Well, before we jump into the message this morning, I just feel like I need to say a couple of things just in context of today. Number one, on behalf of Melissa and I, man, we just want to tell this church thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Over the course of COVID, we celebrated our 20th anniversary here at the church, which is hard when you're only 25. Right? It's really tough. I'm just kidding. And we're not. But you guys gifted us with a trip. We got to go on that last week. And we had an incredible time. And I just want to say this as well. I can't think and Melissa would echo this. I can't think of another place on the whole Earth that we would rather be with, serve with, call our family and just stay with. And so, thank you guys for that and blessing us with that over the last couple of years finally getting to use it. 

And then secondly, I just want to bring you up to date on where we are in our building program, our 2023 building vision. We came to you, and we said, Hey, we need to vote on this. We need to look at this. We kind of pitch the vision for it. And 98.4% of you voted yes to say, this is where we need to go, which is outstanding, because when I was a kid, I voted no on everything at the church. And so, I'm sure there was probably some of that involved as well. But thank you guys for supporting it, number one, with your voice, but also number two with your pledges, because we didn't just ask you to say, yes, let's do it. Let somebody else do it. We said, hey, we want everybody involved with this. And we asked you for $2 million in pledges and you gave over $2.1 million to this program. I think we can clap about that. Right. That is in incredible, incredible, incredible. That means so many of you said yes over and beyond where we are now. We are going to give to this project. And here's what I know. Some of you weren't here that day. And so, there's still time to catch up and you can hook up on any of the social media channels, our website, and find out how to do it. 

Well, look, as you saw in the intro video this morning, we're starting a new series this morning called Wisdom from the Master. Wisdom from the Master. And so, over the next couple of months, what we're going to do is we're going to take the gospel of Luke, the gospel of Luke, and we're going to pull some of the major teachings of Jesus. Jesus, the master teacher, Jesus, the master and giver of life. We're going to pull some of his teachings from that gospel. Now, I'm saying the word some, because I want you to know we're not going to pull all of them. All right. I don't want to panic, and I don't want you going anywhere. We're not going to spend full 9 hours every Saturday or every Sunday here at church. We're going to pull some of them. Those of you that are type A, calm down. We're going to get to them. You can read them on your own. We are not going to go through every moment. We might not even get to your favorite verse. Okay. But that's okay because you have a Bible, right? You can read it. You can study it. In fact, let me just encourage you to do this. We have 15 weeks before the end of this year. Before the end of this calendar year. What if you took every single week and read a chapter and a half in the Book of Luke? A chapter and a half, you would successfully really do a deep dove into this gospel. So, what we're going to do is just pull some pieces here and there, and we're going to let the words and the teachings and the life of Jesus wash over us. And I want to promise you something in this. I want to promise you and make you a promise that the Bible makes the gospel of Luke can change your life, the teachings of Jesus in this Gospel and in the rest of the Gospels, I might add, can be absolutely transformative for you personally, for your family, cumulatively, and for those people around you. Because Jesus speaks incredibly clear in this gospel. 

Now, talking about Jesus, I want us to kind of look at Jesus just for a minute, because when you think about Jesus and you think about kind of his role and his purpose, you have to see that there's a couple of just major functional themes that come to mind when we say Jesus and what Jesus has done. I mean, first of all, Jesus, when you think about it, He came to fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies. Why did he do that? To assure people that he was the Messiah, to show them that he was the king of kings, to give credibility to who he was. Jesus also came to reveal truth to us, to say, what is the truth from who God is not just a timely truth, but an eternal truth. He gave us words. He gave us sayings. He gave us examples of what truth is and what truth will forever be. Third, he gave us a way to live. If you look at Jesus as live and you study Jesus' life, that is to be the example of the life of a person who claims to follow Christ. That is what it means to follow Christ. It is to follow the life and the model of what Jesus lived. If Jesus said it in and Jesus lived it, that's how my life should be pointed. And so, God didn't just send us a book, he didn't just send us an instruction. He sent us a model in who Jesus is. Fourth, Jesus came to reconcile sinful man with a Holy God. That was a task that He came to do. Before that, we tried our best in these sacrifices. We tried our best in these yearly meetings and all of this stuff going on. But God knew that wasn't working. He sent Jesus to make God available to us. Why? Because a Holy God can't be in the presence of a simple person. 

