Solid Ground

Relationships will always get tested, and for that reason they need to be strengthened. Like a house going through a storm, when the wind and rain hit, what matters most is the foundation it is built on. In difficult seasons it is not about the trim, the paint color, or how trendy it looks. It is about whether the structure underneath is solid. As we start this new series, the goal is to ensure our closest relationships are built on solid ground, ready for whatever tests come their way.

Transcript

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My name is James, one of the pastors here, and uh we're starting a brand new series this week, uh titled Solid Ground. If you were here a couple weeks ago, uh we were wrapping up Exodus, and and Ryan was saying that we're going into this next series and we're gonna be talking about family and relationships and different things of that nature, uh, just what goes into our home life. And uh we were we're battling around some different names, and he threw out that the next series is gonna be called hot mess. Anybody you may have you may have heard that. Um, hot mess. You know, some might say we we've boarded the hot mess express, like our life is just falling apart, we're a hot mess. We say that phrase, we use that phrase. And as we just kind of got to the close of this thing of like, all right, what are we going with? What are we doing here? I just felt weird to remind people every week, you're a hot mess, but let's get into God's word. You know what I mean? It just didn't fit. Um, it's also just not the language I would use. Like, I I would say that when my life's falling apart, I'm not a hot mess. I always use the dumpster fire term. And so um I didn't know if dumpster fire might be something. Anyways, we landed on going not with the problem, not with that we're a disaster, that we're falling apart, that we're a mess. But what is in fact the actual goal? And the goal is is found in the in the teachings of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount, when it comes to our relationships, when it comes to our homes, when it comes to our lives, our families, that which you know we do and participate in is that it would be founded on, it would be built upon solid ground, right? That our homes would be safe and secure in the gospel and the teachings of Jesus, that that everything we do is safe and secure because it's rooted and planted on Jesus Christ. So we're not going with you're a hot mess, we're going with the goodness of God instead. Sound good? And so if you have a Bible, we're gonna be in Matthew 7, where we're gonna be looking at the Sermon Amount, Sermon on the Mount throughout the next couple weeks. And uh this this story, this parable of this that this comes from of solid ground is at the very end. And so Jesus has given uh an incredible amount of teachings that's powerful, and it's everything from from lust to to greed and wealth, promises, commitments, anger, how we just interact with one another, everything that goes into building a home and and friends and relationships. And he he teaches through these things, and it's blowing the minds of everyone there because it's so different than just the traditional teaching of the law. Like he's just he's expanding beyond and they're blown away by it. And he wraps this whole thing up with four parables: one of a narrow road and a wide road, a wide road that leads to destruction, a tree that bears good fruit and a tree that bears bad fruit and is cut down, is no longer needed. Uh, those who would stand at at the door of heaven, so to speak, and and two disciples, one that truly was following him, one that wasn't, and this last one of that of a builder that builds a house wisely on a rock and foolishly on sand. But at the end of all this teaching, the big point that he's getting at here is you have a choice. There's two different ways. There's there's two different roads, there's two different trees, there's two different followers, there's two different foundations you can build upon. And the choice is yours, and you need to make this choice. And so we're gonna dive into that, we're gonna read this, but before we do, Mike didn't pray for me, and I feel like we need to pray. Sound good? So let's pray. The Heavenly Father, I do pray that as we open up your word, that you would speak to us, you would meet with us right now. God, I pray that the the words that that we read would just come off the page and and have meaning behind it, Lord, that you would be working and ministering and speaking. And so, Jesus, just meet with us here. We love you, we thank you, we give you this time. Amen. All right, Matthew 7, starting in verse 24. So again, this is at the end of all of his different teachings uh that we're gonna be taking the time in the future weeks to go over and cover. But this is sort of the the end of the story before we get into the story. So, Matthew 7, 24. He says, Everyone then who hears these words of mine, right? What are the words? It's it's the teachings that he's just given. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who builds 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 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. Dire stakes here. One is gonna be able to stand, the other one is gonna fall. And so let's talk about these two different builders. What's going on here? Well, the very first thing he says is everyone then who hears these words of mine, the very first step. If we want to be those who have a life, who have a family, who have relationships that is built on solid ground, it comes by first hearing the teaching, hearing the words of Jesus, understanding his message and and and all that he is communicating in these passages. You have to first hear it, you have to know it. And so let's just kind of jump right out something right now. There's a good chance that most of you here are not gonna be here next week. And you're like, wait, why? Because we're terrible at church attendance, right? The average church attendance is like 1.7 times a month. You're like, how do I attend 0.7? I don't know, but they did the math, and that's the average. So the very first thing, if we want to be those who build a life that is built on the foundation of Jesus, we should come and we should gather and we should hear the teachings of Jesus. That's not rocket science. You if you want to know Jesus, if you want to know his teachings, you need to come hear it and receive from it. And not just gather here. Here's the beautiful thing about the gospel message. Here's the beautiful thing about Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7. It can be with you at your kitchen table, on your couch, in your backyard, on your porch, with a cup of coffee, with a cup of tea if you're a psychopath and you don't like coffee. Like it could be with you anywhere and everywhere. But would we be people who hear and who know the teachings of Jesus? You cannot build a house and say, I'm following this blueprint, but not even read them. You have to read the blueprints for you to know them. And so, can I challenge you guys with this, please? Try to make it every single week for this series. Can you do that? Could you make seven weeks in a row? Yeah, you say that now. As we begin to talk about family, as we talk about relationships, as we talk about some of these hard teachings that Jesus has in this Sermon on the Mount, you better believe you're gonna wake up and you're gonna begin fighting with your kids, with your spouse, with the friends that you were coming here with. And you're gonna be tempted to go, I think we missed this week. You're gonna be yelling and screaming at the kids, and you're gonna go, forget it, we're not going. Can I challenge you to push through whatever nonsense is gonna happen in the next seven weeks and make it here for every single week of this? What you do after the series, I don't care. Just give me this one. Because you said you can make it. Received from the blueprint. One more just thing on that. Is it people who have time and space to be still and to be silent and to hear from him? Right? To to open up his word and receive, but then receive with the intention of I'm gonna apply. And Lord, what do you want to say right now to me? What do you want to challenge in my life? What is what is going on in my soul that needs some correction and and some guidance and some insight? Be people that that slow down enough to hear the words of Jesus. The reason this is so critical, and I want to hammer this, is because when it comes to our families and our relationships and our life, there's a lot of advice out there, a lot of input that comes from an incredible amount of sources. Your life, whether you realize it or not, has been largely shaped by the family that you grew up in. That's your first example of what a home is going to be like, what a family dynamic looks like. And so every single one of us here came from a mother and father, came from some sort of home environment in some way, shape, or form. Some healthy, some not so healthy, but regardless, it shaped and molded how we think and believe relationships should look. We've all watched movies. Movies, believe it or not, have shaped how we view relationships and homes. Some of us watch Everyone Loves Raymond. I love that show. Some of us watch different different family shows, right? Different generations watch different ones. Those movies and TV shows, they had an influence of how we thought a home looked like. The scariest thing in my mind is today we're uh the rising use. If you were to look at what do people use AI for? The rising use of AI is for emotional intelligence and advice and input into our lives and decision making. It's used for life planning, career planning. People are uploading conversations that they're having between a boyfriend and a girlfriend, or you know, imagine a middle schooler, they're like, I think this person likes me, and they upload the entire text conversation into AI and they say, Does this person like me? How do I respond in a way that tells them that I'm kind of interested, but not too interested? And then the the other middle schooler on the other side is uploading their whole conversation and they go, How do I reply to this? Because I think they like me based off of this text message. Can you give me a