Luke 6:46-49
Please make your way in your
Bibles to Luke’s Gospel. Our reading today is Luke chapter
6 verses 46 to 49. Luke chapter 6 verses 46 to 49. As we prepare to read God’s word,
let me encourage you as we think through a passage today. It’s
a difficult passage, really. It’s something a lot of us heard
in Sunday school as a Bible story. But Jesus presents really a black
and white gospel message to us. And I want to remind each of
us that as we are growing in grace, and as a passage like
this may hit a square between the eyes, With the gospel, with
Jesus, with his blessing, it is never too late and we are
never in too difficult a position for God to be at work in our
lives. And that’s a great comfort to
us as Jesus speaks this word to us. Hear God’s word with me
from the sixth chapter of Luke. This is verse 46. Jesus says
this, Why do you call me Lord, Lord? And you do not do what
I tell you. Everyone who comes to me and
hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like.
He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid his foundation
on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream
broke against that house and could not shake it because it
had been well built. but the one who hears and does
not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without
a foundation. When the stream broke against
it, immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great. Let us pray together. Lord, you
are our God, you are our master. You are a king, and in your holy
scriptures, you speak to us your holy will. You give to us our
marching orders as your children, as your loyal subjects, as your
redeemed ones. Lord, it’s a noisy world we live
in. We hear many voices. They tug
at us for our attention, for our allegiance, even for our
worship. And as we come into your house
this day, we want to know for sure that we hear the voice of
the shepherd. You tell us that you are the
great shepherd. You are the good shepherd and
your sheep know your voice and they follow you. So we pray that
you would work in our hearts to hear, work in our hearts to
believe. and work in our hearts that we
might obey. So that when we call you Lord,
when we say, yes, master, we are able to keep our word. We
are found faithful. All this by your strength, all
this by your grace. And of course, all of this for
your glory. We pray it in Jesus name. Amen. Many of you know that over in
the country of Dubai or the city of Dubai and the United Arab
Emirates, In recent years, a very tall building was built. It’s
called the Burj Khalifa. It’s the tallest building in
the world, standing at 2,716, and it’s important, .5 feet. It’s 160 stories. And can you
imagine, with the passage we are considering today about foundations,
that it has quite a foundation. In fact, it does. It has 192
concrete piles that are five feet in diameter, and they reach
down into the earth 164 feet. The amount of rebar or reinforced
steel in this structure would measure one fourth of the circumference
of the globe. It sits, this building does,
on top of these piles, which is also on top of a 12-foot-thick
concrete map that spreads the whole, or mat, it spreads the
whole area of this giant building. It took 10 years to construct
it. That’s not all the planning and
engineering and architecturing. It took 10 years to construct
it, and it cost 22 million man hours. Now, studies before this
building were built showed that the rock underneath this great
building was weak rock. It was sandstone. It was siltstone. It was not suitable for building
such a structure. In fact, the area where this
building was built is a seismically active area. The building, when
it was completed in 2010, cost a total of $1.5 billion. That’s billion with a B. You
can imagine all the study, all the engineering, all the planning,
all the materials, that every possible contingency was considered
when this building was built. You can imagine that they counted
the cost. that they wanted this project
to be a success, that they wanted their edifice, their building,
their skyscraper to stand forever. This was a lot of money. This
was a lot of material. This was a lot of man hours.
In fact, they studied when they counted the cost, what the winds
would do at different elevations, what seismic movement would do,
what chemicals in the earth and in the groundwater would do to
the foundation of this building over time. They considered the
storms that would come, the wind and other such things. They looked
at every possible thing that could happen because guess what?
They did not want their building to come tumbling down. And Jesus
is speaking to us today about our lives. Our lives being a
building and our lives being a building must be built on a
sure foundation. I mean, yes, it’s amazing to
think about this building and the Emirates. It’s amazing to
think about the cost and the concrete and the reinforced steel
and the engineering feat that it is, the beauty that it has,
the luxury of living or working in this place. But one day, this
building will not stand. But one day, you will stand.
