Matthew 7:21-27 Built On The Rock

Jesus gathered his disciples and walked to a high spot as a crowd swelled with students.

Curious onlookers and possible enemies wanting to hear this religious leader who seemed different.

Could it be the Messiah they have been waiting for to save them from their enemies?

Could the old kingdoms of this world be passing away?

Was this Jesus finally ushering in the kingdom of God?

And then he spoke a verbal attack on unrighteousness and self-righteousness, an assault on I'ma get me and mine.

And it was a message for the broken.

Blessed are the poor spirit, the spiritually bankrupt, those who recognize desperate need for God.

And starting with this deep truth, he dispensed world-changing, life-rearranging understanding.

Love your enemies, be generous to everyone.

Come on.

For real?

You will never be good enough by working harder.

Pray this way.

You are the light of the world.

Do not worry about your life.

Be realistic, Jesus.

Ask, seek, knock.

Stop performing.

Enter through the narrow gate.

Feeling your foundation on something that lasts.

Today, many likers of Jesus listen to these words and they say, He probably didn't mean that, but if we truly assume Jesus meant what he said, a better kingdom would shine brighter in the darker world.

Together we can look to the Savior on the mountaintop and soak in the teachings of life.

Join us for uncommon sense, joyfully living out the challenges of Jesus' sermon on the mount.

You know, whenever we make those videos, by the time it's the last week that we have them, I'm like, good.

I don't know if anybody else feels that way.

But uh I'm like, okay, I'm done with that.

I'm tired of that video.

Uh excited for the next one.

Uh we start a new series really in two weeks.

Um, I'm very excited for that.

Uh it's gonna be in first and second Corinthians.

But today we are finishing up our series in the Sermon on the Mount.

And we will be in Matthew uh chapter 7, verse 21.

That's Matthew 7, verse 21.

Matthew 7:21

If you don't have a good Bible, we would love to give you one.

We have them on both sides of the room, available in multiple languages, and study Bibles in English.

Then in most biblios, the lingua is one in place, a costada de salon, canta, lego de when it's crayoncy, and some soul crayon.

If you guys tell yourself a lie enough times, you start to believe it.

Um in 2022, there is a CEO of a company called You Only Virtual.

Has anyone heard of You Only Virtual?

Uh LyOV.

Uh uh and uh he got on an airplane to speak at a conference in Singapore.

And at that very moment that he was getting on his plane, his mom was alone in a hospital bed, dying, dying of cancer.

And she died before he made it uh to Singapore to make his presentation.

One of the saddest things about this is he did not grieve for loss.

Actually, he had stopped talking to his real mom, whom he claims to have loved very much, for three years before that.

Now here's the thing.

He believed he had a superior version of his mom now.

He had a digital version of his mom now.

Uh this is uh he is the head of something that is called a digital of a company that is called the digital afterlife industry.

I don't know if you've heard of this now, but it's already worth over$22 billion.

And it's growing rapidly, and it's a lie.

It's a lie.

Some people are calling these programs AI ghosts.

Put in a picture of somebody, do some samples of their voice, and uh say some things about their personality, and they will never die.

They will always be there for you.

Wow.

People so badly wanted their loved ones to be alive, they programmed them.

This will sound like your grandfather, it will look like your grandfather, but it's a lie.

Instead of learning to grieve, we tell ourselves sweet lies.

Um, we will never feel discomfort with this kind of AI.

We will never have to say goodbye with this kind of AI.

Instead of groaning in our relationships, we attach ourselves to something fake, something insidious.

And when you build your life on a lie, it's destined to fall.

It's not stable.

Here are some of the lies we tell ourselves.

You are good enough on your own.

Carp's will make you feel better.

Sorry.

Um, the Padres will win it this year.

Sorry.

But this signal is the real this is the real one.

Your truth is enough.

Your truth is truth enough.

But it's a lie, it's a lie from the pit of hell.

Everyone needs Jesus, but we can't have a la carte Jesus as we want him to be.

But we have to have all of Jesus as he is.

His compassion, yes.

His instruction, yes, his love, yes, his justice, yes, his bride, yes.

All of it.

See, Jesus loves us too much to tell us what we want to hear.

That's what the whole Sermon on the Mount is, isn't it?

