A Different Foundation (Kirk Giles) | Different

Good morning, everyone. Take your Bibles.

Open up to the Gospel of Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 6. That's page 915.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

If you're using one of the Bibles in the seats around you,

if you don't have a Bible, please take one of those.

That's our gift to you. And then bring that home and use

that throughout the week. Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

And I want to begin reading this morning at verse 46.

Jesus is speaking and he says these words.

Why do you call me Lord? Lord, and don't do the things I

say? I will show you what someone is

like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them.

He's like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the

foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the river

crashed against that house and couldn't shake it because it was

well built. But the one who hears and does

not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a

foundation. The river crashed against it and

immediately it collapsed and the destruction of that house was

great. I think one of the most common

experiences in the human life is sitting in a classroom where

you're asking yourself, why am I here?

What is the point of sitting in this class right now?

For me, that class was chemistry.

I hated chemistry. I had no clue why chemistry

mattered in my life at all. Memorizing the periodic table

seemed completely pointless to me.

My apologies to all the chemist in the room, but that is just

where I landed. And I want you to know I

appreciate you, chemist, because you make the rest of our lives

better. But chemistry was pointless for

me. It reminds me of some Charlie

Brown movies and cartoons that many of us have seen.

When you are in the classroom and Charlie Brown hears his

teacher speaking, what does the teacher's voice sound like?

Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, right?

Well, we are in the final week of this section of the book of

Luke as Jesus teaches the sermon on the plane.

And I hope that nothing we have learned over the last number of

weeks would land you in a space of going well that was

pointless. Why did we ever go through any

of this teaching? Jesus has been teaching some

things that are very different than what most of us understand

how life is supposed to work. And I just want to remind you

quickly of a few of those things that Jesus has taught us as

we've journeyed through Luke chapter 6.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

Way back at the beginning, He taught us about power and what

the point is of us having power. That power is something to be

used to draw people in instead of pushing them out.

That power is to be used to heal and restore and help people to

be new. That success is not what you

think success is. That you can be poor and hungry

and store and sorrowful and still be blessed.

He taught us that life built on temporary pleasures is going to

leave you empty. That there's a danger when it

comes to money and being self satisfied in life.

He taught us that love looks different than the way we think

love looks. That love does good without

expecting anything in return, even if that person is your

enemy. And he also taught us that

there's a better way to view the people around you who annoy you

and frustrate you. That you are to see people

through the eyes of mercy and humility instead of judgment.

Then last week we were reminded and taught by Jesus that the

only way that your life in my life bears good fruit is if we

make sure that we also have a healthy route.

And the question in front of us today is whether or not anything

that Jesus has taught us in this chapter has made any real

difference in our lives. Is it changing us in any way or

is it just background noise? Amongst all the pieces of

information that you get week in and week out, you you get all

kinds of people speaking in your life and saying things that you

should do and you shouldn't do. And it's the things that Jesus

have been teaching us, only more noise and more information.

On top of that, all the things that Jesus is teaching us is not

because he's trying to lay more burden on your life of all the

things that you need to get right.

Jesus is not the teacher who is just dumping up a backing up a

dump truck of information for you to memorize and learn so

that you can pass some test or exam.

But the verses we just read a couple minutes ago tell us the

heart of Jesus, of why He has taught us all of these things.

That He loves you and He wants you to understand something.

The foundation of your life will determine how well your life

stands the test of time. If you were to travel to

Malaysia, you would see a set of towers known as the Petronas

Towers. We're going to put a picture up

on the screen. These were built in 1996 / a

period of three years. They stand about 450 meters in

height, about little under 1500 feet, so just a little bit

shorter than the CN Tower. The challenge is in building

these towers though. See they are located on some

incredibly unstable soil. So in order to build these

towers to to fix the problem of the unstable soil that they were

going to be built on, builders took almost one full year to

create the foundation for these buildings.

The foundation had to be dug deep, like real deep, 400 feet

deep foundation for these buildings and it uses over 100

concrete piles to spread the load.

