SPEAKER_01: What would happen if we stopped believing it's enough to admire Jesus and started believing in the power of obeying Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Father, when we say this is who you are, we're reminded that who you are determines who we are.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, we've come today because we are the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: We are the people who have been created to worship you.
SPEAKER_01: Just like every other person on this planet, we were created to worship you and you alone.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, we rejoice today.
SPEAKER_01: We're thankful that as the people of God, as the redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, that we can come and remember our purpose.
SPEAKER_01: We can say, just like we sang a few songs ago, even when I don't feel it, Lord, you're working.
SPEAKER_01: Even when I don't see it, you're working.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, you're always doing more than we can see with our eyes, and we can hear with our ears, and we can touch with our hands.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, that's because you've brought a new kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, as citizens of that kingdom today, Lord, I ask that you would help us to he, to see, and hear accordingly.
SPEAKER_01: We ask that now in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining us today via our live stream.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Clyde Copeland.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the worship pastor.
SPEAKER_01: And today I want us to turn in our Bibles to the book of Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be in chapter 7, verses 24 through 27.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to look at a parable that Jesus told his disciples and the other people that were listening.
SPEAKER_01: We've been in a series about Jesus' parables.
SPEAKER_01: And today's parable, it begins with a problem.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is going through the Sermon on the Mount, which is one of the most famous teachings in all the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It's verses five, or excuse me, chapters five through seven.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus points out this problem that there are going to be people who hear this teaching and they say they like it, they believe it, they've heard it, but they don't do anything with it.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus, he kind of sets up this problem by telling this story of people who say to him, Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out demons in your name?
SPEAKER_01: Didn't we do many mighty works in your name?
SPEAKER_01: Didn't we do this, do this, do that?
SPEAKER_01: And what Jesus says is, Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness, because I never knew you.
SPEAKER_01: And what we see here is there is really two ways that Jesus is setting for us today from this text.
SPEAKER_01: One is a way that leads to destruction, and the other is a way of building, of growth, something that you can rely on.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity is not just a set of beliefs, it's a set of actions.
SPEAKER_01: So if you would turn in your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 7, starting in verse 24, this is what Jesus says at the very end of his Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the follow of it.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of God for the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing we see from this text today is that this foundation that Jesus talks about has a purpose.
SPEAKER_01: What is this foundation?
SPEAKER_01: Well, this foundation is right here in verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them.
SPEAKER_01: This is the foundation.
SPEAKER_01: The foundation is obedience to Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the purpose of this foundation, our spiritual formation pastor Blake actually referred to it earlier when he led us through the corporate prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It comes from Matthew chapter 5.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: That's the purpose of this foundation.
SPEAKER_01: So the foundation is the obedience we give to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But the purpose of the foundation is that other people see us laying this foundation and give glory to God.
SPEAKER_01: Our church believes this.
SPEAKER_01: This is our church's statement, actually, on Christian conduct.
SPEAKER_01: You can see that this is on our website.
SPEAKER_01: It says this we believe that a Christian should live for the glory of God and the well-being of his fellow men, that his conduct should be blameless before the world, that he should be a faithful steward of his possessions, and that he should seek to realize for himself and others the full stature of maturity in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So the purpose of this foundation that Jesus talks about, hearing the words and then doing them, this is so that God will be glorified.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we're going to obey these words, we have to know what they are and how to do them.
SPEAKER_01: Now, do you know what these words are?
SPEAKER_01: Do you know the Sermon on the Mount?
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, it's very famous, but do we know them?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what is the Sermon on the Mount all about?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the first thing here.
SPEAKER_01: So, what the words are.
SPEAKER_01: It's the content that Jesus lays out in chapters 5 through 7.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it really comes down to this life in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: What is life in the kingdom of heaven as opposed to life in this kingdom of earth that we live on?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says things like, You've heard it said this, but I say to you.
SPEAKER_01: This has been looked at through the eyes of the kingdom of earth, but I say to you, here's how the kingdom of heaven works.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says this in the Lord's Prayer, which we pray often here.
SPEAKER_01: What does he say?
SPEAKER_01: Your kingdom come.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Another thing that we see in the Sermon on the Mount is this, recognizing that our greatest needs are spiritual, not physical.
SPEAKER_01: That's how the whole thing kicks off with the Beatitudes in chapter 5.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed are what?
SPEAKER_01: The poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: The uh the the the this this poor in spirit means that you are able to recognize your spiritual need before you recognize the need for anything else.
