Matthew: The Great Firm Foundation

Our last message of our making our way through the Sermon on the Mount, which is the core of Jesus' teaching, what we've been saying every week is this Sermon on the Mount is the core of Jesus' teaching, and what it's doing is not just teaching us how we should live, but it's actually taking us even deeper.

It's taking us into the core of who we are.

And in that, we're seeing how much we actually need Him, not just as a teacher, but as our sacrifice.

And so hopefully, as I taught in the next 20 minutes, that'll make sense to some of us.

Maybe if you're new to church or new to the Sermon on the Mount and what this is.

Hopefully, this morning I can give you something to be thankful for for this week.

It won't be because of me, it'll be because of this Sermon on the Mount.

And this is the conclusion.

This is Jesus' last few words at the end of this teaching.

It's the conclusion, it's the last thought.

So when I was in high school, I worked in a warehouse of a furniture store in the town that I grew up in.

And so I worked there, my buddy John worked there, and uh Rob was the head of the warehouse.

Rob was a very big white guy, black mustache, he always wore tank tops, black armpits for some reason.

We're not we're never quite sure why, but uh he did have black armpits, just want to throw that out there.

And this warehouse was in the old roses in our town.

You remember roses?

You remember roses?

Richway, you remember Richway?

Yeah, you were upper class.

If you were Richway, you're upper class.

Roses was a little bit further down, and we were in the roses, and then we left the roses and we moved to this really nice big warehouse.

Well, right away Rob said, Hey, we need to build a second story inside the warehouse.

And he was convinced that we are equipped to do this.

Two high school students and him were equipped to build a second story to hold thousands and thousands of pounds of tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise.

And so during the day, Rob would go to Home Depot and he'd buy lots of two by fours in plywood, and then after school, John and I would show up and we would just start, we'd just start building stuff.

I mean, we didn't know what we were doing.

We we had no not equipped for this, okay?

Just not equipped.

Rob wasn't equipped for this, I wasn't, John wasn't, none of us were equipped for this, but this is what we did.

This is what we got there, and we just start building structure.

And the and the great engineering test of this was simply John and I would get on top of what we built and kind of jump around and run around.

And if it shook, then we just added more wood.

If it was too shaky, just keep adding more wood.

That was the solution.

You know, you don't uh you don't consult anybody, you don't consult an engineer for this massive structure we're building, just keep adding more wood, right?

And it was shaky and it was unstable.

I mean, even when it got to be the size that we needed to be, which was pretty big, like the size of this room, a whole second floor the size of this room, and we should not have been building that.

And it was shaky and it was unstable, and never mind consulting anybody about a firm foundation, just add more wood.

Even when the thing was the size of this room, we were adding more wood underneath it.

That was always the solution.

Maybe you know what I'm talking about because you you built a deck and it's not working out like you thought, and so you're just like, let's get back underneath there, and we'll add this here, and we're gonna run a diagonal, we're gonna maybe you put together an IKEA dresser or you tried to, and then you had a divorce the next week.

If you ever put together IKEA with a spouse, you all the divorce comes the next week.

But you built something and you had no business building it, right?

And you know it as you get into it, right?

And a lot of times the feeling is like, oh, I'll just I'll figure this out.

I'll just keep, I'll keep at it, I'll keep adding more wood, even though you have no clue what you're doing.

And we spend all this energy, we spend all this energy maintaining something that's it's destined to fail.

Right?

We do this all the time.

We do it with little projects, we do it, but we we do it with ourselves as well.

And so we get this passage that we're coming into, these last words, and I'll re read it again, 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 will be like a foolish man.

And that word there is moros, moron.

So it's like Jesus is saying, Hey, if you're like, you're a moron, is what he's saying.

He's saying that.

That's the word, moros.

You're a you're a moron.

You're a moron who built his house on the sand.

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat against the house, and it fell.

And great was the fall of it.

Now, my initial reaction to this passage was like, it sort of sounds like a threat.

You know, like sort of like do this, keep it.

That's what the word do this, do this, keep it, fulfill it, and you're wise.

If you do this, then you're, then you're wise.

And if you don't do it, you're a fool.

You're a you're a moron.

So there's this warning.

There's this warning here.

Jesus is giving a warning and this conclusion.

But if we dig deep, there's also a promise in it.

There's a promise here.

And so a few points to guide our thinking this morning.

Point number one, in our pride and hurt, we use shaky foundations.

In our pride and in our hurt, we use shaky foundations.

So there's two houses here, and there's two foundations in this parable, this last little bit.

There's nothing detailing the houses.

Right?

We don't know if there's shag carpet, if there's berber, we don't know if there's like barn wood from Nova Scotia and yet it's shipped down.

Like, we don't, there's no details.

We can just assume it's just two houses that are very similar, like shiny Marietta two stories.

Like we can just assume they're very similar.

The only difference here that we know about is that which they rest upon.

Like, that's the point of the parable.

And this is the warning, a very loving warning of like, hey, hey, hey, kids.

I mean, this is like the father saying, careful, kiddos, careful.

It is very possible for you to build your identity, the core of who you are, your life on something and in places that have no stability.

