Firm, Solid, Saved [4-20-25]

April 20, 2025

Luke 6:46-49

“Firm, Solid, Saved”

What better time to talk about the real, Biblical, historical Jesus than Easter morning? Let’s compare and contrast Modern Jesus with Biblical Jesus:

Preaches only on love…Preaches God’s Righteousness

Gives you health and wealth…Gives Salvation, Hope, Peace, and Joy

Never says anything negative…Warns of Sin, Judgement, and Hell

Serves your will, not God’s will…Exalts God the Father’s Will

Hates to offend you or others…Offends the World with the Truth

He gets us…He Changes Us

How many churches continue to drift into the soft comfort of the Modern Jesus? That’s the last thing we want to do on the Day of Resurrection. Last thing we want to do is mirror our cultural embrace of bunnies and bonnets and melt-in-your-mouth chocolates. I can’t believe there are churches, some who ought to know better, messing around with Easter Egg hunts and prize giveaways on Easter weekend. Families will have whatever fun they want with their kids at Easter. But the church is different. The church ought to be different.

What makes us different? As Charles Spurgeon once preached in an Easter sermon:

“In the grave he was like the sun in his winter solstice but he crossed the line in his resurrection. He has brought us all the hopes of spring and is bringing us the joys of summer. He is quickening many at this hour and will yet quicken myriads. This is the power with which the missionary goes forth to sow; this is the power in which the preacher at home continues to scatter the seed. The risen Christ is the great producer of harvests. By the power of his resurrection men and women are raised from their death in sin to eternal life.”

Before we turn to our passage from Luke, let’s lift up a statement of

purpose. Throughout our lives, we make all kinds of decisions. Some are quite trivial – do I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Some are more profound – job, marriage, children. Of all the decisions you’ll ever make in your life…the one with the greatest impact…with an eternal effect:

THE MOST IMPORTANT DECISION YOU’LL EVER MAKE IS THAT DECISION WHICH DETERMINES YOUR ETERNAL DESTINY.

Do you willingly accept and receive the claim Jesus Christ has made upon your life to follow him as your Lord and Savior? As Jesus says in today’s passage, the most important decision you will ever make is the one that determines whether you survive judgment. And that, Charlie Brown, is what Easter is all about.

Here's Luke 6:46-49:

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell

you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does

them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

What is the only way to be secure in your eternal destiny? Jesus tells us in this short parable. When you are an obedient follower of Jesus Christ, you are firm, solid, and saved. Nothing can move you from your position in Christ.

Make no mistake. All religions, in one way or another, promise heaven. But the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the only true way. I love how Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once put it:

“THE BIBLE HAS NO COMFORT WHATSOEVER TO GIVE TO PEOPLE

WHO ARE NOT CHRISTIANS – NONE AT ALL. EXCEPT TO WARN THEM TO FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME.”

Build your life on solid ground. Anchor your life on a firm foundation. There is only one promise of heaven. It is in Christ and Christ alone.

I was reading about a guy, retired professor of philosophy at Boston College, graduate of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, who wrote that Buddhists, Confucianists, Protestants, Catholics, and Muslims will be in heaven. He even said, “Perhaps in heaven the most ardent worshipers of Christ will be pious Muslims.” How horrible wrong is that?

That man doesn’t know the Biblical Jesus. He doesn’t understand Luke 6:46-49. “When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” Woe to the one whose life is not built on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ.

What, then, is the purpose of Easter? Why is the resurrection essential to who we are as followers of Jesus Christ? Does Easter make eternal life possible? Not exactly. Does Easter trigger a switch opening the door to

heaven? Again, not exactly.

Easter was the exclamation point to the truth of what Jesus said, taught

and did. It was the seal of approval of his death on the cross. In other words, the resurrection affirmed Jesus’ once and for all sacrificial death for our sin. In other, other words, the resurrection was God’s message that the crucifixion fully and completely atoned for our sins. That’s why we’ll live eternally in heaven. Our sins are forgiven. The cross makes it possible for us to stand in the presence of God. And the empty tomb is God’s exclamation point to that truth. Amen?

Here are two beautiful observations. The first, from R.C. Sproul:

“Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once and He volunteered.”

Jesus is the solid foundation upon which we build our lives. Our eternity depends on it. The second is this:

“Nothing will humble you more than coming to grips with the reality that you had absolutely nothing to do with your salvation. From beginning to end it was all of grace and solely depended upon God freely choosing to have mercy on you, a sinner.”

Check out this lovely illustration of that truth:

Show Drawing

That’s the meaning of Easter. Here’s something you might want to write

down:

DEATH WAS PROOF THAT JESUS WAS HUMAN.

RESURRECTION WAS PROOF THAT HE IS GOD.

Eternal life is found in Christ, and Christ alone. There is no other way. Firm…solid…saved.

Here’s how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 16:21-24:

“I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.”

The word translated, accursed, is “anathema” in Greek. It’s the same word

used to describe what Jesus became for us on the cross. Accursed. Why?

So we could be saved from sin and death.

Even more to the point, in 2 Thessalonians 1, Paul says God is going to judge those who do not obey the gospel. This is a direct reflection on Luke 6:46-49:

“When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty

angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.”

There is such a beautiful promise in that passage. Sinners are commanded to repent. Sinners are commanded to repent and obey the gospel. Sinners are commanded to repent, obey, and believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior. We have full confidence and trust in the beauty of the promise because of Easter. We know what Jesus did and said is true because of Easter.

So here we are. A beautiful Easter morning. The beauty of this day does not lie in the weather or the blooms and blossoms or the way we’re dressed or the ham and cheesy potatoes we’re going to eat later on, followed by all kinds of colorful candy. No, the beauty of this day lies in our

foundation – on the Rock of our Salvation, who is Christ the Lord.

Here's the thing. There’s one thing we don’t like to spend too much time

thinking about. Death. We don’t like to think about it. But it is certain. Life is 100% fatal. We are all terminal, one way or the other. And there’s no second chance after you breathe your last. No do over. No reconsideration. Some people actually believe that when an unbeliever dies, when they come face-to-face with Jesus, they get one last chance to believe. But Jesus ends his parable of Luke 6 with, “When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” You might say that’s fairly unambiguous.

The command of the gospel is to believe and be saved. Easter is that

simple. Believe and be saved. And what awaits those who believe? I love how Hebrews 9:27-28 captures it:

“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

How lovely it will be to see Jesus face-to-face. What a glorious day that will

be. No matter what happens to us…no matter what we experience or go

through in life, we know all is well, because we are sons and daughters of the promise:

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your

God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I

have seen the Lord” - and that he had said these things to her.

John 20:11-18

Finally, the reward of that promise:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”

Revelation 21:1-4

And together, the people of the promise said:

SOLI DEO GLORIA…

To the Glory of God Alone