Our Foundational Response

Ladies and gentlemen, I have some great news for you! In a year of interruptions, frustrations, and plans that have been thrown out the window, we have at least one thing we can check off our box: This morning, we are completing our look at The Sermon on the Mount, which is found in Matthew 5-7.

We have spent the better part of this year looking at what Jesus taught his disciples and the crowds that day as they gathered around on a hillside near the Sea of Galilee.

We have at least one more lesson that Jesus wants to drive home, though, so let’s turn over to Matthew 7:24-29.

The picture Jesus is using here is one that we learned more about during the year we lived in Central Arkansas.

Our town was right in “Tornado Alley,” this stretch of America that is prone to have tornadoes. To give you an idea, we had a tornado pass within about 5 miles of our home. Did you ever watch the show “Storm Chasers”? They were within an hour of our house at one point.

There were several crucial points we learned about surviving a tornado. One of the major ones was whether your house was on a slab or up on a block foundation. If your house was on block, the winds could get underneath it and tear it to shreds. If it was on a slab, you had a lot better chance of making it through, because the house was anchored to a solid piece of concrete, with no room for that wind to get in and pick it up.

Our house was on a block foundation, so one night, we found ourselves driving down to church and hiding in the middle of the building. Why? Because the foundation was the right kind to make it through the storm.

As we wrap up this series on the Sermon on the Mount, we see Jesus teaching us that there are only two different kinds of foundations we can build our lives upon: we can either place his teaching as the foundational truth of what we are, do, and exist for; or we could ignore it and try to go on our own.

Read verses 24-29...

Jesus makes several things very clear: everyone builds on a foundation, everyone faces storms, but only those who do what he says will stand.

Jesus looks back at all he has been teaching and tells the crowd, “You have heard it, now do it.”

He is going to issue that same challenge to us today.

It has been a long time since we started with our study, so you may have forgotten some of what Jesus has said. Others of you have started attending since we got started, so you weren’t here to hear everything.

Let’s run through a super quick review of the Sermon on the Mount:

In 5:1-12, we saw Jesus turning the system of the world upside down as he tells us that poverty is valuable and true joy is found in godly sorrow.

In 13-16, Jesus tells us that we are to influence the world around us to keep things from getting as bad as they can, all the while allowing the light of Christ to shine in and through our lives.

In 17-20, Jesus tells us that God’s standard has not changed; what he is teaching is simply a fulfillment of what God has already said.

With that in mind, He takes the rest of Matthew 5 to point us to the inward attitudes that prove that prove our outward actions to be fake, pointing us back to the reality of our spiritual poverty. He tells us that anger and hatred are murder, lust is adultery, that we have no right to seek personal retribution when offended, and that God ultimately requires perfection.

He continues to pound away at our heart in chapter 6. Right off the bat, He tells us that our outward demonstrations of religion and righteousness are worthless if our focus is the approval of others.

In 2-4, Jesus commands us to give in secret. 5-8 teach us to pray sincerely and without putting on a show.

In 9-15, Jesus teaches us to pray to the great, powerful, yet intimately personal God of the universe. We are to seek for God to be exalted as we willingly obey what He wants us to do and be. We seek for the things we need, materially and physically and are filled with gratitude for when God provides more than what we must have.

In 16-18, we are reminded that fasting is not about impressing people but about responding to the enormity of a need God has allowed us to face.

We find in 19-24 that we cannot be focused on getting fame and fortune in this life and living fully surrendered to Christ, so it is essential to stop focusing on the things of today and start living so our conduct will be rewarded in heaven.

Right in the heels of that, Jesus tells us not to worry about anything, because the great God who loves you will take care of your every need. Instead of worrying about the stuff of this world, we are to turn with laser focus to Christ, seeking to live under his authority and rule above all else.

Chapter 7 starts with an admonition to be careful not to stand in God's place, casting judgment.

We are then reminded that, for the wisdom, strength, and ability to meet all these needs, we must continually ask, seek, and knock, and that our heavenly Father will graciously give us what we need. With that said, he expects us to give to others the same way.

And then, we are faced with a choice, realizing we can't get into heaven by our own popularity or performance, but only through the blood of Christ.