So, Jesus came to reconcile that through His death on the cross. He was the atonement. He was the sacrifice for my sin, for your sin. And then lastly, the crescendo of all of Jesus's life on this planet. Jesus came to raise from the dead. He came to be resurrected. You say Matt, why is that a big deal? Oh, that's a big deal. Because up until that point, sin had not been conquered. When Jesus rose from the grave, he conquered sin. He conquered death. And he looked at all of us and said, this you now can too. You can, too. But here's the deal. The resurrection did one more thing. The Resurrection ratified what Jesus did. Now, Matt, what do you mean by that? Here's what I mean by that. What that means is that the resurrection of Jesus was God, the father's way of looking at everything Jesus did and said that's right. That's right. Up until the resurrection. Yeah. Jesus had some wise teachings. Yeah, Jesus had some great stuff. But at that moment in life, what God the Father did is he gave his full approval on all the claims that Jesus made. 

So, here's what we don't have the ability to do. We don't have the ability to pick and choose the claims of Jesus. We don't have the ability to pick and choose the life of Jesus in like I like that, but I don't like this. I like that part, but I don't like this one because at the resurrection God, the Father looked at God, the sign that submitted to this world and said that everything He did was holy, was just, was right, and he ratified and sealed the deal in all of it. And look, for years people have said things like this, that Jesus is a prophet and he's a priest and he's a king. That Jesus is the revealer and the reconciler and the ruler. But I want you to know this. He is all of those things, but he's so much more. You can spend your whole life studying Jesus and just scratch the surface. You can spend your whole life memorizing the truth of Jesus, and you will never know the full extent of His love for you. So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to spend some time looking at his teachings this morning. We're going to spend some time over these next month’s looking at some of his teachings from the Book of Luke. And let me just encourage you, encourage you, encourage you to do this. Look at these teachings for what they are. You do realize that these teachings are not just teachings that we put among the other teachings of wise people. That's not what they are. These teachings are not just great sayings. They're not just great suggestions. These teachings aren't to be placed along the sides of other religious words. 

Listen to me, cause the words of Jesus are the very keys to building your foundation in God and having your life sealed in eternal life with Jesus, with God. That's what Jesus is words can do. That's why we're going to look at them over the next months. Now, don't we study Jesus like, Yep, we do. We're going to keep doing it. You know what? Because it gives life. He gives life. You got a copy of the Bible this morning. I want you to turn me to Luke. Chapter six. Luke, chapter six. Matt, I thought we were starting the series one chapter one? Wait for December. Right? That is the Christmas story. We will get back to that later on. All right, Luke, chapter six is where we're going to start the series. I told you, we're not going to be in order. Type-A people, calm down. It's fine. This message this morning, I think, has the has the chance to set us up for every other teaching that Jesus ever made. I think it's that powerful. And that's not just preacher language. That is truth. And I really feel like what Jesus gives us in Luke Chapter six can do two things. He can give us the assurance of who we are in Christ, and it can show us where we've got to drive our foundation into. All right. So that's what we're going to do this morning, because here's what this here's what this text does to us in Luke six. It shows me who I really am. Shows me. Now, look, we're really good at projecting an image. We're really good at trying to show people who we want them to think that we are. But this passage shows who I really am and who God really is to me and what I really am building my life around. These are massive life questions, right? And Jesus, in just a couple of verses answers, all of these questions by showing us the story about these two houses, these two houses Jesus is going to talk about in just a minute. And they're nearly identical houses geographically. They're in the same area. But these two houses had two different kinds of foundations. One of them was built by a man who Jesus called a foolish man. And it ought to be called a foolish man by Jesus. Amen. He called him a foolish man. Why? Because this man built his house right up on the shore. He built on the shore. 

