In Contact with Bedrock • Luke 6:36-49

56:08 Teaching begins

Notes

Every sermon has to have a purpose, which is to affect you so that you do what the pastor wants you to do. There has to be a point, like a punchline. The guy is talking; what does he want you to do?

The point of Jesus preaching this sermon on the plain is, He wants His disciples to base their lives fully upon Him. He wants them to be fully in contact with Him.

You don’t build a stairway to heaven. You let Jesus excavate you. He will dig out every earthly thing that lies between Him and you.

Only when your life is in contact with Jesus can you be delivered from the judgment to come.

I’m reading in Luke 6 beginning with verse 36.

1. A true disciple is a true son of God.

A. In this sermon this is the only place where Jesus mentions God, and the context is family. He is your Father, you are His son.

1. You’ll hear people say all religions say the same thing. They most certainly do not.

2. Islam says that God is not a son, God does not have a son.

3. That contradicts the Bible, which says God only has sons. Before God is Creator He is the Father. Every family in heaven and on earth derives its name from Him. The Father is summing up all things in Christ. Those who refuse to be born again as His son will not survive the judgment.

B. Sons are to reflect the character of their Father and that means being merciful because the Father is merciful.

1. He does not want any to perish but for all to come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants to save rather than judge. Judgment is His strange, foreign work.

2. He is merciful now. He will judge the entire heaven and earth, but He delights in unchanging lovingkindness right now. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life. God is good to sinners, right now. This is the favourable year of the Lord, right now. That’s God’s message.

3. You are to be a true disciple of Jesus and practice forgiveness.

C. The only way you can afford this is to be in contact with God Himself. You received mercy from Him because you were clueless and He had mercy on you. Now you know how to give mercy to others who are equally as clueless as you were. You received mercy, now give mercy.

D. You are going to be rewarded in the judgment for how you depended on God. The principle is, he who has been forgiven much, loves much. He who has been forgiven little, loves little.

1. Do you depend a little bit, but don’t expect much from God? Then you can’t afford much mercy, so you give very little mercy.

2. Do you depend greatly on God’s mercy towards you? Then you know how fabulous mercy feels, and you give mercy greatly.

3. Are you a fabulous person? Not at all, you depend on God and you receive and you give mercy. God receives the proper credit for His goodness, He alone is glorified.

E. This is why you meditate in the Bible. You need to believe what God says in your heart. A head knowledge of mercy doesn’t affect your heart. When you meditate, God writes His word on your heart with His finger, and it affects you.

2. A true disciple will be humble before God. He’s the authority, not you.

A. A blind leader has personal problems he needs to deal with first before he leads anybody else.

1. You’re blind. You have no light. Every time you move you’re in harm’s way. You can’t see dangers and avoid them.

2. The proper priority is for you first to get sight, and get light, before you lead anybody. Otherwise you are responsible for destroying yourself and everyone who follows you. You multiply your guilt.

B. A blind leader is arrogant.

1. He believes he is better than he really is. I am way better at being blind than you, so you should follow me as your authority.

2. Don’t tell me I need sight. It’s impossible for anyone’s eyes to be healed. What is light, anyway? I’ve never seen light. I’m an authority.

C. Jesus here says, I am the light; I am the authority.

1. I am training you to be like Me. The closer you get to Me the better.

2. You are always going to be humble because I will always remain the authority and you have a lot to learn about Me.

3. That being the case, a true disciple depends on Jesus to not be superficial, but to deal deeply and thoroughly with him.

A. In effect, Jesus says, you are not going to fix anybody because you are worse than they are.

1. You can see that a person has a problem. It irritates you. You say, you know, if you just did this and this, you wouldn’t have a problem. Easy-peasy. And you wouldn’t annoy me.

2. That person does have a problem. But it is very small in comparison with your problem. You feel that person needs your approval. You think that person needs to please you. You think you know what will fix that person, easy-peasy.

3. You are a thousand times more messed up than that other person because you are acting like you were God. You are critical, you have no mercy, you have no power to raise that person from the dead. You can’t fix yourself. You are right in your own eyes. Proverbs 26:12 Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

B. The question is not what you would do to fix that person. Most times we would solve the problem by saying, “Just quit bugging me!” That’s a great solution, you wise and important person.

