin to understand that it's not just physical healing that you need.
[17:21] It's healing from your sins that you need. So are we listening to what is being said? Imagine many of you maybe will be in the next few weeks going away on holiday.
[17:35] And if you go on a plane, how often do you listen to the safety announcement? You're sitting there. Where's your attention? You're starting to think about the next couple of weeks away.
[17:49] You're starting to think about where you're going, your destination, maybe your hotel or the food you're going to have or what you're going to do. Your mind starts to drift away. And now you're paying attention to that emergency instruction that if anything goes wrong, this is what you are to do.
[18:07] We seldom listen because our minds drift away to other things. Well, one air stewardess recognizing this, she decided one day just to play along.
[18:21] And as she was doing the safety demonstration as is always done, she said, when your mask falls down, place it on your belly button and breathe normally.
[18:34] And nobody batted an eyelid. Nobody thought, what's she saying? That doesn't make sense. Nobody was listening. She could have said anything because they weren't listening. And that's often the way that we are under the Word of God as well.
[18:48] We're thinking ahead. We're thinking about what's next in the day or in the week. We get distracted. We stop listening. But we are to listen to what God is saying to us.
[19:01] We are to come. We are to hear. And we are to do as well. Just like James says in his letter in the New Testament.
[19:13] Later on the New Testament, he says in James 1 verse 22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. We are to be doers of the word.
[19:27] And so we have this command. Come, hear, and do. Do what I am saying to you. But then he gives us an illustration.
[19:41] And the illustration is a warning to us as well. It's an illustration perhaps we know very well. The two houses, one is built on the rock, one is built on the sand, and the flood comes.
[19:56] Which one stands? The one that has the foundation on the rock. And of course this is telling us that we need to build our lives on Jesus as Lord.
[20:09] Jesus is to be Lord of all. So the one who builds his house wisely, he digs down to the solid foundation.
[20:22] There's no point in cutting corners. There's no point in doing it in the cheap. It has to be done well. And when we think of what Jesus has done for us, when we think of Jesus as the rock of our salvation, we see that every price has been paid.
[20:44] The cost of our sin. He came to pay it all. He came to pay the price by giving his life on the cross. And there is the foundation of our salvation.
[20:58] Jesus alone. Christ alone. Because anything else is like building our house without foundation.
[21:10] When the storm comes, that house will fall. And it says, the ruin of that house was great.
[21:22] He is speaking about our lives. He is speaking about how we are living our lives. If we are not listening, if we are not hearing, if we are not doing, we are being disobedient.
[21:37] We are building our house without foundation. And so the challenge for us is, how are we building our lives? On whom are we building?
[21:49] On faith with Jesus Christ? Or in trusting ourselves? trusting our own wisdom, our own ideas?
[22:02] Jesus' preaching here directs us always back to him. And in many ways, Jesus is the one who preaches most on end times.
[22:16] He preaches on the need of salvation in him because it is such a serious matter. Because at the end of the day, there's only two outcomes.
[22:29] Just like we have with the house here, the two houses. There is the outcome either you withstand the storm or the storm brings ruin.
[22:40] And what is Jesus saying in these words? Well, he's saying that if our lives are built on the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ, when judgment comes, when Jesus returns to this world to bring us all before him on that judgment day, how are we going to stand?
[23:00] How are we going to be saved? It was by having come to hear his words and to do them, to be faithful to him, to put our trust in him.
[23:16] It's the only way. And if we do that, we are secure when that judgment comes. But there's the warning. The one who hears and does not do them, as it says in verse 49, is like the man who built his house on the ground without foundation.
[23:36] When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. We all hear today the word of God.
[23:49] But that's not enough. We are to do what the word of God says. Because if we don't, there is no foundation.
[24:03] And when that judgment comes, no matter how much you might plead before the Lord and say, but I was there, I heard, that's not enough.
[24:14] we cannot stand before him. And the end for us is destruction, ruin. And so there's this warning for us.
[24:25] The only foundation that will hold us is faith in Jesus Christ. Do you have that faith?
[24:37] Is he Lord of your life? why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? There's a story told of a new minister who came to a village in England.
[24:53] And as he was getting to know the people, he was going around visiting the many homes in his district. And in one home, he met with this woman, and he asked her a question.
[25:04] He said, does Christ live here? And she didn't know how to answer the question. But the question stuck with her.
[25:17] And after the minister had left and her husband came home, she told her husband, the new minister came to visit today and he asked me a question. He asked, does Christ live here?
[25:31] And the husband asked her, well, what did you say? And she said, I didn't know what to say. And the husband started saying to her, well, why didn't you tell him that we are good people?
[25:44] She said, that's not what he asked. Then why didn't you say we read our Bible and say our prayers? And she says, that's not what he asked.
[25:56] And the husband was getting frustrated and said, then why didn't you say that we go regularly to church? And the wife could just say, but that's not what he asked. And for days and weeks, this question was troubling the husband and wife.
[26:15] Does Christ live here? And little by little they began to understand what the minister had meant. It's not enough to be good people.
[26:29] It's not enough to say, but I read my Bible and I say my prayers. It's not enough to say that I go to church. Does Christ live here?
[26:42] In your home? In your heart? Is he Lord of all? That's what's important. And through that challenge, this couple came to put their trust in Jesus Christ.
[26:58] Christ. So the next time the minister would visit, they would be able to say, Christ lives here. He is our Lord. Is he your Lord today?
[27:14] Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? Are you obedient? What can I do to make sure that my house is built on solid ground?
[27:28] it is to come to hear his word and to do as he says. May the Lord help us all to be hearers and doers that we might build our house on the foundation of Jesus Christ as our Lord.
[27:52] Let us pray. Lord, our gracious God, we thank you for your word that reminds us that we are not just here to listen to ourselves or to anyone else but to you.
[28:08] And help us that as we have come that we would hear your word that as we go from here that we would not just forget your word but that we will continue to hear it speaking to us.
[28:19] so we too might come to be doers of your word and to build our lives and our salvation on the rock that is Jesus Christ, that ever secure foundation, that our only hope for life and death and eternity is found in him.
[28:39] So guide us, we pray. Bless us, continue with us, pardoning our sin in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to conclude by singing to God's praise in Psalm 18, the Sing Psalms version.
[28:56] You find it on page 21 of the Psalm books. Psalm 18 on page 21, we're singing from verse 27 to 32.
[29:13] You save the humble and the meek, but bring the proud down from their height. You, Lord, will keep my lamp aflain. God turns my darkness into light.
[29:24] We'll sing from verse 27 to 32 to God's praise. You save the humble and the meek, but bring the proud down from their height.
[29:50] You, Lord, will keep my lamp aflame. God turns my darkness into light.
[30:10] with help from Lord I can advance against the dream and round them all.
[30:32] And with it my God will give. I can't leap over any wall.
[30:53] For perfect is the way of God.
[31:03] ! No flow is found within His word to all who heard and trust in Him.
[31:24] A shield that refuge is the Lord.
[31:34] For who is gone except the Lord?
[31:46] Besides our God who is the wrong, He is the God who gives me strength and He perfects the path I wore.
[32:16] We close with the benediction. May grace, mercy, and peace from God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest upon and abide with you all now and forever more.
[32:30] Amen. Thank you.