It was the only way that they could deal with building these

buildings and create a solid foundation.

And when it comes to buildings, we all understand the importance

of having a solid foundation when it comes to our homes and

our workplaces and any other building that's around us.

If you've ever had a flood in your basement because of a

cracked foundation, you get why it's important to have a good

foundation on your house. But what about your life?

How often do you even think about the foundation that you're

building your life on? In the verses we read, Jesus

comes along and he tells the story of two people who have

built their lives on 2 very different foundations.

One foundation is on a rock and the other just builds into the

ground with no real foundation per SE.

And one of the things I love about Jesus is just how honest

he is about life. Jesus doesn't ever come to us

and say, hey, I promise you, life is always going to be

great. In both examples in Luke chapter

Luke 6 · chapter mention

6, Jesus says this. He says when a flood arose, when

a river crashed against the house, Jesus saying it's not if

the flood's going to rise up, it's not if the water's going to

come up against your house, it's when it's going to happen.

It's a guaranteed life will get hard sometimes.

You will have seasons and moments where you feel like the

whole world is crashing in on you.

It's the health diagnosis. It's the job loss, it's the

breakdown of a relationship, it's the mental health battles

that you face day in and day out.

It's the death of someone that you love or the realities of

just wondering, do I even have enough money to buy groceries

this week? On a bigger scale, it's when the

place that you live in is facing something like a pandemic, where

you're being persecuted because of your faith or because the

country you live in is at war. Life will get hard.

And many of you in this room, you know that right now you're

living it. You're, you're walking in some

deep, dark, difficult days in your life.

Some of you are facing things that might maybe just feel like

a minor problem. It's like a minor leak in the

basement of your house and some of you feel like a tsunami or a

hurricane has just shown up and has rocked your whole world, and

you're not even sure if you're going to make it.

And if you're not in that place today, don't get too excited

because at some point your life will get hard too.

It's one of the certainties that we will face in the heart of

Jesus for you is this. He doesn't want your life to get

wiped out. He wants you to be able to stand

the test of time, no matter what it is that life brings your way.

Because your life has incredible value and purpose in the eyes of

a holy God. But He wants you to pay

attention to the foundation that you're building your life on,

because the foundation that you're building it on is going

to determine how well you stand the test of time.

And then we learned this from Jesus.

What you do with Jesus is going to determine the foundation

you're building on. See, the difference between the

two men in these stories is really what they did with Jesus.

Every single one of us is building a foundation on our

life. We all are building our lives on

something. Every single one of us has some

type of foundation that we go to and trust in to keep us safe and

to give us a sense of success and security in life.

We build it on our education sometimes.

How many degrees can I earn? We build it on our careers and

our finances. How much money can I make?

How many dreams can I achieve in life?

We build it on other people. We build it on our kids.

Some of us are building our entire life on the sense of my

kids and who they are and what they're achieving and

accomplishing in life. Some of us are building it on

our families as the foundation of life or friendships.

But those people, they're the ones who keep me stable.

Sometimes. We build it on our health.

As long as I can stay healthy, I'm fine.

For a lot of us in this room, we build it on church and religion.

As long as church life seems good.

As long as religion seems good, as long as I can come and sing

the songs that I like to sing, then that's the foundation that

I build my life on. And then when nothing else seems

to be working, we build life on the foundation of ourselves.

I I can't trust anyone, so I just go and take control of my

own life and I'll do whatever I want and provide my own sense of

safety and strength. And the reality is every single

one of those foundations have some incredible limitations to

them. Whenever life gets really hard,

those foundations are going to show their weaknesses.

Just ask the students who spent 10s of thousands of dollars to

get a degree only to graduate and no longer have an

opportunity for a job in the field that they got trained in.

Ask them how stable the foundation education is.

When you love someone deeply and they're the foundation for your

life, what happens when they leave you?

What happens when they pass away?

If your kids are the foundation for your life, what happens when

your kids move out? You're left with no foundation.

The winds of life are going to blow your way.

