We turn in the scriptures to Psalm 119 actually, not Psalm 40, Psalm 119 and then Luke chapter 6 and let's stand together. Psalm 119. In a moment we will Sing verse 97 and following, and we'll pick up another section, the next section, Psalm 119 verse 105 to 112. This whole psalm is about delight in the law of God. That the believing heart loves God's commandments. We begin Psalm 119 verse 105. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn and confirmed that I will keep your righteous judgments. I am afflicted very much. Revive me, O Lord, according to your word. Accept, I pray, the freewill offerings of my mouth, and teach me your judgments. My life is continually in my hand. I do not forget your law. The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I have not strayed from your precepts. Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart. I have inclined my heart to perform your statutes forever to the very end." We turn to the Gospel of Luke, the end of Luke chapter 6. to hear the words of our Savior beginning in verse 46. But why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing, is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently, and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great. Grass withers, the flower fades, the word of God endures forever. We turn in the word of God for the preaching of the same. Luke chapter 6 and the verses we just read a moment ago, verses 46 to 49. Perhaps one of the most unpopular topics to preach on could be found in these verses of the Bible. The theme of what we have before us is the theme of obedience, of repentance, turning from sin to God, of holiness. And in our age, when you talk about obedience, repentance, and holiness, you quickly draw a crowd of critics. That's probably true of every age, not just our age. It's surging of the human heart by nature is to break God's commands. As a matter of fact, Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 7 The very announcement of God's commands, the existence of His law with its authority, can cause us to immediately rebel and want to sin. There's a lot of critics of obedience to God. The world hates it. There's all kinds of names for people who are committed to a different kind of life that goes against the grain of the world. You get accused of killing people's fun and a whole list of things. Sometimes a whole lot more anger directed against those that say this is God's way and that way leads to destruction. It's interesting that also within the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is not uncommon at all. Because if someone were to say, you must obey Jesus Christ, and I'll say it more boldly, and we'll explain this later, for your salvation, what's the next word someone will say? Legalist. And this thought, the thought that if I'm following Jesus Christ that every day my life should be changing in some way as I leave behind an old life and put on a new life. And that that never will end until glory and perfection. That there is to be in a believer a constant change. Nothing, in terms of our moral conduct, is to be static and remain the same. We are always to be unsatisfied with everything that is sinful, and rejoice in everything that is holy and righteous, and always be running more from the first category, more to the second category. Our Lord Jesus makes this connection very plainly for his disciples or those who thought they were his disciples in Luke chapter 6. I would set before you briefly again, as I have in the past weeks, the scene in which this comes. You know that many, many people were following Jesus. We look back at verse 17. He had come down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples, a great multitude of people from Judea and Jerusalem, all Judea and Jerusalem, from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases, as well as those who were tormented by unclean spirits. And they were healed, and the whole multitude sought to touch him, for power went out from him and healed them all. It's a remarkable scene where the living Lord of glory, the God-man, Jesus Christ, is teaching, and he's teaching with authority, not as the scribes. You read that earlier in the gospel. And he's doing so with the signs and wonders which testify to his unique ministry, as Peter preached in Acts chapter 2, as he remembered these days. Man attested to you by God through signs and wonders. And there's this picture of power and glory and ministry and mercy happening. And in the middle of that crowd, Jesus is teaching with discernment and authority. As a matter of fact, this crowd is so interested in Jesus, we infer from the text, verse 46, that many of them were already calling Him, using a title for Him, Lord, Master, Ruler. That there was a recognition in some way of His authority. In the middle of all that, Jesus has been doing something that's perhaps surprising. You know what a politician does when everyone's cheering? They usually just want some more. They usually don't say, are you really sure you want to vote for me? I could give you some reasons that would cause you to think again. Our Savior does something very different. He begins to press the heart. We've seen that very briefly in verses 20 to 26, the blessings and curses that he pronounces. And he's starting to make a division and he's saying, there's a blessed life under the favor of God and there's a cursed life, be careful. And then when he says, love your enemies, he's pressing to the heart and he's