[0:00] All right, now we are in Luke, and I want to start with a question. Do you guys know this movie?
[0:13] It's The Wizard of Oz. Yes, Emerald City, and I want to add, this is kind of a trivia question. It's kind of a little, hopefully short rabbit trail.
[0:26] The Wizard of Oz was written about what? It's an allegory. Does anybody know what it was written about? It was written about the election of 1896, and Emerald City represented Washington, D.C., and, of course, powerless to really do anything, right?
[0:51] If you guys know the movie, if you don't know the movie, spoiler alerts all through this thing, okay? If you haven't seen it, too bad. We're just going to tell you.
[1:02] So these are some of the characters that are in it. Dorothy represents the innocent voter, okay? You and I kind of a thing. The scarecrow represents the farming interests, who apparently the author of the book was like, you guys don't have any brains.
[1:18] The Tin Man represents the industrial workers, who didn't have a heart, and the Lion represents the aristocrats.
[1:28] What was left over of the aristocrats, the people of means, people of wealth, mostly on the East Coast, didn't have any courage. And, of course, they were trying to go to Washington, D.C., to see if they could get their problems alleviated and all of that.
[1:47] And, of course, Washington, D.C. ended up being this guy, right? The great and powerful Oz, who had no power at all because behind the curtain, as Toto revealed to us, was this guy, who was just a guy.
[2:10] I missed something. Timely, timely.
[2:30] So, anyway, yeah. This guy. And, actually, the whole point of me telling you this is that for all of us, we all have a public image that we want people to see, but, really, we all have a behind-the-curtain us.
[2:46] The things that we think about, the things that are motives, the stuff that we don't want people to see on a Sunday morning, right? We don't walk in and open our curtains and let everybody see who we are on the inside when we come to church on Sunday.
[3:05] We want to hide that, and we want to have this presentation front that everybody gets to see. What people see in our social media accounts, that's what we want to put forward.
[3:17] We don't want to put our junk forward. But Jesus, in this, what is known as the Sermon on the Mount, he actually pulls that curtain back and gets to the inside of how we think and what our motives are.
[3:31] And so that's what we're doing today with a little bit of a rabbit trail about, yeah, that stuff. So we'll start with Luke 6, verse 37, and we're going to dive right in with what is one of the most difficult passages of Scripture because it has become perhaps the most popular passage of Scripture.
[3:55] If you would have asked the people in the general public like 20, 30 years ago, what's the most famous verse in the Bible? Probably you would have gotten some version of John 3, 16, right?
[4:08] Now, if you ask people what is the most popular verse in the Bible, it might be something along this lines or perhaps Matthew's version of it. Judge not and you will not be judged because that's how our culture operates.
[4:23] We like Christianity as long as we follow this version of Christianity, that says, all right, I get to live however I want to live.
[4:35] I get to decide my own morality. I get to decide who I want to be with and how I want to be with them. And the moment that you even raise an eyebrow to suggest that what I'm doing is wrong, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, as a good Christian, you better not judge because if you don't want to be judged, you'd better not judge me.
[5:00] You better leave me alone. And, of course, that's a misuse, a horrible misuse of this passage and what Jesus is teaching here. He says, judge not and you will not be judged.
[5:12] Condemn not and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Now, Jesus is not talking about salvation here. He's not all of a sudden talking about, well, if you want to be saved, you better not judge and then you won't be judged.
[5:29] And if you want to be a Christian, if you want to be saved, you better not condemn people because then you won't be condemned. He's not creating kind of a new way of becoming a Christian here.
[5:40] What he's getting at is who we are on the inside, our spirit, our attitudes, our motives, just the general way that we carry ourselves in life.
[5:50] That's what he's after. And a parallel passage to this, Matthew chapter 7, Matthew writes, judge not that you be not judged.
[6:02] For with the judgment that you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure that you use, it will be measured to you. And so here's the kind of qualifier there.
[6:14] It's not that we're not ever supposed to judge. Matter of fact, we're going to see here in a little bit, we are actually called to be judges. It's how you do it.
[6:26] That's what matters. And so as we look at this, we're kind of pulling the curtain back and answering the question, what does a growing disciple look like?
[6:37] Because this is what Jesus is talking about here in this last portion of this sermon of his through the end of chapter 6. And when it comes to judging, we're going to spend some time.