And all of these foundations, they're going to get shaky and

they're going to shift and they're going to show how

untrustworthy they are. But then there's Jesus.

Listen to some of the ways the Bible describes Jesus.

In Revelation chapter 1, Jesus says this about himself.

Revelation 1 · chapter mention

He says I am the Alpha and the Omega.

I am the one who was and is and is to come.

Alpha and Omega. They are the first and last

Greek letters of the alphabet. And what Jesus is saying is I'm

eternal. I have always been.

I was never created. I was always been at the

beginning and I will be the one still standing in the end.

I have always been. He's claiming that he is all

powerful. Colossians chapter 1 says this

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

about Jesus. By him all things were created

and in him all things hold together.

The stars that you see at night, the sun in the sky, the moon in

the sky, the galaxies and the planets, the earth and the axis

that we rotate on, All of it, all of it created by the hand of

Jesus and all of it he holds in place.

Hebrews chapter one verse 3 says he upholds the universe just by

the word of his power. Hebrews 13 says he is the same

yesterday, today, and forever. And in John Chapter 11 Jesus

John 11 · chapter mention

said this. I am the resurrection and the

life. Whoever believes in me, though

he dies, yet shall he live. Everyone who believes in me

shall never die. That even if you make it through

your entire life without any storms or problems, death still

comes calling for every human being as the one final storm

that we all face. And what Jesus says is that if

you believe in him, not even death wins the final storm.

That's who Jesus is. There is nobody and nothing that

compares to Jesus. He is the type of foundation

that engineers could only dream of.

He'll never have a crack. He lasts forever.

He is strong enough to carry the weight of any of our lives

individually and all of our lives together collectively.

He is completely unique. There is nobody like him.

Why would you not want to build your life on that kind of a

foundation? Do do you want to build it on

something that at best has cracks in it and at worst is

going to result in you getting wiped out?

Or do you want to build it on a foundation that's going to make

sure your life is going to stay on the test of any storm?

You know, as a pastor, I get a front row seat to some of the

most gut wrenching, heartbreaking stories that you

can imagine. And one of the things that's

always amazed me are the people where it just seems like life

keeps piling on. Every time they turn around,

something else has happened and yet they're still standing.

I've seen this reality in so many of you in this room.

I know that in this room, so many of you have cried a million

tears. You have felt the weight of loss

and disappointment over and over again.

And yet you're still standing. So many times I've I've been at

a funeral and I've looked at a family who's in the depths of

grief and sorrow as they as they mourn the loss of someone they

love so deeply. And yes, somehow they are able

to lift their hands in praise and worship to Jesus.

Why? Because they have decided that

Jesus is the solid rock they will build their life on.

For those of you who right now you are going through some

really tough times, I want you to hear this.

If Jesus is your foundation, you are going to be all right.

You don't have to try and hold on to Him because He's the

foundation that's holding you in place.

And I know you may not feel like it right now, but He's got you.

He can carry the full weight of everything you're experiencing

and He's going to keep you standing on the other side of

the storm. I think the more important

question for us is how do we know if Jesus is really our

foundation for life? Well, from this passage there

are two questions we need to answer if Jesus is going to be

our foundation. The first one is this.

Do you believe that Jesus is Lord?

Do you believe that Jesus is Lord?

Way back in the first week of the series, we saw Jesus talking

to three groups of people in this entire sermon that we've

been studying the last number of weeks, There were the people who

couldn't stand him, who would have been enemies.

There were people who were curious about Jesus, who had not

made any commitments to him. There were people who were his

disciples, his his followers. And I know that in this room and

watching online today, there are many people who are skeptical

about Jesus. You are here just checking him

out, wanting to learn more about him and his ways.

And I want to say, welcome. We're glad you're here.

It's great, and what Jesus is ultimately calling and inviting

every person to do is to trust and believe that he is Lord.

Now, I recognize we don't use the language of Lord very often

in our culture today, so I want to help us understand what we

mean when we say, do we believe that Jesus is Lord?