Now, look, this was a pretty sweet house in my sanctified imagination, right? I mean, it is right on the beach. I mean, the view in this thing is awesome. The breeze blows. The resale value had to be incredible. You could put your toes in the sand right off of that step, but Jesus called him foolish. The second man Jesus called wise. Why? Because it seems in the text that he backed his house up a little bit. Right? He backed it up. He put some pilings down. He built it on a foundation that would last. But this morning we're going to look at that story. But I want us to look at it in context. All right. I want us to look at it in context, because Jesus, when he tells the story to us just to three verses. Right. He gives us a warning on this side. We're going spend a lot of time on the warning but stay with me. Don't get mad at me because on the backside there's an incredible promise. So don't lose out. If you leave early, you're going to lose the promise and you're going to be mad at me. All right, here it is. 

Let's start in Luke. Chapter six, verse 43. Start with the context, the warning and promise. Here we go. Here's what Jesus said. I know that because it's in red, they teach you that seminary. All right, here it is. Some of you got it. Some you're like what? It doesn't matter. Here it is. Luke six verse 43, Jesus said, no good tree bears bad fruit. Nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes or grapes from Briers. Now put your finger there. And of course, this is truth. Why? Because each fruit that is picked from a tree is consistent with the kind of tree that it is picked from. Right. If you want to know what kind of tree it is, just wait until it produces some kind of fruit. And then you don't even have to use that little photo app program that you can know what it is. You can tell if it is that kind of tree. Right. When I was a kid, my great grandparents had a tree in their backyard that I thought was a massive tree. It was huge. Now for so it could have been like eight feet, I don't know. But I thought it was huge. I didn't know what kind of tree it was. But then all of a sudden, one summer there was these oblong little fruits that started growing on it that were green that kind of looked like an apple, but it kind of looked like it had something coming off the top of it, which turned out to be pears, turned out to be pears. There were all over this tree. So somewhere between August and October, if I didn't know what kind of tree it was before then I looked at it, then it had pears all over it. Therefore, it was a what kind of tree? That's Jesus's point. And you guys are Bible scholars, right? That's what Jesus is saying right here. 

You want to know what kind of tree you are? Look at the fruit that you're producing. Then you will know. Keep going in verse 45, man, you're doing good this morning. Here it is. Watch what he says. He said a good man. He's talking to a righteous person or a godly person, somebody who's heart loves God. All right? A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart for the mouth. Oh, man, he's about to get up in our business for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. What the heart is full of. The students aren't going to talk today. You know I can't talk here in this one. Right here it is. The mouth speaks what the heart is full of. So. So what is he saying? Just like the tree produces. What kind of fruit it is? Watch what he's saying. He's saying a person produces a verbal and a person produces an action fruit in line with what's in their heart, with what's going on in here. It's not a slip up, is what he's saying. It's not something that just happens, is what he says. He's a no, no, no, no. That was in your heart. It's here in your heart. Keep going, Jesus, continues, verse 46. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say, Jesus? Like that doesn't make any sense. Verse 47, as for everyone who comes to me and here's my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. 

He's given a contrast. He's talking about a godly person right here. Watch this. He said they're like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, and a torrent struck that house. But it could not shake it because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built his house on the ground without a foundation. The moment, the torrent or the storm struck that house, it collapsed, and its destruction was complete. Now, we say this a lot when we're reading it, when we're studying the Bible, we say this a lot. And what do we say? We say context. Context is king. Context is king. Now, what does that mean? That means that we just can't pull a verse out of context and just kind of put a meaning onto it that we want it to be. We got to look at what's around the verse. We've got to look at what the verse was written to be. And Jesus, the context of the story of the wise and the foolish man that are building, this story is written in the context of Scripture that Jesus is giving us a warning about something. He's giving us a warning about something. 

