The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew): Christ the King, Christ the Foundation

Well, today is our final passage, studying our way through the Sermon on the Mount as well.

Today is known as Christ the King Sunday on the church calendar.

And it's the last Sunday before we head into Advent.

Advent being that season of preparing our hearts for Christmas and celebrating the coming of Jesus.

So this sermon's going to be a little bit different than normal.

I'm going to read a passage, I'll make a few comments, and then twice during the sermon, we're going to pause midsermon and pray together.

Just have a little bit of stillness, a little bit of quiet, a little bit of prayer, sort of a communal contemplative practice.

We did this about a year ago.

And for this morning, I want us to be contemplating Christ as King, as Christ as King Sunday, Christ as foundation, as that's our passage, and then that ushering us into a week of Thanksgiving.

And so for us to pause twice during the sermon to contemplate those things and to sort of allow our hearts a little bit of space in a busy season to come into a week of thankfulness.

So, yes, as soon as we pray and as soon as I stop talking and there's a little bit of quiet, you're going to think about your Thanksgiving grocery list.

You're going to think about your Christmas list.

You're going to think about the stuff you want.

You're going to think about the stuff you need to buy.

You're going to think about the job you want and you're not sure if you're going to get it or not.

You're going to think about the Christmas bonus you want for the Christmas list that you need to buy.

You're going to think about the really disappointing news that you heard this week, and you haven't told anybody.

And it's eating you up.

You're going to think about that.

You're going to think about whether Randy likes you or not, because he told Cindy Lou that he likes you.

And you thought that was going to happen for you, and you're going to have a boyfriend, and that was going to happen, but then he posted that heartbeating emoji on Emmy Lu's uh Instagram, and now you just don't know.

You don't know, and it's eating you up.

And that's going to come up.

Like all this kind of comes up right as soon as we get quiet.

Like all of this comes up.

And that's actually the point.

Like, that's the point of getting still and praying is to actually feel all that.

To feel the stuff we're worried about.

To feel all of that.

To feel our own busyness or our uncertainty, and for us to pause and surrender it.

And so we're responsible, right?

Like as human beings, we're responsible for our lives, but we are not ultimately in charge of everything.

And that's the great gift of this morning, Christ the King Sunday.

The great gift to us of saying Christ is King is saying, I don't have to be king.

I don't have to be king.

That's such a great gift to remember.

Something that we already have.

This week, just this past week, I was looking for my phone with a flashlight.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I lost my phone.

It's like everything that's on there, and it's like, I don't know if I'm backed up.

I mean, like, I don't know.

Am I backed up or not?

Where's the back?

I don't I don't know.

And so like I'm thinking of everything that's on my phone.

I'm like, I'm lucky if it's charged and I can find it.

And so I'm looking for my phone with a flashlight.

And then I realized I was using the flashlight on my phone.

And that really that's where I'm at.

Like that's where I'm coming into this morning.

That's where I'm at.

It's still really silly, but it's like sometimes we just gotta like slow down and realize the thing we already have.

Right?

Just slow down a little bit to realize the thing we already have.

Like, if we can just slow down this morning a little bit to realize that we have Christ as king and Christ as foundation, that'd be really good for us.

John 18, 33 through 36.

Starting us out thinking about Christ as king.

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus to him.

Are you the king of the Jews?

Jesus answered, Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?

Pilate answered, Am I a Jew?

Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me.

What have you done?

And Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world.

So to kind of simplify this, we could spend weeks on it.

Jesus is saying, There's a kingdom, and it's not of this world, right?

He's saying that over and over again.

There's a kingdom, there's a way of life, there's a way of heart, there's a reign over you.

And it's more absolute and more stable, and it is more eternal than any structure or pursuit in the world.

Verse 37, then Pilate said to him, So you are a king.

And Jesus answered, You say that I am a king.

For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I've come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.

Pilate said to him, What is truth?

After he had said this, he went back outside of the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him.

So essentially, Jesus says, I'm a king.

But not just to the Jews, not just of one person or one people group, but to all people.

Jesus says, I'm a king to all people.

So this week I got very studious.

I took out my dictionary of biblical imagery book, big, fat, impressive book I got in seminary.

And I opened up to kingdoms and I read about kingdoms and then I wrote it up, opened up to kings, and I read about kings and what that is in the Bible, the imagery of it.

