Discipleship According to Jesus – Part 6
Luke 6:46-49
May 6, 2018
Well this morning we come to the conclusion of this
Sermon on the Plateau that Jesus is preaching.
THIS IS THE INVITATION.
And I don’t mind telling you, I think it is both the most terrifying
And the most penetrating invitation in the history of the world.
I find it to be the scariest passage in the entire Bible.
Because in this passage Jesus Himself reveals that
There are in fact a great number of people who Think they are saved
And who even enjoy an Assurance of salvation, but who are in fact Lost.
Their security rests upon a false profession.
That is what this passage is about.
That is how Jesus closes this sermon.
IT IS THE MOST URGENT OF WARNINGS
We are already aware of what He has been doing in the message.
He first Comforted the Committed by assuring them that their commitment to Him, although costly in this life, will be well worth the sacrifice.
He then Confronted the Comfortable by telling them that their desire to have comfort over Christ is a decision they will one day greatly regret.
But the bulk of the message has been to Condemn the Curious. He has been exposing how far they are from God’s righteous standard with the purpose of driving them to Him for salvation.
• We’ve seen Him condemn their lack of mercy
• We’ve seen Him condemn their propensity for judgment
• We’ve seen Him condemn their hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and lack of discernment
By this point they should already see their need for Him.
And it is fair to say, that MOST PROBABLY DO.
The problem is that they are seeking to respond to Him
According to their own criteria and not His.
They are willing to make a decision,
It’s just not the decision that Jesus requires.
As we work our way through the text you’ll see what I’m talking about.
2 main points this morning
#1 A PECULIAR PROFESSION
Luke 6:46
That is really a penetrating statement by Jesus.
It ALMOST comes across as a confusing reality to Jesus.
It’s not; He’s not confused.
The Bible says He knows what is in the heart of man.
It’s just that He is pointing out to them how backward
And pointless their profession of faith is.
In many ways their profession is no different than their judgment,
It is undiscerning and empty.
Now we do recognize that they DID have a profession.
They understood that much.
They did in fact call Him “Lord”
They had the outward profession.
The problem of course was that it was an EMPTY profession.
Because they “do not do what [He says]”
They call Him Lord, they just don’t obey Him as Lord.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
It means that THEIR PROFESSION OF FAITH IS A SHAM; it’s a lie.
It harkens back to the empty professions of their fathers.
Psalms 78:34-37 “When He killed them, then they sought Him, And returned and searched diligently for God; And they remembered that God was their rock, And the Most High God their Redeemer. But they deceived Him with their mouth And lied to Him with their tongue. For their heart was not steadfast toward Him, Nor were they faithful in His covenant.”
The same reality is recognized by the prophet Hosea
Hosea 6:1-4 “Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. “He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, That we may live before Him. “So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth.” What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning cloud And like the dew which goes away early.”
In other words, God can’t trust anything they say.
And I am totally convinced that this reality has been a massive problem even in our own day. When professions of faith have become more important than genuine conversion.
I don’t know what church evangelism was like when you grew up,
Or where you grew up, but I know what it was like for my generation.
The goal was simple: MANIPULATE THE EMOTIONS
The whole objective was to
MANIPULATE A PROFESSION BY APPEALING TO THE SENSES.
If it could be done through fear or joy or loss or desire it really didn’t matter, just do whatever it takes to get people to make a profession.
I’ve sat through many of them.
• Some emotion driven song service
• Followed by an emotionally charged charismatic type preacher
• Then a sad story about a tragedy that is somehow compared to the cross or
judgment,
• And then it comes.
“Everyone bow your head, and everyone close your eyes. (cue the piano softly) If tonight you don’t know for sure…raise your hand. Thank you, thank you, God bless you, thank you. If you’re afraid of judgment, raise your hand. I see you, thank you, thank you. If you want to receive the greatest love of all time, please raise your hand, thank you, thank you, wonderful, God bless you. And now, if you raised your hand I’m going to ask you to come to the front and make a profession of faith because Jesus said if you confess Me before men I’ll confess you before the Father.”