So, the question that we have to ask is, what is the warning? What is Jesus warning us about? Well, I'm glad you asked that, because if you read back earlier in the chapter, you will see that Jesus in this text is speaking to religious people. He's speaking to moral people. He's speaking to church leaders of the day, church peoples of the day. And Jesus is warning them, catch this. They think that they are right with God. They think that they're moving right in the right direction with God. But Jesus is warning them that they are not. They're not walk in the right direction to God. You see, it's important to know here. It's important to know that Jesus right here, he is not talking to people who are just obviously hypocritical. He's not talking to this sinner upon sinners that everybody knows that's a sinner. He's not talking to people who are living double lives or who fake church on the weekend and then go around sleeping around, doing drugs, cheating on their taxes. He's not doing that. Jesus, his main audience in this story, if you look at the chapter, are the religious people of the day. And if you translate that into our world today, Jesus's main audience for this story are those people who are coming to church, those people who are saying they're believers, those people who are saying they're religious but have a problem. But have a problem. So, our ears should kind of perk up a little bit when we read the story. Why? Because we're all here, right? Those of you online, we're saying you're here, right? We're all here. We're all involved. We're all one to be involved. But the question is, do we fall into the self-deceived religious people, or do we fall into those people who truly do and truly have given our lives to Jesus? That's the question. 

So, if that's the context of the story, I think we need to answer the question, what are the qualities that Jesus is speaking of when he talks about a self-perceived religious person? That's what we need to answer out of this text. So that's what I want to do this morning. I want to give you three characteristics of self-perceived religious people who Jesus is saying, Listen, I love you, but you're wrong. First of all, we find in verse 60, in verse 43, look at it with me. Luke 6:43, here's what he says. Jesus says this. He says, no good treat bears bad fruit, no good tree bears bad fruit. Nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. The first characteristic that Jesus throws out right here listen, here's the warning is that this self to see religious people, they don't bear fruit. They don't bear spiritual fruit. That's what he says. They just don't bear fruit. And this is so interesting. Do you know why? Because. Because they say all the right things. Because the people that he's talking about here, what they hang out in all the right places. They know all the language, right. Their house even looks like a religious house. They got Bible verses on the doors, right? They got things coming down, the labels. They probably even have a mat that says Blessed at their house. It is there. They hang around all the right people. Y'all got one of those. They hang on all the right kind of people, right? They're with all the right people. They even seem to be planted in the right spot. 

But here's what Jesus says. Here's the warning. He says, When you look at their lives, though, the problem is, is there is no evidence of an encounter with God in their lives. That's what he's saying in the story. He's saying they look like it, they smell like it. They hang around the right people. They're with it. They come to church. They're in the Bible studies. But there's no evidence of an encounter with God. Now, what am I talking about when I say no evidence of an encounter with God? That might be new language. Here's what I mean. Simply put, it means that there's no evidence of a new birth in Jesus. There's no evidence of a life that is turned and surrender to Jesus. There's no evidence in their life that they have a desire to walk with God, to walk with Jesus, to walk with His people. There's no evidence that God is supreme in their life. There's no evidence that they have a dislike for sin or an attraction to Jesus. Now, look, obviously these things don't appear in our lives one day and they're not super strong on day one. It's a growing process. We are two steps forward and a step back. We have struggles. But here's the problem they're at least a growing part of what's happening in our lives. It's what Jesus said, he says, Do you want to know if you're a believer there's going to be fruit coming from your life and catch the someone who is right with God, who is filled with God. 

