Beyond Sunday
Welcome to Beyond Sunday, the Podcast that takes you deeper into the Word of God throughout your week, with your Hosts Pastors' Lee and Jim.
It's Time to Inspire, Uplift, and dig deeper. Beyond Sunday starts now!
Beyond Sunday
Building Your House on Solid Ground
Foundations aren't glamorous – nobody compliments the concrete. Yet as Pastors Lee and Jim reveal in this deep dive into Matthew 7:24-27, everything you build depends on what lies beneath. Jesus's parable about the wise and foolish builders offers a stark choice between two foundations that determine our stability when life's storms hit.
The truth hits hard: both builders heard Jesus's teachings, but only one put them into practice. This fundamental distinction between hearing and doing forms the centerpiece of our conversation. We explore what it means to be "doers of the word and not hearers only" (James 1:22), challenging the notion that mere spiritual knowledge or church attendance is sufficient for a vibrant faith.
When Jesus says "the rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew" against both houses, He's revealing something profound about life's challenges. As we unpack in this episode, following Christ doesn't provide immunity from trouble – it provides stability in trouble. The difference is life-changing.
What parts of your life are merely admiring Jesus's teaching from a distance rather than building upon it? We get personal about how this applies to parenting, relationships, financial decisions, and everyday choices where obedience matters. We challenge the "appetite shopping" approach to Scripture where we selectively apply only what feels comfortable.
The good news? It's never too late to rebuild your foundation. Whether you're just beginning your faith journey or recognizing areas built on shifting sand, Jesus invites us to trust and follow His way. Join us as we discover what it truly means to build a life that stands strong – not just on Sunday, but every day.
Listen now and share with someone who needs to build their life on the rock of Christ's teachings.
Welcome to Beyond Sunday, the podcast that takes you deeper into the Word of God throughout your week with your hosts, pastors Lee and Jim. It's time to inspire, uplift and dig deeper. Beyond Sunday starts now.
Speaker 2:Hey, what's going on, everybody? This is Beyond Sunday. Welcome back to a brand new episode. I'm Pastor Lee and, as always, I'm sitting here alongside of Pastor Jim and we are the pastors of Christ Family Outreach Church in Amelia.
Speaker 1:Pastor Jim, good morning, how you doing brother, good morning, feeling good and I'm ready to jump into the Word today.
Speaker 2:Amen. Yeah, today we're going to take a look at what Jesus is teaching in an amazing parable in Matthew, chapter 7, verses 24 through 27. So, if you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open to the text. And while you're turning there, I just want to take a moment and remind you. After you're done listening to this episode, we want you to be able to share the link with someone that you know. Pastor Jim, let's go ahead and get into the text.
Speaker 1:All right, here we go. Matthew, chapter 7, verses 24 through 27,. And this is what the word says. 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 who builds 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.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pastor, jim, this text right here, what Jesus is teaching, is so powerful, and I just kind of want to set up the two scenarios that we see in the text here, both having two different outcomes. Right, but they both start off with something in common. Whether the house was built on the rock or the sand, jesus starts both scenarios off by saying everyone who hears these words of mine, which means we are accountable for what we hear. So this parable is all about the rock of obedience. So today, after you finish listening to this podcast, you will be held accountable, my friends, with what you've heard. The question is what will you do with the information that you've been given? Remember both scenarios. Both households had heard something and there has to be an accountability piece to it.
Speaker 2:So when you go to church and you listen to your pastor preach, you're then held accountable with the truth that you've received, that you've been given. Will you let it impact your life? That's option number one. Are you going to let it impact your life, bringing forth change, or option number two you won't do that. You see, both types of people Jesus presented heard the word. The outcome was up to the individual. How it ended, in other words was up to them. So, just like in this life, the outcome of what we go through is up to us, and how we finish is also up to us, pastor Jim. So I'm choosing, as far as me and my house, I'm choosing to go through life on the rock of Christ and finish strong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right out the gate, jesus is going to connect hearing with doing. He says it there in verse 24. Everyone then, just like you said, pastor Lee, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them blank, blank, blank, because he says it twice, right? So, right away, he's connecting hearing with doing, and that's the theme that we're going to come back to over and over again today. It's not just about listening to sermons. It's not just about hearing us today on this podcast. It's not about reading devotionals or even just agreeing with Jesus in theory. Right, what he's saying here.
