Welcome to the Upside-Down

Introduction

Whats up friends! Welcome back to NXT High School for the first time in 2022! My name is Matt Velasco, if we have not met I want you to know that I am so glad that you are here and would love to meet you before you leave tonight! You’ll hear and see that we say something around these parts, we say that Wednesday night, tonight, is the best night of the week. And we firmly believe it. Not just because you get to hangout with friends and have free dinner and a ton of fun, but also because God has a funny way of showing up in special ways on Wednesday nights here at NXT.

So, if you’re new, thanks for being here! We hope you love it and I want to personally invite you to come back next week.

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This past Monday when I was preparing for this message I was listening to another pastor preach on the same portion of scripture that I’m going to be teaching on tonight, and he started it by talking about hot mic stories. You know what i’m talking about? Those stories where someone with a mic doesn’t know that their mic is on and says something funny, embarrassing, or awful and offensive. You can find stories like this all over the internet, in fact I know some news anchors just had some during the New Years Eve broadcast. And, honestly, it makes me a little nervous! Not that I’m going to say something hateful but that I’m not going to remember my mic is on and accidently broadcast something embarrassing. For example the previous Church I worked at had an album launch party for a worship album they put out a few years ago and I was there and so were all of the other pastors on staff and one of my dear friends and mentors, his name is Brian, was singing his gosh darn heart out. I couldn’t hear him, and I didn’t see him, but I found out later that his mic was on the whole time and the whole worship band could hear him singing during the whole night. And let me tell you, that dude ain’t a singer. He was embarrassed!

There was a show on HBO titled “The Jinx” that was released around 6 years ago that followed a man named Robert Durst who was connected with 3 murders, but was never proven guilty, in fact the courts proved him not-guilty. The show would later interview him and throughout the interview he defended, not for the first time and convincingly so, that he did not murder any of the girls who he was being accused of murdering, even after his not-guilty sentencing. But, once the interview was done Robert Durst left and went to the bathroom where he was on his own and a hot mic caught him saying these words, “What did I do? Killed them all of course” This wasn’t discovered until a few months later and it would then be used to rightfully charge him with the murders he had committed.

And recently a professional golfer was caught hot on the mic saying a slur after he missed a putt and his biggest sponsor, Ralph Lauren, dropped him because of it. As usually goes he made a statement that said something along the lines of, “thats not who I am” but, the sad truth, is that our words tell us a whole lot about our heart and who we actually are. When we say things out of anger or stress that we regret we get a snapshot into the true state of our heart.

Big Idea

Tonight we’re going to be kicking off a new series titled Welcome to the Upside Down where we’re going to be talking about what it means to live in the Upside Down. No, we’re not talking about Stranger Things. We’re talking about living as if the Kingdom of Heaven has indeed come down to Earth. And tonight we’re going to talk about what it means to have Upside-down character. To have the character of one who belongs to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Text Address

We’re going to kick it off tonight in Matthew 12:33-37, would you open up with me? Or follow along on the screen.

Matthew 12:33–37 ESV

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Lets pray before we dive in

Content

Set Up

In this small portion of scripture we zoom in on Jesus talking to a group of Pharisees. One Biblical scholar refers to this section of Matthew’s Gospel as a gracious warning. Saying that it is a severe announcement, but its an announcement mixed with admonishment, which is just a fancy word for a warning. Jesus is announcing to them and warning them of the state of their heart. Jesus is essentially saying to this “brood of vipers” which also means “you sons of snakes,” “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad.” In other words, “You guys speak evil about me because you are evil. You are like a bad tree. Bad trees produce bad, rotten, inedible fruit. Good trees produce good, fresh, tasty fruit! Which do you want to be?!”

See friends, we often underestimate the connection between the heart and the tongue. We might admit the notion of “Freudian slips” which is Freud’s idea that our tongues reveal our subconscious, but we deny that such slips of the tongue, those hot mic moments, are a reliable indicator of the state of the heart. We say “Thats not who I am” But, what Jesus is teaching here is that no, that actually is exactly who you are because “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Jesus is saying to us that whatever your heart is most full with will determine the words that come out of your mouth. Now, lets rewind to a month or two ago… do you remember what we said when we talked about your treasures? Where your treasure is, there your _____ will be also? Do you remember that? Hopefully you see the connection. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, and out of the abundance of your heart (your treasure) comes the things that you say! So, if you want to sound more like Jesus and have the character of Jesus you need to place your treasure in him. But, maybe you don’t even know what it means to have the character of Christ or what we are calling tonight as the Upside-Down Character. This “character” consists of three things, and the order is really important so pay attention.