You will see evidence of God working through your lives. You're going to see that. Now, I'm not saying you're going to be standing up here on Sunday given the message, not saying you're going to be Billy Graham Jr, but you are going to see evidence in your life. You could say that these things that I just talked about are kind of a spiritual pulse as to if you're alive or dead in Christ. You say, what do you mean by that? Well, if somebody kills over this morning and we want to see if they're still alive, the first thing that Dr. Baute is going to do is he's going to check their pulse. Right? He's going to check their bolts. Why? Because that will tell us if they're living. Well, that's what Jesus is saying here. You want to know if you're alive and Christ is. There's fruit being produced from your life. You see, when God's presence enters our life for real, I'm not saying you're going to be fully transformed, like holy upon holy, but you're going to start seeing things happen in your life. Little by little by little, I mean, you're going to fail. You're going to fail, but you're going to get back up. You're going to walk in the direction. So, Jesus is asking him this question. Here's the question, I want you write it down. Does your life show the evidence of God working in your life? Does your life show that? Does God show the evidence? Are you growing in your love for Jesus? No matter how old you are? Do you live like you want to see others come to know Jesus? I mean, you do realize it's impossible to believe the gospel and not want to see other people come to know the gospel. Either you hate them, or you don't believe the gospel. One has to be true in your life. Or how about this one? 

Are you finding the commands of God burdensome? And you're kind of like, Well, you know what? I just I'm kind of drawn to the other side, but I'm a Christian, so I'm just not going to go do that stuff. I know that's where my heart really is or maybe you're just kind of like this. You're at church, but you're not here for the right reason. You're here to get him off your back or her off your back or your parents off your back. So, you get your allowance this week. I don't know how it works in your house, but are you here because you love God and want God to move in your heart or you're just here because that's the socially acceptable thing to do? You see the question here is this Does your life show evidence that Christ is moving in you? That's the point Jesus is making. You do realize the question is not whether you want to go to hell or not. The question is not Do you want to go to heaven? Do you know what? I've never met anyone that said just outright frank, I want to go to hell. No, everybody wants to go to heaven. Everybody I meet does. But the question is, is God working in your heart in a way that you're showing God, God, this is what I want with my life. You see, the desire for God has to be the most important thing in your life to move in your heart. 

So Matt, how do I? How do I know if I'm producing fruit? How do I know? That's a that's a fair question. To which I would say, here's the easiest way that you can know. Ask someone that's close to you. Just ask them. You say, man, I don't think I want to do that. Then you're not producing fruit. It's pretty easy, right? I know that's pretty harsh, but this is how it is. Ask somebody that's close to you. I mean, if I were to ask you, hey, are you a Christian? And you were just to give me like, yeah well, when I was seven, I did this and... Okay, well, tell me about some life change. Tell me what was going on. And I started doing that. Then I would just tell you this, hey, you might want to dial in and figure out if your faith is real. That's what I would tell you if you wanted to figure it out. If I write this principle down. Spiritual fruit is always shown most clearly to those people who are closest to you. Closest to you. And here's why that is. You can fake it to those people that you spend an hour a week with, but to those people that you live with, those people that you do life with, those people that see you at your best and your worst, you can't fake it anymore. You can't do it. In fact, let me just say the students let me tell you this. If your best friends don't know that you're a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, then the chances are you need to examine your faith to see if you're in it. You need to ask yourself. Parents, let me put it on you. You thought I was just talking to them? Parents, let me just say this. If your students can't see God working in your life, then you need to examine your heart and see where the Lordship of Christ is in your life. Students, I'm back to you. Students, let me tell you this, I'll go to you all. Here's some verses. Here's the deal. If your parents can't see the evidence of God moving in your hearts, then you need to see is it really moving in my heart? Or am I just a self-deceived religious person? This claiming all the right things, is planted in a right spot, as being moral and all this is happening. 

Look, I know this sounds like a harsh word from Jesus, but it's not. And here's why it's not. This is Jesus's way of giving us a merciful warning. A merciful one. This is a merciful warning. Why is it a merciful warning? Because every single one of us that are listening to this, we're still alive. We're still alive. And there's still time to turn. There's still time. Turn number one, selfish, see, deceive religious people. They don't bear spiritual fruit. Number two, check this one out. Find it in verse 46. Here it is. Let me read it. Jesus says this. Why don't you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? Why do you call me Lord, Lord, do not do what I say? 