Speaker 1:Jesus is saying if you do what I say, if you apply it, you're going to be building your life on something solid. And I want to think about that for a second, because a house built on a rock it's not talking about the house in general. It's more specifically talking about the foundation. Right, it's built on a rock. That's not the flashy piece it's talking about. You can admire your house from afar, on the outside, because of the pain or the porch or all these different things, but it's about the stuff underneath that Jesus wants to talk to us about. It's the stuff that nobody sees, right? It's that where we need to begin applying. This is in the foundation of what we're building our house on.
Speaker 1:So I want to ask everybody listening today and really I want to ask myself and us this too what parts of our life are built on Jesus's teaching and not just admired from a distance? Right, you know what I mean. Like we can read the word and say, oh, that sounds real good, but if we don't put that in our pocket, apply it to our lives, then it's just being admired from afar. We're not building our foundation with this. So we can ask this with our marriages and with our finances, all of it, are we grounded in grace? Are we grounded in humility? Are we grounded in forgiveness? Are we grounded in the things that Jesus taught? Are we building our foundation on preference or performance?
Speaker 1:Because, at the end of the day, what we need to be doing and it's not because we're saved through our works, but Christ is very clear about when you accept him as Lord and Savior over your life that there should be a change in demeanor. We are called to be set apart from this world, and what that means is we need to be acting and living like Jesus. Christ has given us that example to. So the last little point I have is this it's easy to hear these ideas on Sunday. It's easy to hear these ideas on Sunday, it's easy to read the Word, and it's easy to hear Jesus saying, hey, this is what you should do. But the person who actually does them, the person who actually lives them out loud, that's the wise person, and that's the life of someone who's going to stand strong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen, amen, jesus. Again, he says everyone who hears these words of mine, right? So just getting the information and not doing anything with it is like I put it in a word picture like this it's like going to the store, bringing the groceries home and never cooking a meal. You would have the food available, but never eating it means you would eventually starve. And one problem we have today, even within the church, is we've got starving, malnourished Christians. They come into the house, the food has been made readily available, the Word of God is there. They went to the church, they received the Word, they take it home, they put it in their heart, but they do nothing with it. Malnourished Christians. I'm reminded of James 2, 14 and 19,. And it says this Pastor Jim, you had just mentioned this topic of works.
Speaker 2:James 2, 14 through 19 says what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food and one of you says to them go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also, faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead. But someone will say you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one you do. Well, even the demons believe in shudder. Man isn't that powerful, you know, like even the demons believe. So what he's teaching here is go do something with what you believe. Take what you've heard and go do something. Because if all you're doing is believing, he's saying right here in James 2, 14 through 19, even the demons believe in Jesus. Even the demons believe in the word of God being truth. So he's like hey, just belief by itself is not enough, you've got to go do something with it.
Speaker 2:It takes me to James, chapter 122. James 122 says but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. I mean, think about that. If all I'm going to do is hear and not do, then according to the text, I've deceived myself to think that that type of living, that type of faith, is enough. So I don't want to be a Christian that only hears. I don't want my family to be Christians that only hear. I don't want my ministry and my church to be a body of Christ that only hears. I want us to go do something, pastor Jim. I want us to go do something with the knowledge that we've been given, putting our faith into action.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love James 1.22, man talking about just being doers of the word, not hearers only. And you know, verse 24 tells us that if we do these things, all right, we're going to be wise like the man who built his house on a rock. And if we look at verse 25, it talks about what happens once you do that. And this is what verse 25 says, and there's a lot in just this one verse. Jesus doesn't say if the rain comes, what's he say? It will come, right. Life is going to hit us. It's going to hit us at all angles. Storms are going to come, whether you're righteous or whether you're rebellious. Following Jesus doesn't give you and I love this right here. This is what I want you. If you get anything from this, I want you to take this right here.