Is it just a challenge after another?

Like, I mean, tell me how learning it is to listen to that.

Like, hey man, you got a problem with someone around you gotta deal with some of your own problems first.

Make sure you do that and then go to your friend about your problem, about their problem.

Like, I don't want to hear that, Jesus.

I just want to do what I want to do.

Remember how Jesus started the Sermon on the Mount.

Remember, blessed are the broken hearted, poor in spirit, the spiritually bankrupt.

Yeah, that's why we do those videos, you know?

It's a little insidious itself.

But those who understand that our way will never be enough.

Our goodness will always be insufficient without Jesus.

Church, we all need the real Jesus.

We need to trust his instruction, even if we don't understand it.

It's the only way to be prepared when the storms come.

And the storms, man, they always come, don't they?

Yes.

So I hope you're with me in Matthew 7.21.

Are you there with me, friends, in Matthew 7, 21?

Ooh, I love to see it.

I love to see it.

Some of y'all are always like, I'm gonna scream my phone every time.

Take that.

That's fine.

That's fine.

If you don't want to see the context on the whole page, you're different than me.

It's okay.

Let me pray.

Not mad at you.

Father, first I just want to thank you for our health uh that we take for granted so much.

I was so sick uh this last week, starting on Sunday, and I feel great.

So, Lord, I just want to thank you for our health.

Health that allows us to gather together today in this room that you have provided for us uh with every condition.

Yes, Lord.

We also know there are many around us in this moment who are actually full of disease or grief.

And we ask today in this moment would feel your great comfort, that they would feel your healing.

Would you deliver those who are oppressed by war and tyranny?

Would you deliver those who are mistreated by the oppression of their own sick?

Mostly, we just ask that you would be close to us, that we would feel your closeness.

Lord, you know that we build foundations daily on positive sticks and our dreams, and that you have found them to be insufficient.

So we ask that you would show us how your way is better.

When we deserve you, would you bring us back to your solid foundation?

To bring us home.

Teach us this morning from your word and give us the ability to obey by the power of your Holy Spirit.

May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing to you.

We pray this all in Jesus' name, and all God's people said.

Amen.

Now, if you guys recall, uh, in our message, Jesus talked about uh the works of fake teachers last week.

Um, he said that the fake teachers would have bad fruit, and the good trees have good fruit.

But sometimes you will look at the fruit um and it looks good, doesn't it?

It smells good, it tastes good.

But in the end, it's uh we talked about it last week.

It's manzanilla de la muerte, right?

Like the manchila fruit.

It tastes sweet, but eventually it leaves to death.

Only God fully knows what is true and what is poisonous or rotten from the inside.

When we look at this fruit, there are people who do good things with back wobbles.

There are people who build glorious mansions that they say are to God, but there's actually no foundation.

People can cast out demons and they can do miracles in God's name.

Did you know this?

But still have wickedness at their own.

It's happened.

We've seen it.

We don't know what's real, we don't know what's fake.

Yes.

Look for fruit, Jesus warns us.

Yes.

But remember, some people will do good things when battle.

Some people do good things for show.

They hold Bibles in their hands and they say they love Jesus, but they hold the Bible upside down.

It's still got its original packaging.

But even if they fool us, even if you fool us, even if I fool you, it still leads to death.

Those lies lead to death.

So today I'm gonna give you three foundational truths about Jesus.

Three foundational truths about Jesus.

And my first point is this empty religion won't save you in the day of trouble.

Three foundational truths about Jesus.

My first one is this empty religion won't save you in the day of trouble.

We do bad mouth religion a lot, don't we?

Like I follow Jesus, I don't follow religion, all that stuff.

True religion is to rescue orphans and widows in their distress, that's what the Bible says, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

So religion's not a bad thing.

Empty religion is.

Okay, empty religion won't save you in the day of trouble.

Verse 21 Not everyone who says to me, that's Jesus, Lord, Lord, we will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father in heaven.

On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name?

Lord, Lord feels so disrespectful to me here, but didn't we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?

That I will announce to them, I never knew you.

Get out of your logging verse.

And then verse 26, he says, 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 same.

The rain fell, the rivers rose, the wind blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed.

It collapsed with a green crash.

Friends, when people say they belong to Jesus, they might actually be lying.