You will stand before the judgment seat, the mighty throne, the
tribunal, the bench of almighty God, and you will be judged because
you are built with a soul that will last forever. And so when
Jesus speaks to us about counting the cost of building our lives
on a shaky or weak foundation, or on a solid foundation, we
understand the cost. The eternity, the weightiness
of this message he speaks to us. Jesus says our life is like
a building and it must be built on a solid foundation. For as
we all know, floods will come. The rivers and the streams will
rise and they will crash against us. How does the saying go? Life. comes at you fast, and
you better have some sort of insurance, I think is how the
commercial goes. What Jesus is saying to us, life in this cursed
world, it comes at us fast, and you had better have a sure and
strong foundation. Otherwise, you will have a ruinous
crash and destruction in your life. And Jesus goes on to say
in this message to us that the sensible man, the wise man, he
he digs deep. He finds the bedrock and he builds
his house on a foundation that is laid upon that rock. And what
this person, this wise builder is like is one who comes to Jesus,
one who hears the words of Jesus, but the one who puts them into
practice. And so you begin to see as Jesus
teaches us that if you’re going to build your house, your life
on the solid rock, that solid rock is the very word of God,
the very words of Jesus himself. What is Jesus doing in this passage?
Well, when he opens up the beginning of our little lesson today, he
says, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you do not do what
I tell you? You can imagine that in Jesus
ministry, whatever point in time it is, maybe a year or so in
that he’s gathered lots of followers. We remember from several passages
back, he’s gathered his apostles, his disciples, the ones he will
send out into the world to do ministry. He’s gathered disciples
who want to be taught by him. But can’t you imagine that there’s
others who are surrounding this band of believers? They like
what they see. They’re into it, we might say. Their emotions are caught up
into it. And they call Jesus Lord. They call him master. They believe
that he is something and someone to be followed and believed in.
And Jesus is saying you have a profession of faith. But you
have no possession of faith, because if you had a possession
of faith when you called me, Lord, it would be matched by
obedience in your lives. And Jesus is telling us there’s
one surefire way to know if you really mean it when you call
me, Lord. When you say master, and that’s simply this, we hear
and we believe and we obey his word and we put it into practice
in our lives. You know, many people say they’re
Christians. Many people attend church. Many
people say, Lord, Lord. And Jesus is saying, but if you
do not do what I say, if you do not hear my words and believe
them and put them into practice, you have built your house on
the ground and your house is built on the ground without a
foundation. And it will one day when the storms come, it will
fall over and great will be the ruin. Dear friends, a true disciple
of Jesus Christ hears the voice of the master. A true disciple
of Jesus Christ obediently puts the words of Jesus into practice. And the true believer of Jesus,
putting God’s words into practice, builds his house on a firm foundation. I want us to go through a quick
little exercise. And I want us to build a house.
a spiritual house, build our lives on the word for just a
moment. If we were to dig down in the
earth to build our spiritual house, we would find Jesus Christ. We would find him as the bedrock. We would get through the sand
and through the loose soil, and we would dig down, dig down,
dig down until we find Christ and his solid word. And on that,
we would build our foundation. On that, we would put up our
pilings and our studs and our joists and our roof and our house. It would be firm. It would last.
It would it would make it through the storms. And if you do that,
follow with me through the Bible now. And if we do that through
the various ages and stages of life, this is what it might look
like to build your house on the rock. I was joking with one of
you before church, we were talking about being born and my parents
used to say you were you were born naked, right? We all were.
We were born, we were born into a home, right? God gave us parents. He gave us parents to clothe
us, to change our diapers, to feed us, to nurture us, to get
us to the doctor. But he also, biblically speaking,
gave us parents to put our feet firmly on that foundation that
is Christ. And so our parents rear us in
the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. They teach us the
word. They teach us to worship. They
teach us what is right, what is wrong, what is wise, what
is foolish, what will lead to life and what will lead to death.
