Jesus concludes His sermon with personal application and a familiar parable of two men building separate houses on different foundations. Jesus challenges his disciples to examine whether their discipleship was genuine or counterfeit. He asks pointedly, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

Jesus is warning people who are respectful of Him, people who will listen to Him, but who fail to follow His words. Jesus is saying that those and those only who practically submit to His Lordship in life, those are His disciples. He's saying that, “It's not enough to hear My sayings and understand them. It's not enough to hear My commands and remember them. It's not enough to hear My doctrine and talk about it or repeat it or admire it or discuss it or debate it or even defend it. No, you must hear My words,” Jesus says, “and do them. And the one who hears My words and does them is My disciple. He is built on a foundation that will not be moved. And the one who hears My words and does not do them, is not My disciple, and has built the house of his life on no foundation at all. And when the storms and trials of this life come, that house will fall with a mighty crash.”

A true disciple stands when the storms of life come. He stands when sickness and sin and suffering and disappointment and accidents and mistreatment's and illness and so on come his way. He stands because he really is grounded on Christ. He truly is trusting in Christ alone for justification and for sanctification.

What can we do to make sure that our house is built on the rock of obedience to Christ, not on the sand? Jesus mentions three things (6:47): Come to Him, hear His words, and act on them.

First, you must come to Jesus. This implies a personal, one-to-one relationship between Jesus and you. In the parallel passage in Matthew, Jesus says to the hypocrites who had done all their impressive works in His name, “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23). Do you know Jesus and does Jesus know you? Christianity is not a system of rules where you decide you will start working on the list. It is fundamentally a personal relationship with the risen, living Savior. Your sins have separated you from Him. But He shed His blood to reconcile to God every sinner who will stop trusting in himself and his own good deeds and who will trust in Jesus’ blood as the only satisfaction for sin.

Second, you must hear Jesus’ words. This implies growing in your knowledge and understanding of His teaching as revealed in the Bible. If you are not feeding daily on God’s Word, learning from it how He wants you to live, you are living according to the desires of the flesh. You are being squeezed into the world’s mold. The teaching of the Bible centers on two main subjects: how to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul; and, how to love your neighbor as you do in fact love yourself. In other words, the Bible shows us how to relate properly to God and to others. As you read and study your Bible, your aim should not be simply to fill your head with knowledge, although proper knowledge is essential. The bottom line for biblical knowledge is that you will please God by loving Him and loving others as He commands.

Third, Jesus says that you must act upon His words. This implies soul-searching obedience, down to our very thoughts, motives, and attitudes. It means continually examining ourselves in light of Scripture. When you read a psalm that says, “Praise the Lord and sing for joy,” you ask yourself, “Is my mind filled with praise to God and joy in Him, or am I marked by grumbling and complaining?” You apply Scripture to your life. The bottom line of our time in His Word should be, “How then should I live?”

The forecast is that there is a 100 percent chance of a flood hitting your life in the near future. In light of that forecast, now is the time to check your foundation. If you are living in daily obedience to Jesus on the heart level, your house will stand. If you call Him “Lord” but you are living for self, you had better start digging!

Discussion Questions

1. How would you answer a professing Christian who said, “I’ve accepted Jesus as my Savior, but not as my Lord”?

2. How does “lordship salvation” differ from works salvation? Is there a danger of crossing that crucial line?

3. You are witnessing to a guy who is living with his girlfriend. Must he give up his immorality in order to be saved? If so, is this works salvation?

4. Why must all obedience begin on the heart (or thought) level? Does this mean that we should not obey outwardly if our heart is not in it? How can we become obedient from the heart?