All right, how many of you would confess in front of the whole

church today that you are a Downton Abbey fan?

All right, some of you men. Good for you.

I appreciate you. There is something I know we've

got some Downton Abbey fans. My wife is a Downton Abbey fan.

I have watched the movies as a sacrificial husband would do.

There are some people who are Downton Abbey fans.

There are some Harry Potter fans.

There's some Star Wars fans. Did you know that Downton Abbey,

Star Wars, and Harry Potter have one thing in common?

They all have at least one Lord in them.

But when Jesus is talking about being Lord, he's not talking

about Grantham or Darth Vader or Voldemort.

In the Bible, you will see the word Lord show up in two

different ways. When you are reading your Old

Testament, you'll quite often see the word Lord show up in all

caps. For those of you who are used to

using all caps when you're texting someone, it is not God

shouting at you when you're reading the Old Testament.

OK, when you see the word Lord show up in the Old Testament in

all caps, it is referring to God's personal name in the Old

Testament. Lord is the English translation

of Yahweh. When we get to the New Testament

and you see the word Lord, you will most often see it just with

a capital L. And when you see it in that way,

it means this. It means supreme Master who is

also good. What we're saying is when we say

Jesus is Lord, we are saying Jesus is above all things and

people. He is the final decision maker.

When you go to work or when you are in your family, a lot of

times a conversation will happen that says, well who is

ultimately the final decision maker?

When Pastor Derek and I were asked to be Co lead, people kept

saying to us, well but one of you has to make a final

decision. Who's the final decision maker?

It's a common question we ask. When we say Jesus is Lord, what

we are saying is he gets the final decision.

He's the one that gets the final say.

He is supreme in all things. When we say he is Lord, we're

saying I trust Jesus to be the foundation I build my entire

life on, that everything in my life will go through the filter

and decision making matrix of Jesus.

Whatever you decide is your final and full authority in life

is going to be your foundation. It's who or what you trust the

most to build your life on. And in Romans chapter 10, verse

Romans 10:9

9, we are told this if you confess with your mouth that

Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him

from the dead, you will be saved.

That's the promise. Anyone can come and have Jesus

as the foundation of their life. You might feel like you've made

a mess out of your life or life has made a mess out of you, but

it is not too late for you to believe that Jesus is Lord and

build a new foundation to your life.

But there's a second question that also needs to be answered

and it's this. Do you live like Jesus is Lord?

One of the great tragedies in this room right now is this.

Some of us think we have built our lives on Jesus as our

foundation, but you haven't. Look what Jesus says in verse

46. He says why do you call me Lord,

Lord, and do not do the things that I say?

And then in verse 47 he says it's only the people who hears

the words of Jesus and does them.

Those are the ones who are building their life on the

foundation of Jesus. That should stop you dead in

your tracks. See building your life on the

foundation of Jesus requires 2 things.

Hear what he says and do what he says.

I, I hear people all the time say, oh I want to go deeper with

Jesus. I want to go deeper in my

spiritual life. And 99% of the time when someone

says I want to go deeper, here's what they mean.

Give me more information. Help me to understand deeper

theology than what I already understand.

But what Jesus is teaching us here is that digging deeply

comes with a combination of both understanding His teaching and

living your life in obedience to Him as Lord of your life.

There, there are some of us who come to church every Sunday and

you sing at the top of your lungs in church.

You listen to every sermon and you take notes.

Maybe you've attended Bible studies for years.

You can even explain the hidden meaning of a whole bunch of

verses in the Bible, and you can understand all kinds of

theology. And still, when you are

operating and living outside of this little box where you kind

of do your spiritual life, when you're living in the rest of

your life in this other box, you do what you want, how you want,

when you want. You're fine with Jesus as Lord

as long as it's inside this space where it feels like it's

OK to be spiritual. When was the last time something

changed in your life because of something you read in the Bible?

And I, I know many of you in this room, you are brand new

believers and you're like Kirk, my whole life is changing

because of stuff I've read in the Bible.

