Two thousand years ago, the Lord Jesus Christ asked a question.  Few were prepared to answer it then, and few want to answer it today — but still, it echoes down the ages, slicing through human hypocrisy today, just as it has ever since He first asked it.

Luke 6:46

And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Today in Britain, millions of people who call themselves Christians chose not to meet with God’s people to fellowship and worship together.  It wasn’t because they couldn’t do so, it was because they simply chose not to.  The vast majority of these who call themselves “Christians” make the same choice every single week.  If they would stop to listen, they would hear His question, echoing through the centuries, “Why do you call me Lord?  Why call yourself a Christian?”

This coming week, around the world, millions of people who today did go to a Christian-in-name church will not read their Bibles or pray to their “Lord” even once.

Millions of those same people, many of them church members and even leaders in their churches, will engage in all kinds of sexual immorality, pornography, etc.  Some who railed against homosexuality at church today will commit adultery (in action or in thought) tomorrow.  If we listen, we can hear Him ask, “Why do they not do what I say?”

Millions who call Christ “Lord” will steal sometime in the next month or two, whether it be by tax fraud, benefits fraud, insurance fraud, or something “smaller” like stealing time from their employer by not working an honest day’s work each day.

Many of the same lips that proclaim, “Jesus Christ is Lord,” will lie, gossip, rail in anger against someone, swear, flatter, etc.  The hands that folded in prayer to Him today in a church building will type horrible, malicious things to or about others in emails and on Internet forums.

Rather than yield their bodies a living sacrifice, millions of “Christ-followers” will follow the desires of their bodies into immorality, drunkenness, gluttony, and laziness, damaging that which God has purchased and has entrusted to them.

Many who say Christ bought them don’t think it reaches to their money.  They don’t have enough to help the poor or share in the expenses of their church, they wouldn’t think of helping a missionary — but they do manage expensive food and drink, good cars, nice furniture, pleasant houses to live in.  Many of Britain’s so-called Christians give more, year in and year out, to the TV licensing bureau than they do to their church.

Many Christ-claimers will see another such sinning and say nothing, because they would rather be liked than help their brother get right.  They will continue to attend a false church because of family or friends.  They turn a blind eye to false teaching, saying we must not judge, forgetting that Jesus certainly rebuked and warned against the false religious leaders of His day.  They claim to love Him, forgetting that He is the Truth, and that to love Him you must love Truth, and to love Truth, you must hate lies.

Why do people call Him “Lord” if they will not do what He says?

All around us, the mantra of the age, “I’m ok, you’re ok,” is repeated mindlessly (like parakeets) by ever-increasing voices until the cacophony of it all threatens to overwhelm and silence the voice of conscience.  The only thing that isn’t “ok” is to say that there is a standard of right and wrong, that some things aren’t “ok,” and that standard is set by One who isn’t changing.

And most self-called “Christians”, supposedly followers of the Lord Christ, set aside that standard to repeat the great “I’m ok, you’re ok” even to those who violate that standard.  In return, they hear the “You’re ok” back — “I like your kind of Christianity, you’re ok.”  The world is happy with them, they are happy with the world, their “You’re ok” calls echo back and forth to each other incessantly.

But no one can silence that other echo, the one from 2000 years ago, ringing down the ages.  It’s pointless to call Him Lord if you don’t follow Him, if you won’t do what He says.  And His true followers hear it, and remember, and are convicted.  We repent, and we return to the One who loves us.  And we grieve over those who don’t, wondering, as He did, “Why do you call yourself a Christian?  Why call Him Lord?”

Of course, Jesus didn’t stop with the question.  He followed it with a promise, and a warning:

Luke 6:47-49

47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:
48 He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
49 But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.

Next Sunday, some “Christians” will take their children to Sunday School (other “Christians” won’t even bother).  The little ones will learn to sing, “The wise man built his house upon a rock, the wise man built his house upon a rock, and the rains came tumbling down.  The rains came down, and the floods came up, and the house on the rock stood firm.”

And when Sunday School is over, far too many of those same people will go home and keep building their house upon the sand, while the echoes ring out, just as pertinent as they were 2000 years ago:

Luke 6:46

And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?