They might be doing it for power, they might be lying for politics, they may even do superficial signs, prophecy and miracles, Jesus says.

But they are waterless streams.

What good is a waterless stream?

And like that, if we hear the words of Jesus and we don't respond to them, we are building our house on sinking sand.

So question, is it wrong to prophesy?

Is Jesus saying prophecy is bad?

No, he's not saying that.

Is it wrong to do miracles in Jesus' name?

Is Jesus saying that's bad?

No.

So what is Jesus condemning here, Franz?

It's not enough to do things in Jesus' name while we mock him with the rest of our actions, Franz.

It's not enough to know about Jesus.

We are called to be in relationship with Jesus and his bride, and he calls us church.

I don't want my wife to know about me.

I want my wife to know me.

I don't want her to like the idea of me.

I want her to like me.

I want her to trust me, and I want to trust her.

That's relationship.

And relationships are complicated.

But if it's transactional, that's not a relationship, is it?

That's making that a sugar daddy.

He doesn't like that, by the way.

Friends, repping Jesus and failing to live by his words, it's building a skyscraper on a sinkhole.

When life gets shook, everything comes.

Now, speaking of sinking Xan, um, is there anyone here who is Gen X or millennial right now?

Who's a Gen X or millennial?

Okay, I see some hands.

That's a good amount of hands.

That's about three-quarters.

Um, and anyone who's before that probably will have a similar experience.

Um, in our day, we had a certain type of movies.

We only had a few types of movies in our day.

Number one movie uh trope was black cock, white cop, right?

Like we've had a lot of those, okay?

We have cock with the dog and cock with a baby.

Those were like the movies.

And there was one more main theme that you would see in all of our movies from our era.

All of the adventure movies had sinking sand, right?

Or quicksand, right?

Like everywhere you went, there was some sinking sand, something trying to bring you down.

Don't even make me bring up video games.

On rainy days, though, as a kid, I remember like I used to walk around looking for like the nearest tree branch when I was walking, like in the middle of like the city, right?

Yes, okay, I'm not the only one.

I would walk around literally looking where is the closest tree branch?

Because I know that, you know, like there's a 90% chance there's gonna be sinking sand somewhere.

There's gonna be quick sand.

Now, um, it's still been used.

Both dude movies have used it recently.

A Quiet Place, multiple Star Wars, Indiana Jones, of course, used it, Wreck It Ralph, Jumanji, Lawrence and Boravia, Mad Mask, The Mummy, Nightmare in Elm Street, and Princess Bride.

And I checked on some of my favorite kid shows from the 90s uh Tails Penic, The Simpsons, Dark Wing Duck, Goof Troop, Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, Johnny Quest, Gargoyle, Batman, Scooby-Doo, DuckTales, The Smurfs, Ghostbusters, the Cartoon, Heathcliff, Thundercats, Transformers, the G.I.

Joe.

All cat sinking sin.

The one that got me the most uh was the never-ending story.

Um, for those of you who watched the never-ending story, we are also traumatized together.

Like we have been scarred for life together.

There's a horse that goes- Oh, it's so sad.

Um it's funny how we feel about a horse dying more than somebody else, but it traumatizes them.

But here's the funny thing: scientists would actually tell you the quicksand that sucked you under, that's not actually like a real thing.

Um it's probably more of a metaphor, though, than anything.

So all these sinking sands we see are actually probably pointing us to something that's real.

Something that's real.

Be careful of the things that look solid but have no foundation.

They are dangerous and they can suck you under.

Watch out what you put your trust in.

But guys, when you do the will of God, be revealed that Jesus is your true foundation.

Now, there's this company, I'm gonna say it wrong, Theranos or Theranos.

There we go.

Uh, Theranos, there we go.

I was gonna say Thanos, I'm sorry.

And um, some of you know about Elizabeth Holmes, uh, who built this up when she was 19, dropped down at uh Stanford, built up this entire empire, this entire company based on blood test.

She was supposed to be the next Steve Jobs.

I watched interviews of people saying, hey, people were telling me to get in, and they were all snort people saying, get your money in now.

This is the next Apple.

Theranos.

There it is, it's the next Apple.

She built state-of-the-art labs.

They had a massive, massive headquarters in uh Silicon Valley, very impressive.