[6:52] And it's not all in our text today. There are other passages of scripture that we're going to look at. But we're actually going to get real practical here and talk about, okay, so what is this judging thing?
[7:06] And how are we supposed to do this? And when is it appropriate? And when is it not appropriate? And so we're actually going to answer those questions. And you can see them on your notes here.
[7:18] So the first question that we're going to ask is this one here. Actually, before I get to it, one more verse that I wanted to show you that demonstrates even in the same context of Matthew chapter 7 where Matthew says don't be judging, where Jesus said don't be judging, he also then tells us to beware of false prophets who come into you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
[7:44] You will recognize them by their fruits. So when we are confronted with a false prophet, what are we doing with them? We're making a judgment. And actually, you'd better because you don't know if the guy standing up here is a quack or is saying things that are way out in left field somewhere.
[8:05] You don't know that. So you have to be aware of the Scriptures for yourself so that when you hear someone speaking, you can discern, you can determine, you can judge while he's speaking from the Scriptures or he is not speaking according to the Scriptures.
[8:22] and then you are called to make that decision. So here we go. When is it right for us to judge? Because there are some specific instances that are given in Scripture that help us to determine this.
[8:37] It's right to judge, first of all, immoral behavior. Immoral behavior. In 1 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul is writing there and he's writing to a church that's dealing with some immoral behavior right there in front, right there in the congregation.
[9:01] There was a guy there who was basically sleeping with his stepmother and it was immoral and it was wrong and Paul called it out publicly, partly because the church was not, basically the church was refusing to deal with it.
[9:19] The church was basically saying, oh, isn't it sweet how much we love them by allowing them to continue in this behavior? And Paul is like, no, sir. Matter of fact, even in my absence, he would say, I have already passed judgment.
[9:36] Now, wait a minute, Paul. Are you supposed to be doing that? Because with the same measure that you use to judge others, you also are going to be judged. And Paul would say, absolutely.
[9:48] When it comes to immoral behavior, you need to recognize what it is that God said is right and is wrong and then to abstain from and then particularly in the body of Christ to call that out, to make note of it.
[10:05] And actually verse 11 of 1 Corinthians 5 to avoid people who are involved in that kind of behavior. And so absolutely, this is one of the areas where we are called to pass judgment, if you will.
[10:22] The second one has to do with unbiblical beliefs. And sometimes you see some of these, both the immoral behavior and now here on biblical beliefs.
[10:34] If you are ever on X or Twitter or on Facebook or some of these other social media sites, you will see people making pronouncements against certain preachers or certain ministries based on what they teach and saying, hey, this is not biblical.
[10:53] And then some people will filter in into the comment section and say, hey, you didn't approach that person privately first. You didn't do a Matthew 18 and approach them in person privately first before you went public.
[11:09] And I would say, actually, that's okay in that instance. Because if the sin is public, then the confrontation must also be public.
[11:21] So if I, as a preacher, were to stand up in front of you and teach something that is unbiblical than the appropriate response from someone in the congregation, absolutely.
[11:34] And if not someone from the congregation, someone from outside, someone better be standing up and saying, hey, what that guy is saying is not true, it's false, it's not biblical, and hold that person to account in a public way because his teaching, his proclamation, was done in a public way.
[11:53] And so, and then that person has the opportunity to repent of that and recant whatever was false and so on. You can follow through from there. But absolutely, anything that was done in a public way needs to be confronted then in a public way.
[12:10] In 1 Timothy chapter 5, Paul talks about rebuking an elder. Be careful when you confront an elder, absolutely, but if it's necessary to rebuke an elder, do it in front in the presence of all.
[12:28] That's how it is to be, how it is to be done. And again, that's tough. That's tough to see when it happens, but it is necessary. Certainly, this is true.
[12:40] Number three, it is right to judge our own sin as unacceptable. Absolutely. And yet, we have what is popular in Christian culture today is the idea of justifying my sin.
[12:53] Instead of finding it unacceptable and repenting, I find a way to justify. Well, for instance, in the case of immorality, we can say things like, well, God made me this way.
[13:06] And I'm only fulfilling what God created in me in this unnatural, immoral lust that I may have. And that's obviously inappropriate.
[13:21] And what is acceptable, what is the right thing to do is that when I have sinned, that I need to call it out for what it is in myself and say, no, I shall not do that.