But some of you, you've been Christians your entire life and

you don't remember the last time that anything in your life

changed because of something you read in the Bible.

When was the last time something changed in your life because of

something you heard in a sermon? I honestly, what happens here on

Sunday is not the main event. The main event is people like

you and me living like Jesus is Lord every single day of our

life. When we go home and we're loving

our spouses, when we're loving and raising our kids, when we

are at work and at school and in our neighborhoods throughout the

week, living like Jesus is Lord. That's the main event.

Because you know what happens when Christians live like Jesus

is Lord, the rest of the world goes.

What is wrong with those people? They are unlike anybody else on

the planet. What makes them different and

what makes us different is Jesus.

Over the last six weeks, Jesus has shown us over and over again

about how His way is different. Has anything in the last six

weeks changed anything in your life or has it all just been wah

wah wah wah wah wah wah wah when you take just Luke chapter 6

Luke 6 · chapter mention

alone? You could spend the rest of this

year learning how to live the way of Jesus just from Luke

Luke 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6. There are so many things where

so many of us would have things in our life done differently if

we followed everything Jesus teaches in Luke 6.

When Jesus teaches us he wants to not, He wants to impact every

part of who you are as a person. He, he wants to influence and

shape the way that you behave. I think back to some of the

things we learned in Luke 6. When people slander you or make

your life difficult because you're a Christian.

When you're at work, someone makes life difficult for you

because you're a Christian. Do you get cranky and protest

and get all upset? Or do you rejoice and dance

around like Jesus taught us to in Luke 6?

That's a change of behavior. Do you deal with the sin in your

own life before you pay attention to the sin in someone

else's life? Are are you living for money, or

do you see money as a gift to be generous to others?

Jesus is definitely going to call you to change the way you

behave, but he's also going to change the way you think too.

To live as Jesus, as Lord, is going to change the way you

think about things. Do you see yourself as blessed

no matter what you're going through?

Do you think of the people who hurt you and annoy you as

deserving mercy and forgiveness? Or do you think about how you

just want to get even with them and not only is it going to

change the way you behave and the way you think, He's

ultimately always. When Jesus is Lord, it means

stuff needs to happen in your heart and changing your heart.

Last week, Pastor Derek gave an amazing message on how the only

way to create good fruit in your life is to have healthy roots.

You know how you have healthy roots?

Allow Jesus to be Lord of your affections in your heart.

Allow Jesus to be Lord of the things that motivate you in

life. When when you don't want to

forgive someone, you know what's going on.

There's a battle in your heart. Who is Lord of your affections

and motivations in your life? Am I willing to allow Jesus to

be Lord and trust Him to deal with this whole situation, to

heal what's going on in my own heart and heal whatever needs to

be dealt with, and deal with whatever needs to be dealt with

with this person? Or do I need to take matters

into my own hands? Is Jesus really Lord of your

life or do you just know the right Christian words to say to

get by in a church setting? I say this with incredible love

for you as a church family. Some of us need to stop

listening to a different sermon or podcast every single day of

the week and start putting more energy and putting into practice

the things Jesus has already told us to do.

Some of us have gone to so many Bible studies in our life, but

you are no longer putting into practice anything that you're

learning and it needs to stop if you want Jesus to be Lord.

Some of you are really struggling in some areas of life

and one of the reasons is because you can come here and

saying Christ is my firm foundation, but in reality,

you're doing life your own way in those areas.

Almost every single situation when I'm interacting with

people, when I look at my own life, when I look at things that

are going wrong, so many times I can just look in the mirror and

go, what am I doing that's different than what Jesus would

want me to do? And you would find so many

better solutions for your life if you just submitted to Jesus

as Lord. When you surrender to Jesus as

Lord of your life, some of you are naturally more aggressive

people. You want to conquer and win at

everything in life. When you surrender to Jesus as

Lord, he's going to tame you in some areas of your life.

Some of us are more passive and we just kind of like, well,

whatever it is what it is, we'll just let life pass us by.