And then, just to make the decision easier, at this time counselors are trained to start coming forward, you know just to keep the aisles moving. And then as the music plays and people start to come, “Won’t you come, others are coming, why don’t you come like their coming?”
• And then everyone is asked to fill out a card stating why they are coming.
• They go speak to a counselor who verifies their information tells them they
need to go home and ask to be baptized and they mail the card to the
pastor of their church.
• And the evangelist goes to the next camp and boasts of how 172 people
were saved at the last event.
The problem?
It’s a whole lot of profession, but even time has proven that
Many times those professions never prove to produce any fruit.
THEY PROFESS FAITH, BUT THEY DO NOT POSSESS FAITH.
And this is so important.
• WE ARE JUSTIFIED BY FAITH
• WE ARE NOT JUSTIFIED BY A PROFESSION OF FAITH
Please understand that.
I remember a professor one time asking our class how we know we are saved. We all wrote various answers. I tried to list my spiritual fruit which was indicative of salvation. When we were done the teacher said, “You know you are saved because you asked Jesus into your heart.”
And that’s just false.
But I’ve heard it my whole life.
Someone will doubt their salvation and a person will ask, “Can you remember a time anywhere in the past where you made a profession of faith? Yes? Then you’re saved.”
NO!
A profession of faith never saved anyone.
It is the possession of faith that saves.
“And Abraham made a profession of faith and God credited it to him as righteousness.” No!
“Abraham believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness.”
Incidentally, this is the very issue that is so perfectly handled
In the book of James.
TURN TO: JAMES 2:14-26
The question there is so direct.
“What us is it, my brethren, if someone SAYS he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?”
James is NOT questioning SOLA FIDE or the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
James IS asking what kind of faith is the kind that saves?
And it is obviously the kind of faith which produces works.
Faith that is nothing more than an empty profession is not saving faith.
Which is the point James makes
(15-17) – Faith without substance is dead, it’s nothing.
(18-26) – We know Abraham’s faith and Rahab’s faith were real faith because they weren’t mere professions.
Their faith was validated by their works.
AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH THIS CROWD
THAT JESUS IS ADDRESSING.
“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
There’s an obvious contradiction.
If we look at Matthew’s gospel, we see this passage EXPANDED.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”
From Matthew’s perspective
• Jesus spoke of people who were certain they were saved because of faulty reasoning.
• It was assurance, but it was false assurance.
• They had a profession (called Him Lord)
• They had ministry involvement
• They had miraculous participation
BUT THEY WERE NOT SAVED
Luke doesn’t include that extra info,
But Luke (as he has commonly done) is more direct with the way he records it.
Matthew seemed to hear Jesus speak of people who weren’t saved but thought they were.
Luke hears Jesus directly confront this crowd. “Why do YOU call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
They called Him “Lord” because He had something to offer,
But Jesus wasn’t just looking for a title,
Jesus was looking for disciples, for followers.
And can I just remind you here that
A profession without submission, without obedience is absolutely pointless!
Obedience is an essential element of saving faith.
In fact, as we saw with James,
If you don’t have obedience then you don’t have faith.
Listen to:
John 3:36 “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Do you see how John used the words “believes” and “obey” almost interchangeably?
• If you believe you’re saved.
• But he didn’t say, “if you don’t believe, you’re lost”
• He said, “if you don’t obey, you’re lost”
That’s because true belief obeys.
Disobedience proves absent faith.
Listen to how Paul described saving faith to the Romans:
Romans 1:5 “through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake,”
Paul doesn’t just say he is there
To get a profession of faith from the Gentiles.
He is looking for “the obedience of faith”
Romans 15:18 “For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed,”
Again, he doesn’t boast that Gentiles are making professions.
He boast that Gentiles are obeying.
Romans 16:26 “but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith;”
There again, the obedience of faith.
And of course all of that should be obvious in the fact that in order to be saved you must confess that Jesus is in fact Lord.
Romans 10:9 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;”
Listen to:
Hebrews 5:9 “And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,”
Who is Jesus saving? “those who obey Him”
And that’s not contradictory to what the Bible emphatically teachings about justification by faith, it’s just making the same point that genuine faith produces genuine obedience.
1 Peter 1:1-2 “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.”
Chosen to what?