saying, what's the nature of your heart? Are you merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful? And then last week we saw that He presses to our words. He says, it is what comes out of us, our words, that is inescapably tied to the condition of our hearts. And that one way to know what your heart is about is what you talk about and what you speak about and what you won't speak about. And in every case, you see what the Savior's doing. Actually, there's a similar sermon in Matthew chapter five, we just read it a few moments ago, when he talks about murder, which is hatred, adultery, which is lost in the heart. He is digging outside of the facade, through the facade that we all put up, and he's going deep into the inner life of the soul. The final measure, or the final spiritual surgery that he does in this sermon is verses 46 to 49. And it's this. He calls you to compare your conduct to your profession of faith in Jesus Christ. What you do to what you say. What you do to what you say. There's a divinely revealed connection here between two realities. Saying what appear to be respectful things about Jesus Christ and your behavior. The actions you take and choose to make every day. The principle we see taught in the text is this. And I'll put it again in bold terms that hopefully gets your attention, the necessity of obedience for salvation. Good works for salvation. And we'll see how we understand that statement. We have to be careful lest we not make different mistakes in our theology. But maybe some of you are uncomfortable with that language already. But let's go into the text and see first what our Savior teaches. And ask the question, is he making a divinely revealed connection between these two realities? Central principle is caught in verse 46. We're gonna look at the principle. We're going to study the connection between faith and works. We're going to deal with our hearts. The principle, the connection between faith and works, and then we're going to deal with our hearts. Jesus teaches this principle here of the necessity of good works for the Christian life, the true Christian, by juxtaposing or putting next to each other two contrasting ideas. Idea number one is calling Jesus Lord. We live in an age, and we happen to live in a state and in a city, where you can find thousands of people who would say, Jesus is my Lord and Savior. We have a lot of public figures that do this. Here, it's an intense confession in the text. Lord, Lord, which is a way of the Hebrews would emphasize something. So this would be my great Lord, my mighty Lord. This is a strong confession that I'm gonna confess you as my master and my ruler. The one with authority, you issue commands. Lord, Lord. And many people do this, people do it in church. Many churches sing 30 choruses to confess the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord, and I'm not actually trying to say anything bad about those choruses, but so many words about Jesus just roll off our lips as we sing together. It's the treasure that we seek. He's everything we need. All this often very emotional language about the importance and centrality of Jesus Christ to my life. I need Him. The next idea, we can do this, actually we do this ourselves here. We have membership vows, for example, and you've promised that you would submit to Jesus as your Lord. All of you who've joined this church have made the same promise. Second idea that goes with that. Contrasting idea. The same people calling Jesus Lord, which means master and ruler, disregard his word. Look at the second half of the verse, and not do the things which I say. Lord, Lord, exalted, emphatic language, refuse to do what I say. Disconnect. Clearly, our Savior has in mind obedience. Look at verse 47, whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, verse 49, he who heard and did nothing. So the connection here is ironclad in the mind of our Savior. He's talking about obedience. He's talking about a major disjunct between a strong public confession, Jesus as Lord, and a character of life which is completely out of accord with the confession. Jesus would quote Isaiah, and he said, there were many in Israel like this. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. James 1, and it's very interesting, because I've been studying here this Sermon on the Plain, very similar to the Sermon on the Mount, and I've been thinking through the book of James, how many connections there are between James' writings, and I often think that as he wrote this book, he was thinking about this sermon here that Jesus taught, surely a number of times and in a number of different places, but listen to what James says. But be doers of the word, but lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness. Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer. He's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. He observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. James says there's actually a self-deception happening here. And a true believer can fall into this at times. Children, you know that you sometimes fall into it with your parents. Your parents say, clean your room. And you know that the next word should be, I mean, if you have any experience in being a child, and your children do, your next word should be, yes mom, right? Probably not many of you are. Hopefully none of you would say, no, mom. But what's interesting is, how many times your mom goes down the hall to check your room? An hour later, and what does it look like? Roughly the same or exactly the same as when you said, yes, mom. So you've said something with your mouth, but your life has done something completely different. The work is left undone. Jesus adds to this statement a parable, as He did in the last text, where He ratchets up the pressure. Where He says, not only is this a problem, it's not just a question. Why do you say to me, Lord, Lord, and you're not doing the things I say? The parable is going to say that if you continue in this, there will be destruction. Look at the parable. The general idea here is home construction and surely our Savior knew a bit about that as he was a carpenter, perhaps also a stonemason. The word for carpenter could mean builder more generally. He would be familiar with making things. The focus here is on home construction and on the foundation and the quality of a foundation for the longevity of the structure that sits on it. What is visible in the parable is the house in a storm, two houses in two storms. What you don't immediately see is the difference between foundation, but the parable reveals it. And scene number one is the first house in which we read that a man digs deep, laid a foundation on the rock. He anchors the structure of this home in bedrock, And what happens is an event that follows twice in the parable, a flood, a storm. The floodwaters press against the house. Look at what our Savior says. The stream beat vehemently against that house. This is a strong flood with a strong current and could not shake it for it was founded on the rock. Simple picture. What does it illustrate? Look at verse 47. Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man who builds his house on a rock. Simple. The obedient Christian shows that his life is founded on, it's embedded in Jesus Christ himself, the rock of ages. Second scene. There's another man who takes a shortcut. He just starts laying bricks on the ground and he makes what might be exactly the same house. The event follows. He built a house on the earth without a foundation. The stream beat vehemently. Notice in this point in the two parables, everything looks the same until the storm comes and the stream comes and immediately it fell. He who heard and did nothing is like this. The confession, the outward structure, the same. The foundation, different. The end, perseverance or destruction. The ruin of that house was great. You ever see one of those videos where you see a flood and somebody has built a dream home on a river with this beautiful view and you just see that video and the river's just taking out that bank and taking out the bank and all of a sudden, in a moment, the whole house falls in and it just disintegrates and the river, it's gone. She said, that's what it's like to not obey. The contrast between the two is very clear. Could not shake it, number one, for it was founded on the rock. Immediately it fell, the ruin of that house was gray. The principle here is that the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord in a life of obedience to Jesus Christ's commands are inseparable principles. We can go through the scriptures, I think, of Deuteronomy chapter 10, where Moses recounts the law for Israel, and he says, here's God's commands that I give you for your good. Walk in them in obedience. That's what the Lord said to Israel. The preface to the Ten Commandments, the Lord said, I've redeemed you. Now, live a life of holiness to me. Think of negative examples. My family, we just read through 2 Kings 17 this week, and that's this narrative of the carrying off of the northern tribes of Israel into Assyria. Never to come back. Why? Because they did not keep the commands, the statutes, the ordinances, the judgments of their holy and gracious God who had redeemed them. They called Him Lord to some degree, but they would not submit the course of their life to His will. And like that house in the storm, He swept them away. Think of the Ten Commandments again. He shows mercy to those who Love him and keep his commandments. Think of our Savior. If you think, Peter, that's just an Old Testament thing, which is a terrible view of the Old Testament, but we can fix it. Jesus, John 14, he who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Did you hear that? He who has my commandments and keeps them. That's the word of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says these things earlier in the same chapter, actually. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. He says it in the next chapter. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. In verse 10, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. There's this inseparable connection between the obedience of the believer and the believer's communion with Jesus Christ. To be in the vine, to abide in Christ is to bear much fruit. Jesus taught the parable of the sower and the good seed bore much fruit, 60, 30, 100 fold. A true Christian is marked by a new kind of life, an obedient life, a life where we do the things that he says, where we hear his sayings and we do them as our Savior taught us to do. Let's study this inseparable connection between faith and works a little more deeply. I'm intentionally placing it before you in its plain form. But we do need to understand it carefully. I said earlier that a lot of people wouldn't like to hear this. Maybe some of you right now aren't liking to hear it. Not uncommon. There's considerable pressure, and there always has been, to break a