God's Word: From Our Ears To Our Feet - Luke 6:46 49
Maybe
it has happened with one of your children.
It’s a Saturday morning. You’ve
been working hard trying to take care of all the stuff that needs to be done
around the house. You’ve fixed breakfast
and then cleaned up the kitchen. You’ve
cleaned bathrooms. You’ve gotten the
laundry washed, dried, and folded. You
notice your teenager stretched out on the couch, watching television and dozing
on and off.
“Son,
please go put away all your clothes now.
Your grandparents are coming over in a little while.”
You
get some grumbled response that you take as an affirmation, and head back to
your list of chores.
Thirty
minutes later you walk by and neither the pile of clothes nor the teenager have
moved. You want to shout (and maybe you
do), “Did you hear what I said about your clothes?”
Just
to be fair, you may have a great teenager in your house. It may be that older child in your house that
just makes you want to pull out your hair.
“Honey,
the trash can in the kitchen is full.
Can you please take it out?”
“Mmm-hmmm…”
An
hour later you notice that the television has changed from the Duke Basketball
game to the Broncos game, meaning he’s still alive, the channel didn’t change
by itself. You look in the kitchen where
the trash seems to have grown by a discarded pizza box.
With
that tone of voice that you alone possess, “Honey, did you hear what I said
about the trash?”
Many
of us jokingly call it “selective hearing”?
Pretty much indicating that we hear and respond to what we want to and
simply ignore the rest, often claiming to not have heard the person asking us
to do something. The reality of it is,
we’ve heard it all, but it has gone in one ear and out the other, without ever
putting our feet, hands, or any other aspect of our bodies and lives into
action.
Last
week we dove into a series on God’s Word by realizing that God’s Word is there
to show us the way. When we life makes
us feel like we are walking into a dark room, when we do not know what the
future holds, when we are faced with difficult decisions, or when circumstances
in this world rearrange the furniture and turns out the light in our
well-ordered rooms, God’s Word is here to be a lamp to our feet and a light to
our path. We learn to let God’s Word,
written and in the flesh of Christ, direct our way through our lives.
It is
here that we that we might find Jesus saying to us, “Did you hear what I said?”
What
do I mean?
We
find today’s reading at the conclusion of what many call the “Sermon on the
Plain,” Luke’s accounting of Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount.” As Jesus concludes his teaching, He confronts
those who have been listening to the teachings:
“Why
do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I tell you?”
In
other words, Jesus is saying, “Did you hear what I said? You keep calling me Lord, but your actions
are not reflecting what you are saying.”
Jesus is claiming that there has been a disconnect. There is a claim by the followers of Jesus
that they have chosen to follow him, that they have pledged their loyalty and
fidelity to him, they have given themselves to him…they are calling him
Lord. Jesus is confronting those who
have chosen to follow him and is accusing of failing to allow His words to
light and direct their paths. It seems
as if they have heard and seen God’s Word in Christ and have decided to live
the way that they want to live rather than how Christ has directed them. In other words, what has entered their ears
has failed to move their feet (or any other part of them.)
What
does this mean to us?
If we
have never given our lives over to Christ, then it does not mean a whole
lot. Having not committed to Christ, we
are free to live as we want without any problem of contradiction. However, if we have surrendered our lives to God,
realizing that we are sinners in need of a Savior and that Jesus is the only
One who can save us, having done for us, what we could not do for ourselves,
then it means a great deal, actually it means everything. If we have confessed Jesus Christ as our
Savior and our Lord, then Jesus’ words are not only to those who stood around
Him that day, but to each of us as well.
To call someone “Lord” is to have agreed to give them authority over
us…it is offering our allegiance to the one we have claimed as Lord. To consider Jesus as our “Lord,” means that
we have given our lives to Him, to live as He instructs us to live.
However,
just as Jesus looked at those gathered around Him, He looks at each of us, “Why
do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ did you hear what I told you? If you have heard
me, why haven’t you put your feet into action doing what you have heard me tell
you?”
