Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. Well, there's nothing like a well-crafted question that can jar us into a reflective mode. All kinds of similes probably come to mind, but maybe that of a light, a bright light which shines and pierces into the darkness of our heart to bring to light all that is covered in the crevices and the chambers and hidden places of our heart are swept out into the open for us to look upon and to see. And Jesus, as a master communicator, knew how to craft such questions that would stop you right in your tracks. We see an example of that here in verse 46. At the end of this sermon, Jesus moves now from exposition to application, and he forges a great question for all of us. When he says, why do you call me Lord? Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? With this question, Jesus presents a challenge to all of his disciples. And the challenge of this well-crafted question is to consider the nature of discipleship. And the nature of discipleship, according to Jesus, is that one who is truly a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is one who lives a life that's consistent with their confession. of his lordship. And so I've entitled our text, or rather our message this morning, A Challenge for Disciples, because it's not just a challenge for the people that stood before Jesus. It's a challenge to everybody he confesses his name. And that challenge begins, first of all, with this great question here, why? We could think about the context of that question for a moment. I think that's entirely relevant. The sermon that Jesus is preaching begins back in verse 17, where you can see, and he came down with them and he stood in the plain. I'd like to stop right there because Luke goes out of his way to tell us this isn't the Sermon on the Mount. Now there's lots in this text that's going to sound or have the ring of the Sermon on the Mount within it, but Luke makes it very clear that this isn't that occasion. Jesus as an itinerant preacher would take the same themes and messages and sometimes even the same parables and stories. And he would imply them uniquely to whatever audience it was that was before him. But clearly here, there are things that Jesus has said before. And as we skim over the sermon, you can see them for yourself. We have beatitudes. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep, for you shall laugh. We have similar commands, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you, and bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you, and whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other. Also, whoever takes away your coat, don't withhold your shirt from him either. Love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. How about the last command in verse 36? Be merciful as your father is merciful. We've heard these commands before. This is Jesus' exposition of the heart and the marrow of the law of God. And just prior to our text, we have an exposition of the nature of how the heart affects the life as Jesus is the good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good. The evil man on the evil treasure brings forth what is evil. For his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. As you come into verse 46 and you hear Jesus speak about, do what I say, this is precisely what he is speaking about. He's looking back over the sermon on the plane that he's just preached to this large crowd of disciples. And he's saying, when I challenge you this morning about your profession, these are the things I'm challenging you about. Notice the audience. Verse 17 tells us there was a company of his disciples and a great multitude of people out of Judea and Jerusalem and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon which came to him to hear and to be healed of their diseases and they that were vexed with unclean spirits and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue out of him, and he healed them all. Notice what's key here in the description of Luke about these people is they are called disciples. They're called disciples. They are those who would say they identify with Jesus Christ as their Lord. They're diverse. Notice they're from all of Judea and Jerusalem and Tyre and Sidon and North Palestine. And knowing where Jesus was situated at this point in his ministry, it meant all of them had a very long walk to get there. So these are earnest disciples. These are earnest disciples. These are those who would come to hang on the every word that came from his mouth. And indeed, that's what we do hear about these disciples. Verse 18 tells us that the reason why they've gathered to Jesus Christ is because they came to hear him. Notice that's the last part of verse 17. They came to hear him. They long to hear the voice of Jesus Christ. That's a mark of a disciple. We also learn here that they came to be healed by him and oh, what kind of needs they had as we're told that there were some who were vexed with unclean spirits and there were those who came just to touch him so that the virtue coming out of him would bring healing. They're not condemned for that. Jesus' criticism isn't for those who've come to him for healing. Because if it was, that would mean all of us would be condemned. All of us come to Jesus Christ for healing. In fact, Jesus' very express purpose for His coming into this world is not for those who didn't have need of a physician. Jesus expressly said He came to heal those who were sick. So let's not misunderstand here the brunt of Jesus' question isn't about the fact that they have come to Him to hear and to be healed. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what we're supposed to do. We are to come to Jesus to hear, and we are to come to Jesus to be healed, and over and over and over again. But now as Jesus turns away from exposition and explaining, as we come into verse 46, there's a key little word here in the original which tells us that Jesus has pivoted away from exposition and has gone now into application. This is that portion of the sermon that we're all taught to understand is not just what does the text mean, but what does the text mean to me? And Jesus is saying that here to these disciples. Here is the substance of what I am preaching to you. And he brings home application now with a piercing question. Why? Why? Notice the thing that Jesus includes from their own verbiage, you are doing something, you are calling me. As you dig into that word, one of the things that is made clear and understanding is it means to attribute to. They are ascribing something. To Jesus. And the thing they ascribe to Jesus is lordship. And the verb is in the present tense, which tells us that this is a persistent profession of their faith. And the thing that is accented in the original is the pronoun me. They are not saying there is a Lord, that they believe in a Lord. They are saying Jesus is Lord. There are a whole host of commentators in the modern era who claim that these disciples really aren't saying what it sounds like too, by the way. There's a host of commentators today who would tell us that the level of sophistication in their confession is far too great for people who've just been following him for a little while. After all, the Westminster Catechism hadn't been formed yet. How would they know to call Jesus Lord? And so there's a group of people that would say that what the disciples are saying when they keep calling Jesus Lord is something like master. They're trying to express reverence to him as a teacher. But clearly, if that was the point of Jesus' question, it would have no piercing or penetrating force. If Jesus' question to them is, why are you calling me teacher, teacher? What would be the point of what follows next? And do not do what I say. You see, the question is about authority. The question is about who has the right to bring you into submission. And who has the right to demand that submission be expressed by total obedience to their commands? You see, Jesus is not confused by his question and the audience isn't either. What Jesus is doing is pressing the question home to them because he perceives that their words, even though they are true, ring just a little bit hollow. They ring just a little bit hollow. They've said the right thing, but are they living it? Well, that's a powerful question. In fact, it's a terrifying question. Because if we spent more than five minutes in the Christian life, we've asked that question of ourselves. It's not always comfortable to answer it. You see, that's what Jesus is getting at. He asks them a question to help them begin to understand that they speak the right things. Those are performance words. Are they conforming? And here Jesus highlights the problem as he goes on with the phrase, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say. Those things have to belong together. The question does not simply stop at why do you call me Lord, Lord? The question that is well-crafted that Jesus puts before us needs that and. Why are you doing two things at once? Why are you calling me Lord, Lord, and not doing the things which I command? Why are you calling me Lord, Lord, and not loving your enemies? Why are you calling me Lord, Lord, and not doing good to those who hate you? Why are you calling me Lord, Lord and not blessing those who curse you and praying for those who mistreat you? Why are you calling me Lord, Lord and not turning the other cheek after the other one has been smacked? You see, these are the challenges of the kingdom of God. That's what Jesus is pressing them to think about. There is a conception of the law as if it were a series of boxes to check, and once made easy enough, we can all live up to it. But Jesus' questions don't permit that. And I notice here, people of God, that Jesus hasn't somehow supposedly made the law of God easier to keep now in the new covenant, as we're told by some. There's never a time when I read these challenging words of command, love your enemies. I asked myself, have I ever kept the law? See, the weight of the question finds its force in the actual commands, the things that Jesus says, the life transformation that is to be indicative of the person that is in Christ. They live differently. And so Jesus, as he looks at this multitude of disciples who he is going to, at some point not too far down the distant road, call to unimaginable kingdom service, he prepares them for it with this searching question. And you know what, people of God, the question takes all of its force from the meaning of the word Lord. The question takes all of its force in searching light from the strength of the meaning of the word Lord. Heidelberg Catechism question and answer 34 asks, why callest thou him our Lord? It's a great question. Why do we call Jesus our Lord? And the answer is because not with silver or gold, but with his precious blood, he has redeemed and purchased us, body and soul, from sin and from all the power of the devil to be his own. Why is he called Lord? You see, that's the thought that Jesus would press upon them. That's the thought that Jesus would press upon us this morning. Why is it that we call Jesus our Lord? And the only answer that is suitable to the question is this, because I am a sinner, I am bought and sold under sin, and the wrath and curse of God abides upon me, unless my life is under his precious blood. You see, we call him Lord because we are conceived in sin and born in sin and we live a life of sin. And even when we are converted and do the best we can out of regenerate heart or the power of the Holy Spirit with the means of grace operating within us, we still sin. You see, so the force of the term Lord makes this question so piercing and so penetrating, because to call Jesus Christ Lord is not simply to say he is divine, but to say he is the divine son of God who did something for us which was impossible for us to do. That is, he took upon himself a true human nature like unto us all things sin accepted in order that he might be our high priest. to deliver us