Lordship of Christ, or, How to Withhold the Storm

Lordship of Christ, or,

How to Withhold the Storm

(Romans 10:5-13; Luke 6:46-49)

10:30 am,  Sunday, June 9, 2013, Windsor UBC, J G White

The rain came down and the floods came up,

And the house on the rock stood firm!

Been thinking about flooding this past week.  For a few reasons. Had a crack in our basement wall sealed.  Flooding in Europe is terrible and incredible now.

Do you remember this?  July 1996 flooding in Saguenay, PQ.  

Here is The Little White House; it survived.  Now it is a museum and a symbol of standing firm against the flood.

Jesus sums up his teaching (Luke 6) with the paragraph Claire just read.  “Don’t call me “Lord, Lord” if you won’t do as I say.”  The one who listens to Jesus’ teaching and does it is like a wise builder, whose house will withstand the flood.  I do like the spin Eugene Peterson puts on Jesus conclusion.  

“Why are you so polite with me, always saying ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘That’s right, sir,’ but never doing a thing I tell you? These words I speak to you are not mere additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundation words, words to build a life on.

“If you work the words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who dug deep and laid the foundation of his house on bedrock. When the river burst its banks and crashed against the house, nothing could shake it; it was built to last.

Last week we worshipped by singing

On Christ the solid rock I stand,

All other ground is sinking sand.

Many gospels hymns weave this teaching in.

Rock of Ages

O Safe to the Rock that is Higher than I

He Hideth My Soul in the Cleft of the Rock

A Shelter in the Time of Storm

So, to be with Jesus, to be saved, is not simply to believe in Jesus.  Or even to believe what he taught.  Don’t just have the words; do the words.  Don’t just have the Rock; build on the Rock.  Cling to the rock, as the victorian images suggest.

The other day downshore I saw a little home, a mobile home.  In the yard was a poured concrete foundation.  Empty, nothing on it.  To have the words of Jesus, the face of Jesus on your wall, but not follow, obey, have Him as Lord of life, is like having a foundation your house is not even using.

Build life on the teachings of Jesus.

Bill Hybels tells of once giving, and I quote, a six-week sermon series about the cost of following Christ, including a no-holds-barred teaching about the requirements of discipleship.  I wanted the whole congregation to understand what “full commitment to Jesus Christ” really meant.  It was during this time that I coined the expression: “Ninety-five percent commitment to Christ is 5 percent short.”  (When Leadership and Discipleship Collide, p. 33)

How do we get from 95 to 100%.  Or, for me, from, say, 50% to 55%, and upward?  

ONE.  Act on what you know from Jesus, what you already know.  This takes time.  Progress is ongoing.

Heard of Red Letter Christians?  Tony Campolo... remember him?  “God’s Kingdom is a Party”  Shane Claiborne.  In “Red Letter Revolution” Shane speaks of becoming honest Christians, honest about still being imperfect sinners... (pp. 28-29, re: Rich Mullins (“Awesome God”)

Act on what you know from Jesus.

One day, the finale will come.  We will be complete.

Theme verse of the whole book of Revelation?  11:15.  The Kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.  

TWO.  Rely on God’s promises now, in normal moments, and thus be better prepared to rely on Him in the crisis, or bigger challenges and opportunities.  Act on God’s promises.  Pray with God’s promises.

As Richard Foster taught about prayer.  How can you jump to praying for healing from cancer if you have not learned to pray when facing the common cold?  There’s no cure for it either!

Or overcoming lying.  Take small steps, steps you can see.  

Jesus as Lord of the little things in life helps get you to Him as Lord over the bigger bits.  

THREE.  Build together, not alone.  

Just consider all the wisdom Christ offers in His sermons and parables. All things about life TOGETHER.  Love your enemies.  Give to everyone who begs from you.  Do not judge.  Take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.  

These words He still speaks to us, in love.  These lessons will keep us amid the challenges of our lives.  These paths can be trusted.

Our LORD, Jesus, is, of course, unlike other lords, masters, kings, prime ministers, mayors, and so forth.  

Nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Soren Kiekegaard wrote, “The first form of rulers in the world were the tyrants, the last will be the martyrs.  Between a tyrant and a martyr there is of course an enormous difference, although they both have one thing in common: the power to compel.  The tyrant, himself ambitious to dominate, compels people through his power; the martyr, himself unconditionally obedient to God, compels others through his suffering.  The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.”  

The storms of life can be faced when we are building our lives upon Christ.  This is a matter of doing what he said, not simply believing what He said.  But this must be rooted in our faith in Jesus.  We must trust Him, and trust ourselves to Him, in order to build life on Him.  

So I want to close with a few of  those amazing phrases from Romans 10 that we heard half and hour ago.  And perhaps some of these words will call you to a new step of faith today.  Perhaps some turn of phrase you will take with you, because it is just what your neighbour, your family member, your co-worker needs to know.  

Let’s hear them again for the first time, from Peterson’s The Message version of the Bible. (Rom. 10:5-13)

The word that saves is right here,

as near as the tongue in your mouth,

as close as the heart in your chest.

It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”

Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”