link that is clear in the scriptures between faith and works. Let's examine what that link is in a moment. There's cultural pressure, I said earlier. If you read surveys, in America especially, almost every single person believes they're going to heaven. And the numbers are staggeringly high. Actually, well, I shouldn't say that. They're changing rapidly now as people more and more go into the non-religious category. But people with a religious background, even some vapors of Christianity left, and they're thinking, headed to heaven, headed to heaven. Everyone thinks they're going to heaven, everybody, regardless of whether they're sleeping around, cheating on their taxes. It's an American problem. Lawlessness marks our age. Don't tell me what to do. And theological justifications, as I said earlier, abound. Some of them are common. This one was perhaps more common 20 or 30 years ago, the Lordship Salvation Controversy, but this idea that you could come to Christ and you could say, I'm gonna confess him as my Savior, because I need his cross, because I need the forgiveness of sins. And if you had a little better theology, and I'll take his provision of righteousness imputed to me, received by faith alone. Which, as I just stated it, is a good doctrine of justification, probably better than those in the controversy. But then the next phrase people would say, but he's not yet my Lord. I don't have words to describe how impossible that theological formulation is. He is the Lord of glory. You can't divide him. There's a reformed version of the same. in churches that prize the Protestant Reformation. And I'm gonna put this carefully, but you'll often see people say, well, I have sinned, but my hope is this, the righteousness of Christ imputed to me, not only his sins, my sins rather, my sins to his account, he became sin for me, but his righteousness imputed to me. And again, they'll end the gospel message right there, as if there's nothing else to it. Now that is a great and glorious comfort, which every believer in Jesus Christ should hold on to for all their life. But the narrow focus to say, he did it all, which means it's only what he did for me, but not what he's doing in me by his word and spirit, is to truncate the message of salvation. It's a more subtle error, it's not an error of bad theology, but it could be an error of emphasis. And I would even argue an improperly narrow view of what he came to do for you. The result of all this is we live in a powerful antinomian age. A rebellious age where the world and the church together, what does antinomian mean? Against law, no standards. And where disobedience marks our cultural and religious life. Let me ask you some questions. And I am not a fundamentalist in the now classic American sense of the word. The problem I have is there's a lot of people who say, that's fundamentalism. No, holiness. The writer of the Hebrew says, without holiness, no one will see the Lord. Seems important. and we're descending into immodesty, pornography. You know, I mentioned it from the pulpit. I wish I never had to mention it again. Many say, Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say. Drunkenness, worldliness. There's precious few lines left between the church and the world, it seems. A holy people, separates. The things we listen to, the things we watch, the things we say, the way we spend our money. What does it mean for Christ to be your King? Has it changed the course of your existence? Some fundamental reasons in the positive by faith and works are inseparable. Reason number one, Jesus Christ is Lord of the universe, I said a moment ago. He's the king over all creation. He's the second person of the Trinity. He's the divine Logos. He's the one through whom the worlds were made. He's the one who gave you life and breath and in whom you have your being. Everything around you and under you and in you, all that you are and all that you have came from Him. When Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he was made after the image of God for communion with God. He was made to live a life of holiness to God in love and communion with God. And by virtue of this relationship under God as our creator, we owe him our entire allegiance. We should call him Lord, Lord, and we should bow before him and obey him. But more than that, he's not only the lawgiver, no mere earthly king, but eternal God, our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the victorious mediatorial king. And at the end of his work, he said, all authority has been given to me in heaven on earth. And sometimes we like to think of that authority like this. Well, that means he rules the kings of the world. But if I'm a believer that means first He rules me. My life. My decisions. My thoughts. My money. My time. He's my Lord. He's the supernatural ruler of my life. Nothing except it. If the whole world when he comes back will bow, every knee will bow and every tongue confess. When the glory of the mediatorial creator king appears on the scene of history. And if I have seen by faith something of that glory, then I'm bowing now. Not just with my lips, but with my heart and my life. All that I have and all that I am, I give to Him. If the God-man at the right hand of the Father now, who has the scepter together with the Father and the scroll of God's judgments, who executes the will of God, He is no trifling figure from whom we learn a few life principles. But He is exalted, crowned Lord of all. There is no way to live