[13:33] And by the way, people that struggle with those kind of tendencies gay tendencies and then say that it's God that made them that way.
[13:45] No, it is our sinful nature that makes us that way. God created us perfect. Adam and Eve were perfect. And then they decided to rebel against God.
[13:56] And when they did that, we all fell, all of humanity, all of the human race fell within Adam and Eve. And because of that, we all have different bents of ways that our sin expresses itself.
[14:10] That is not from God. God has made clear that, you know, this kind of way of life, a Christian way of life, a biblical way of life is what was intended for us and not to blame him for our own sinful desires and the way that the bent of our heart goes when it comes to that sort of thing.
[14:32] Number four, is it right to judge, it is right to judge our culture in light of biblical principles?
[14:47] Again, we're told to test everything. Test everything. First Corinthians tells us, test everything.
[14:58] So when we look at culture, we ought to determine this is wrong or this is right. We're called to be light in a culture. We can't blend in and be light.
[15:12] So, absolutely, it is appropriate to judge or to discern in these ways. What about times when it's wrong?
[15:24] Wrong to judge. Well, first of all, it's wrong to judge before knowing all the facts. this is why the Bible talks about first having a hearing.
[15:41] You have a hearing before the judgment is passed in order to bring to light whatever is going on. It is appropriate to know everything before you pass judgment.
[15:55] I mean, that should be kind of an obvious thing. here's another one. It's wrong to judge based on subjective impressions. The way that someone made a face.
[16:09] What's underlying motives? We can't judge that. We don't know that. We don't know what's in a person's heart. And so, we have to be careful about making judgments based on superficial outward appearance kinds of things.
[16:24] things. And then thirdly, and this is where Luke chapter 6 verse 37 and Matthew chapter 7 verses 1 through 5 what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount.
[16:36] This is what he was talking about when he said, judge not lest you be judged. It's wrong to judge in self-righteous hypocrisy. If I've got this stuff going on in my own life, what am I doing calling it out in someone else's?
[16:53] And Jesus would say, you've got a log in your own eye and you're trying to strain at the sawdust in another person's eye. It's not appropriate to do that.
[17:04] So be careful in that way. Now, we're all called to judge accordingly in terms of our own Christian growth so that when we look around us, we can see what is right and what is wrong.
[17:25] We can know from the scriptures. So how do we grow in that? How do we grow in the area of discernment? Discernment is a word that you should know.
[17:36] It is being able to decide what is right and what is wrong. There's a spiritual gift of discernment. It's the idea of being able to look at a situation, to be able to hear a presentation, and then to be able to discern, spiritually guided, whether it's right or whether it's wrong, and then to call it out if it is wrong, or to give it a stamp of approval if it is right.
[17:59] And so how do we grow in the area of discernment? Because we all should be. It's all a part of maturing as a Christian, of growing as a Christian. And the first step, or not step, the first thing that we need is a hunger for godly wisdom.
[18:16] Develop a hunger for godly wisdom. And we get this from James 1, verse 5, which might not seem at first reading where this is going here, but it says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God for it, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.
[18:39] It's one of the great promises that we have in scripture, that if you lack wisdom, you go to the Lord and ask. But it's not just a word ask, there's a number of different Greek words that are translated as ask.
[18:55] And so it's good for us to actually, I know some of you, Jeff has been teaching some of you to use something called a Strong's Concordance. And a Strong's Concordance study of this word would actually be quite beneficial to us.
[19:12] So I've kind of copied the page, if you will. This is from off of my computer screen. And you can see this word ask and its origins.
[19:23] And I want to bring you all the way down to the bottom, the highlighted portion, where it talks about how this word is kind of from an uncertain derivative.
[19:33] They're not sure its origins. But it's used in such a way as it can be translated as ask or beg, call for crave or desire, require.
[19:53] So the person who's asking for God's wisdom is begging. They've got to have it. They crave it. And that's what we're talking about, developing this hunger for his wisdom.
[20:08] wisdom. It's not a, oh, you know, if he gives it to me, fine. If not, you know, I can go on my merry way. It's of the mindset that says, Lord, I need, I desire, I crave your wisdom.
[20:25] And you're going to be asking about a particular issue or particular circumstance. So, Lord, I need to know. And crave that, hunger that, hunger for that.