She had contracts with CBS, with Walgreens, but the problem was that she was lying.

It didn't work.

Detective work, it was a scam.

It was a Ponzi scheme, it was a mansion built on sinking sand.

And I think Holmes had fooled everyone, even herself.

And I think sometimes we fool ourselves into believing we're building something, uh, but it's built on sinking sand.

Your foundation always catches up with you friends.

Now, parents, let me speak to you for a moment in the room.

Uh, if you have a kid that does sports, I ask you to consider what the end game is.

College, pro sports, but then I ask you to consider what could the storm be, right?

What could the storm be?

Injury.

One coach that doesn't like them and they're done.

Toly derail everything you work for.

How about grades?

What is the end game of the grades, France?

College, a great job.

What could be the storms?

You can't afford to send them to the school they want to go to.

They're bad in school suddenly.

They meet that guy and it's all over.

Suddenly they're bad at school, or they graduate from an Ivy League school and still they struggle to get a job, or they lose a job.

But even worse, if they succeed in sports, if they succeed in education, and that is the foundation.

But they don't know Jesus.

There's no foundation there.

Parents, if you base your children's future success on education, talent, or money, not their relationship with God, I just tell you, you put your kids in a dangerous position.

Our only solid foundation can be Jesus.

Everything else is quicksand, even good things.

Yeah.

Even good things.

Everything else can be taken away from them.

Now, to everyone else, if you're wondering if you should ever follow a leader, and you are looking at fruit and you are looking for their foundation, know this, they will fail you.

Don't ever build me as your foundation.

Now I promise you I will fail.

I promise you I will fail you.

Because I'm human.

But if you want my advice on whether you should trust someone, the best answer is usually time.

Character could be hidden.

Character could be hidden for a few dates.

If you're dating someone, character can be hidden in a sermon.

You can have somebody who preaches a banger on a sermon and then go and sin right behind you because they're just gifts.

But over time, people tend to reveal the true selves, and that's what you want to look for.

Where is your foundation?

Now, if you listen to the words of Jesus and refuse to change your mind on what your foundation should be, you know you're on shaking ground.

And I just want to read you this from Martin Louis Jones.

He says, this type of person wants God's blessing, but he does not want God.

He does not really desire to serve God and to worship him with the whole of his being.

He simply wants certain things that he believes God can give him.

He wishes all to be well with him in this life and in the life to come, but he wants it on his own terms and his own way.

Shakey ground, right?

We don't are over Jesus, right, Church?

If he came through for us in death, surely people hold fast in daily troubles.

Proverbs 10, 25 says, when the tempest passes, that's like a big storm, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established forever.

And this brings us to our second foundational truth about Jesus.

When the storms come, obedient hearts reveal our foundation in Jesus.

I know that's a lot.

When the storms come, obedient hearts reveal our foundation in Jesus.

You hear that?

Yes.

It's saying obedient hearts reveal where our foundation is.

That's a big difference.

Verse 24 says, 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.

The rain fell, fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house, yet it then collapsed it because its foundation was on the rock.

As we hear the words of Jesus and respond, we show our trust is where it belongs.

And while we may sometimes struggle with the winds and the rain, it doesn't say we're not gonna struggle with them.

It doesn't say that the house is not gonna be hit.

It just says that he walks strong, and that he will be our foundation, and he will say stronger in matters.

See, Jesus understood a lot of things.

And not only was he the son of a carpenter, he was a carpenter.

So he liked he actually knew how to build stuff.

You know, like for me, you know, I start the IKEA table and I'm like, honey.

Yeah.

Uh I put the leg on backwards, I don't know.

To fix this, I don't know.

But I'm not a carpenter, but I can trust someone who is.

And and Jesus knew the best way to build a house was on a foundation that would not shift.

Now I remember when my wife and I were house hunting.

Um it was over 11 years ago here in San Diego, and we were getting out of bid by$10,000 for houses under 800 square feet.

Like we had people come back to us and say, uh, so we I remember once we bid 3,000 over, and they said, Um, thank you for your bid.

Uh we're not interested in another one.

There's too many others.

Um that was a different time.

Um and we were thinking this is a big stretch, and now everyone was like, dang, wish we could go back to that time.

You know, but at the time it was scare.