Chosen “to obey Jesus Christ”
Or this one?
James 1:22 “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”
• There James says people who hear but don’t obey are deluded.
• In fact they are self-deceived.
• They have convinced themselves that they are saved but they are not.
Do you see how terrifying this reality is?
Thanks to the gimmicky work of false prophets who care only about manipulating responses out of people,
We have scores of people who think they are saved
Because they’ve made some profession of faith.
What is the problem?
• They don’t obey Christ.
• Which means they don’t really believe in Him
• It means they don’t really trust Him.
And I’m telling you, this is absolutely terrifying!
It is especially terrifying based on the number of people that I know
Who will tell me they are Christians but who seem to care less about ever obeying Him at all.
Well this is how Jesus confronts this crowd.
• He has condemned their lack of mercy
• He has condemned their hypocritical judgment
• And because of that they have run to Him and called Him Lord.
But according to Jesus, that is not enough.
That is a peculiar profession
#2 AN IMPORTANT COMPARISON
Luke 6:47-49
Here we have the story that many of you are very familiar with.
We even sang songs about it as children.
But the reality is again utterly terrifying.
Let’s look at the scenarios here.
(READ 47-49)
• So we have 2 men here and they are both building houses.
• Both of these men receive the same instruction about building their house.
• It is obvious that the instruction was to dig deep and build the foundation on the rock.
• It is also clear that only 1 of those men headed that instruction.
• Both of these men experienced the same storm.
• The man who headed the instruction survived, the one who did not suffered total loss.
You know the story.
And just to make sure that we are again aware of the main point,
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO OBEDIENCE TO THE WARNING.
The surviving man (wise man according to Matthew)
Is described in verse 47:
“Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them”
Do you see that 3 things are required?
• You have to come to Christ.
• You have to hear His words.
• And you have to act on them.
John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
Same point.
And again belief and obedience are seemingly interchangeable.
Everyone in this crowd had come to Jesus.
We read it early on in Luke 6.
Luke 6:17-18 “Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured.”
What did Luke say?
That a large crowd “had come to hear Him”
THE DISTINCTION IS THAT
Some in the crowd acted on what He said, and some did not.
Those who acted on what He said, were like the man who dug deep and “laid a foundation on the rock”
Those who did not act on what He said were “like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation”
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
All you have to do is understand the symbolism of the parable.
• Obviously we (the crowd) are the men building the house.
• The house is our life / our works / our spiritual resume.
• The building instructor is Christ who tells them how to build.
• The “flood” or “torrent” is the judgment, of which all men face.
• The rock on which the wise man built is also Christ.
HERE’S THE POINT.
Jesus just preached on the necessity of righteousness and the reality of judgment.
• That’s why He lifted such a high and lofty standard about things like mercy and love.
• Those who failed to meet the standard would not survive the judgment.
He also made the distinct point that the only ones who would be rejoicing after the judgment where the ones who forsook everything to follow Him.
• Those who chose not to follow Him, but kept their comfort, would not be happy on the other side of the judgment.
NOW DO YOU SEE HOW THIS WHOLE CHAPTER
HAS BEEN FUNNELING TO THIS POINT?
There is a judgment coming. It is a flood, it is a torrent, it is a tsunami.
And you’re life will face the scrutiny of that judgment.
And no one has a good enough life to survive it.
The only house that survives that storm
Is the house that tied itself to the only thing that would survive
The rock; Christ.
Those who weren’t interested in the hardship and sacrifice required to rest on Christ;
• Who didn’t want to dig deep,
• But who just wanted their ease and their comfort;
• They will be sorry.
Those who believed the judgment was coming and knew that their building skills were not enough,
• Decided to forsake their comforts
• And do whatever it took to latch on to Christ;
• They will be so glad they did.
This is a sermon about the necessity of Christ.
And it is a sermon about the necessity of accurately responding to Him.
SO LET’S EVALUATE.
• Did this crowd recognize the warning of judgment? Sure
• Did this crowd pick up on Jesus’ warning that they needed Him? Sure
How do we know that?
Because they professed Him as Lord.
But was this crowd prepared for the judgment?
No – because it was an empty profession.
