True Belief

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and professor in Germany in the years before WWII.

He noticed that Germany was consistently going towards evil, and tried to speak out against it.

He was censored by the government, not allowed to teach or speak, and eventually left the country to America in hopes to escape the violence.

However, when he arrived in America, he decided that he couldn’t stay, and decided to go back to Germany to try to bring the country back to what it was supposed to be.

He even joined a plot to assassinate Hitler because he thought that an assassination was the only way that Germany could ever be righted.

Bonhoeffer was eventually captured and thrown in prison.

He continued doing ministry while in prison, providing counseling and preaching to the prisoners, and even preaching the gospel to the guards.

He was transferred to Flossenburg concentration camp is April 1945, and was executed 3 days before the allies liberated the camp.

His last recorded words were to a British prisoner right after he was being led away to be executed, saying, “This is the end - for me, the beginning of life.”

When we look at the Sermon on the Mount, we see Jesus putting together a way that followers of Jesus are supposed to look at and interact with themselves, the world, and God. It’s easy for us to ignore these commands, or for us to say that no one actually did it or that actually following in the way of Jesus is too difficult, but Bonhoeffer is a more modern example that shows us how following Jesus with every bit of your being is possible, with the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 7:21-29

So, what does belief really look like?

A Disciple is Someone who Believes and Obeys

We see in this section two different types of people.

First, we have those who have belief without obedience.

Matthew 7:21 ESV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

They believe the right things. They call on the Lord, they know the right stuff! But, Jesus says that the one who does the will of the Father is the one who gets into heaven.

Belief without obedience is not faith!

They might know all of the things that they’re supposed to know, but they don’t DO any of them!

This is an easy place for us to stay

It’s really easy for us to know enough of the right things that we’re supposed to do when it comes to believing in Jesus that we can think we’ve done enough! We don’t need to do anything more, because we already prayed a prayer when we were younger!

But if we have a belief that has no obedience, then it can’t be faith!

Part of believing in Jesus must be in believing what He says, believing in Jesus means following Him, living in the way that He communicates for you to live, not just doing whatever you want!

I grew up in church, I got saved when I was five, but I didn’t start actually reading my Bible seriously until I was like 18! I was not living as a Christian while I was in middle school and high school, I was living as someone who thought that he was a Christian.

I could do the “Jesusy” things and I could pray and I could even preach, but it wasn’t until later in high school until I really started to care about being a follower of Jesus!

I had all of the faith (I knew all of the Sunday school answers), but I had very little of the obedience!

And that is simply not faith.

But, on the flip side of things, Jesus mentions those who are obedient, but don’t believe.

Matthew 7:22–23 ESV

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

These people seem to have done a lot of good things! They prophesied, they cast out demons, they did a lot of really great things!

But, Jesus tells them that He never knew them.

Maybe they did a lot, but they didn’t actually know Jesus.

Obedience without belief isn’t faith.

Just because you do stuff does not make you a follower of Jesus.

We can very easily look at our lives and say, “I’ve done a lot, and I pray regularly, and I go to youth group, so I must be a Christian!”

God does not look at your faith like a checklist, it’s a relationship.

If you have someone that you want to be friends with, you probably don’t approach them with a checklist.

Once we

Have an inside joke

Hang out 3X after school

Get each other a gift

Then we’re friends!

That would be kind of insane. And if you have done that, stop it, it’s weird.

A true friendship is based on devotion and care and time, not the stuff. And so it is with Jesus.

The stuff matters! If you don’t ever hang out with a friend, they’re probably not much of a friend, and similarly, if you don’t ever spend time with Jesus, you’re probably not His follower, but it’s not the action that makes the relationship, it’s the attitude of your heart.

The scariest part of this to me is what Jesus tells to the people who think that they follow Him but really don’t. “I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.”

I don’t want there to be a question in my faith. I want to have the confidence in knowing that Jesus really is my Savior.

So how do we get there?

Build a Foundation on Christ.

Matthew 7:24–27 ESV

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

When we look at what it means to have a true belief, to be full of God, what Jesus says is that we have to have a firm foundation for our lives.