And I remember we would check out these houses, uh, they had cracks in all the windows, like open.

Um you they have mold like trashed everywhere, people didn't even bother to clean them up.

Um like carpet pulled up halfway, stuff happened in there.

Some like burnt bah.

And I remember one time even we went to one place where our realtor took us to a bathroom and she turned on the light, and then she started cussing because the copper roach was right on her hand, and then she couldn't we were looking at, okay?

And I still love it because she had perfectly poised hair, like perfect outfit, and just so funny.

Um couldn't believe it.

She had just kept the facade for so long that she couldn't win it.

I'm gonna give you a pass.

Everyone's following you, you guys let some out.

Like, I understand.

But here's the other thing.

I also remember seeing a gorgeous house.

Um, it would come up on the realtor.com and it was on Imperial over near 36th Street.

That's supposed to be.

Um, it had like tile throughout the house.

It had a nice kitchen, it had a nice living room, and it was absolutely cheaper.

And so we asked our realtor about it, and she said, No, absolutely not, no way.

No.

And I was like, ma'am, do you understand our budget?

Is this a murder house?

We can get past that, okay?

Like, if something happened in here, this is a drug house, we'll clean out the walls, we'll feed we'll we'll we'll get it all out, like we'll bring some oil, pray over it.

We could light some candles, pray over it stuff.

This place is nice, it's in our range.

We need this, and she said, absolutely not.

But I bet you already know what the problem is, right?

Foundation.

The foundation.

So we have this beautiful house, no cockroaches to be seen.

Beautiful, gorgeous house.

All the windows were the door was up, nobody took it off.

Like if you're understanding our range, right?

And and here we are looking at this gorgeous house online, and she'd say, absolutely not.

That's because the foundation is foundational.

The foundational is necessary.

Putting the house on balloons, trying to fix it, and all kinds of crazy things that it would cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I don't know that for sure.

I just I'm just throwing out any kind of number.

I remember it was cost prohibitive, though, okay?

Not trying to lie to you.

Um, it was cost prohibitive.

We could not do it.

We could not go in there and fix this.

But it was gorgeous, it was beautiful, it was in the neighborhood.

We wanted it, it was at Mount Hope.

But she said, no.

See, a nice house on a bad foundation is a bad house.

And let me just tell you, a nice looking life that is built on a bad foundation will eventually reveal itself to be a bad life.

Dr.

Tony Evans once said, if you want stability in your personal life, your family, your ministry, and your community, you need the strong, sturdy foundation of God's word, which includes both knowledge of the Bible and applying it to your life.

Can't you know it, God?

Can't you know about it?

Gotta know it.

Friends, it's easy for all of us to fake the funk as long as things are going good, as long as everything is above ground where you can see.

God is always good when you come out of a successful surgery, though, isn't he?

Like everybody who praise God when I came out of surgery, God is good.

God is good when you get the new job, when you get the raise, when you get the new house that has cockle roaches, but still God is good.

God is good when you pass the math test kids.

But the more lightning strikes in relationships at your job, in your family, you reveal your true foundation quickly.

Nothing reveals a weak foundation like temptation and trial.

Nothing reveals it like pain and suffering.

It looks like you are getting a super El Nino in San Diego coming up.

They have said now, like 99% chances we get a super El Nino.

Do you think the foundation repair people are getting a lot of calls right now?

Oh, yeah.

No, actually not.

No.

But when that weather hits, they're getting a lot of calls.

They're even busy for quite some time.

And so we prepare now.

And so we get the sandbags now, all are still available.

Guys, every day you read your Bible with true devotion, and then you seek to live out.

God is reinforcing your foundation with solid submit.

I can't always tell the difference until the waves hit.

But I promise you that day comes for all of us, doesn't it?

I promise tragedy and death comes for all of us.

It is counting for you.

And so when we hear the Sermon on the Mount, the question becomes are you allowing these words, these very important words of Jesus to change you?

If you're just listening, you are building a mansion on a McDonald's wall pit.

No foundation, lots of germs, a mixed mansion, if you will.

See, repping Jesus and failing to live by his words is building a skyscraper over a sinkhole.

When life gets shook, everything tumbles.

Now there are plenty of people who will look prepared.

We know this.

