THE FOUNDATION OF CHRIST’S LORDSHIP MANIFESTED IN A LIFE

OF GLAD OBEDIENCE

Luke 6:46-49

• A solid foundation is also crucial to the spiritual life of a believer and of the Church.

• It is a fact that a poor foundation—be it physical or spiritual—can lead to devastating destructions.

• Those who seek to be true and committed disciples must be diligent to build their lives and their faith upon a solid foundation – that is, obedience to the Lordship of Christ and His Word.

• CHRIST CONFRONTS US OF HIS LORDSHIP IN OUR LIVES

• For He is indeed Lord if His Words will find their way in our hearts resulting in glad obedience. It is this glad obedience to His Word that radically transforms us.

• Or He is not Lord if we consistently disobey or do not put into practice His Words in our lives

I. BUILDING OUR FAITH UPON CHRIST’S LORDSHIP MEANS HAVING A LIFE OF CONSISTENT OBEDIENCE TO HIS WORD. (V. 46 ) • What are you building your life on?• One commentator gave a

description to these people as "Oxymoron of heedless followers”.

• These are self-righteous and self-deceived religious people whose lives do not prove their claims to holiness, love and relationship to God.

• No condemnation from Jesus seemed too strong for those who failed to practice their professed spirituality.

Implications:• The word Lord means Master; As

Master, He has complete authority over our lives for we are His slaves; we belong to Him and we are obligated to do whatever He says.

• To call Him Lord and then fail to obey Him is therefore absurdly contradictory.

• A mere professed acknowledgment of His Lordship is never enough. True love and faith to this Lord who is our Savior involve obedience. We don't really love Him and we don't really believe in Him if we don't do what He says.

• James 1:22

• Jesus tells us now: “Why do you claim to follow Me with your lips, but fail to follow Me with your lives? Why play the part of a play actor, a hypocrite, who says one thing and does another?”

• John 14:15

• Hearing Jesus’ words, and even agreeing with them, is not the goal of Christian teaching and Biblical discipleship. Rather, in order to be a true disciple we must do what He tells us.

• The message of God is plain--measure your life by how much you obey--not by how much you know, by how much you do, by how much you read or hear, by how much you walk in the light, by how much you claim to have fellowship with God.

• Measure your life by proofs of obedience in your daily living, daily evidences of grace to Christ’s Lordship--not by your pious wishes.

II. BUILDING OUR FAITH UPON CHRIST’S LORDSHIP MEANS STANDING ON A SECURE AND SOLID FOUNDATION. (vv. 47-49).

COMPONENTS IN LAYING A SOLID FOUNDATIONA. COME TO CHRIST

• Jesus says that if we want to be built on a “Rock” we need to come to Him.

1. WE HAVE TO COME TO CHRIST - THE BEDROCK TO WHICH WE BUILD OUR LIVES. • 1 Corinthians 3:10-11• 1 Corinthians 10:4• Romans 9:3• Jesus is the bedrock on which

we should build our lives. We are not to build on anything that is not founded on Christ.

• Only on Christ can our lives, marriage, family, career, business, calling, ministry stand the storms of life for Christ cannot be shaken.

• Jesus as Savior and Lord is a solid and firm foundation – and the storms will rage and the winds will blow but those who are founded on CHRIST will stand the storm and outlast the wind.

2. WE HAVE TO REGULARLY AND FREQUENTLY COME TO JESUS AS HIS TRUE DISCIPLES • Luke 9:23 • Are we faithful in coming to

Jesus every single day to worship, pray and seek to learn from Him?

• We cannot live the Christian life without ever coming to Jesus for our daily bread, performing our spiritual disciplines as means to our intimacy with Him, or building our lives in the Word of God.

• The storms of life are too strong. The only way we can win our daily battles is if He is Lord in our lives.

• This coming to Christ or being built on Jesus, the Rock is not your coming to a church or a lifestyle, not a tradition or a religious practice. None of these things can save you.

• Being built on the Rock means coming to the real Person of Christ in repentance, faith and trust.

• To be built on the Rock means to place all our hope and faith in Jesus Christ, to believe that He alone can cleanse and forgive us from our sins, that He alone can rescue us from God’s wrath and believe that He alone is worthy to be our Lord.

B. LISTEN TO CHRIST’S WORDS• Listening to the Word requires

discipline and the ministry of His Holy Spirit. We read from His Word daily to ensure that we are laying the right foundation for our lives.

• Sometimes what we read and hear in the Word hurt us.

• Matthew 6:14-15

“If you have never been hurt by a Word from God, it is probable that you have never heard God speak.”

Amy Carmichael

• Listening to the Word in a worship service like this is not always easy. It requires the grace of God as well as hard work and discipline.

• Kent Hughes, pastor emeritus at College Church in Wheaton, Illinois notes the challenge of listening to biblical preaching in a worship service.

He asks: What can we do to become good hearers of the Word in church?

• Pray—for the preacher and for yourself.

• Come prepared to listen, understand that listening is work. The will to concentrate is fundamental.

• Keep your Bible open to the sermon text and turn to the other passages that are cited.

• Take notes. • One of the curious by-products of the

Great Awakening in America [a time of powerful revival in the 1700s and again in the 1800s] was a sudden interest in shorthand. It was not unusual to see men and women, quill pens in hand, carrying portable inkwells as they hurried to a preaching service on the village green. The same thing happened in Scotland under similar circumstances. REVIVED HEARTS LEAD TO SCRIBBLING HANDS.

C. PUT CHRIST’S WORDS INTO PRACTICE

• Christ’s Words are not optional, they are to be obeyed. Hearing and doing go together. In fact the best way to really learn anything is by doing.

• We constantly ask: What is it that I need to do today, this week?

• We will do the Word. This is Christ’s Lordship.

• We do it by God’s grace and power. We should be conscious to apply Christ’ Word’s immediately and deliberately.

To put Christ word into practice is to dig down deep and get beyond surface-level Christianity. 

• Not just church attendance, but service in and to the church

• Not just faith, but deeds that reflect our faith

• Not just reading the bible, but discovering it’s truths

• Not just fellowship, but strong heart-level relationships

• Not lip service, but TRUE obedience to Christ as Lord

• If our faith has the strong foundation of Christ’s Lordship, then struggles and obstacles in our lives will not lead to the collapse of our faith. In spite of the circumstances, difficulties and pain, we can gladly obey.

Put Christ as the foundation of our faith- HE IS LORD! And then we build everything else on it. When we do this, our lives are “Built to Last.”