Do you know what a foundation is?

It’s the bottom of a house or building, it holds everything up, and if it’s super weak, the rest of the structure won’t last.

Similarly, says Jesus, that if your life does not have a strong foundation, that it will not last.

Jesus compares it to a guy who builds a house.

In Israel, theres a lot of sand, so it’s hard to build well. So, what people will do is dig into the sand until they can find some strong rock and build something out of that. But, if you’re lazy and don’t want to work hard, you can put your house up on the sand. It will take a lot less time, and be significantly easier.

But, it’s a lot like putting a trailer in Oklahoma, you know that it’s going to get obliterated.

When flooding and rain and heavy winds come (all of which are super common in Israel), that house that you spent so long working on is going to be floating down a river.

So, what do you think Jesus means when He says the rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew?

It’s the pains, the difficulties of life.

It’s the broken relationships, it’s the struggles that we thought we could handle but we for sure can’t.

It’s the feelings of worthlessness, the inescapable sins, the family problems, the issues with pride or feeling like we have to prove that we’re somehow worth something.

It’s the things that you and I deal with because we are sinful people that live in a sinful world.

A strong foundation on Christ will keep you in the storm.

If you have a strong foundation on Christ, you will be able to weather the difficulties that you and I will experience.

NOTICE, Jesus doesn’t say that suddenly you won’t ever have to deal with pain, but that your life will not fall because you have a foundation that is solid.

Now, this sounds ideal, but there’s a reason why not everyone is a follower of Jesus. There’s two temptations that we face in building a foundation.

No foundation at all.

“I don’t need to worry so much about it, I’m going to be fine!”

“I’ll just do what feels right and it will all work out!”

“God already loves me, so I think that I’ll be fine!”

NO YOU WON’T!

This way of life can only ruin. It can only do harm. Not putting your faith in anything and having no trust in anything beside your own self is a terrible way to live if you want to truly live.

When we have no foundation, we throw our lives into the wind and hope that something good will happen to it. Ask the dude that lived in a trailer in Oklahoma during tornado season how that works out.

Any foundation.

“Ok, so if I have to put my trust in something, I’ll do it in something that I can control a little better!”

So, we base our lives on the stock market or on our ability to be funny or on family or success or our looks.

This feels at least a little better because we have SOMETHING, right?

But, when we put our trust in something that isn’t strong, we are building our lives on shaky principles that will fall apart when pushed and leave you with nothing.

Your family is great, but if you put your trust in them, you will find them constantly disappointing you.

Your friends are not going to save you, they will do something to hurt you.

Cash burns, and money doesn’t hold up.

We need a foundation that is untouchable, and that can only be Christ.

So, How do you build a foundation on Christ?

How do you dig deep and plant yourself on the bedrock that is Jesus

Look at what He tells us in vs. 24

Matthew 7:24 ESV

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

We need to hear and do what He says.

We must pattern our lives after Jesus.

Let’s have the obedience and the belief that we need!

We must believe that God really does love you and that Christ died for you and gave everything for you. He really is God in the flesh, He really did take on your sin! All of the pain and difficulty in your life is something that He has already taken!

And let’s live lives that reflect that!

Let’s love people well and read our Bibles and pray regularly and be full of grace and peace because that’s what Jesus did!

I don’t want to keep living a life that’s just a fake faith in Jesus because it isn’t made of both obedience and belief!

I don’t want to move through the rest of my life on a shaky foundation of my choosing! I want to be full of and planted firmly on Jesus!

So, this week, I want us to read Matthew 5-7, which is the whole Sermon on the Mount. We just finished it, let’s read it one more time, and write down one takeaway to bring to group next week!

Actually do it, and bring it in! Or, if you have a group chat for your small group, send it in before Wednesday!

It’s two chapters, I know that you can do it!

Questions.

One has to go: milk chocolate or dark chocolate. Which one?

Where do you find yourself on the obedience/belief dichotomy? Do you lean more toward obedience without belief or belief without obedience?

How would you define a foundation of your life?

What is one thing you can do this week to further build a foundation on Christ?