But they spend no time with God, no time in the Word, and hardly any time with this church.

Or they will do all these things, but they don't allow it to actually affect their daily lives or their hearts.

They look like they have it all together.

You won't know.

There is no difference between you and them, even if you are seeking God.

But the famous theologian Mike Tyson has a lie that I use often everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

And almost all those folks who get knocked down, guess who they're gonna blame?

God.

Well, friends, it's all about where you build your house, isn't it?

There's a place that I surfed at, and we can see all these houses lined up on a cliff.

There were tens of millions of dollars.

And we'd have sat there on our surfboards and seen the cliff come down from a ton of dust going everywhere.

Look like a fire almost, and it's just stuff falling and the dust going in the air.

And these houses, all of them, they're in jowering.

They're gorgeous houses, great location, but they also know they're not allowed to build again onto the cliff, so they have a problem.

They are losing the most beautiful house in the most wonderful location because they built it not on a solid foundation, but on some shale that just falls off all the time.

We have seen it.

I don't want to build my house on a cliff like that.

Friends, you can gain the whole world and forfeit your soul.

What good is it being liked by everyone?

What good is temporal sexual pleasure?

What good is being rich and famous if you have a shaky foundation?

It all tumbles to the ground, right?

But if you hear Jesus' words and you do them, then you build your house upon the rock.

Think of James 1.21, where he says, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness that implanted word, which is able to save your soul.

Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourself.

But friends, if you have obeyed Jesus only in word, if you think the funk, if you pretended for years wearing that Christian Halloween mask with a smile on it, I promise you, you have good news still.

You can repent and turn to Jesus now.

I don't care how faith you've been, I don't care.

He can handle the depth of your sin and your shame.

He doesn't blink.

But he wants you to surrender all of it today.

He wants all of your garbage and he doesn't want you to pick it back up again.

It's not one of those things where it's like you leave it at the door, and then when you leave, you pick it back up.

No, no, no.

Leave it at the foot of the cross to move on.

He loves you too much to allow that stuff to take you to the grave.

Yes, you have been a screw up.

You are not alone.

You are a room of historical screw-ups.

That is us.

Some of us are famous, some of us are Olympians at it, okay?

This room is full of people, though, who need Jesus as our oxygen.

We are no better than you.

We might try to hold you accountable, but it's not because we think we're better than you.

It's because we know the depths of our own hearts and our own needs.

We know that we are prone to wonder.

We know that we are prone to sin.

That's why at times you're gonna hear from us saying, Hey, don't go down that way.

It's the road to death.

It's the road to death.

God wants us to threaten all of it.

He wants your garlish.

Then he goes, I want you to make it back up again.

We've recognized God offers us something better.

And so with his help, we attempt to live his way.

Jesus says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you a rest.

That doesn't sound so hard sometimes, but it is.

But we say, we need to stop building our foundation on thee, on you.

Build it on him.

Jesus, the solid rock.

It is reviving Jesus and failing to live by his words.

It's like building a skyscraper over a sinkhole.

When life gets shook, everything tumbles, but those who do the will of God reveal Jesus as their foundation.

Jesus, the author and perfecter of our salvation.

This brings us to our third point.

Where we see Jesus is the only one who can fully back up his seemingly audacious words.

And the question becomes why?

And the point is, Jesus is more than a teacher of the word.

He is the word.

Jesus is more than a teacher of the word, he is the word.

When Jesus had finished in verse 28 saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching.

Because he was teaching them like one authority, and not like they're scribes.

See, when Jesus finished his Sermon on the Mount, the listeners probably just stared, the jaws dropped.

What did we just listen to?

This was this was new.

All of us now hearing this, this is a couple thousand years old, so we may feel like it's not as transformational.

We may not feel like it's as against everything else, but this was fresh.

This was fresh.

It was the true intent of the word.

And these people, it says they were astonished.

It translates to they were struck outside of themselves.

It's like somebody just got slapped in the face.

They may have expected, when they went out, they heard about this dude Jesus preaching.

They may have expected to hear a heretic, a dude who was like going against what God said.

Or maybe some of them expected a good teacher, but they did not expect the authority of God to reveal itself in the son of a carpenter from a place called Galilee.

Those people had like southern accents in the world of Israel.