Finally, we are confronted with the need to make sure the people we follow aren’t leading us away from God’s kingdom, but instead are exalting Jesus above all.

That is a ton of information! There is enough in this to study for a lifetime!

You are faced with a choice today: what you are going to do with what you have heard and been taught?

Are you going to take it to heart and act like Jesus really is king, or are you just going to move on and live like you always have?

Whatever your choice, you find that several realities are true:

1) Everyone builds on a foundation.

When you look at the two people Jesus points to in this parable, you find that there is an inescapable reality: You are building your life on top of some kind of foundation.

We talked about this some last week when we brought up the issue of the worldview of the people we follow—We all develop a framework for decision making and have lenses through which you look at life.

You see, there is a huge danger we all face. It is so easy to compartmentalize our lives into different segments, especially during seasons when life gets disjointed. We say we believe Jesus and we go to church, but we don’t believe that the decisions about how we spend our time or what we do with our money or how we treat other people necessarily has anything to do with what the Bible says.

You might say, “There is a place for religion. It’s good for my children to grow up and see these traditions, and the morals that the church teaches are admirable,” yet you think you can push what Jesus says off into some corner.

You come to church because it makes you feel good or even challenges you to step up your moral game, but ultimately, your relationship with Christ is a side issue and not the center of who you are.

That leads us to say things like,

“I know Jesus said that we are to be honest, and I really try to be, but let’s face it; times are tough and I have to survive.”

“Well, if Jesus only knew the situation I was in. If he knew how my husband treated me or my wife disrespected me, there’s no way he would expect me to turn the other cheek.”

“I know God says not to worry about tomorrow, but did you see what they said on the news? How in the world am I going to take care of all of this?”

Jesus does teach us that there is a place for religion—at the very core of who you are.

Whether you believe it or not, whether you are consciously aware of it or not, what you believe about God is ultimately displayed by your actions.

You are here this morning, and you are listening to God’s word. Are you building your life on what he says, or are you setting it off to the side somewhere and trying to build your life on your own?

Every person has a foundation, whether it’s belief in Jesus death in your place, or it’s a foundation that you have built on how good you are and how hard you work.

Everyone has a foundation, a core reality that they build their lives upon…what’s yours?

Not only that, but Jesus points out another reality:

2) Everyone faces storms.

Here, Jesus describes what would have been a fairly common occurrence in his day: a sudden, severe storm that came out of nowhere.

Now, we all have apps on our phones and men on the TV who can predict rain within minutes; in Jesus’ day, you didn’t have all that, so it wasn’t uncommon to get caught by a tremendous storm.

Isn’t it interesting to notice that both the guy who built his house correctly and the guy who built his house on a shoddy foundation faced storms?

In fact, both storms are described with the exact same language.

If you have lived life for any length of time, you know this to be true. Every person alive faces some kind of storm.

I have heard it said many times, “You are either in a storm, coming out of a storm, or about to enter a storm.”

This is an unfortunate effect of sin in this world. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, they broke God’s law, and all of creation has been out of whack ever since.

It’s why we get sick, it’s why people are mean, it’s why life isn’t fair—Adam and Eve’s sin brought death and destruction to all of creation.

This is universal to us all.

In fact, Jesus taught us to expect this:

John 16:33 CSB

I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

You are guaranteed to have trouble. Just like a massive storm that causes a flash flood, it will often be sudden, unexpected, and severe.

Beyond that, there is an even greater storm that will test the foundation of our lives.

The Bible is crystal clear that every human being is going to stand before God and have to give an account of their lives.

That is the assumed reality in verses like this:

Hebrews 9:27 CSB

And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment—

Everyone is going to die, and after they die, they are going to stand before God and be judged.

We saw that last week as we saw that false teachers and those who falsely profess faith in Christ are going to stand before Jesus, who will say to them, “I never knew you. Depart from me...”

In that moment, every excuse, everything you have built to try to prove how valuable you are, everything will be put to the test.

How in the world can you live through it? How can you continue to make it in face of these terrible things that happen in this life, and what hope do we have of surviving the just storm of God’s judgment?

That leads us to the next point we see:

3) Only those who do what Jesus says will stand.