Here's number two. Number one, they don't bear special fruit. Number two, they don't do what Jesus says do. I didn't make it up. I just pulled the last five words. Right. They don't do what Jesus says do. Now, this one's a little bit more straightforward because here's what Jesus is saying to us. He's saying, Look, yeah, I know that you have turned to me as a fire escape, as a get out of hell free card. As a helper, religious model, icon, whatever it is. But the question is, have you surrendered your life to me? Have you surrendered? Jesus says, Why in the world would you call me Lord? Why would you do it? You know, there's a whole lot better thing to do on Sunday morning if he's not your Lord. Amen. Then to listen to this hack. Right. He said, why do you why would you call me Lord and not do what I say? You know what Lord means, right? It means complete control, sovereign master and owner of who I am. See, here's the thing we can sing about the Lordship of Jesus all we want to. But is it showing in our lives? Are we doing what Jesus says to do? Let me give you five struggles that I see in a lot of people. Not you guys, but another church is number one. Here it is. Here's the biggest one of the biggest religion lordship struggles. It's really in our relationships, truly in our relationships. So, let me just ask you, have you surrendered every relationship in your life to the lordship of Jesus? No, I'm not saying that you just kind of take them all and you say, well, God, you might be a part of this one, but not with this one. But how do you say, God, I'm giving you all of my romantic relationships, all my dating relationships, all of my family relationships. I'm giving you all of what I am and God, I'm saying I want you primarily. If these things don't fit in, God need to flush them out of my life. Have you submitted to your relationships? Those of you that are married, have you submitted your marriage to Lordship of Jesus? Where it's not all about you and it's not all about them, it is all about him in your life. 

Number two area that I see a big struggle a lot of times is in the area of finances. I'm just being honest. I mean, here's the problem with this. I'm really not sure how we can call him Lord over our salvation and trust him to provide an eternity. But he can't make up the 10% that he's asking for me? I don't know. I mean, rationally, I don't know how that works. Yes, Lord, when I die, when I take the ultimate dirt map of my life, you will deliver me. But God, I can't give you the 10% because you can't make that up in my life. You see, it doesn't. It doesn't work right. Are you being generous? Are you meeting needs of other people? That's a lordship decision. Here's a third one. It's, it's in the area of my career or in the area of my dreams. Have you submitted your dreams to Christ? Have you submitted your career to Christ and said God wherever? However? Yes, Lord, move in me. We all want to be moral, religious people, but we want to tell God where I want my life to go and God's like, That's not how it works. I'll tell you where I want it to go. Here's number four. Have you submitted your daily Bible reading and prayer to him? Is he the Lord of your daily bible reading? Is he the Lord of your prayer life? Where that is an absolute priority of your life? You're trusting him to grow you in him. 

Here's a fifth struggle. I see a lot, and it's just a kind of a catch all. Are you struggling with just a specific command in Scripture right now? You're just struggling, and this could be forgiving someone. This could be a secret sin. This could be a habit that you're not willing to commit. It could be a lifestyle that just feels right in your heart, but it disregards Scripture. There's so many we could talk through him all day. Just wanted to give you a couple to kind of kind of work through this week. But look at Luke 6:46. He says why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say. And let me just ask you, have you ever come to a point in your life just said yes, yes, nothing else, just yes. Have you ever come to a point where you've said, Hey, Lord, all that I am, all that I have, all that I forever hope to be Lord, I now and forever offer it to you? See, that's Lordship. Lordship is not. You know, when I was seven, something happened. I don't know what it was, but something Lordship is me going yes Lord. You know, there's two words in the English language that cannot go together. And it's the word no in the word Lord. Go with me on this just for a minute. Maybe you've never heard this. If you say the word no. Listen, if you say the word no, then you have to cross out the word Lord. You feel that a little bit. If you say the word Lord, no, you cannot follow it. Those words are mutually exclusive. But, man, do we like to smash them together? That's the warning right here. It's the warning. The first characteristic is they don't bear spiritual fruit. The second characteristic is they don't do what Jesus says. I want you to see the third one. Number three, the third characteristic of the self to see religious person is that their faith falls apart and the storm. Falls apart in a storm. 