Speaker 1:Following Jesus doesn't give you immunity from trouble, but it gives you stability from trouble, right? So following Jesus is not going to give you immunity from trouble. You're going to see it, You're going to experience it. It's going to hit you, but what it does is it gives you stability in that trouble. And I've talked to people who have gone through loss and I've gone through people who or talked to people who have gone through health crises with their families, and you know, what's often said is this I don't know how I could have gotten through this without my faith. That's right faith, and what they're really saying is exactly what Jesus is saying. He's saying when the storm hits you and your foundation is me, is Christ you might be shaken, but you're not going to be shattered. And I want to be very clear the storm exposes the foundation. You see it across the Midwest all the time with tornadoes, the storms come and knock down houses, but what is always still there? The foundation. So it's going to reveal who you've really been trusting in, and I love that. And that's why applying Jesus's word is not just some spiritual window dressing that we put on a house from afar that can be admired. You have to live it. You have to get into the trenches, you have to do the work to get that foundation so, and that becomes the difference between standing and falling when all those pressures come in.
Speaker 1:And I look at this in my parenting as well. Like as a dad, I want my kids to know the Bible 100%, but more than that, I want them to see me living it, because I don't think at their age, they're even going to be able to understand the dynamic of the Word. But if they see that their father is not only reading the Word and he's living the Word, that means that they're going to grow up to see okay, that's what it actually means. I'm applying this word, I'm not just reading it. I want them to see that when I mess up, I'm able to say I need forgiveness and I need grace because I'm living out the principles that God teaches us. You know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good brother, so good. As you mentioned, both scenarios get the rain. In both scenarios the floods came. In both scenarios the winds are blowing and beating on both houses. So, no matter who you're serving and I want our listeners to understand this no matter who you're serving, no matter who you place your faith in, trials and storms, tribulations are going to come into life right. So it's all about how you handle those things and how we handle them, how we go through them, how we experience them, depends upon whether or not Jesus Christ is your king.
Speaker 2:The one who was obedient to the word and built up on the rock made it through the storm. They made it. They made it through the floods and the house did not fall when the winds beat and pressed hard against it. But the one living in disobedience did not make it through the storm. The house did fall and Jesus said according to that house, great was the fall of that house.
Speaker 2:So the first house I'd like to just call the obedient house, if we could just slap a title on that for a moment. We're going to call that the obedient house, and to me the obedient house, that's a servant's house, pastor Jim. That is a survivor's house. That's a house where the one who lives there studies the Word of God. They've got a heart after God. They want to live like Jesus, they want to honor God. To me, that's a house that worships the Lord on the inside of it, not just in the church house but also in their house.
Speaker 2:And that type of house the obedient house, brother they've got a reputation for living for Jesus. And in 1 Samuel 2.30, god says for those who honor me, I will honor. And I want that, and I know you do as well, pastor, jim, I want the honor of God. Every day of my life, brother, every day I want the honor of God. And think about how amazing that is that God says if you honor me, I will let you walk in my honor, I will let you live in my honor, I will let you experience the honor that I have for you. I mean, that's absolutely huge. I want my house to be the obedient house. That's the house that's built up on the rock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's that shift from obedience to disobedience that he says there in verse 26. And I think that one of the things that I took from it that was most impactful to me is this they both still heard the words. Okay, it says that everyone who hears these words of mine and follows it. But then it says in verse 26, everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn't follow it, notice. They both heard the words. And so what Jesus is saying is these aren't ignorant people. You might have been at church every single week, you might have been reading your devotional every morning, but these are the people Christ is talking about. That didn't do anything with it. They're not living out what they've learned, they're not applying it to their life. And Jesus says that's foolish. And in a biblical sense, foolish isn't about intelligence, it's about living as if God doesn't matter. That's what the Bible teaches us, as foolishness is God doesn't matter. It's about thinking that you can skip over the obedience part and still end up with stability.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if I'm trying to make something and I don't know how to make it and I go online and I get the ingredient sheet right and and, and I've got the ingredients in the house, it's all been made ready available to me. But then I go try to kind of cheat some of the ingredients. Well, you know, I'm on a diet so I don't want to add that to it. You know what I mean. Like so I'm going to leave that out, and ingredients that we're going to get the same product at the end of the day. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like how many people come into the house and at the end of the message the pastor's like okay, now, what you're going to go do with it. You know, like you got to leave here and go do something with it and they're like well, I didn't like that one thing. He said that kind of stepped on my toes, so I'm going to leave that there at the pulpit, I'm going to leave that in the house, but I'm going to take out the things that I like and are comfortable for me to do. And yet then we expect to get the same result. And that's not what the word of God was talking about at all.
