What Are you Built On?

These were my notes from the first session of NEXT. Hope they help you better grasp the gospel - let me know what you think!

What are you Built On?
Josh Harris
Luke 6:46

- When circumstances force themselves into your work it changes your view of God.
- We are all carrying around ideas about God, some of them don't hold up when life hits you.

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."

- Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say?
- Jesus gives us a compelling nature on what theology is and how it is related to him.
- People claim to follow Christ but don't obey him.
- Jesus loves to save religious hypocrites.
- Do you know the right things to say around the right people?
- Is there a disconnect about what you speak and how you live?
- Everyone is building their lives on something they believe about God.
- Are you building on the wrong foundation - one day it will be destroyed?
- We're all theologians - is what we believe about God true?
- We can listen to everything and still be people built on sand.

How do we dig deep? How do we build the right foundation?
The one who comes to be, hears my words, and puts them into practice.

Doctrine is not an end in itself
- It helps us to know, love, trust and obey the person of Jesus Christ.
- Truths don't save us - they help us, the person of Jesus Christ saves us.
- We have no faith apart from Jesus who obeyed for us.
- Saving faith is not faith in faith - it is faith in a person - the person who in every place we sinned, did not sin.

John 5:39-40
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
- Men know the scriptures but miss Jesus.
- What does the truth of the word do - bears witness to Jesus.
- Biblical doctrine tells us that we need Jesus.

- It's possible to study theology and have no heart for Christ.
- Pharisees parable - their rock was the law, not Christ.
- "Grace is not a thing - there is only Jesus" - Sinclair Ferguson.
- Are you most satisfied by a relationship with Jesus?
- Movements of men will fail, Jesus will never fail.

A real, saving relationship with Jesus Christ necessarily involves doctrine
- You can't know Jesus without knowing the truth of the Bible shaping your reality.
- Know just the person who comes to him and doesn't want to listen.
- We serve a God who speaks.
- Separate passion from theology - NO! they are not separate truths.
- It is impossible to have one without the other genuinely.
- Doctrine can't take the place of Jesus.
- Melheim - primarily concerned with what Jesus had done, not just what He said - the word redeemed through an event.
- Simply telling them was not enough, they had to tell them what the event meant, doctrine - the mention of facts with the meaning of those facts.
- It's only when you understand what Christ has done and the meaning of it can you understand His love for you.


Knowing Right Doctrine is not Enough - We have to put it into Practice
- "You call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say" - we know doctrine but do not put it into practice.
- Are you practicing the truth that you have? This calls into question if you understand it, and if it has really gripped your soul - it will reshape the way you act in every area of life.
- Don't feel safe and secure if the knowledge that you have is not being applied in your life.
- What does the truth call us to do?
- Don't be satisfied by a page on notes - write the notes on your life.

James 1:22
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
- If your only hearing - the stability of your foundation will be seen.
- The storm hit both houses - represents trouble, unexpected moments, and real life in a fallen world.