response? And before you know it, we have two AIs that have just fallen in love over text message. But it's a rising use of relationship advice, marital advice is coming from us going into a device that has no emotion, that doesn't know the details of you or your family or anything. And we we upload looking for information. And so my point is that the the wise builder here heard the words of Jesus, and so there needs to be sort of a cleaning out of well, this is how my family did it. Well, your family might have been dysfunctional, but this is what my friends said. Well, your friend's life is a dumpster fire, like respectfully, you know. This is what we've seen on movies. This is what chat told me to do. And so there needs to be somewhat of a cleaning house of going, okay, what am I building my life upon? What is something that's solid, secure, reliable, true, trustworthy? And that's first hearing and receiving the words of Jesus. Not the words of Ryan Sharp, not the words of James Proxmire, the words of Jesus right here. And so please, the wise man, the wise woman builds their life upon this. The second part of it, the difference between the wise man and the foolish man in this this parable that Jesus gives is the wise man hears the words, the foolish man heard the words too, but the wise man did something about it. Does them not just a hear, but does them. And I gotta be honest, this is probably the most not frustrating. The biggest thing that keeps me up as somebody who communicates the message from here is the question of if I share this, does anybody do anything different ever? Does it actually like does it matter? Like, are people's lives actually changing, you know, when when we share from God's word? That's what really keeps me up. Like, do we do we hear these words and it's like, okay, I'm gonna be like Jesus, and then we just we go to chilies and we just chew out the waitress right after Sunday church? I wish we had a chilies instead of an apple beast. But, anyways, we'll well that's that's we don't sorry, that's not that's that's not the point. That has nothing to do with anything, that's just a side road there, anyways. But what is the point if we hear the teachings of Jesus, but we don't do anything with it? Like, what are we doing here, guys? What is is this time is just a waste if we don't come ready to actually apply whatever it is that we're talking about. My hope is not to be a hypocrite at the end of my life, this to be an authentic Christ follower that heard his word, did his best to apply it, and lived in a way that pointed people to Jesus. Right? And I hope that that would be for you too. That that yes, you may have been dragged here, but that you would realize that you're dragged here for a purpose and the Lord speaks to you, and there's change. James, uh, the book, James, makes it a point, right, to not just be hearers of the word, but doers. And that it comes from Jesus' teaching here, that the wise man hears his teaching and does it. And that is what the wise man who built his house on the rock is like. I'll I'll kind of move on from this point. I've built, not built, assembled many IKEA products. You're out of your mind if you think you're gonna open an IKEA package, read the instructions one time, and then go, I got it from here. You need to be following that IKEA booklet, like your life depends on it, following each step along the way. Because they've got this thing constructed where if you do one thing out of order, you don't even have a bookshelf anymore. Okay, and so for many of us here, I wonder if we we know the teaching, even we've read through the book, you've attended the study, you've been coming to church a while, but then you kind of fold it up and go, All right, I've got this life thing now. I'm gonna take it from here. Don't even buy the IKEA product. Let's move on. Says a wise man is the one who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew, and it beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. The winds came. Anybody here that has any sort of relationship, friendship, family, spouse, anything like that knows that there's winds and waves and trials and testings and things that happen within our lives that is going to question, put into question what we are founded upon. Our lives are constantly going to be tested. And what we are building our life upon is going to be brought into question. I've heard it said, you're either going into a storm, you're in a storm, or you're coming out of a storm. That's kind of the end of the cycle. And so the wise man is prepared for the storm because of their life being founded and rooted and built upon solid ground. And what's sad is oftentimes in pastoral ministry, you counsel people, you minister to people, and the storm came, and their family, their relationship, their marriage, whatever it might be, their parenting, it wasn't built on solid ground. And so when trial came and winds blew, that house got knocked over. And it begins this rebuilding process. But what makes it so incredibly difficult is like it's already flooded inside the house. And it's like, okay, how do we rebuild this thing while it's still raining? And Jesus