Latest / If Bibles Could Talk / You Call Him Lord, but Do You Actually Listen to Him? - Luke 6:46–49

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You Call Him Lord, but Do You Actually Listen to Him? - Luke 6:46–49 · If Bibles Could Talk

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's deep dive, where we are exploring a
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: set of notes focused on a pretty profound biblical tension.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: What if the biggest difference between knowing Jesus' teachings and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: actually following Jesus is simply what you do right after
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: the sermon ends?
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: It's such a striking question to start with.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: It really is. Today, we're looking at Luke chapter 6,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: where Jesus asks this remarkably blunt question. Why do people
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: call him Lord, but not actually do what he says? So, OK,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: let's unpack this, because on the surface, it feels like
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a simple call out of hypocrisy.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it does look like that at first glance.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: But there's actually a much deeper psychological trap at play here, right?
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: It is a profound trap. I mean, acknowledging a title
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of authority, like calling someone Lord, it doesn't carry any
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: real weight if you completely ignore their instructions. Right.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: It's basically just lip service.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
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  Speaker 2: The text is pointing to this glaring inconsistency in human
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  Speaker 2: behavior where We somehow managed to completely separate intellectual agreement
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: from physical obedience.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, but let me push back a bit on that.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Sure, go ahead.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Because for a lot of people, isn't showing up to church,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: listening to sermons, and studying the text a form of
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: action in itself? I mean, you have to get in
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: your car, carve out the time, actually do the reading.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Why does this text draw such a hard line between
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: learning the teachings and actually doing them?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Well, yes, it does take effort, but learning is fundamentally
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: passive when it comes.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: To real-world application.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Passive? How so?
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: When you're taking notes, you're absorbing information, which feels highly productive,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: but the text argues that information without application is essentially
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: an illusion of progress.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, well, an illusion of progress. That makes a lot
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of sense.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Right. And that's why Jesus immediately transitions into this very
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: vivid foundation metaphor and He contrasts someone who merely hears
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: his words with someone who hears them and acts on them.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: The builder on the rock, right?
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: The person who takes action is compared to a builder
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: who digs deep to lay a foundation.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: On solid rock.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: You know, here's where it gets really interesting. That reminds
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: me of someone who pays for an outrageously expensive gym membership.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's a great comparison.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like you memorize all the workout routines, you subscribe
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: to all the fitness gurus, you can quote the exact
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: macros needed for muscle growth. But you refuse to ever
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: actually lift a single weight. The knowledge alone doesn't build
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the muscle.
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  Speaker 2: You just sit in the locker room. And just like
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: that gym membership, we often confuse the dopamine hit of
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: learning a new workout with the actual sweat of doing it.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, that is so true. We trick ourselves. We really do.
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  Speaker 2: Your brain tricks you into thinking you've made tangible progress
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: just by acquiring the vocabulary. What's fascinating here is why
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: action is presented as the true bedrock of the faith.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and why lacking it is so dangerous.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Because it's not just missing out on the workout, to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: use the gym thing.
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  Speaker 3: Right, it's much worse.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It's not just that the non-actor is missing out. They
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: are actively building a precarious structure on dirt.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Because accumulating all that biblical knowledge without acting on it
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  Speaker 1: actually gives you a false sense of security. You think
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you're safe from the storm because your house looks fully
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: built from the outside.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: It looks perfect right up until the weather turns.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So an educated non-doer, might actually be in more
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: danger than someone who knows nothing at all. They don't
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: even realize their foundation is compromised until the floodwaters rise.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: That is the core danger. A foundation is only tested
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: when the storm hits. When the wind blows, mere intellectual
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: agreement won't keep the walls up.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Right. It just collapses.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Action is the mechanism that anchors belief into reality.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And this isn't just an isolated idea in Luke, either.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: You see this same frustration later in James, chapter 1.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, definitely.
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  Speaker 1: Where he literally warns people, not to just be hearers
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of the word and deceive themselves.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Or in Matthew chapter 7, which mirrors the Luke passage
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: almost perfectly. Right.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Same builder metaphor.
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  Speaker 2: Yep. The through line in all these texts highlights a stark,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: almost uncomfortable reality. It is entirely possible for you to
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: attend church every single week, listen to every sermon, quote
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  Speaker 2: scripture flawlessly, and yet still stubbornly refuse to change the
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  Speaker 2: way you treat other people. Yeah.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: So how do we build that disconnect? I think it's
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: because it is so much easier to ace a theological
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  Speaker 1: test than it is to love a difficult neighbor.
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  Speaker 3: That is so incredibly true.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: We substitute the friction of real-world relationships with the comfort
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: of religious study.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Which is exactly how the foundation crumples. If we connect
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  Speaker 2: this to the bigger picture, true Christian faith has to
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  Speaker 2: influence your everyday decisions.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: It can't just be talk.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: No, it cannot just serve as fodder for religious conversations
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: or philosophical debates. If you have all the right theological answers,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: but you're treating your neighbors poorly, the solid foundation just
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: isn't there.
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  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? It means the ultimate
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: proof of belief is found in behavior. It all comes
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: right back to what happens after the sermon ends.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: You really have to ask yourself whether you are doing
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  Speaker 2: the difficult everyday work of digging deep or, you know,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: just enjoying the view from a house built on the sand.
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  Speaker 1: Which leaves you with a really challenging thought to mull
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  Speaker 1: over today. If all your religious conversations were suddenly muted,
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  Speaker 1: like if you couldn't use the vocabulary, quote the texts,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: or tell anyone what you believe, what kind of foundation
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  Speaker 1: would your daily actions and the way you treat others
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  Speaker 1: prove you're actually building on?