In this story, both houses have foundations. Both houses face a storm, yet only one makes it. What makes the difference? What makes the difference is what that house is built upon.

The wise man built his house correctly by digging down until he finally found a rock big enough to hold the weight of his house. In fact, they still have to do this in the Middle East. It’s not unheard of for someone to dig over 30 feet to find bedrock.

The other man decided to take it at face value and just put up his house. When the weather was nice, it seemed to hold up fine, and everything looked solid. However, it fell, and as verse 27 says, it fell catastrophically.

We have the same choice. We can either hear what Jesus says and push it aside, or we can dig deep and do the difficult work of trusting Jesus and obeying what he says.

Keep in mind that Jesus isn’t just any life coach or religious teacher. Look at verses 28-29.

He taught with authority because he is God in the flesh, not just someone teaching about God.

The Bible even describes him as the Word of God, so his words have a weight unlike anyone else.

Those who are a part of his kingdom hear what he says and change their attitudes and actions accordingly!

This doesn’t contradict what we have said previously about kingdom citizenship, though.

We have been clear throughout this series that the obedience Jesus is asking for comes from a heart that trusts in him first. Once he draws us to himself and we surrender to his control, then we must start living that out in our actions.

We aren’t saying that you should be like the Pharisees, who were known for acting like they followed God while their hearts were still not right with him.

Let’s be crystal clear on this: It isn’t enough to come to church, to feel bad about what I say or to get stirred emotionally, and then just go back to life as normal.

James, Jesus’ half-brother, teaches us that living like that is ultimately worthless:

James 1:22–25 CSB

But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does.

IIdid a rough estimate of how much time we have spent looking at the Sermon on the Mount this year, and it has been over 22 hours. If you have been here every Sunday, you have spent the better part of an entire day this year listening to me talk about these three chapters.

I have had a number of people over this year tell me that God has been using our study through the Sermon on the Mount in their life.

I hope that is true. So here’s a question: can you name 3 things in your life that are different because of what you have learned this year?

Can you show me where you know Jesus better and are following him more closely?

It may take you a minute to think through what God has been doing, but there ought to be something that stands out that is different. I know that growth in Christ is often slow and below the surface, but if we have been looking at this for as long as we have, then there ought to be something different!

If your life is built on a foundation of trusting Jesus for eternal life, it will play itself out in the way you live!

If you aren’t growing, you need to examine your life!

I know that there is a lot going on right now, but I don’t see any caveats to Jesus’ expectation here. He doesn’t give us an exemption from obeying him because we are tired or because there is a pandemic or because there is political unrest.

In fact, these are the very storms that we as believers should lean in to, allowing God to show himself in and through us as we stand firmly with him at the helm of our lives.

He is they one who gives Christians the strength to stand through all of life’s storms:

Proverbs 24:16 CSB

Though a righteous person falls seven times, he will get up, but the wicked will stumble into ruin.

We mess up, we allow circumstances to throw us off course, and we struggle through diagnoses or relationship struggles or questioning circumstances or the future.

However, because our King never fails, we rest in him and find strength to stand time and time again.

Again, it isn’t our strength. It is his strength in us that enables us to carry out his commands, to live up to the standard he has outlined.

It is that foundation of active trust that leads us to be able to say with the Apostle Paul:

2 Corinthians 4:8–9 CSB

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.

And after all these storms of life are over and we face that final storm of God’s judgment, we will stand.

We won’t stand because of what we have done, but we will stand with a faith in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection for us that has been demonstrated by the way we act.

We will stand because we surrendered to the God who allowed his only Son to be surrendered to death for us.

We will stand because that Son didn’t stay dead, but after three days, he rose from the dead.

We will stand because we have surrendered to him as our Lord and our King.

We will stand because, through his strength and for his glory, we have shown that faith by following his commands.

You, this morning, are faced with a choice. Jesus drew a line in the sand that day, and we’re drawing one here this morning.

Are you going to choose to surrender everything you are and ever hope to be to Jesus, committing to do what he says?

Or, are you going to keep trying to figure life out on your own, and hope that if there is a god, that you have been kind enough to get in?

What’s your choice today?