We
fail to live with Jesus as Lord all the time…and it often begins with
acknowledging that we have heard the words of Christ, and think we have an
exception that He did not offer:
“I
know that Jesus said not to worry…BUT I can’t help it.”
“I
know that Jesus said to offer forgiveness to those who have wronged me…BUT do
you know what she did to me.”
“I
know that Jesus called us to rest and observe the Sabbath…BUT I would lose
money if I closed my business for a day.”
“I
know that Jesus said to love my enemy and do good to those who persecute me…BUT
I have to live in the real world…I’m not going to have anyone walk all over
me.”
“I
know that Jesus called us not to judge someone else…BUT their sin is far worse
than any sin that I’ve committed.”
“I
know that Jesus tells us to be willing to serve one another in love…BUT I might
get some disease if I work with those seeking to escape the control of drugs
and sex.”
“I
know that we should wait to have sex until we are married…BUT I needed to prove
to my boyfriend that I love him, besides, it just feels so good.”
“I
know…BUT…I know…BUT…I know…BUT…” On and
on and on are the ways that we say that we have heard the words of Jesus, but
have failed are determined not to live out the words of Jesus or other parts of
God’s Word.”
So
why should we heed the words of Christ and put them into action?
Am I
offering up a “works righteousness” kind of living suggesting that we have to
do what is right to earn God’s favor and obtain salvation? By no means!!! There is nothing that we can do to earn God’s
favor. We have all fallen short, we have
all sinned, and there is nothing we can do to make ourselves right with God, no
matter how hard we try, we can never make restitution to God for the sin we
have committed. Christ and Christ alone is
able to bring us forgiveness for our sin and offer us salvation. Our salvation is a pure gift from God…it is
grace that cleanses us and declares us to be right before God…grace upon grace.
Are
we supposed to follow the Words of Christ and the guidance of God’s Word and
Law simply because Jesus said so, or because God tells us to? Has God just presented us with a list of do’s
and don’t’s to be followed just because God wants to exert His authority over
us? No!
God is not some Killjoy who offers rules just for the sake of showing us
who’s boss.
Jesus
says, “I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words,
and acts on them. That one is like a man
building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood
arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it
had been well built. But the one who
hears and does not act is like a man who builds a house on the ground without a
foundation. When the river burst against
it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.”
Jesus
offers to us that it is not because “God said so” and not to “earn God’s favor
or forgiveness,” but it is for our own good that we are called to heed and
follow God’s Words to us through Christ and the Scriptures. God’s Word is not simply an attempt to get us
to jump through hoops God has set up for us, but an attempt to give us a life
full of joy and fulfillment.
Isaiah
says, “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord
your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you
should go.”[i]
Think
of the times where we have done what we were determined to do…those “I
know…BUT’s” and how they turned out.
Things might have been good for a while, but in the end: the food we overindulged in, the alcohol we
abused, the tobacco and drugs we used, left our bodies ravaged and diseased;
the sex we freely gave, left us in uncommitted empty, easy to walk away from
relationships; the anger we were determined to hold on ate us up emotionally
and, maybe, physically; the violence we were determined to respond to with more
violence only caused it to continue to escalate; the lives we built ignoring
God’s Word, collapsed upon us.
It is
less like a parent or wife saying put away your clothes or take out the trash,
but more like a loving parent warning a young child, do not touch the stove. It is not an arbitrary rule or command, it is
an attempt to keep and protect us from hurting ourselves.
This
doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen to us. Jesus’ words make it clear that storms will
come…but having God’s Words as our foundation, when those storms come…when
illness and loss hit our lives; when our relationships are attacked; when
disaster hits; the only immovable foundation, the only eternal surety in our
existence; God’s Word which stands forever, holds us firm, keeps us strong, allows
us to weather the storms that we will face, illuminates the dark rooms that we
have to enter, and bless us in the process.
We
let God’s Word move from our ears to our feet not because it helps God or
because God needs anything at all…but because we need a firm foundation to
support us in this fragile life we live.
In
the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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