Now, this is where Jesus ties our little story of the houses, right? Verse 47 to 49. Back to the context of what he's saying it in. Now remember, what the houses look like from a distance. You're going to catch this. They look exactly the same. You couldn't tell them apart, but it was what was below them that made all the difference. One on the rock, one on the sand and catch this. What was it that showed us which one was secure? It was the storm in life. It was the storm that revealed which house had true faith. I never. This blew me away. Tuesday, no what was it? Wednesday morning. This absolutely rocked my world when I realized, wait a minute, the storm revealed which faith was true. Which faith was true? What do you mean by that? Here's the point in this it means that there's a whole lot of people whose lives look the same. They go to the same church. They're in the same small group that maybe even be in the same family. They believe all the same things. They have all the same morals. But one's faith is real and one's faith is not. And the way that we know which one is real is the one that makes it through the storm. That's how we know. So, look, there are going to be people in all of our lives who seem like they're walking with Jesus until life gets hard. Until God doesn't answer a prayer how they think they want it answered. Until their friend said starts putting the pressure on them to live in a direction that is not glorifying God. Until their heart begins to draw them away from the priorities God and put our cultures priorities on them. Obedience to Jesus sometimes means walking away from what our heart is drawing us to. You do know that we love to talk about coming to Jesus. We love to talk about salvation. We love to talk about hearing God's truth. We love to talk about his fulfillment and his joy. And all of those things are true. But here's the deal. 

At some point in your faith journey, God is going to take you 180 degrees the other direction of where your heart is telling you to go. Listen close. Let me say that again. When all of you hear this, hear this, now, young people, before you get some damage, like some of us at some point in your life, God is going to take you 100%, 180 degrees in a direction that your heart is trying to drag you to go. And it is at that point in your life where it will be revealed, where Jesus stands as Lord or not of your life. That's the test. Please notice the difference of these two lives is not what they seem to believe. No, the difference in these two lives is what they were built on, what they were built on. Look how he said it. In verse 47. Jesus says this As for everyone who comes to me and here's my words and puts them into practice, that's nothing about talking right there. Come here. Put them into practice. Watch. He says, I will show you what they're like. Listen really close. Don't take this out of context. According to Jesus, your destination, your destiny, here it is, is not determined by what you say you believe. 

That's what Jesus is saying right here. This is scary language. I know it's heavy. I know scares. So, stay with me. Your destiny is not determined by what you say. You believe your destiny is determined by what your life demonstrates you believe. Please hear me. This is a major teaching of Jesus. But Matt, aren't we saved by faith, through Christ in grace alone? Yes, we are. It has nothing to do with our works. But I'll tell you this. You cannot be saved and not have works. That's what he's saying in a story. And the difference is what our life says we believe. In fact, Matthew, when he tells the story, when he walks through this account in Matthew seven, listen. He adds one little line to this. 

Listen to what Matthew says about it. Matthew 7:21 says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter into the kingdom of heaven. That's scary. But only those who does the will of the Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name? Do we not drive out demons in your name? Do we not perform many miracles? Then I will tell them, Catch this. I never knew you. Depart from me, you evil doers. You see the difference, right? The difference in the word "says" and the difference in the word "does". Here it is. These people say, Lord, they spoke in his name. They did things in his name, but it's only the ones who did that were the ones who surrendered their lives to Jesus. Matt are you saying, when I do bad, if I'm truly a Christian, that I'm no longer Christian. That's not what I'm saying. Here's what I am saying. When you your life to Jesus, your life will change. And your life will begin to point in a different direction. You will struggle. You will fall. You will need to be forgiven. But you will move in a direction in life. 