When you surrender to Jesus Lord, he's going to stretch you

and bring you into doing some things that are incredibly

uncomfortable. I have a friend in our church

who builds homes. I won't say his name because he

won't be happy with me talking about him in a sermon, but Ken

Summers really good at what he does.

And I, I want you to imagine that I I went to Ken and I asked

him to teach me how to build my own house.

And so Ken and I sit down. He teaches me everything I need

to know about how to build my own house.

He gives me all this information.

Now imagine after Ken gives me all this information about how

to build my own house. I said, hey, thanks Ken.

I I really appreciate everything you've done for me and invested

in my life. I want you to know I've also

watched some YouTube videos and I've got a hammer and some

nails. So don't worry about it.

I've got this spiritual information without obedience.

It's like having an expert tell you how to build a home and then

you acting like you know better than the expert and you're still

going to do it your own way. It doesn't make sense.

So let me ask you, does Jesus really get the final say in your

life? Maybe I'll let Jesus ask you why

do you call him Lord Lord, but you don't do the things he says.

Living like Jesus is Lord is, is not going to be a one time

decision in your life. You're not going to sit here

today and go, OK, today's the day I'm going to let Jesus be

Lord of my life. It is an everyday, every moment

decision that you make to say I am going to surrender to Jesus

as Lord. It's a daily dying to yourself

until the very last breath you take on this earth.

And the good news is, you'll never do it perfectly.

In fact, He doesn't even expect that you're going to do it

perfectly because He was perfect for you.

That's the truth of the cross that we celebrated and reflected

on this morning during communion, that Jesus was

perfect for us. We don't have to try and just

measure up and be perfect ourselves.

What Jesus is calling for here is a posture of life that says

yes to him. A posture of life that says I'm

willing to be corrected, I'm willing to be changed.

I'm willing to become more like Jesus.

And the great news of God's grace is that every time you

make a mistake, you call out to him and he's going to pick you

back up and say, here, let's go, let's keep going.

Let's keep moving ahead and saying yes and living with him

as Lord of our life until the very last breath you take on

this earth. You are building your life on

something. The question is, which

foundation do you want to build your life on?

The one that's going to hold you steady or the one that's

ultimately going to crumble? I want to ask you to close your

eyes, please. The good news today is that none

of us have taken our last breath in life yet, so it's not too

late to start building on the foundation of Jesus.

You might be here today and you have never placed your faith in

Jesus before and I want to invite you and say to you, today

is the day where you can surrender to Jesus as Lord of

your life. Trust in him as your Saviour.

Begin a new chapter of building a new home on the foundation of

Jesus. You just call out to him in your

heart and say, God, I have sinned against you.

I have tried to build on a different foundation, and today

I surrender to Jesus because I want him to be the foundation of

my life. Some of you, you are already

believers, but you know, as I've been talking this morning, you

know, in your heart of hearts, there are some parts in your

life right now where you are building that part of your life

on a different foundation than Jesus, where you've decided that

you're Lord of that part of that, that part of your life.

That's you. Today I'm just going to invite

you. We're just going to take a pause

here for a moment of silence, and I'm going to invite you to

confess that to God, to ask Him to forgive you and to ask for

His help to surrender to Jesus as Lord so you can know that you

are building your life on the foundation of Jesus.

Call out to Him. Father, thank you for your love

for us, that You love us so much that you care enough about our

lives being able to stand the test of time.

Lord, forgive us for the places in our life where we have failed

to surrender to Jesus as our foundation.

God, thank you for your grace that comes and meets us in these

moments that says you are faithful and just to forgive us

our sins if we just simply come and confess it to you.

Thank you for the power of Your Holy Spirit that is here to

convict us, correct us, but then also strengthen and empower us

to live like Jesus is Lord. God, help us.

Help us to live in the glorious firm foundation of Jesus.

Help us to be a people that don't just proclaim He is Lord,

but live like He is Lord. Pray this in your mighty and

powerful name. Amen.

Amen. Stand and worship Jesus in

response.