So those people, they would have been like, hey, blessed are the poor.

They would make fun of their accent.

So they're hearing a guy, largely based on what we know, Jesus probably had teeth missing.

That ain't probably had teeth missing, had rough hands.

Probably ratty hairs.

We know he was sleeping on the ground.

And still, there was something transcendent in his words, some authority that did not come from this earth.

So he's not a heretic, he's not a good teacher.

He's not just the son of a carpenter.

He has the authority of God.

Friends, when I teach you on a Sunday, I do not teach you as one who has ultimate authority.

I'm gonna get this wrong.

Did you know that?

I know this because I have been preaching just here that for 11 years.

And I have been really stoked when we've lost some of my old sermons, like lost, you know?

Because I got it wrong sometimes.

Or I was mean sometimes, or I I was like taking out my struggles on the pulpit on you guys.

Like, I'm gonna get it wrong.

I do not teach it one who has ultimate authority.

I'm trying to point you to the one who has ultimate authority.

So when we pray for Pastor Dave, we're not praying that he would be the authority, we're praying that he would point you to it.

Guys, that's that's what we need.

I'm not trying to be it.

As a pastor, though, I would say I have some authority.

I do.

You have trusted my education, you've trusted my background, my acts, my mentor, um, my mentors.

And so you choose to give me authority in your life.

But if I say God told me, be careful.

There's a chance God might speak to me like that, but I would just tell you, uh, I see a lot of abuse here.

Only Jesus can say it like that.

Jesus could say, I know this because I am the word.

This is why I need to taught, unlike anyone else.

It's like asking a mechanic for helping my car.

They might be able to help me.

But what if I had the chief designer of the car in my house?

Why would I ask a mechanic?

I wouldn't ask the designer.

I'm not asking Gerald Ford about a Ferrari.

I'm gonna ask Enzo Ferrari himself.

That's who I'm gonna talk to.

Because I have Ferrari in this imaginary world.

But that's what we have in Jesus, friends.

John 1.14 says the word became flesh and made his home amongst us.

The author, the designer, the artist has made his home with us.

Of course, he speaks as one with authority.

He has all the authority, he is authority.

Jesus literally said of himself in Matthew 28, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

See, when God speaks, we can listen and we can trust him.

We can build our foundation on him.

The only thing God cannot do is sin and he cannot lie.

When Jesus speaks, it is true because he is true.

Now, Zambian pastor Joe Capolio, he once said, Jesus was clearly a teacher set apart.

He taught as one who had authority, his words were the basis of judgment.

His authority was not based on reinterpretation of ancient texts, it was the personal authorities of an originator.

See, Jesus is the only person you can put your hopefully in.

I will fail you, your spouse will fail you, your parents will fail you, your children will fail you, everyone will fail you.

Your health will fail you.

You will fail you.

But Jesus never fails you.

And we this old several thousand-year-old text.

This is why we lift our hands up to him.

This is why we we look like we're talking to somebody that's not here.

This is why we do all of this stuff.

Yeah.

It would be insane if it were not true.

Yes.

Like the the apostle Paul says, we should be pitied amongst all people.

He's like, if it's not real, let's just go party.

I'm gonna paraphrase it a little bit.

He says, let's eat and drink for tomorrow we die.

But guys, we have authority in Jesus and for all the things we do that look crazy to the world.

It's because our feet are firmly planted on a true foundation of Jesus.

It means when we lift our hands up in the sky and sing songs looking like nuts to everyone else, it's because it's true.

When we go and we care for people that don't deserve to be cared for because they've hurt us, it's because he's true that he's done it for us.

When we go and we risk our lives for our faith, when we risk our lives for those who are hurting, when we risk our lives for justice, when we risk our lives in the name of love, we do this because it's not a fantasy, it is a solid rock.

And just because you can't see Jesus all the time doesn't mean he's not solid, doesn't mean he's not foundational to this world.

He speaks, and existence happens.

He upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Yeah.

That's solid, that's strong.

And so, friends, I say to you, if you have found yourself in a place where you've been wandering when you've been building your own foundation with sticks and straw and hay, and you have just found yourself sinking, and you find yourself in the middle of Indiana jumps, halfway up, stuck in sinky sand.

I just tell you right now, there is one who is ready for you right now.