And you can get down the road a while and find out it's just really shaky.

And we do this.

We do it because we're prideful, and we do it because we're hurting.

We want control.

And in our sinful nature, we want control.

We want to self-save.

We want to self-save with religiosity, we want to self-save with escaping all of that and pretending like none of that exists, and we don't need redemption, or we're gonna redeem ourselves through what we look like or our work.

I mean, we we that's we love the control, and that's our sinful nature.

That's what sin is in its core.

Like, okay, maybe I'll nod at Jesus.

Like I'll give like the Southern, you know, the Southern church nod at Jesus.

But when it comes down to it, when it comes down to it, I'm really gonna build my two-story where I want to build it today.

And Jesus is saying, careful, careful on that one.

Years ago, I had a friend whose father owned a successful business, and he had three daughters, he had a successful business, he had a great wife, had great family.

I mean, he he had stability.

He was stability.

Like, I mean, he was in like in our town, he was stability.

And one day, one of his daughters was walking down the sidewalk in downtown Atlanta underneath some construction, and a beam fell and hit her, and she died.

Right?

I mean, everything was fine.

And then it rained.

And some of you know what I'm talking about, because one moment, one day, everything's fine, and then the next, it rains.

I mean, this has happened several times in my family in the last 25 years, where one week everything's fine, and then all of a sudden it's pouring rain.

And sadly, that gentleman he went down a self-destructive path, and he not only lost his daughter, he then lost his marriage, and then he strained the other relationships in the family to basically losing them.

Like, right?

I mean, one week you think everything's under your control, because that's how you're building your life, under your control.

Everything's under your control, and you think you can keep it under control.

And then there's an accident, and and then there's a betrayal by the person that you love the most, or then you betray the person you love the most.

And then the doctor calls with the news you didn't think was gonna come to you or your family.

And you just feel numb.

Like, right?

Like it was fine, and now it's raining.

Or finally the performing you've been doing your whole life.

They're pretending and the performing you've been doing, like, and you've just been shoving down all the other stuff, like the kind of the mess you are, just sort of performing for everybody else, and that automatically you're shoving everything, and it's just like a brewing storm inside of you, and all of a sudden it just kind of all kind of erupts out.

And the question comes, it has to come.

That's what this parable is about at the end of the sermon.

It's just, is what is the stable source for your life?

Where is the stable source?

Point number two, the firm foundation is the gift of Christ himself.

Okay, so Jesus is teaching this.

These people listening at the time, they would have known about a hundred miles from there, King Herod was, his men, King Herod's men were rebuilding, they're building the temple.

So that was the epicenter of the law.

I mean, that was home base, the center of the way of law.

And when we talk about law, we're talking about the way you should live.

So we have law throughout the Old Testament.

It's all the do this, this, and this, and then you're approved by God.

It's all the way you should live.

And there's a religion of law, there's also just the way of law.

Like it's all the ways you, the thing you should be in life, and you're not.

And that's why we can't live by law alone, but we need God's grace.

So we have the covenant of law, but the covenant of law is not enough.

We need the covenant of grace, and he's rebuilding the temple, they're building the temple, and that's the center of law.

And Jesus comes into this context, in this context of people thinking, okay, if I do this and I do this and I do this and I do that and that and that, and I bring my sacrifice, then I'm accepted before God.

And everything just experientially for them just feels so shaky and insecure.

It does for us as well.

Anytime we live by law alone, everything's insecure.

Because how do you ever know you're okay?

Because it's based on your work.

How would you ever know your work is enough?

And Jesus comes right into that context, and he says, He says, Hey, at the very beginning of this Sermon on the Mount, he comes right into it.

He says, Not a dot of the law is relaxed.

None of it, none of it's gone.

We need all of it.

We need it to guide us for how we should live, and we need it to break us for us to realize we are not perfect human beings.

And then Jesus says, Hey, all of that law is fulfilled in me.

What that means is it's this good relieving news for us that we are saved, rescued, fulfilled, redeemed.

That word to be made whole.

Not by merit, but by grace through faith.

And this rescue is objective.

Right?

I mean, this is the objectivity of the gift of Christ that it was accomplished outside of you.

He took your sin upon himself on the cross, his righteousness is given to you.

So this incarnation of Jesus going to the cross is the act of God's love for you, and it's outside of you.

So it's objective.

Because it's outside of you and objective, it's what gives you security.

Because it's given to you.

So we aren't in the anxiety and the fear or the subjectivity of the emotion before it or the merit of it.

I mean, this is the stable source your heart longs for.

The foundation is built outside of you and given to you.

Point number three: the secure foundation of Christ is enough for you and your messiness.

Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to be perfect.

It doesn't mean life's going to be easy.

Actually, the parable itself is just saying it's not.

It's going to be really hard.

But it means there's a foundation there.

Next month, our little church, we, you, we will be giving away maybe around$45,000.

At the end of every year, we give away 15% of the tithe and offering that comes into our church.

And so next month we'll be giving away somewhere around there.

Well, in the next week or so, we'll be calculating that up and talking about it at our congregational meeting.

One of the organizations we give to is this ministry in Guatemala called Impacto.