[20:36] And as you do that, God will begin to open up your spiritual eyes, if you will, to see perhaps from his word or perhaps from another godly person.
[20:48] And you'll be able to listen to wise counsel and be able to pick up, okay, this is wisdom. This is how I should see that circumstance. This is how I should view that situation.
[20:59] So, that's one of the things. The second is to commit to making godly decisions. But you don't want to do this after the fact. You want to decide beforehand.
[21:10] So I wrote that in there. Decide beforehand that whatever the decision is made, however that's revealed to you, that this is the course of action that should be taken.
[21:24] Don't leave that course of action as an option for yourself. Well, God has called me to do this. God has called me to take this step. I'll see.
[21:35] I'll take it into advisement. How does that work? God is not your counselor in the sense where he's there to give you advice and you can take it or leave it.
[21:51] He is there to tell you this is the correct response you must obey. And that is the best, safest posture for us to be taking. To recognize when God has spoken and then to follow through.
[22:05] So commit to that ahead of time. Thirdly, saturate your mind with God's word. This becomes kind of a given here that the more that you are a student of the word of God, the more that you will have at your fingertips and at the ready in your mind and in your heart the answers for how to deal with, how to view your particular set of circumstances.
[22:31] And then finally, we are going to spend a little bit more time on this in just a little while, but put into practice what you learn. Because if you don't obey, if you don't put it into practice, God has no further responsibility, if you will, to reveal anything else to you.
[22:56] If you are not willing to obey his will, at that point God is like, okay, when you are ready to obey me, then I will reveal more, I will teach you more.
[23:08] But if you are like, no, I am not going to do that, you are going to be stubborn and disobey, then God is like, well, if you are going to disobey this simple command, what responsibility do I have to reveal anything more?
[23:22] And the answer would be, there is no responsibility there to deliver more. So, now, with all of that in mind, we are going to now finish off the rest of this chapter.
[23:35] So, we spent some time talking about judging and when is it right, when is it wrong, and so forth. Let's also now talk about the characteristics of a growing disciple.
[23:49] What does that person look like? And Jesus begins to describe some, again, he's stringing pearls together, little tidbits of phrases and sentences, and he's just stringing them together and making this kind of a sermon.
[24:08] And so, the first thing that he talks about is sincere generosity. Sincere generosity, verse 38. And so, he says, first of all, don't judge, right?
[24:23] And then, in the same sentence, he's saying give. So, these are just little short phrases that he's stringing together. Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, it will be put into your lap.
[24:38] So, the idea here, and this is what he's saying about the kind of a giver we should be, for with the measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.
[24:51] Now, the question is, what kind of giving is this? Is this like, you know, can the pastor then turn this into a sermon about tithing in the local church?
[25:03] Hey, you need to be giving to the local church, and, because this is what Jesus teaches. I don't see that here. Now, does that mean you don't have to be generous with a local church?
[25:15] Of course not. This is just talking about generosity overall, as the general standard of your life, that you are just a generous person, whether that's you're seeing somebody on the street who's asking for help, or whether that's you have a family member that's in need, or someone, a friend who is in need, or you just see a situation and you want to anonymously bless someone, it's just talking about generosity.
[25:47] And so be generous people. Christians are generous people. And it comes from a sincere heart. It comes from within that says, hey, I just want to be a blessing, not so much as Jesus would also talk about in Matthew chapter 6 and another portion of the Sermon on the Mount, the guys who were blowing their horns and tooting themselves and saying, hey, look at me, I'm giving.
[26:14] And no, that's not what it's about. It's about what's happening on the inside and not calling attention to yourself. The next thing has to do with discerning.
[26:25] There's our word again, discerning or judgment, allegiance. Allegiance to. It could be a pastor, it could be a local church, it could be some other kind of ministry leader that you admire, that you look towards.
[26:40] But you need to be discerning in your allegiance to them, to that person. And this is how Jesus would say that. He also told them a parable, can a blind man lead a blind man?
[26:53] How's that? How's that going for you? Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? Which, you know, kind of makes sense.
[27:05] A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. Now, I read a passage like that, and I'm like, I don't like that at all.
[27:19] I don't like that at all. Because as I am a teacher for many of you, to think that you're going to be like me, I don't like that.
[27:34] I don't like, I want you to be better than me. I want you to, no, follow Jesus. But the reality is, that's what we end up doing. It's just natural for us to be that way.