And so we are called as little ones to obey our parents for
it is well-pleasing to the Lord. We’re to obey our parents for
it is pleasing in God’s sight. And remember, obedience to parents
is the only commandment with a promise. So that you may live
long. in the land that the Lord your
God is giving you. So as young people, we are born
into a home. And if our parents are faithful,
they put our feet, our little feet on the rock, which is Christ,
the foundation. And as we obey them, as they
nurture us, as we read scriptures, as we worship, as we are discipled,
as we listen to the preacher, as we learn our catechisms and
as we make our way into the world and study and learn and work
and have a career and work towards those retirement days. We let
the Lord be Lord and master over our money, over our marriage,
over our families. And you see, as you grow up in
this world by age and through stages, if you do that with your
feet firmly planted on Christ the rock, you will have blessing. You will be able to weather the
storms. And as your building grows taller, as your house gets
bigger, as your responsibilities have become greater. There’s a lot. There’s a lot. There’s a whole lot that can
come crashing down. Every day we read in the news
of this person, this star, this celebrity, this politician who
has failed in life and they’ve lost money, they’ve lost marriage,
they’ve lost respect, they’ve lost their children, they’ve
lost so much. And then it seeps over into the
Christian faith. We see ministers who have so
much on their shoulders, they begin to fail. Because underneath
it all, their life is not built on the rock, which is Christ.
It can be true of our families. It can be true of our businesses.
It can be true of every aspect of our life that is not rooted
and built on Christ, the firm foundation. And that’s what Jesus
is warning us against. If you do not have the right
foundation when the storms of life come and they will. It can
all come crashing down if your foundation is not Christ Jesus
and his word and his ways. And so it makes me want to say
a couple of things to various ones of us. To the little ones
in the room, let me encourage you in this way. Listen to your
parents. And parents of those little ones,
raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. There
is no more sure foundation. Oh, we want our children to succeed.
So we skip church and we go to sports. We skip church to go
to an academic club. We travel and we do all these
things. And 18 years later, we wonder
why our kid is a freshman in college, doesn’t love the Lord,
doesn’t worship him, but they can make straight A’s. Or they
can kick a soccer goal or make a basketball hoop. Make sure
your foundation is on the rock, which is Jesus. And so there’s
a responsibility to the little ones, to the parents. Let me
say something to the teenagers, the young adults, and I will
just be black and white. I’m not speaking to anyone in
any particular way, but I just know where I was when I was your
age. Drop your attitude and skip the emotions. Life will come
at you fast and God has given you parents. So listen to them. Do what they say as they teach
you the ways of the Lord. Those of you who are young adults,
those of you who are making your way in this world, build your
young household on the rock. It’s really hard later in life
to go back and fix. It can be done, but do it now. Do it right. Build on Christ. Let him and his word be your
foundation. Let me speak to some of you who are older, some of
you who are midway through or all the way through where you
say, I’ve been there, done that, and got the t-shirt, wish I could do
it over again. You’ve made mistakes. It’s never
too late to repair the foundation. You know, here in the middle
of North Carolina, there’s great business in repairing home foundations. They come in, they look at it,
they assess it, they jack your house up, they fix what’s broken
underneath and they drop your house back on and all is hunky
dory. Friends, that’s what Christ can do. He can fix a rotten foundation. He can fix a broken set of bricks
and he can come into your life and he can make the repairs that
are needed. You know, we spoke just a few
moments ago of this great building over in the Emirates, this Burj
Khalif and its success. And there are many other skyscrapers
around the world that have risen up into the sky and stayed standing.
But there are also buildings that are in great danger. There’s
the Millennium Tower in San Francisco. And in recent news, we’re told
that it costs $350 million to build this building, but it’s
built on some kind of sandstone and it’s sinking. And this building
full of luxury apartments where people have invested their money
is a little loppy jawed. Can you imagine? The fear and
the sadness, even the anger of having purchased something like
that, and it’s broken. And at a cost of $500 million
at least, almost double the price to build it, it can be fixed. They can repair the foundations.