And they're down there and they're planting churches and they're training pastors, and they do that through trainings and teachings and relationships, and they do that also through doing stuff like building houses.

And I've been down there probably eight or nine times over the last 12 years.

The second time I went, I took 20 college students, and we built a home for this elderly lady named Francisca.

It was down this path through a trash pit, basically.

It was down this path through this trash pit, and then it opened up to her little plot of land, and her house was made of limbs, sticks, and a metal roof.

And she was probably around 75 years old.

Her house was about the size of my laundry room.

The floor of it was dirt.

And then rainy season would come.

And it was a constant battle for her of survival and rebuilding.

Because the storms always came.

Every year, every single year, her house, part of it would get knocked down, and that she'd have to huddle in there during the rain, and then and then the next morning would come, and she'd have to get out there and she'd have to patch that thing back together.

And then along comes Impacto and says, Hey, we're gonna build you a house.

We know it's been really hard for you.

We're gonna build you a house.

And then we show up and we we we dig footers and we pour concrete into the ground and we put rebar down into the ground horizontally in those footers, and then we tie up more rebar to this horizontal, and it's down in the concrete in the ground, and that rebar sticking up into the air, and then we start putting cinder blocks down over that rebar, down onto that footer, that concrete, and that rebar shooting up through all these cinder blocks that are going higher and higher and higher, and we're pouring more concrete into the cinder blocks, right?

And the point of all of this is that there's this integration between the foundation and the wall.

There's an integration between the foundation and the house.

Here's my point: that's the Christian journey is learning about that integration.

That's that this is sanctification.

This transformation of your being by the Holy Spirit of God calling out to your spirit, speaking to you of the greatness of the foundation that you are connected to.

So it's never really about the house.

I mean, Jesus' point here is not to glorify the house.

He didn't say, ah, you know, uh, you know, yeah, the house is on shaky ground, but man, they put in a cedar closet in the hallway, and you gotta see it because they can store some coats in there and some linens.

No, it's it's about this, always it's about the foundation.

That's what the whole story's about.

Here's what I've been learning this week and been thinking about is so much of my life, I'm walking around like a like a beggar.

Just feeling like a beggar.

You know, feeling a little homeless, a little hungry, and I got this heavy bag with me, and I'm walking around, I'm just trying to get a handout from somebody for some approval or something.

I think maybe I can buy some forgiveness for this or some self-worth with this.

And then there's this, then there's the Holy Spirit inside calling out to my lowly, self-absorbed, prideful spirit.

And the spirit's going like, hey, hey, moron.

Hey moron.

Look in your bag.

Just look in your bag.

You're carrying that bag around.

Look in your bag, and then finally, you know, like finally, after a few days of me being a moron, I look in my bag and it's filled with gold.

Listen, you have gold.

I mean, like, you got rebar shooting up out of a footer of concrete, shooting up into the core of your being.

And integrating that into who you are is the Christian journey.

Shame doesn't have to define us, sin doesn't have to entrap us, merit does not have to exhaust us.

Circumstances and failure and all the storms of life that they can only touch you so deeply.

Because you're integrated into something much deeper, that's firmer, a kingdom that's eternal and that's unconditionally loving toward you.

So you're gonna find yourself around some table on Thursday, and maybe uh, you know, turkey and some really dry dressing by Aunt Janice, and nobody likes it.

We all eat it anyway.

You're like, I put enough gravy on it, it's gonna be okay.

Maybe you're with people you love.

Maybe you're with people you endure, maybe you're by yourself and you got like you got the bucket of KFC.

It's all very, very possible.

But what's true for you is you have gold.

Like, I mean, you have gold.

It's been good for me this week to be reminded these houses in the parable aren't perfect.

Like Francisca's house was not perfect, and Tyler Perry just sold his estate in Buckhead for$17.5 million, and I heard a rumor he had problems with his retaining walls, right?

I mean,$17.5 million.

You got retaining wall problems.

There's it's none of them are perfect.

None of the houses are perfect.

And your life's not perfect.

We're not perfect, you're not perfect.

It's all about where these old broken down houses rest.

And then learning about integrating Jesus' unconditional love into our lives.

And by the way, afterward, after we finished Francisca's house, we finished, and we were standing in a circle, and we were praying and dedicating the house to her, to the Lord, and she little lady with long brown hair, she didn't speak any English, and she just she walked around, she went to every person, one by one, very slowly, one by one, and she would reach up and she grab the neck of the person and pull them down, and she kissed on the cheek, person by person, and the whole time she's just whispering, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.

She knew it.

She knew gold had found her.

Right?

I mean, finally, she had a firm foundation.

So, my brothers and sisters, may you live surrendered in that great firm foundation that has found you and it has saved you, Jesus Christ.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you.

For this great parable of warning and of promise.

We need the warning that it is completely possible for us to build our lives on a shaky foundation.

That in this life cannot stand, and in the next life it cannot stand.

And we need that warning.

And thank you for the great promise that there is a firm foundation.

Forgive us for all the many ways that we forget to let it integrate into our hearts and souls as we resist surrender.

Would you help us to trust you in greater ways, to live surrendered with open hearts, to let go of all our ways of merit.