C. What would God do? Do you know what God wants in that person’s life?

1. His ways are higher than yours like the heavens are high above the earth. This is why you need to learn some astronomy. Even with the James Webb telescope, the most powerful, complex telescope ever, they have found no end to the universe. They have found structures consisting of galaxy clusters and according to a nice big bang there should only be a random distribution of space junk. How can an explosion result in pattern and structure? God even has purpose woven in the fabric of the universe! God’s ways are infinitely higher than your ways.

2. Job suffered the loss of all his possessions and all his family. His friends tell him this is because of your secret sin; get right with God and all will be well again. Easy-peasy.

3. Job says, I didn’t do anything wrong, you miserable comforters.

4. Job 38:2-3 God appears and says, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me!” And after a while Job says, sorry, Lord I think I’m done now”, and God says, “Well, I’m not done yet.” When God is finished Job says, “I had no idea what I was doing. I repent in dust and ashes.”

5. The friends have no clue what God is doing in Job’s life. They just want to fix him. God wants him to be transformed into the image of Christ.

6. Do you know how God wants to work in that person’s life? No. But you do wish that person wouldn’t annoy you so much.

D. Jesus says, you hypocrite. You can’t fix your own life but you can fix someone else’s life.

E. What you really need is to let Jesus deal fully and deeply with you as you listen to Him and obey Him. It’s you and Jesus and nobody else. You are alone with Jesus. He deals with you and accepts responsibility for you.  You listen and obey, and Jesus will dig out everything that stands between you and Him.

F. He uses the metaphor of digging out dirt, going down to bedrock.

1. The dirt is earthly, compacted, but it’s nothing to build on because it’s not stable. It can’t bear your weight. It’s your own righteousness. You think you’re an okay guy and then your righteousness gets shaken by God and you fall to bits. God shook Job and He shook David in Psalm 39. David thought the problem was with the wicked and he was so angry with them, and then God shook him and he realised, I’m wicked! Psalms 39:11 With reproofs You chasten a man for iniquity; You consume as a moth what is precious to him; surely every man is a mere breath. Turn Your gaze away from me, that I may smile again before I depart and am no more.

2. The bedrock is not a manmade foundation of brick or stone or rebar-reinforced concrete. What is built can be torn down. Bedrock is a creation of God, and it’s not easily destroyed or torn down. Bedrock is the righteousness of Jesus in dying for your sins and rising from the dead. That is from God and is eternal.

3. Jesus is going to dig deep. He will shake you, and show you what you really trust in, and remove everything that is earthly and removable, so that what remains is righteousness made by God, permanent and eternal.

G. If God shook Job and David, He will surely shake you, but that’s your salvation. He is making you humble, like Christ. You will stand in the judgment because He is making you pleasing to Him.

4. If you don’t let Jesus work deeply in you, you won’t stand in the judgment.

A. James 2:12-13 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

B. If you remain the authority in your life and the standard by which you judge those around you, you are in for a rude shock. You trust in weak things that are insufficient in the judgment of God. It won’t matter that you have built yourself a great house filled with all kinds of things. You have no deep connection with God, your life doesn’t rest upon Him. You will lose all that you have and your own soul.

C. The bedrock is down there somewhere but you have no connection to it. You are separated from God and trust in earthly things which are of no value in the judgment. You are not covered in the righteousness of Christ. You are naked before God.

5. So what?

A. A true disciple of Jesus thinks about the judgment to come and prepares for it. Are you in contact with the bedrock of God?

B. You submit to Jesus digging out your life so that you trust in His righteousness alone. You hear Him and you obey Him. You say, Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way (Psalm 139:23-24).

C. Especially forgive everybody. They don’t know what they’re doing and it will protect your heart. God will make it up to you in the judgment, pressed down, shaken together, running over.

D. Glory in getting dug up because that’s how the Father treats His sons. He disciplines them to share His holiness. Without holiness no one will see the Lord.

E. You will have peace and stability that will bring you safely through judgment, because you are in contact with the bedrock of God.

Let’s pray.