Speaker 1:And that's the trap, right? The trap is I'm building my life in comfort, I'm giving, I'm building my life on popularity and emotion or or things that feel good in the moment. Jesus is saying, nope, that foundation is not going to hold. And here's the thing. From the outside both houses they might have looked great, they might have looked awesome, but you can't always tell what someone's life is built upon until the pressure hits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. You know I had breakfast this morning so I'm not hungry. I don't know why I keep getting these like word pictures with food and stuff like that. But I, just as you're talking right there making that point, I'm thinking about, like this person going down the aisle. We've all been there before. We'll go down the aisle of the grocery store with our shopping cart and we kind of base off of what's on sale Some people sale shop, other people— Appetite shop Some people. Appetite shop is exactly where I was going, right, like you know they. Oh, this looks good. This looks good based off the picture on the label.
Speaker 1:If I go to the store hungry, I'm coming out with way more than I need Way more than what you planned.
Speaker 2:God's house, right, god, almighty's house. We pull up into the sanctuary with our shopping cart, if you will, and we're like, yeah, you know, I like that, I'll add that to the cart. Don't like that, not going to add that to the cart. And we go window shopping, if you will, right, we're going up and down these aisles picking and choosing, and it's like no, if you trust that your pastor has heard from the heart of God, if you trust that your pastor has heard from the voice of God and that is your shepherd, under the shepherd, jesus Christ, and that's where you go to graze, that's where you go to eat, that's where you go to get your milk and meat, depending on where you are in your spiritual maturity, your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, then you better take everything that he gives for you. You know, because everything on the menu is for you.
Speaker 2:You know, and you may be like well, I'm not going through that particular thing at that time. Well, praise God if you're not. But you better get it and store it so that when you need that ingredient, right when you need that ingredient, you can go to your spiritual pantry and say the pastor already preached on this one. I got that ingredient and because I'm not going to leave that ingredient out, and because I didn't leave it out that day at church and I let it get inside of me and do something, that now I'm going to let the word of God that's in me have the full effect so that I can get this thing that God is trying to do in my life in the fullness. In the fullness of what he's trying to do. It is manifested now in my life because I didn't leave any ingredients out, yeah, and on the other side.
Speaker 1:My point with the going to the grocery store hungry and then leaving out with more than you need. Praise God, he does give us more than we need. So when we go to church hungry and he gives us more than we need and we take it home, my hunger is only satisfied if what I consume, the food and apply it as energy. So if I go home with all the things and all the tools that I need or all the shopping ingredients that I need and I just put it on the shelf and never go back to it or never touch it, I'm still hungry.
Speaker 2:I was just this week at a, at a, a rehabilitation house, uh, for addicts and I was in there talking to one of the guys. He's been in there for a few months and this dude, this brother, is just on fire for the Lord, and they had bought a bunch of pizzas that day. It was a handful of guys from our church that went out there to visit these brothers and just fellowship with them and just sharpen his iron sharpens iron. We're doing a Bible study with them. You know this particular day and you know the pizzas come in and everybody sits down at this big, long, beautiful table man, it was a beautiful picture and everybody's just fellowshipping, but myself and this one brother, we're still off in the kitchen, we're not in the dining area and we're just talking. Well, after we're sitting there talking for about 20, 25 minutes or something, I look at him. I'm like man, brother, go in there, get you something to eat. Man, like you know, we're going to be doing a Bible study soon. I don't want you to miss out on the food.
Speaker 2:And he looks at me, pastor Jimmy, he goes, man. What we're doing right now is so fulfilling that it's taking away my physical hunger and I was like, come on, bro, and preach to me.