[27:46] And so, pastors in particular, I think, ought to be aware of this. And it's why pastors and teachers are held to a higher account.
[27:58] Because, by nature, you have followers, learners, people who are following your teaching. and so, we have to be aware of that. And you need to be, we all need to be discerning in terms of who we're willing to follow.
[28:14] Because you don't want to be following somebody who's blind and leading you into a pit. Here's another one, honest self-reflection. Honest self-reflection.
[28:28] And this gets into the logs or the beams and the sawdust and the specs. This is good. So why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
[28:44] So we're talking about two guys that have the same issue. They have the same spiritual fallacy. They have the same immoral behavior.
[28:55] They have the same some sort of sinful thing that's going on in their life. And the one guy is looking at the other and saying, oh, you dirty dog.
[29:08] And Jesus is saying, well, you've got a log in your own eye, you hypocrite. That's what he's describing as a hypocrite.
[29:20] How can you strain to see the speck in your brother's eyes when you've got, and this is old Jewish humor.
[29:31] When Jesus would have said this, people would have laughed because it was their kind of humor, this idea of a log sticking out of somebody's eye. Picture that in cartoon format.
[29:45] It looks silly. Or a two-by-four sticking out of somebody's eye. eye. How can someone have a log or a two-by-four stuck in their eye?
[29:58] That kind of hyperbole was a popular form of humor and a way of teaching in that setting.
[30:10] So he says, how can you say to your brother, brother, let me get that speck that is in your eye when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own. And so the one guy's got a log coming out of his face and he's got a pair of tweezers trying to get the speck out of, and it's like, it doesn't compute.
[30:29] It doesn't make sense. You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck that is in your brother's eye.
[30:42] So it's not that you're never supposed to confront. Notice that the guy with the log is meant to take care of that first and then when that log is removed and he has repented of his sin and there's been some time where he's been able to live faithfully before the Lord in obedience, then he can confront his brother and then perhaps get the tweezers out or be able to gently confront but firmly confront his brother because of the sin that's going on in his life.
[31:17] But first take care of your own before you start doing that kind of procedure with someone else. So honest self-reflection. And then he talks about integrity on the inside.
[31:34] And this is more again of the behind the curtain view of what we do. We can play religion with the best of them. But what's going on on the inside?
[31:45] For no good tree bears bad fruit. Excuse me. Nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit.
[31:58] For each tree is known by its fruit. Right? If you walk up to a tree and it's got apples on its branches, what kind of a tree is that?
[32:12] Duh. Right? If it's got oranges, it's an orange tree. If it's got cherries, it's a cherry tree. Each tree is known by its own fruit.
[32:23] For figs, and Jesus gives a couple of examples here from their culture, their area. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
[32:37] But the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good. The evil person out of the evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
[32:53] So, what is he saying is the fruit of a person? What is he talking about as being the fruit of the person? It's what comes out of the mouth.
[33:06] That's what he's saying, and we're told to, in that sense, be fruit inspectors. not only for false prophets back in Matthew chapter 7, but in our own lives, what's coming out of my mouth?
[33:21] Because what's coming out of my mouth is revealing what's in my heart. Right? What's coming out of your mouth is revealing what's in your heart.
[33:33] what's And so, the question then becomes, can someone look at the way that you speak and the words that you use and inspect that and say, well, this is a good person or not so good of a person?
[33:52] Because what's coming out is revealing what's in here. And then I would kind of further characterize that by saying, what's coming out of your mouth when life hits you?
[34:09] Not when things are going great, by the way. Okay? Not when things are going, you know, everything's going your way and you're getting a raise at work and everyone's doing well physically, all the health and you're able to, you know, build on to your house and you're able to do this and do that and everything's wonderful.
[34:29] But now you've got problems at work because you've got a co-worker who's giving you all kinds of grief. And when that happens, what's coming out of your mouth? Your relationship at home, whether it's your kids or your spouse, is not going as, what's coming out of your mouth in those moments?
[34:47] Because that's revealing what's going on inside of your heart. That's more an indication of who you are. of who I am.
[34:58] I have to do the same thing. I have to be the same kind of fruit inspector of my own life. That's why Jesus is mentioning this, is describing this.
[35:11] So what kind of people are we? And then finally, the growing disciple is someone who simply does the words of Jesus or does the word of God.
