Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Fear
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Analytical
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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INTRO
Have you ever gone to a construction site where a new home is being built?
If you walk through when just the studs are up, but they haven’t put drywall in yet—you get a feel for how the house is laid out, but can still see through walls.
Have you ever gone to a construction site where a new home is being built?
If you walk through when just the studs are up, but they haven’t put drywall in yet—you get a feel for how the house is laid out, but can still see through walls.
Before that, the very first thing laid out for the building project is the foundation.
Most houses have something called “footings,” which is concrete poured into the ground, and then the house gets built up on top of the footings.
Footings must be made with skill and precision (and in the right weather conditions) to be sure that the house will be secure.
These footings are the most important part of the house, and yet most people don’t even know they are there.
SCRIPTURE
Jesus used “building a house” as a metaphor to teach people about how they should live.
Check out these verses in the book of Matthew.
Read CSB
My question for you today is simple: “Where is your foundation?”
Is your life built on the rock or is it built on the sand?
Here’s the deal – life is awesome!
It’s fun, meaningful and is an incredible journey.
But guess what?
It can also be really difficult--and you know it firsthand.
Here’s the deal – life is awesome!
It’s fun, meaningful and is an incredible journey.
But guess what?
It can also be really difficult--and you know it firsthand.
All of us face storms in life.
Our lives are like the houses Jesus talked about.
It says they got pounded by the storms.
You will have days in life when you feel like you’re getting beat up.
Jesus says that when the storms of life pound into you, the determining factor of whether or not you collapse is your foundation.
All of us face storms in life.
Our lives are like the houses Jesus talked about.
It says they got pounded by the storms.
You will have days in life when you feel like you’re getting beat up.
Jesus says that when the storms of life pound into you, the determining factor of whether or not you collapse is your foundation.
So I ask again: Are you on the rock or are you on the sand?
So I ask again: Are you on the rock or are you on the sand?
DIGGING DEEPER
Thankfully, Jesus makes it clear how we can tell where our foundation is built.
“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
(CSB)
THE TWO FOUNDATIONS
(CSB)
THE TWO FOUNDATIONS
24“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
24 “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
24 Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
(CSB)
26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
24“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
26But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
Jesus lets us know that our foundation is based on whether or not we act on His words.
“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Which words is He talking about?
What’s the context here?
Jesus’ teaching on building a house upon the correct foundation (7:24-27) wraps up the end of has been called His “Sermon on the Mount.”
For three chapters, Matthew records this epic sermon where Jesus lays out the foundations of Christian discipleship.
These chapters are one of the most widely quoted sections in the entire Bible.
It’s in the Sermon on the Mount that we get:
- The Beatitudes
- Warnings against certain types of behavior
- “Love Your Enemies”
- The Lord’s Prayer
- The Golden Rule
- Ask, Seek, Knock
- Don’t be anxious
He teaches all this important stuff in one big sermon on how to live, and then He wraps it with this analogy of the two foundations.
Live how Jesus taught you to live means your life won’t collapse when the storms hit.
But if you don’t live how Jesus taught you to live means your life will collapse.
Jesus is calling us not only to believe in Him, but to LIVE as he’s taught us.
APPLICATION
We must examine our lives – and not just the part of our lives that everyone sees at church.
We must examine the entirety of who we are and how we live, to hold it up in comparison to how Jesus teaches us to live.
Will we find weak spots in the foundation?
Many of us will.
Yet, this is not a question of condemnation, but of growing and becoming strong in Christ.
Jesus calls us to believe in Him as Savior as the beginning of our relationship with Him.
Next, He calls us to LIVE according to His teachings, to follow Him with our lives—in action, behavior, words, and living.
That’s what it means to have a secure foundation that can withstand the storms.
In a perfect world, living our lives according to Jesus’ teachings would be easy for us.
When we let the reality of God’s love for us sink in, it should make us want to give our lives to Him.
But if we’re honest, it can be hard to fully commit.
Why is that?
Have you ever heard of the term Cultural Christianity?
Some believe Christianity is a cultural identifier, no more than a label.
It gets lumped in with stuff like Age or Gender or Nationality.
For many, faith is relegated to belonging to a group, instead of transforming the very core of who we are.
Some believe that if you’re from a Christian family and go to church—that is all it takes.
That cultural identity marker is more of a family tradition than a life which is becoming more like Christ daily in actions, behaviors, words, and the way one lives life.
In daily life, a Cultural Christian ignores how Christ taught us to live in favor of living however they want.
Whatever feels right, is how they live.
Author Brennan Manning said this: “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle.
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
We want to think that quote doesn’t apply to us, but it does for many of us.
We love God, but when it comes to making changes in our daily lives, we don’t change because want to do what we want to do.
It’s hard to live like Jesus called us to live, so we usually don’t.
Yet, we wonder why our lives start to fall apart when the storms of life hit.
I think the opposite of a “Cultural Christian” is a “Christ Follower.”
A Christ Follower is just that: someone who follows Christ with his or her life.
To say “I am a Christ Follower” leaves no room to be mistaken for a Cultural Christian.
It defines you as someone whose faith in Christ is leading the way you live.
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