can do an amazing work of restoration, and please do not hear that. But but what I'm trying to get at here is don't wait for your house to be knocked over, for your place to be flooded, for your walls to be blown down, and your marriage and shambles to go, you know what? Let's give Jesus a try now. Because when it starts raining, you don't really see construction crews. The construction is now in the testing phase of things. You build before the rain hits, before the wind is knocking things over, and then it exposes what's already there. And so please hear that if you're like, man, I picked the wrong week to come, my life is in shambles right now, my marriage is a disaster, my relationships are in shambles, please keep coming back. I'm not saying you've come to the wrong place. You've come to the right place to hear from Jesus and to begin to build on the rock. My point is that it's really hard to do that. When things are already just, it feels like a disaster. And so if you you're just casual in marriage right now, you're just casual and in your relationships. I want to strongly advise and and warn that the storm will be coming and that what your life is built upon will be tested. It will be tested. Of course, there's the other side of this, and everyone who hears these words, notice that this foolish builder, it it he heard the words, but he does not do them. Is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. Kind of a cool little piece is Jesus is you know doing ministry in Galilee, and there's the Sea of Galilee there, and during the summertime, right, when when the sun is at it's hot and it's beating on it, the ground uh around the sea is hard, compacted. It's like a rockier type of sand, not uh not a you know, sand that you'd go play in, right? It's firm. And so everybody there would probably have this picture of they've been to the Sea of Galley. That's like the walking, that's where you go. And so they've been to parts of the Sea of Galley that goes, this looks buildable. This looks firm, but it's really sand. And so some of the original language stuff here that when it when it says on solid ground, uh it's kind of alluding to this bedrock that requires digging deeper to get to. That there's a little bit of work to build on solid ground as opposed to the sand being just on surface level and easy to build on. This this picture that comes to my mind just reading that and studying that is I wonder are we often building our lives that are you know similar to sand castles? Where they're pretty, they're easy to build, but it's not really firm or strong or secure. I wonder how many of us in our relationships, our homes, our families, we might have all the trim pieces. It looks good online. You came and you guys were holding hands, and you had a bigger Bible than me. And things look good. But deep down it's it's built on sand right now, and it's not built on a rock. It doesn't matter how it looks. Right? When a flood comes, when big waves come, nobody says, I want to be on a pretty boat. I want to be on a big, strong boat. And so when the winds begin to hit against the house, it doesn't matter what color is the trim. It doesn't matter, right, that you kept up on good designing tips and tricks. What matters is the foundation. And so the the sad part of this story is right, is that the the rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew, and it beat against that other house, and and it fell, and great was the fall of it. That's a shame. That's a shame when when it feels like life is just unraveling and and relationships are falling apart and our homes are a mess. It just feels like we're picking up the pieces. It's gonna be tested. Whether it's built on a firm foundation or not, the only difference is truly the result. One stands, one doesn't. And so as builders, as those who are uh coming here now to to hear and to listen, we are all faced with this choice. Well, we're all hearers, but the question is is are we going to be doers, those who apply the teaching of Jesus, those that take this seriously? I think it's easy to come to church and to say yes. But my hope and my prayer is that this truly does change our Mondays, our work week, our friends, our family. It changes our whole household because we're applying the teachings of Jesus that we're gonna be studying about these next few weeks. Now, we've talked a lot about uh sort of the end of this, right? This this warning that Jesus gives to take this stuff seriously, but we didn't really dive into any of his teachings, and well, that's somewhat intentional. You gotta come back next week for it. Um that's sort of the hook. But I do want to just cover one of them. One of the teachings of Jesus that can apply to every relationship, every family, every friend, every everything that we have. And uh it's in Matthew 7 in verse 12. You've heard this before, I'm sure you've heard it. It's right before these parables that I was talking about. It's Matthew 7, verse 12. He says, and so this is one of these teachings that we got to apply, right? So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. Quick show of hands. How many of you guys have heard that before? Do unto