Lord, Lord (Luke 6:46–49) from South Woods Baptist Church on Vimeo.

It’s easy to claim to be a Christian. I cannot remember a time that I would not have claimed to be Christian. Yet for many years that claim proved empty.

In the U.S., we don’t have our religious identity typed onto our driver’s license or passport, as practiced in some countries. No one bars us from buying a house or accepting a job or voting in an election or marrying a particular person due to our religious identity.

But that’s not true for much of the world. Your religious claim either gives you freedom as a citizen or keeps you looking over your shoulder. Your religious profession allows you to participate in the rights of citizenship or blocks you from equal participation.

So that’s why I say, that for us it’s easy to make the claim that we’re Christians. That’s why so many do.

Yet the claim doesn’t mean that we truly follow Christ. The claim does not equate to kingdom citizenship.

We know these things. We’ve heard them over and over. But that doesn’t mean that we may not have fallen prey to empty profession of Christ. Or it doesn’t mean that we may not have slipped into a false understanding of biblical Christianity and the kind of kingdom life that the gospel calls us to.

That’s what Jesus makes clear in this Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:17–49). The crowds thronged about him, having “come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases.” They squeezed in “trying to touch Him.” Hearing, being blessed by Him, and touching Him didn’t imply that the multitude followed Him as disciples. Kingdom disciples means, as Jesus taught, finding our joy in Him, loving extravagantly in ways the world can’t grasp, and living generously with pardon and genuine care for others. But all of those characteristics are the fruit of relationship to Christ. Many professed Him. Yet not all belonged to Jesus as disciples in His kingdom. Obedience to Jesus, in the end, gives testimony to being kingdom disciples. How is that the case? Let’s investigate how Jesus drives home obedience as the marker for His followers.

1. Jesus examines profession without obedience

We must admit that Jesus calling attention to false profession of faith is an act of mercy. We’re prone to self-deception. We find that all the way back in the Garden when Adam and Eve took the fruit and ate of it, thinking that by doing so they would be “like God.” He does want us to be like Him in that we’re to mirror Him as our Creator and Sovereign. But that cannot happen on our terms or by our assumptions. It can only happen through the means that He provides in Christ.

Sometimes the biblical writers use a literary device known as inclusio, which means that they start with one term or idea, continue their argument, discussion, or description, and then return to the same term or idea. It’s sort of like matching bookends. That seems to be Luke’s approach as he explains the Sermon on the Plain. It begins with throngs of people coming to hear Jesus (vv. 17–18). But hearing is never enough. That’s why Jesus explains to us what it looks like to not just hear Him but to truly believe and follow Him (vv. 20–45). Then as He closes His sermon Jesus returns to the matter of hearing Him (vv. 46­–49). The crowds were glad to hear Jesus, especially if they received some tangible benefit. But as a rule, they balked at obeying Him. Jesus explains that such a heart-attitude falls short of true faith and truly following Him.

We must realize that many of these people were excited about Jesus. Enthusiasm followed healing and deliverance from demons. They gladly came to hear Him and receive from Him. They talked about what they heard and saw. They even used spiritual titles for Him, calling Him “Lord.” But Jesus’ question examines their profession of Him. “[But] why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

J. C. Ryle remarked, “Open sin, and avowed unbelief, no doubt slay their thousands. But professions without practice[...]