or exist outside of Him in this unstoppable dominion. And in Christ, we live under that dominion in salvation. And we accept Him as our King, as our Judge, and we are subjects. We also understand that sin, then, is contrary to the holy nature and righteous law of our King. Second reason, not just who He is, But here we're gonna understand a little bit better about faith and works. What did he come to do? What is salvation? What is it? What is his mission in saving? It's to save his people from the guilt of sin, the power of sin, and the presence of sin. You need to get those three words, guilt, power, presence. How did He save you from the guilt of sin? How did Jesus do this? He went to the cross and He paid the penalty. He quenched the infinite wrath of God against sinners in your place. They are hanging, suffering, dying, crying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And we rightly love to gaze upon Him and to remember Him and to praise Him for the staggering glory and dimensions of propitiatory atonement on the cross. It's a transaction that belongs to the infinity of God, and at the same time, our humanity. This great mystery at the center of history in which Christ pays for our sins, and when we ask for forgiveness, they're freely pardoned for His sake. And then if the gospel couldn't get better, to that, as we look on Him in faith, we receive righteousness or clothed in righteousness. It's imputed to us, our sins to Him, Christ's righteousness to us, this is all received by faith alone. This is what is at the heart of what we call justification, this great legal declaration of God over His people that says, no guilt, there is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, none, none at all. But here's the thing, you enter that blessed state. By faith, the instrument of our justifications, the spirit work bond of our union with Christ. It's in that state that Jesus says these words to you, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me bears much fruit. You are now like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bears fruit. You are now like a man who has dug deep to find the rock of ages, the foundation. And your life founded on me will be different. And one of the marks is that you will submit your ways to the will of Jesus Christ. What you do will change. Because the Spirit abides in you. The agent of sanctification. The Spirit who hovered over the face of the waters. Lives in your heart. You need to understand this. He can't do nothing. It's impossible. It's impossible. He's active and powerful, bringing to completion what God has begun, a new birth of regeneration. And here we have what Calvin calls the duplex gradia, the double grace of justification, of sanctification, of grace that works not only for forgiveness and the provision of righteousness, but for renovation and change, for delivery from the dominion of sin. And so, listen carefully, your sanctification is purchased by Christ in His mediatorial work and the gift of the Spirit as much as your justification, so He is presently changing you, so that tomorrow you will not be who you are today. slowly leading us to glory, and making us different than we were before. And this is part of salvation, which is why it's inevitable that if you call Him Lord, Lord from the heart, and confess His glory in saving mercy, that things change. That united to Him in His death, burial, and resurrection, you can read Romans 6 at home, You have a newness of life in you. You are a new creation, Paul writes to the Corinthians. Ephesians 2, we talk about saved by grace through faith. Faith in Jesus Christ. Paul goes on to say, not of works lest anyone should boast. The works do not contribute to our justification. Yes. But he goes on to say, if you keep reading, that we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. What for? For good works. that our lives might blossom for the first time with true humanity to the glory of God, by the power of the Spirit, as we search His sayings, His commandments, and say, Lord, here's my life. Change it all. Change it all. Because His mission includes the totality of our salvation from the beginning to the very end in glory, where there will be no sin. Let's deal with our hearts. A couple cases. The most sobering case that Jesus talks about here is the unconverted professor. What do I mean by that? A person who calls Jesus Lord, Lord. And you may be, there may be someone here in this condition who you even believe yourself to be in a saved condition, but there's no true spiritual life. And you say, Peter, that's not exactly what the text says. Well, I want you to jump ahead to Luke chapter 13 and understand that actually Jesus uses the phrase, Lord, Lord, four times at least in the gospels and in every case he uses it the same way. He uses it to warn about this problem. Listen to Luke chapter 13. Strive to enter through the narrow gate. For many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. And once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door." What's this a picture of? It's a picture of the last judgment, where Christ has finished His work. Many of you will begin to stand outside the door and knock, saying, Lord, Lord, open for us. And he will answer and say to you, I do not know you. Where are you from? Then you'll begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. And he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you are from. And then hear the next phrase. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. You never wanted to obey me. Why are you here? Jesus is saying in his teaching that some people will be saying, Lord, Lord, all the way to the gate of heaven. And they'll be wrong. John Bunyan had a powerful illustration in Pilgrim's Progress. It's a man named Ignorance. He crosses the last river, which is death. And Bunyan writes, he said he did it easily because there was a fairy man named Vain Hope. Kind of preacher who just said, don't worry about it, you'll be fine. Ignorance goes to the gate of heaven. Talks to the shining ones, the angels. He says, I knew the king. I knew him. I ate and drank with him. Shining ones go to the king and the king says, take him away. And Bunyan says, they led him to a door on the side of the hill. And I realized, At the gate of heaven, there was a doorway to hell. This is why serious sins should be repented of quickly. Flee from them, run from them. Some of you, I'm pleading. Dangerous spiritual condition to say, Lord, Lord, and then say, but I'll rebel against him at the same time. Jude says, others save with fear, pulling them, as it were, out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. And this preaching, this morning, has that tone. Problem with repeated sins is that it hardens your heart. Second case, weak Christians. Use an old term, backsliding. Caught up in a sin, maybe. Sometimes I hear people say, I'm a Christian. I say, you're sad about it? You have any grief or sorrow about it? You're broken over it? And worse even, as people are angry, I can't believe you're coming after me again for this. Terrible response, terrible. See, we all fall and stumble as believers. But how possibly in view of the holiness of God and the glory of the cross could we be satisfied to stay there? We should recognize. Lord, I have sinned against your love and mercy, against your holiness and your power. And on my knees, Lord, I repent. Lord, I want to lay aside this weight, this sin that so easily ensnares me. I want to be Christ-like. The Olympics were the last few weeks. I didn't watch much. I won't get into why, but you might guess why. You think about a sporting event, maybe it's a football game and it's that great clutch moment where that beautiful catch is made in the end zone. Maybe you're watching anyways and if you're anything like me, first you're amazed by the athleticism and then maybe you ask the question, I wonder if I could do that. And then maybe the thought says, I would like to do that. You not only see the ideal, but you're drawn towards the ideal. It's a pale illustration. But if you've seen the grace and glory of Jesus Christ, and then secondly, if you see his life, my food and drink is to do the will of my heavenly Father. Father, if you send me to the cross, your will be done. Pours out his life as a drink offering to the Father without hesitation. You see some dimensions and contours of a beauty that you've never seen before in any person who has ever lived, not only as saving love, but as devotion to God. And if you're a believer, you say, Lord, make me like him. I want to be like him, more like him. Lord, I want to offer my life to you, everything. Finally, Maybe you're here and you understand already the joy of obedience and the pursuit of holiness. You understand the scope of your salvation that Jesus came to deliver you from the guilt, the power, and finally the presence of sin and your glory in it. You understand that you're a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things are new. You understand Ephesians 2, that these things are mine. Salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And He's made me a new creation. And I'm to live a new life. I've been raised with Christ. So I seek the things which are above. Colossians 3. Or Romans 8. I am not in the flesh anymore. I am in the Spirit. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is in me, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to my mortal body through His Spirit who dwells in me." You confess, Lord, Lord, and you place your life under the Master. And pray, Lord, teach me your will. You understand that my salvation, the entirety of it, includes the full purpose of Christ's mediation. You know that at the end there's going to be this great presentation where Christ takes His bride, holy and without spot and blemish, washed by the blood, covered in the righteousness, and transformed in the great glory of sanctification. And you say, Lord, on that day, My aim is to bring you maximum glory for you first loved me. You confess with the Apostle John, Lord, I'm here to keep your commandments. They're not burdensome. It's my joy to do your will, you say with the psalmist. Oh, how I love your law. or later in Psalm 119. Lord, my purpose is to keep your commands forever to the very end. Take my life, Lord. Let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Let's pray. Lord our God, we pray that you would help us to keep the simple words of our Savior Jesus Christ in our hearts. Or that these simple pictures of the house built on the rock, the house built on the sand, or the importance of the integrity of our confession, the glory of the fullness of our salvation. would so rest on our hearts that we, with increased faith and love, and new purpose and endeavor after obedience, would live to you. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Look up and receive the blessing of the Lord. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, amen.