But they want to do this before the crash. They want to do this
before the storm, before the torrent. They want to jack it
up and tear out what is rotten and to fix it. And for some of
us, that may mean we need to have our house, as it were, our
spiritual house lifted up, put up on jacks. And we need to tear
out what is rotten, the worldliness, the life of ease. I’ll do it
the easy way, the path of least resistance, living by what is
good to the eyes. I’ll do it myself. I don’t need
God. A Christless life, a scripturalist
life, a life of the flesh and sensuality, a life of the devil
and Even a life of maybe subpar Christianity, a life of be good,
a life of feel good, a life of do good. And you need God and
his mercy to shore up your foundation. And there’s only one place that
can happen. And that is in the very word of Almighty God. It’s a great grace, I believe,
of God Almighty to give us this message and to say, look at your
foundation. Look at what it’s built on. Is
it on the rock, which is Christ, or is it on nothing and will
be destroyed? About 25 years ago, our family
left Burlington and went to the coast. We found a little spot
of land with a little sliver of a view of the water down in
the Wilmington area. And we had a house put up on
stilts, and we watched the seasons come and go with the waterway
and the birds and the tides and the full moons and all the wonderful
things. But out to the left of our front
porch was, well, we called it Redneck Point. Redneck Point
was this little jut of land out into the waterway. And house
after house had been built on Redneck Point. But it was a bad
soil. It was a bad spot of land. And
there were the remnants of this house that did not weather this
storm. And there was the remnants of this other house that didn’t
weather the next storm. And there was a man named Rick.
He was a good man. He named it Redneck Point, by
the way, not us. But dump truck after dump truck would come with
concrete and rubble and any kind of junk he could pick up from
a construction site. And Redneck Point was a little
jut of land out into the waterway that was just rubble and concrete
dumped. And guess what it did? It sunk.
The water would wash over it, and he would bring in more. And
he would dump more concrete, more junk, more rubble into Redneck
Point, and it would sink. It would go down into the ocean.
It would go down into the waterway. But there was a lot of fun. We
loved watching Redneck Point. There were cars coming in and
out of there day and night, lots of beer on the weekends, lots
of boats on the weekends. It was a fun looking place until
the storm came. And the storm came, I headed
back to school, but I called home and said, how did Redneck
Point make it through the storm? Well, it was fun while it lasted,
Redneck Point. The storm came, the water came, there was great
destruction, completely gone, no more fun, no more rubble,
no more boats, no more beer, no more weekends. Friends, there’s a lesson for
us in this passage. We go to great lengths to protect
our brick and mortar houses. I bet every one of you has homeowner’s
insurance. I bet every one of you has a
good roof. I bet some of you have alarm systems. You have
locks on your doors. You have a termite bond with
the local pest control people. You’ve taken great lengths to
protect your brick and mortar house. But I bet every one of
us needs a little attention in our spiritual house. We’ve let
it slide. And the fire could come, the
storms could come, the enemies could come. Will it stand? What’s our foundation? Jesus
says the wise man, the sensible man comes to Jesus, hears his
words and puts them into practice in his life. And yes, in this
parable, he’s speaking of the storms, sickness, sin, cancer
diagnosis, a stock market crash, a job loss, children that have
not gone the way we raised them. Go on through the list of the
storms of life. But there is a great storm coming. And it’s the one you better be
found standing for. And that is the storm of almighty
God when he comes to judge this world. Now, for those of us who
are believers, that storm has already descended on Christ.
The wrath of God was poured out on Christ at the cross on Calvary. And if we have faith in Jesus
and we rest in him alone for our salvation, that storm will
not come to us for it has already come to Jesus. But if your house
is not on a foundation, if it is not built on the rock, which
is Christ and his word, when the great day of judgment comes,
that great storm, you will not stand. And so take this opportunity
this day while the sun is still out to come to Jesus, to hear
the words of Jesus and to put them into practice in your life. Let us pray together. Our Lord
and God, we thank you for Jesus being so straight with us, so
practical with us. We want to be wise. We want to
be sensible. We do not want to be foolish.
We do not want to stand and see a pile of rubble and devastation
in our lives because we didn’t hear and believe your word. And
so by your grace, by your mercy, give us faith, give us joy to
come to Jesus, to hear Jesus and to believe and obey Jesus
by your grace for our good and ultimately for the glory of God
almighty. This we pray and ask for your
help in Jesus name. Amen.