Please hear this that not everyone who confesses Jesus as Lord is a believer in Jesus. That's the point of the whole story. You know, there's really only two ways to know what you believe. Two ways. The first one is what you say you believe. That's a good indicator, right? What you say you believe. The second one is what your life shows you believe. And here's what Jesus is saying in the story. Listen, when there's a discrepancy between those two things, he always chooses what your life says first. What your life says. That's the difference between the two houses. So again, does your life say that Jesus is Lord? Jesus is Lord? Or would those closest to you say Jesus is Lord? Will you struggle? Yes, you will struggle. Will you fall? Yes, you will fall. But even in the falling, you will stand up when he forgives you and say, thank you, Jesus. My foundation is in you. Now, that's the warning of the text. I told you it was heavy, right? If you left, like some people left already, I'm like they already had a rough day, right? 

That's the warning. That's the warning. But let me give you the promise, because the promise is awesome. Here's the promise. I want you to write it down. When you fully embrace Jesus in your life, He'll keep you standing even in the storm. That's the promise. That's the promise from the story. We miss this promise if we get caught up in the first. Why? Because we're self-deceived religious people, we think we got it all together. We think we know what's going on. But here's what Jesus said, no no no. When you plant yourself, when you drive your pilings on me, I'll keep you standing. I'll keep you living. I am your savior. Your savior. I'm going to close with a picture. This picture is from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Mexico Beach. Famous picture you probably remember it, maybe. One house among all other houses still stands. Do you know why? I just thought they got lucky at first, but I started reading about it this week. This house was built by a doctor that lives up north somewhere. His name is Doctor Lackey. This house. Let me read to you what Doctor Lackey said about this house. He says, When we set out to build this house, I quote, We wanted to build it for the biggest one ever, the big storm. 

He said, We just never knew we'd find the big storm so fast. He said, We were thinking that we needed to build a house that would survive storms for generations. They built this house a year before the storm happened. But here's the crazy part about this. They built this way beyond any code that Florida requires. Instead of putting pilings about 15 feet down in the sand, they drove them 45 to 60 feet onto bedrock. Instead of having glass that's double thick, it was quadruple thick. Instead of nailing things three times, they nailed it seven or eight times. They put short overhangs, they put break away walls underneath that would just swing on hinges if the water ever came in. And here's the thing. This house through this storm lost one piece of siding, one piece. You know what Jesus wants to do in your life when you surrender to him? That right there, that's who he is. That's who he wants to be. He'll live up to his role. Here's what he's asking of us. Are you living your life as a self-deceived religious person who produces no fruit, who doesn't do what Jesus says, who falls in the storms? Or are you driving your foundation into who Jesus says? Lord, today, Jesus, as we jump into this time of invitation, God, I know that there are people that need to respond to your gospel today. 

God, it is a graceful gospel. It is a life-giving gospel. It is a call to eternal life. And God I just pray in these next moments. I pray for the wall of pride to be driven away. I pray for deception from the evil one to be stripped out of us. And God, I just pray for a moment of honesty in all of our venues today that would just quite clearly say to you, Yes, Lord, I'm surrendering. You know, with your heads bowed and your eyes closed. I just want to ask you this morning, do you need to embrace Jesus as Lord? Do you need to surrender your life to him? I'm not talking about making some just emotional decision. I'm talking about giving over control. That's like if you've never done that, you might be the best person I know. But Jesus says you're just a religious person. You need him. Do you need to say Jesus, I can't save myself, but you can? Then, today, Jesus, I give you, my heart. I receive your offer of salvation. I surrender all of me to you. Listen, if that's your heart in this room. In just a minute, I'm going to walk off the stage over to your right. I'm going to stand by that banner that says Next Steps. 

It's asked you this morning. You need to give your heart to Jesus. I just want you to from wherever you're out, get rid of the pride. I need you to step into the aisle, walk over here and just look at me or one of the other counselors in the face, and say, I need Jesus today. I'm surrendering my life. We'll do the rest. We'll do the rest. If you're online, you can do it through the next steps app. That's fine. Reach out. We'll follow up with you. Maybe this morning you're a believer. You know, Jesus, you've seen his power in your life. You've seen him work in your life. But you're in a storm right now. You just need to hold. Maybe you need somebody just to pray over you this morning. Man, we'd love to do that, too. I want to give you a few minutes this morning to let this just soak into our souls. Lord, move in this place.