What does it give us?

Right?

And I think I can sum it up.

It's not groundbreaking, by the way.

I mean, it's just kind of like first grade stuff here, but it's really good.

A king, not surprising, is one who controls stuff.

A king manages stuff.

The king is in charge.

You can just write that in your notes.

There's five of you that take notes in our church, and so the five of you can write that down.

The king is in charge.

The king is the one who holds all power and honor and glory.

And everyone else and everything else revolves around the king.

Right?

You learned that in first grade.

Man, I've tried to live that way.

Have you tried to live that way?

To be the king of your own heart, to be the king of the world, to try to control everything and manage everything, not to be responsible, that's something else, but to actually be ultimate controller.

Trying to get everyone else to revolve around you and your plan.

And it's selfish.

I mean, ultimately it's selfish, right?

And it's exhausting.

And it's toxic.

And we just weren't made for it.

Because we just weren't made to be the king.

Point number one is this Christ as king means I don't have to be the king of my heart or my world.

That's just such a relief.

To remember that again, to kind of rest into that.

That Christ as king means I don't have to be the one who answers from my own sinful heart or the standing of my righteousness, or just trying to get everything in my life perfectly under control, and then I'll be okay.

That we have a king, King Jesus, who went to the cross, taking our sin, giving us his righteousness, so our standing perfectly, perfect righteousness before God, forever his beloved, and it's secure.

And then it's in our weakness, our lack of kingship, that we find freedom.

Now that's upside down, isn't it?

That's paradoxical.

Tim Keller on this issue of upside down kingdom.

I love this.

Here's this paragraph.

A little bit long, but hang with me.

The pattern of the upside down kingdom is a reversal of values with regard to the world.

In other words, Christians are no longer controlled by the things the world thinks are so critical.

We're not controlled by power, success, comfort, or recognition.

Even if you can't stand the world's values, you run away from them and you have no idea what to do with recognition, you're still controlled by them.

You're scared of them.

It probably means that deep down you're intimidated by them, or you still really want them.

But a person who's a Christian who is living in the upside-down kingdom isn't controlled by these things.

You don't need them, which means you don't want them.

They don't drive you.

They don't control you.

You can take them or leave them.

That is the first mark of somebody who is living in the upside-down kingdom.

It's the pattern of your life.

Now that would be a description of Jesus as king and not you as king of your life.

Gives us plenty of gospel application to work out in our own lives about what drives us, what's important to us.

So let's just pause for a few minutes, our first pause, and we're going to pray.

So you can bow your head.

When you bow your head, you can close your eyes, you keep your eyes open.

You make a little altar of your lap if you want to.

If you want to kneel Nile, you're welcome to kneel Nile.

If you want to stand and sort of like stand as Christ is key, you're welcome to do that.

You can take on a posture of prayer that you won.

The goal here is for us to grow a little still.

Let our hearts be a little still.

Loving Heavenly Father, forgive us of the many ways we act as kings and queens over our own worlds and our own guilt and our own shame.

As if we don't need your grace.

Forgive us for the ways we act like our own saviors, as if we suddenly perform enough to be enough or to be pure enough.

Forgive us for trying to control our worlds rather than live in the surrender to you to live in your wisdom and your grace and your sufficiency.

Heavenly Father, in just a few moments of silence, may we rest in your kingship over all the many things that are in our hearts, or maybe just the one thing in our hearts that are tightly gripping.

Help us to embrace the kingdom of values.

Help us to know the freedom that we have in Christ as king.

Amen.

Now I want to give you an update on the Millennium Tower in San Francisco.

I've been keeping up with it over the years.

Maybe you have.

In 2009 in San Francisco, this Millennium Tower condo building was built in San Francisco.

It was the it building to have a condo in.

The building.

It was the place.

Here's a picture of the condo building here.

The condo sold for$1.5 million.

This is a picture of the penthouse that sold for$13 million.

And then they discovered, after all these condos were sold, the building was leaning to the west 14 inches.

That's not good if you own the penthouse at the top.

That the whole building is leaning 14 inches.

So you think you're hot stuff, right?

Just bought your multi-million dollar condo in the best building.

I'm sure you're talking about it.