others as you'd have them do to you, right? What do we call that? We call that the the golden rule. If you have siblings, you were told that by your parents. Don't touch them, don't touch them. You wouldn't want them to hit you, so you don't hit them. Keep your hands to yourself. Treat others as you'd like to be treated, right? That is a great principle. It's a golden rule, it comes from Jesus. And one of the things that's so beautiful and powerful about it is, of course, there's other teachings around this principle, but so many of them were do not do unto others as you would have them, as that you wouldn't want them to do to you. And so I want you to hear the difference on this because it is important. So much of the teaching was do not do to others that you wouldn't want them to do to you. So what does that mean? It just means don't hit them. Don't be mean. Don't say nasty things. It's it's what you just restrain and hold back. Jesus, though, comes in and he teaches that like the flip of that, the positive. It's no longer just don't do what you don't want done. It's now the burden on you. As followers of Christ, we are going to be people who do unto others what you would like them to do for you. Notice the difference. I got this picture of somebody with their car broken down and it's raining. And the teaching prior to this was like, hey, just don't hit that puddle and splash water on them. You wouldn't like that. And that was the teaching. Just as long as you're just neutral with them. And Jesus is like, no, no, no, no. It's no longer just don't splash them with water. It's now pull over and help change the tire. You're gonna have to now actively do. You cannot be passive in these relationships. You need to go love and serve in a way that's the way you would want to be treated. And I wonder if in our relationships we're like, well, I'm a good friend, like I don't talk bad about them. I'm a good spouse, like kind of help and contribute. I got the Costco, you know, flowers on Valentine's Day. I'm not necessarily doing anything wrong. I'm just just kind of meh. And Jesus' whole thing is is like, no, no, no. You're gonna actively do as a demonstration of love whatever it is you would hope someone would do, that is now your calling to do. I was thinking of my own marriage, my own family, my own dynamics, and I was thinking, man, what would just be a great story of love being so obvious and apparent, and it's got action behind it, it's got meaning behind it. And uh I couldn't think of a good example of something I've done. I thought more of my wife, and so uh she gets to be the hero today in this story. But um gosh, a few years ago, hold on, before I say this, Mike Johnson's gonna make fun of me. Mike Johnson thinks, the guy that was just up here sharing, he thinks I'm sharing this story so I could tell you that I did an Ironman, Iron Man. But a few years ago, I did an Iron Man. That's not the point of the story, but just bear with me. He's gonna give me a hard time that I brought that up. Anyways, a few years ago I did that, and my wife was incredibly supportive in the process of it. And this is what I want to get at she didn't just show up on the day of the Iron Man with a sign and say, good job, you got this, keep going, whatever, right? She committed a lot to making this happen, and it's really just something that was huge for me. So to kind of back things up a little bit, it requires an incredible amount of training, like years of training typically for people and multiple races. And so you're spending not my money, I'm spending our money on these races. And you gotta buy a bike. And I didn't buy a really, really, really expensive bike, but I bought what I would consider an expensive bike. Some people spend like 15 grand on these bikes. I did not spend that. I'd be a lot faster if I did, but I did not spend 15 grand on a bike. I couldn't stomach that. But, anyways, I spent our money on a bike, right? That's that's supporting and loving and serving, right? I did races leading up that cost money. The Iron Man itself cost way too much money to do. But we spent our money on it. And part of the training is that you're training in running, biking, and swimming. And so just to walk you through what some of my Saturdays look like, and from her perspective, some of these long training days before the race are like six hours long. So you start training at 6 a.m. I got my PJs on, right? Get out of bed, throw those off. I put on my swim stuff. So I got my swimsuit now, I got my little towel. We go swim at the pool. What do we do? We take that off, we throw the towel down, we put on our bike stuff. Little stretchy, tight clothes, little leo tards, you know what I mean? And you're out there. Everybody hates us on the road. I get it. I hate cyclists, right? But you go out there. Sorry, that doesn't sound good. I dislike cyclists. So, anyways, you cycle for a bit. You come back, you shred those clothes off. They stink, they smell. You throw on some running stuff. You go out there, you run, you come back, you throw those off. Then you put on just normal streetwear clothes. Guys, in one single day, I would wear more clothes than I would