Speaker 2:I got so fired up on that, I lost my appetite. I lost my physical appetite. I won't hungry for pizza, no more, bro. Like we just stayed in there, man, and we just kept sharpening and as the Spirit was doing this work, we literally are just getting full on the thoughts of God. And it was just a beautiful thing, man, just so beautiful. So I just wanted to share that. As we're talking about food and putting items in our cart, I know we're not talking so much about physical food. We're trying to relate this stuff spiritually right. So, man, I just had that testimony walk out in my life and got to live that this week. It's that spiritual food that if you take every piece of it, it does not only nourish you, it fills you up too.
Speaker 1:That's a powerful testimony, because the truth is, as we walk through these truths today, and we're looking at two very different foundations I think what we can take from this and what we're going to get into with verse 7, is that the collapse of this house, of the man who does not follow what the word is teaching him, it, can be avoided. Okay, and that phrase hits me really hard At the end of verse 27,. It's this phrase that hits me super hard. Great was the fall. Jesus doesn't say that it leaned a little bit. It doesn't say that there was a minor crack, he says it completely collapsed.
Speaker 1:And I think that's one of the most loving things that Jesus does here is he's warning us, like we're trying to do right now through the Word of God, not to scare us, but simply to wake us up Because collapse is preventable. He's saying you don't have to fall apart, you just got to listen. And then, when you do listen, you got to live it out. Live this thing out. A practical way of living the Word are the testimonies that we're talking about right now, that you've experienced this week and that we do every single day of our lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, Absolutely. You know we go from the obedient house to what you just mentioned in the 27th verse, the great fall of the disobedient house, that house that is not built on the rock, that is the disobedient house. They heard, just like the obedient house did, Pastor Jim. They heard, that's right, so they heard the word. They just didn't and here's the difference they just didn't do anything with what they heard. The food was made readily available, the nutrition was made readily available. They just didn't take it and digest it and because they didn't digest it, they're not going to get the benefit of it. Because they're not honoring God in their house, they're not going to receive honor back from God for over and within their house, yeah, and so what does this look like in our day-to-day?
Speaker 1:We got to forgive, even though someone hasn hasn't apologized, because Jesus told us that we're supposed to forgive as we've been forgiven. It means telling the truth right, even when lying would be easier or even when lying would make you look better. It means telling the truth. It means loving people who are hard to love because, even though they've hurt you or even though they disagree with you, jesus tells us to love like he loves us. It means putting our trust in Jesus's words when culture is shouting something completely different. You know, none of that is flashy, but what Jesus calls that is rock solid living.
Speaker 1:And this is what I want to end with Foundations. They don't get the headlines. Nobody compliments the concrete. You know what I mean. No one's come to my house ever and said man, your foundation looks real strong. Yeah, that's a great point, but it's what everything else depends on. It's what everything in my home depends on.
Speaker 1:And when we build our lives on Jesus not just believing in him, but believing him there's a difference. Trusting that his way is actually the best way. What we're doing is we're laying down something that's going to last forever. We're going to lay down something that's storm-proof. The storm may come, but I'm ready for it because my foundation is in the love of Christ. So, wherever you are today, maybe you're just starting to build this thing, maybe you're realizing that you've built some things on some shifting sands. What I want to do is I want to encourage you that it's not too late to rebuild. It's not too late because Jesus is inviting us to hear and do what he tells us to do. He's inviting us to trust him every single day. He's inviting us to trust him and obey him, and that's the life beyond.
Speaker 2:Sunday. That's so good, brother. That's so good that life that is going to last beyond Sunday. Let's pray, father. We are grateful that we get an opportunity to come here and share your word with these listeners. I'm so thankful for their prayers, for their love, for their kind words, for their support and, lord, I just pray that they would experience your honor in more ways than they ever have before. Father, that they would be increased in strength because they choose to receive every word that you have for them in their life. We ask that you would bless them and protect them mightily, father, in the name and the blood of Jesus. May their eyes be opened to see your hand at work for them every day and moment of their lives, in Jesus name and blood, amen.