from the power and the bondage and the destruction and the corruption and the eternal punishment of sin. And Jesus says, if that's really what we're confessing, that we have been redeemed body and soul from sin and from all the power of the devil to be his, And we come under him as Lord. Well, that means that he gets to tell us how to live. It means that there is a way for us to be that is consistent with that which we confess. And so Jesus places that challenging question before us and then goes on to expound. What that life looks like which is hidden in Christ. Trusting in his blood and seeking to glorify him. So he presents before us now challenging instruction about discipleship as we turn to verse 47. Where he says, whosoever cometh to me and heareth my sayings and doeth them, I'll show you what he is like. What's so fascinating here about the structure of Jesus' words when he speaks of whosoever. He's saying that there are three things that are true all at once and at the same time of those who are disciples. There are people who come to him, there are people who hear him, and there are people who do the things that he says. The way this is set up grammatically in the original means that all three of those verbal actions hold together all at once at the same time in a disciple. And he says that a disciple is one who comes to him. And that means that is one who comes and exercises faith in him and trust in him and says, I put everything in Christ. I cling to nothing but Christ's precious blood alone. But he goes on to say from there that those who come unto him and cast their heart upon him and their faith upon him and seek their life in him are those who hear him. That is, they revere his words. They acknowledge their authority. They come under their weight and their force and their power. And then he adds to that, does them. They are so constrained in heart by grace and by gratitude and by love of Christ that Jesus says all three things hold together. Those who would truly call him Lord, Lord are the very people who Jesus says come to him and they hear him and they do what he says. That's genuine discipleship. And then he goes on to give a picture, and this, of course, is a picture that, a verse you memorized on your mama's knee, and you talked about in Sunday school, and maybe you cut out little pieces of construction paper and built a little house when you were a kid. The lessons were great because there's nothing more vivid than this story, is it? Jesus speaks of the one who would be a true disciple. He says, like a man which built a house. And he digged deep and he laid that foundation on a rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house and it couldn't shake it for it was founded upon a rock. Of course, we know what the house is, right? The house is our life. The house is your entire life after you come to Jesus Christ. It's your ideas and your attitudes and your thoughts and your relationship and your behavior. It's all that you are. That's the house. And Jesus says that disciple's house is built in a very particular way. And it's fascinating here in the original that Jesus says that the person who really calls him Lord and follows him, he does two things. He digs and he digs some more. The King James Version has dig deep. I don't know what version you're reading here this morning, but hopefully it brings out that Jesus uses two different words for dig. The first word for dig is a typical word. It just means to dig. Like put a shovel in the ground and dig. And the second word literally means dig deep. And so it means don't just put the shovel in the ground and turn the dirt over and go on to the next spot. It's to put the shovel in the ground again and again and again. So it's not half-hearted. It's repetition. It's exertion. It's energetic. It's persistent. Then notice here that that person then digs and he lays his house upon a foundation. He lays his house upon a foundation and on a rock. A reference to the way houses were built in Palestine of that day. Because underneath the topsoil in Palestine, there was this bedrock of limestone. So if you wanted to build a house that had literally a limestone concrete like foundation, you had to dig down below the surface of the earth. And finally, when you hit pay dirt on top of that limestone, you had a foundation you could build on. That's what he's speaking about here. He says the person that builds the house of their life by dig digging and placing upon the foundation is the person who takes their life and they build it upon Christ. They build it upon Christ. And here I would say that Christ and all of his offices are meant to hold together. They build it upon Christ as their savior and their priest. They build it upon the one who sheds precious blood for their life. They build upon Christ, who is the prophet, who speaks the truth of God and reveals God to us and to men. And so they build their life upon the words of Christ. They build their life upon Christ as king, the one who has sole authority to govern and constrain and call forth the obedience, which is to do no other than God alone. And notice what happens when a person does that. Jesus says, when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and it could not shake it, for it was well founded. It's so interesting about what Jesus does here. He goes out of his way to put a spotlight on that house. That house, which is built upon Christ in the fullness of his offices, not the separation of his offices, but in the fullness of his offices as prophet and as priest and a king. Jesus says, when the flash floods come and those floods will come, Jesus says, when they be vehemently upon that house, it is unshaken. And Jesus gives the answer, because it's well built. People of God, is your life well built? Is your life well built? Is your life built upon Christ and the fullness of his offices? Have you run into Jesus Christ with all of your sin and all of your failures and all of your shame and all of your guilt and all of your brokenness, all