There is a foundation that you can step on right now.

He will give you a rope, he will give you uh the tree to pull you out, and you will find yourself able to stand on the solid rock.

But you have to choose it.

And he does not take, like, he doesn't take you just saying, okay, sure.

He wants all of you, he wants your whole life, he wants the secrets, he wants the sins, he wants everything.

But then you can stand on the works of Christ and you can follow through, and those works that you do reveal that you belong to him.

So I say to you, the joy of our salvation is this: that Jesus left the perfection of heaven.

God came to this earth, sacrificed himself, died on the cross so that we might have life and life abundant.

When he rose again on the third day, he revealed that he was bigger.

He revealed that he was bigger than any foundation we could ever build for ourselves.

And when the fires come, it won't burn.

When the rain comes, it won't be swept away so quickly.

But I tell you, this is the only moment we have, the only moment of promise to us.

And so we might seem crazy to some of you in the room, bugging you, pushing you, saying, please don't leave without giving your life to Jesus.

But there's a reason.

And the reason is he is the only foundation, and we see a storm coming.

You will have a storm coming, and when that storm comes, you don't want to say, Oh, I should have.

No, no, no, no.

You can say, I'm grateful.

So I encourage you.

Jesus tells you, count the cost, you're gonna lose a lot.

Yeah, live a life where you are being trained up, a life of following him.

He doesn't just say, Come and receive salvation.

He says, Come and die.

To be born again as a new person, to live now as a child of God.

Listen to him in Luke 14, 27.

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

For which, if you wanting to build a tower, doesn't first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it.

Otherwise, after he has laid the foundation and cannot finish, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, This man started to build and wasn't able to finish.

Guys, I urge him, count the cost of following Jesus.

I'm not telling you, give him some lip service.

I'm saying give him your life.

And if you have, give your life to him today and let him have everything and let him have the darkest, darkest spots that nobody knows about.

He doesn't want to see you punished.

He actually doesn't want to see you punished.

He doesn't want to see you punished.

He wants to save you.

He wants to save you from putting yourself on something that cannot hold your weight.

He wants to save you from living out of empty words that will never save you.

When Jesus says something but your feelings disagree, I'm gonna ask you, what are you gonna do?

I say submit your yes to him because he is trustworthy.

When Jesus tells you something but your hormones push back, who do you trust?

Trust him.

He created your body for something back.

When the world likes the idea of Jesus but tells you most of his ideas are antiquated, where will you put your foundation?

I say go to Jesus.

The true word.

He is trustworthy.

And so city like church, and yes, I close with this.

I believe with you this morning.

Don't rep Jesus and fail to live by his words.

Now that's not telling you to stop ripping Jesus, it's telling you to stop living by his words.

They're good.

But if you rep Jesus and you don't live by his words, it's like building a skyscraper over a sick hole.

It's foolish.

And when life gets shooketh, everything will tumble.

But to those of you who do the will of God, you reveal Jesus as your foundation.

Jesus, the author and perfecter of our salvation.

Let us turn.

Father, it's good to stand on a rock, not on our accomplishments, not on our sins, not all the things that we thought with all the stuff.

It's so good to stand upon you.

On your works, on your love, on your compassion, on your justice, on your grace, on your care for us.

Not on anything we've done because we know that uh we can keep it up for a little while, but eventually, our good works, our good ideas, they just fade.

They're hit by the stone.

Then we lose faith, and then we doubt you.

And so God, I ask that you would help us to put you as our total foundation.

So in this moment, silently we confess our sins to you, knowing that you are good, to forgive us when we truly repent of you.

But we also know that there is a delineation between wild out and and struggling.

And many of us have struggled.

So that we thank you that when we come to you and truly repent of our sin and our desire to chase after things that we'll never fulfill.

Or when we have not done the things you have called us to, we thank you that you forgive us today when we truly repent.

We thank you that as far as the east is from the west, so uh our sin is from your side.

That when you look upon us, Father, and you see the righteousness of your son Jesus.

You pronounce us good.

Not because we are good, but because of your goodness.

We're gonna take that, we're gonna fold it out, we're gonna place our feet on the foundation.

You love you are compassion, you are justice, you are good.

We love you Lord, and we pray this offer in Jesus' helping.

Amen.