[35:28] It's the same thing. And I want you to notice how the tone of the sermon at this point goes dark or hard or harsh, whatever word you want to say.
[35:55] It's as if Jesus says, okay, here's all the things that I've said are expected of you. By the way, be perfect, right?
[36:07] We talked about that last time. Be perfect as God in heaven is perfect. We can't. But how you doing? This is still the same measuring stick.
[36:19] How you doing? And we're all struggling, right? And it's as if he then takes his finger and begins pointing at people in his audience.
[36:31] How would you like that? If as a pastor I was like, pointing, pointing, can I point at you, Doug? Doug's so good to me, I get to pick on him all the time and he just lets me pick on him.
[36:48] I should pick on Mark, but I'm going to pick on Doug. You, why do you call me, now get this, why do you call me Lord, Lord?
[37:03] Now the word Lord could be translated simply, you could call it sir. Like, in some contexts that's kind of the reference there.
[37:15] You know, Lord Doug. In our context it doesn't sound right, but, you know, sir, sir hunt. He likes it.
[37:27] But I think in this context because it's repeated and because of where it's at in the sermon, it's a recognition of deity.
[37:39] Why are you recognizing me as deity? Why are you willing to call me Lord? Lord? And yet at the same time, not do what I tell you?
[38:00] That shouldn't go together, right? It doesn't go together. If someone is Lord, you can't say no.
[38:11] if you say no, then they're not Lord. So which is it? It's as if Jesus is calling us out.
[38:25] Which is it? Are you going to call me Lord? That means you're going to do the things that I say. And if you're not going to do the things that I say, if you're going to kind of like take them into advisement kind of a thing, and well, maybe I will, maybe I won't.
[38:45] And you know, sitting here today, you know whether you're going to obey him or not. And if not, how can you call him Lord?
[38:59] It's a tough question. It really is. I would say this is the question of life. He goes on, he says, everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them.
[39:17] Now he's going to go into an illustration that most of you are familiar with, right? You know what's coming. I will show you what that person's like.
[39:27] The person who hears my words and puts them into practice. The one who hears my words and obeys them. The one who hears my words and does what I tell them to do.
[39:40] He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose and the storm broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been well built on that foundation.
[40:04] Okay? Now he's going to tell us about another man's house. But I want you to notice that there's no difference in house.
[40:16] The house itself, what's above the ground, what everyone gets to see, there's no difference there and Jesus is not concerned about that.
[40:27] They could have been identical houses as far as the outward appearance is concerned. Jesus' only concern is what's underneath the foundation of the house.
[40:41] And apparently not only are the houses similar, but the storm that approaches is the same storm. One house survives, one doesn't.
[40:54] What's the difference? He said, but the one who hears what Jesus is teaching and does not do them, the one who play acts, the one who pretends, the one, there is a word for this that people in church settings have come up with in the last, I don't know, a few decades maybe.
[41:26] Cultural Christians or pretend Christians. I'm a Christian when it suits me. I'm a Christian when it looks good.
[41:40] I'm a Christian when other people agree. These are the pretend Christians. The one who hears and does not do them.
[41:56] This is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. He dug only so deep the ground but never got to the point of hitting solid rock, of putting that foundation down deep into the soil, into the rock, into the ground, so that when the stream broke, the storm came and immediately fell.
[42:29] The ruin of that house was great. No benediction.
[42:41] No amen. No the ruin of that house was great. See ya. Now we don't know if that's this is what Luke recorded.
[42:56] Maybe Jesus closed the service or the sermon a little differently. But this is how he ended the sermon. This is pretty rough.
[43:12] The ruin of that house was great. my question for you as we end today is which builder are you?
[43:31] And before we try to answer that question, I've got one more parallel passage to show you. This is from Matthew chapter 7 again, Matthew's account of this sermon.
[43:42] Matthew chapter 7 verse 21. 1. And I want to show you what Jesus is talking about in this part of the sermon. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord.
[44:01] Didn't we start? I mean, the first part, Matthew 6.46 said, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and then don't do the things I tell you to do? Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.
[44:19] But the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven. Is Jesus here teaching that it's about our works, that it's about this act of perfection, this, well, I'm going to do and obey all the things that Jesus said and that's how I'll get into heaven because the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven, that's the one who gets to go into the kingdom of heaven.