of your corruption and all of your failures, and have you run to his cross? and had your sins washed clean with his blood. That is the beginning of the building of the house here. There's no other place to start or begin it. It doesn't begin by just listening. No, it begins by running to the cross and having our life washed clean in blood. And then what follows is a life of hearing and faithful submission. Jesus says, that's the life that he calls us to. And that life is built on the words of this text. Love your enemies and do good those to hate you and bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. Whoever takes away your coat, don't withhold your shirt from either. Give to everyone who asks, and whoever takes from you what is not yours, don't demand it back." And the list goes on and on. This is now that building that Jesus speaks of. We know what it is to call him Lord and to build our life as a house upon his foundation. But Jesus goes on in the second part of the picture here to Give the picture of the counterfeit disciple. He says, but he that heareth and doeth not is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth against which the streams did beat vehemently and immediately it fell and the ruin of the house was very great. You know what's so interesting about this picture? It shows us about the person who cuts corners, right? It's the person that doesn't have time to go down to City Hall and fill out the paperwork to get the proper permits. It's the person that says that they're just too frustrated by red tape, so they won't go through the process of the hassle, right? It's the person that says their time is more important, so they're just going to do the bare necessities, make sure the job gets done according to their standard. And for a while, well, it looked like escaping all the trouble and toil and hardship and difficulty of a well-built house, well, it looked like it was turned out pretty good. Probably even at points, this man looked with satisfaction and smugness over at his neighbor who's got the pick and the shovel out and is working in the heat of the day, sweating. He was enjoying his life until when. It's interesting in Palestine that you could wake up on a beautiful morning with the sky being blue and think to yourself, this is going to be a great day. It's interesting about the way the weather works there that you won't even see the clouds, but you might hear the thunder. And when you hear the thunder, then comes the rain. And when that happens, it's too late. That's exactly what Jesus is trying to say here in the midst of life, in a moment when you are least expecting it. here comes the sound of the thunder. When the sky is perfectly blue and you think you're in for a beautiful barbecue day, here comes the thunder, here comes the lightning, here comes the rain. And notice here, Jesus says, and the streams did beat vehemently against it, and it fell. You see, people of God, that is the picture of counterfeit discipleship. And it ends in great ruin. That word ruin is ugly. It's a really ugly term. And as I got to thinking about that, it struck me that these words of Christ here are born of the deepest love. These words of Jesus Christ here are born of the deepest love. Because that's what Jesus doesn't want for you. That is what Jesus doesn't want for his disciples, his ruin. Jesus doesn't want from you to be deluded and confess him as Lord, Lord, only to experience a trial that wipes his life out. And so the question here this morning is it comes from the text to those original disciples and then on across the centuries to us is a text that is born of love. And Jesus Christ is signaling that love this morning. He's saying to you in this question, how are you building? How are you building? The time to answer that question isn't when the thunder begins to rumble and the skies above and the crack of lightning comes and the waters descend upon the earth and the streams begin to rise and the floods begin to beat upon our life. That's the wrong time to answer the question. And so your pastor did what a good pastor does. He took us out of the law this morning. He said, are you searching? Are you confessing sin? Are you seeking to replace what's wrong and sinful and corrupt and broken and crooked? Are you seeking to replace that with truth? It's born of love. Because the apostle Paul says, you be killing sin or sin will be killing you. And so I encourage us this morning. I'm grateful for your testimony that you called Jesus, Lord, Lord. And I know you do that because of grace. You do that because of grace. But some of us might've gotten snagged somewhere along the way. Some of us may have taken a detour. Some of us may have decided it was easier to just cut corners, go an easier way. You see, that's the question Jesus places before us. And if that's you this morning, I just encourage you, first of all, if you know that's you and you're stuck, if you know now that you're bogged down in the slew of despond, well, Jesus says, come to me. All you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. You run right to Jesus Christ and his precious blood and his cross and you come under that and you get cleansed in the blood. And then you ask him to direct your life. You ask him to work out in you what Jesus teaches here in our text, to not just call him Lord, Lord, but by his grace and the power and the strength of the Holy Spirit. to pick up that axe and to pick up that shovel and to start digging our house. Digging it for the glory of God. Digging it for gratitude for Jesus Christ and his mercies. And digging it by the strength and the power of the spirit of God. And we do that, people of God. By his grace, we'll build a house that when the floodwaters smash against it, This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material herewithin, unless otherwise noted. Copyright Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Elk Grove, California. Music furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at nathanclarkgeorge.com.