in a whole week. And so behind me is this pile of wet, smelly laundry. And of course, you guys, I always just put it right into the washing machine. I never stuffed it into a bag and left it on our bedroom floor. Right? You get the idea. There should be so many times where my wife is far more than just the the laundry person. But there's been so many times in this journey of doing this stupid race that nobody asked me to do. Right? That nobody cares. But there's been so it was important to me, and there's so many times in this journey where it's money spent, it's it's uh time, commitments given, helping and assisting and the packing and the organization, all because of something I cared about. I look at this and I go, that's somebody who loved and supported me in a way that I would hope somebody would. And so then I get hit with this big challenge, right? James, how do you love and support her in the same way that has action behind it? Not just holding a sign on the race day. But week in and week out, you show love and support by doing things, by putting action behind the love. Like we could say we love people all day long, but do we ever show it? Does your face ever say, like with a smile, I love you? Do you unload the dishwasher? No, do we do the laundry? Nobody loves laundry and dishes. Nobody, but that's how we can show love. Nobody likes spending money on something that you don't care about. Do you think my wife cares about what bike I ride? No, she does not care. Oh, that one's cool. That's black, that one's great. That's the difference between those bikes. But I know and I care, and that's how we, you know, can show love to one another. A while ago, there was the the five love languages, those were really popular, and uh I could care less what you think about those. I'm not my point is not to promote that or say against that, but what was beautiful about it is that it was a test that people would do online and had a book, and the whole idea was that you'd find out what is the love language of your partner, right? And so you would then find out like, oh, this is what's important to them. And I think whatever you think of that system, I think what's great about it is that you're getting out of thinking about yourself. And you're just starting to think, what does this person need or want? And guys, please hear this. I'm talking about all of our friendships, all of our relationships, our homes with our kids. It is so great to stop and think, yes, this is what I would like to do, this is how I would show love. But what would speak to them? What action would they just be so excited about? My kid wants to watch have me watch her do flips on a gymnastics bar all day long. Do you know how boring it is to see the same flip over and over and over again? It's so boring, but that's how I would show love. Dad, watch. I get a little Bluetooth speaker and I play like stadium jams. You know? I go, ladies and gentlemen, coming into the arena, and she loves that, loves that, and she'll sell tickets, she'll sell tickets. There's only me, my wife, our daughter, a dog, and a cat. And so the dog has bought tickets, the wife has bought tickets, everybody's bought tickets. Why do I do that? Because I love making tickets. No, it's just that's love, like in action. That's what speaks to her. So Jesus teaching is love, right? Whatever you wish others would do to you, do also to them. It has action behind it. And in this, you're you're fulfilling the law and the prophets, the sum of all of this teaching. And so, kind of to wrap this whole thing up and put it in a bow here. We have the option to hear and apply the teaching in Jesus or not. And the teaching of Jesus that we just received the day would be that golden rule that we're gonna do unto others as we'd have them do to us. And so, to bring this thing home, my hope, my prayer is yes, you guys all made a commitment to come here for the next seven weeks. So I got you there. That's one of the things. Gotcha. The second one is that we would apply this teaching, and we would do unto others as we'd have them do. And so, please, please, please, apply this teaching. Show love in a way not that you would want, but in a way that you know they would want. Jesus doesn't say do unto them as they've done to you. He doesn't say, do unto them as is convenient for you. And so today, the best way to apply this is to go love and serve someone in a way that they would greatly appreciate. Amen. That's what I got for you guys, so I'm up right. And get us out of here. Let's pray. Deavenly Father, we thank you for your word. I thank you for how simple and clear this teaching is. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to hear these words, but it does take, Lord, a a heart that is ready and committed to put them into practice. And so, Lord, that's what I pray is I pray that we would be able to apply the teaching that is in your word. That it wouldn't just be attending a service, but it would be um our hearts being made to be like you. So, Jesus, help us to apply this, help us to put it into action. Help us to love and serve in a unique way this week. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.