[44:51] That's not what he's saying. He's been driving home the point you can't. You can't be perfect.
[45:04] You can't be better than the Pharisees. You can't get all this right. And the best place that you can find yourself is to the point where you're broken spiritually, you recognize your own bankruptcy, and you plead to him, Lord, I'm hopeless and I'm helpless.
[45:22] I need you. That's the person who gets saved. But what he is also saying is that the person who comes in total frustration, in total desperation, to fall on his knees before God and say, God, I am spiritually bankrupt.
[45:42] I have nothing to offer you. My only hope is in Christ. When that person gets saved, when that person says, Lord, Lord, they mean it.
[46:01] And their life is different. And no, they won't be perfect, but they will be living a life that shows a growing disciple who grows in ways of generosity, who grows in ways of what's coming out of the fountain of his heart and of his life, the words that he's using.
[46:25] It's going to impact the way that he treats other people. It's going to impact the way that that person carries himself, the motives that are within.
[46:36] Why do I do what I do? Is it to please others? Is it to impress others? That's worthless.
[46:50] God's love. So I want to ask you today, again, what kind of builder are you?
[47:03] And this is meant to be a time for you for some real personal, sincere self-reflection. Are you the kind of a person who can hear his word and know in your heart?
[47:19] I can take it or leave it? I can take it or leave it? Whether I apply it or not, it's kind of up to me.
[47:34] If it fits me, if it suits me, yeah, I'll do it. If I disagree, well, then I've got that one on God. I've got it more figured out than he does.
[47:46] It's kind of a dangerous place to be, I would think. Or, you hear his word and know in your heart, I can't live without it.
[47:58] I need it. I may struggle, I may fail, but Lord, the desire of my heart is to live in obedience to what you've taught.
[48:17] The band's going to come, and come on up, guys. We're going to sing a song about this foundation that we're trusting in.
[48:30] I want to read the lyrics of this song, the third verse. The song itself comes from a hymn that you might be familiar with called How Firm a Foundation.
[48:46] It's a variation of that, but the verses are from the hymn. And listen and see if this describes your life.
[48:57] The soul that is trusting in Jesus as Lord will press on enduring the darkest of storm.
[49:09] And even though hell should endeavor to shake, he'll never, no, never, no, never forsake.
[49:24] The foundation that our house is built on, if your house is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ, there is no more secure foundation anywhere.
[49:37] and it is one that we can rejoice in, that we can take comfort in, that we can know.
[49:51] So just before we sing, let's pray and I want you to, as we're praying, deliberate that question.
[50:03] What kind of a builder am I? Can I take it or leave it? Or can I not live without it? Lord, thank you so much for your word, your words that we find here today, that we have read, that we have studied, but these are some difficult words.
[50:29] Because I think, Lord, for all of us, we can look at our lives and see the places where we have struggled and failed. And it makes us wonder.
[50:43] And Lord, that's, that place is the best place to be because it brings us back to our knees again and again. And again, that's the best place to be.
[50:56] Trusting in you day after day, recognizing that we're desperate day after day without you. We need you.
[51:07] And your words are words of life. Of course, we want to obey them. So I pray that you would stir that in our hearts.
[51:22] Lord, for people today who would say, I could kind of take it or leave it. I like wearing the label of Christian, but I'm not all in like that.
[51:45] Lord, I pray that that person would recognize the folly of their life built on sand.
[51:58] that when the storm comes, the storm is coming for all of us.
[52:10] All of us at some point will stand before the Lord. And may it not be that we would cry out the words Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, we don't really know him.
[52:33] And more importantly, he doesn't know us. He doesn't know me. What a tragedy.
[52:48] Let us remember that our life, our very life, flows from Christ himself. Let us be dedicating our lives daily to living for him, surrendering to him, recognizing that we can't do this thing called Christianity.
[53:15] We can't live a Christian life in our own strength, picking and choosing the parts we want to apply. That true life only comes from a full surrender.
[53:31] Lord, I give you my heart. I give you my life. I trust you with my life. Now, I pray, Lord, that as we sing these lyrics, that they would be more than lyrics, that they would remind us and draw our hearts back to this truth, that Jesus is our firm foundation, and he is worthy for us to build our lives upon him.
[54:06] We love you, and we praise you, and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.