First - faith

Second - Words

Third - Action

Faith

Romans 3:28 ESV

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

This verse is short but it has some of the richest theology that you can understand as a young believer. Lets break it down,

Justified by faith means that it is by our faith that we are saved and welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven

apart from the works of the law means that it is not our words or our actions that save us.

When we read Matthew 12:31-33 we see that the “good person” that Jesus is talking about isn’t the one that follows all of the rules and says the right stuff, because that was the epitome of a pharisee and the one who Jesus calls a “son of snakes.” He is eluding back the Garden of Eden when a snake tempted Eve to take the fruit and eat thereby disobeying the commands of God and introducing sin into the world, Jesus is calling the pharisees “sons of the tempter!”

The “good person” that Jesus is talking about is the one who has placed their faith in Christ. And it is only the one who has placed their faith in Christ that can “produce good fruit.” So I have a question… is faith in Christ your starting point or your end goal? Because if its your end goal then you can never work your way there.

If you want to produce good fruit, then it must start with faith in Christ. What is that good fruit? Its our words and our action.

Words

Jesus is clear, our words are directly impacted by our faith. He says, Matthew 12:34-37

Matthew 12:34–37 (ESV)

You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words (This just means you are saved through a profession of faith) you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Luke says it this way, Luke 6:45

Luke 6:45 ESV

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Its clear, we speak the language of wherever your heart has its home. Does your heart call hockey home? Then you’re going to sound and speak a whole lot like a hockey player. Does your heart call unclean music home? Then you’re going to sound and speak a whole lot like whoever you listen to most. Does your heart call TikTok home? Then you’re going to sound and speak a whole lot like whatever the trend is on TikTok. Or does your heart call Jesus home? Because thats the only way to sound and speak a whole lot like Jesus.

Your words can tell me a lot about what you’re full of… so let me ask - what are you full of?

Actions

Matthew 12:35 ESV

The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

Romans 14:23 ESV

But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

How many of you know what the reformation is?

It began in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed The 95 Theses to the Castle Church doors in Wittenberg, Germany. One of the key pieces of the Reformation was the critique and absolute rejection of the doctrine of works based salvation. Meaning that you can earn your way into Heaven, or if you do enough good you will be granted admittance into the Kingdom of God. This critique was half of the content of the 95 theses that Luther wrote. And since then, this idea of “works” has been wholly avoided. And don’t get me wrong, for good reason.

However, what it has also caused is for many Christians and much of the Church to avoid the idea of “good action” entirely. James makes it clear in James 2:24,

James 2:24 ESV

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

“But Matt! Isn’t that contradicting Paul?!”

Well, lets see what Paul has to say about it, Ephesians 2:8-9

Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

How do these two pieces of scripture work together?

Well, simply put, Paul is telling us that our works don’t save us- and James is telling us that our salvation should result in good works.

What might these good works be? They don’t have to be extravagant! Some examples,

Obeying your parents

Studying hard in school in order to honor God with your mind

Practicing hard in your sport in order to honor God with your body

Choosing sexual purity in your relationships

Not falling into temptation at a party

Picking up trash that you see in your school

Serving those who are ignored in society

the list could go on!

So its not that we receive salvation through our good actions, like Martin Luther condemned, but its that our salvation should produce in the life of a Christian good actions.

In other words, let your actions be motivated by your faith, not by a desire to look like you have faith or to achieve the faith you want to have.

And so I have another question for you, are your actions driven by sincere faith in Christ? Or a desire to prove to yourself and to others that you have faith? Or a desire to work your way into faith?

Conclusion

i want you to be able to visualize what we’ve been talking about tonight, on the screen you’ll see an image that paints the picture of this movement. On the left we see the starting point is Actions, which leads to the way we speak. And then our actions and our words lead to faith.

And so we think that If I do the “right” things and say the “right” things it means I have faith.

BUT, the truth is that we have to flip that upside-down. It starts with faith, which leads to how we speak and how we act.

And so we think that If I have faith, it will impact the things I say and influence the things I do.

One of these is the way of Jesus, and it requires us to flip our thinking upside down and start from faith, not our actions. The truth is that we do and say good things out of faith, not to earn our faith.

Lets pray