Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm20090304.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Luke: Jesus, The Son Of Man For All Mankind
Part XXI: Christ's Identity As The World's Savior By His Extreme Confidence In His Teachings
(Luke 6:46-49)
  1. Introduction
    1. If Jesus Christ is God's true Savior of the world, then He should have revealed a complete confidence in His teachings as those representative of the Creator God's TRUE worldwide Savior.
    2. Such confidence was evident in Jesus' closing parable of His "sermon on the mount" in Luke 6:46-49:
  2. Christ's Identity As The World's Savior By His Extreme Confidence In His Teachings, Luke 6:46-49.
    1. The world's religions focus on how one builds his spiritual life by his own works or merit. Thus, many folk view themselves as spiritually succeeding or failing as a matter of GRADUAL degree based on the widely varying DEGREES of their human merits or works.
    2. Yet, Jesus dramatically countered this idea of DEGREES relative to spiritual welfare in Luke 6:46-49: He revealed it was NOT how one built his life by varying degrees of human merit that set his welfare, but whether he put CONFIDENCE outside of his sinful self's merit and UPON CHRIST in GRACE that established his entire welfare, and that the DIFFERENCE in EFFECT was EXTREME:
      1. Jesus Christ taught that His disciples needed to do more than just call him, "Lord, Lord", but actually do what He had taught them to do to be His true disciples, Luke 6:46.
      2. Specifically Christ said that one who came to Him, who then heard His sayings and also applied them in obedience were those who would be blessed, Luke 6:47.
      3. Conversely those who had come to Him and heard His teaching, but had not actually applied His words, would experience enormous disaster, and He illustrated this fact in his Luke 6:48-49 parable:
        1. If a person came to Jesus, if he also heard Jesus' words and then obeyed Him, he would greatly succeed in the construction of his spiritual life, Luke 6:47-48: (1) he would be like a man who had dug down in the earth until he arrived at the Rock, Christ Himself, and upon Him and His Word had constructed his spiritual life, Luke 6:48a. (2) Regardless what trials then challenged his life, they would prove no match for that man's spiritual security and stability, for the fact that his trust and obedience was in the Savior and His truths left Christ protecting him, Lk. 6:48b,c. (Psalm 1:1-6)
        2. However, IN VAST CONTRAST, if a person came to Jesus and heard His words, but did not apply them, he would utterly fail in the construction of his spiritual life, Luke 6:47, 49: (1) such a man would be like one who had built his foundation on the earth instead of the rock, Luke 6:47, 49a. (2) Then, when the trials of spiritual instability tested him, he would catastrophically fail. Thus, he would have had no spiritual security, and thus suffer complete loss!
      4. Now, in view of the fact that the righteousness of His kingdom's subjects was to be superhuman as we learned in our last lesson out of Luke 6:27-45, Jesus thus meant a person had to be regenerated by God's grace and indwelt by the Holy Spirit to produce a superhuman righteousness to withstand the spiritual tests of eternity and this life respectively; otherwise, his life would utterly fail, for it had not been founded upon the Rock of Christ and His unmerited salvation and sustenance! (Romans 3:20-22)
      5. [This truth applies at both the positional and experiential levels: (a) Positionally, one must trust in Christ to receive eternal life, or go into eternal torment in hell, Acts 4:12; Mtt. 3:12. (b) Experientially, believers must rely on the Holy Spirit to heed God's Word for great blessing, or suffer enormous loss of blessing in life, 1 Corinthians 3:10-15; Romans 7:22-8:4.]
Lesson: Jesus is the true Creator God's Savior of the world, for He claimed that one would LACK ALL spiritual security and stability were his spiritual welfare to be based upon anything besides Himself and His salvation, for sin would cause it to fail CATASTROPHICALLY; however, were one to HEED His words, he would enjoy God's COMPLETE PROTECTION and GREAT BLESSING.

Application: (1) May we trust in Jesus as God's true Savior of the world due to His full confidence in His teachings as being GOD'S truth for the world. (2) May we believers HEED Christ's Word in the Spirit's power for GREAT BLESSING or suffer EXTREME LOSS of BLESSING in our WALK!