You're passively mentioning that you know in conversations.

You might have people over and you're walking them through the lobby, you're feeling so good, and you're having them up for dinner parties, and you are feeling so good that finally you have reached this stage of life to have this condo in this building.

And underneath you, underneath you, the foundation has given 18 inches.

And the whole thing is leaning to the west, 14 inches.

So a few months ago, they began to fix the foundation back in May.

They begin driving these huge concrete pillars,$100 million they're going to invest in, you know, shoring up the foundation.

And then they discover the building's now leaning 22 inches to the west.

So you have this big, fancy building with no firm foundation.

I hope you don't own a condo in that building as a vacation home.

You see, who cares how nice the lobby is?

Right?

Or like what the amenities are, or how like how fancy your condo is, right?

Who cares how much money you make?

Who cares who whose approval you can get?

Or how much influence you have, or what power you have, or how much comfort you have.

Who cares?

If your heart has no lasting stability, it's an image for us, isn't it?

I mean it's the image that Jesus paints in Matthew 7 for us.

About having a stability and security that's beyond the things of this world.

It's more profound, more absolute, more eternal.

Do we have something stable underneath our lives?

Listen to these words of Jesus, Lindsay Redham, Matthew 7, 24 through 27.

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 is 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.

If we take this passage at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and we reflect back over the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount, we end up reflecting on all the ways Christ has called us to live.

We're also forced into reflecting on all the ways that Christ is enough for us.

And then if we begin all the way back to the very first sentence that Matthew gives to us in the Sermon on the Mount, it's this Matthew 5, verse 3.

Matthew 5:3

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So when we're poor in spirit, just done trying to be our own saviors, just done trying to be our own kings.

That's when we know a reign and a presence of God in our lives.

That's when we know King Jesus for us.

So point number two is this Christ as foundation means I have a stability and resting place beyond myself.

Matthew 7 just gives us these two houses.

Two foundations.

The only difference in the houses that we know about is the foundations themselves.

And that's the point, right?

That's the warning.

Is that the Father is saying, like, beloved, be really careful here.

You can rest the core of your being in places that have no stability.

For our growth and grace, here are a few questions that help me see where my heart is resting on a day-to-day basis.

On a day-to-day basis, do I find myself defined by insecurity and burden?

Or stability and gratitude?

What am I feeling?

Because perhaps these emotions are revealing something about where the core of who I am is resting.

In what ways do I nod to Christ as King, but live day to day as my own functional king?

In what ways is that playing out?

What would it mean for my heart to grow more deeply in the gift of Christ as King of my heart?

What freedom might I have?

What healing might I have?

What peace might you know in Christ as King?

Alright, second time, last time, we're gonna pause and let's pray together as to contemplate Christ as foundation and usher us into Thanksgiving week.

Heavenly Father, we are filled with gratitude that you are a greater foundation for our hearts than this fragile world and even all the fickleness that's in our own hearts.

Forgive us for building on our own records and our own bank accounts, our own performance, our own people's approval.

Forgive us for building lives trying to find satisfaction or stability rather than building lives from the true source of satisfaction and stability.

Heavenly Father, in just a few moments of silence, may we rest even more deeply in your secure foundation for us.

We pray this in the name of Jesus by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Now, listen to this psalm in closing.

Listen to this psalm and let the song, because that's what a psalm is, is a song.

Let it just kind of wash over you as we think about Christ as King, Christ is foundation.

Thinking about Thanksgiving, happy Thanksgiving, for who he is for you.

Psalm 100, verses 1 through 5.

Psalms 100 · chapter mention

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, worship the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his we are his people.

The sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him and praise his name.

Well, why would we do any of that?

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever.

His faithfulness continues through all generations.

Let's pray together as we head towards communion.

Father, thank you that in Christ you have provided the forever kingship over our lives.

That we don't have to be king of every little thing in our lives.

We don't have to be ultimate controller.

We don't have to force everybody and everything around us to revolve around us, that you hold all honor and power and glory.

God, thank you in Christ that you provide ultimate foundation for us, that we have a lasting stability and security beyond our performance and our record, beyond how we're doing today.

And that it is in your forever faithfulness and goodness to us that's outside of us and given to us by your good grace in Jesus.

We pray this in his powerful name.

Amen.