There is a difference between SAYING you’re going to build on the rock
And actually building on the rock.
Churches are full of people who SAY they understand the importance of Christ, but who never actually submit their lives to Him.
And look, KNOWLEDGE about Christ and the judgment is not enough.
It is essential, but it’s not enough.
TURN TO: HEBREWS 2:1-4
This is actually an almost identical analogy to the one Jesus just gave, only here it is described in NAUTICAL TERMS.
“pay much closer attention” is the Greek word PROSECHO, it means “to moor a ship; to tie up”
“drift away” translates PARARHEO, it refers to a ship that has been allowed to drift past the harbor.
And the writer then asks
(3) “how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?”
Please understand the difference between “neglect” and “reject”
The writer was asking
If you just untie your ship and let go of the rudder, what are the odds that it will drift safely into port and anchor itself there?
None – you must take action.
Don’t neglect your responsibility.
That word “neglect” is AMELEO
You’ve seen it before too.
TURN TO: MATTHEW 22
Remember this story about the wedding banquet?
• The first group rejected the invitation (3) “unwilling”
• But the second group “paid no attention” AMELEO (neglected)
They just let the invitation sit on the counter
And they never took the time to respond or RSVP
They didn’t reject, they neglected,
And yet both had their city set on fire (judgment) in verse 7.
Jesus will speak of these types of people again later:
TURN TO: LUKE 14:15-27
The people are excited about the possibility of going to heaven.
• And so Jesus tells them a story.
• It is a story about people who both neglect and reject the invitation.
• They just never take responsibility for the call of Christ.
And they end up being judged.
And to that reality Jesus gave a warning
It is very similar to the warning that He started this sermon in Luke 6 with.
(25-27) “Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
• If you don’t want Me enough to sacrifice your life for Me, then you don’t want Me enough.
• If you don’t recognize your need enough to be willing to forsake wealth and comfort and relationships then you don’t want Me enough.
IS THE MESSAGE STARTING TO GET CLEARER?
• There are whole crowds of people who have heard about the judgment.
• There are whole crowds of people who have heard about the salvation of Jesus.
• There are whole crowds of people who have been told they must respond to Christ.
THE PROBLEM?
They give Him a profession without giving Him faith.
They call Him Lord, they just don’t obey Him as Lord.
And their refusal to obey Him or act on His words
Or forsake all to gain Him
Only proves that deep down they still think
That they can survive the judgment on their own.
That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn.
• They either don’t believe the judgment is real,
• Or they think they can survive it on their own
So despite the warning of Christ,
They just give lip service but never really trust Him.
There were some people like that in Isaiah’s day too.
To them Isaiah said:
Isaiah 28:15-19 “Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, And with Sheol we have made a pact. The overwhelming scourge will not reach us when it passes by, For we have made falsehood our refuge and we have concealed ourselves with deception.” Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed. “I will make justice the measuring line And righteousness the level; Then hail will sweep away the refuge of lies And the waters will overflow the secret place. “Your covenant with death will be canceled, And your pact with Sheol will not stand; When the overwhelming scourge passes through, Then you become its trampling place. “As often as it passes through, it will seize you; For morning after morning it will pass through, anytime during the day or night, And it will be sheer terror to understand what it means.”
Do you see the same point there?
• There is a storm coming and despite what you think, you can’t survive it on your own.
• The standard is too righteous and the storm is too terrible.
• You had better trust in the rock of Christ!
That is what Jesus has been driving it, and that is what I present to you.
What is required?
• You must hear what Jesus is saying.
• You must respond to what Jesus is saying.
• You must place your faith in Him.
• You must trust in His righteousness, not your own as that which will satisfy God.
• You must trust in His death, not your religion, as that which will appease God’s wrath.
• And if that decision costs you everything, then rejoice, you’ve got Christ!
Now, is a declaration of faith part of that? Absolutely
Romans 10:9 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;”
But a profession without the faith is pointless.
AND THAT IS WHERE WE ARE.
• Are you trusting Christ?
• Are you obeying Christ?
• Are you forsaking the world for Christ?
• Or are you merely saying that you are?
The storm is coming, tie your house to the rock.