SPEAKER_01: You need God to solve your biggest problems, which are spiritual ones.
SPEAKER_01: They're ones you can't see.
SPEAKER_01: And that gets to the second thing how we obey these words.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says later on in chapter 6 that we should do things in secret, that we should obey in secret, that there's power in practicing our righteousness, as he says, giving, praying, fasting, tithing, all that's for God.
SPEAKER_01: And God who sees in secret rewards.
SPEAKER_01: I was reminded of this when I thought back to my time in college, um, and I would spend hours and hours uh at a piano in a practice room.
SPEAKER_01: Um the most quant consequential work I got done was when no one else was watching.
SPEAKER_01: Uh when I was a child, my mom had to sit me down.
SPEAKER_01: I'm six years old, she had to sit me down, watch me, uh, and make sure that I practice the piano.
SPEAKER_01: And I would just, I was like, mom, can I do something else?
SPEAKER_01: Go play.
SPEAKER_01: No, you're gonna sit and practice the piano.
SPEAKER_01: Um that that really only works for so long, as most of you parents know.
SPEAKER_01: Uh there's there's extrinsic and then there's intrinsic.
SPEAKER_01: There's there's something in you that makes you want to do it.
SPEAKER_01: And so by the time I got to college, I learned that if I wanted to be a better musician, if I wanted to be able to play, you know, Billy Joel and Elton John, all that great music that I loved, I had to practice.
SPEAKER_01: I had to spend a lot of time by myself with no one else watching in secret so that I could be able to do it.
SPEAKER_01: Now there was no immediate benefit to that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh there's no immediate affirmation.
SPEAKER_01: There's just showing up and doing the work in secret.
SPEAKER_01: So that's this is the how of obedience when we say that.
SPEAKER_01: No one goes up to a house.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go back to the text when we said the man builds his house on a rock.
SPEAKER_01: No one goes up to that house to admire its foundation.
SPEAKER_01: No one goes, I mean, maybe if you lay foundations for a living, but most of us normal folks, we look at a house and we're looking at the exterior, you know, we're looking at the roof, maybe, but we can't actually go down underneath unless you start digging up to look at the foundation.
SPEAKER_01: But it's only the unseen foundation that allows the house to stand.
SPEAKER_01: Our obedience testifies that there are things that are going to happen to the house that it needs to still be standing.
SPEAKER_01: We may not see its importance right now, we may not think of it every day.
SPEAKER_01: I don't wake up every morning and think of my foundation under my house, but it I need it.
SPEAKER_01: And then the third thing, why we obey these words.
SPEAKER_01: Good works, like we said earlier, Matthew chapter 5, they help others glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: Before we consider any benefit that we get for ourselves from good works, I want us to just kind of drive this stake deep in us today.
SPEAKER_01: Our good works, our obedience gets God glory.
SPEAKER_01: That's their purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we're created to obey God, we need to stop believing.
SPEAKER_01: We get to decide which parts of the Bible we obey and which parts we don't obey.
SPEAKER_01: Every single one of us has a favorite topic of discussion or uh some issue of theology that we really get fired up about.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would just say this: make sure that you don't do that at the expense of the others.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus pointed this out with the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, but you've neglected what?
SPEAKER_01: The weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: These you ought to have done without neglecting the others.
SPEAKER_01: We don't choose what to obey and what not to obey.
SPEAKER_01: One of the biblical commandments is not to neglect meeting together.
SPEAKER_01: And in obedience to our local authorities and everything that's been happening during COVID, we've been, you know, doing that, and that's been putting us in a difficult season lately.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we get back together in two weeks, and I cannot wait to do that.
SPEAKER_01: And that's because of this.
SPEAKER_01: If we're gonna know the words of Jesus, we cannot believe for one second that we don't need the gathering of believers.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need that ongoing nourishment, that ongoing communion of the saints that we get.
SPEAKER_01: When we gather to worship, we're reminded that we were created for this.
SPEAKER_01: We were created to worship.
SPEAKER_01: That's God's purpose for us.
SPEAKER_01: So take heart that you have a purpose today.
SPEAKER_01: If you're hearing this and you feel discouraged because you're just like, I don't think I've got a point to all this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think God, I think God messed up when he made me.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the Bible says, you are not useless.
SPEAKER_01: You are not a failure, you are his workmanship.
SPEAKER_01: In the book of Ephesians it says, we are his workmanship, which God created us beforehand.
SPEAKER_01: He prepared these good works for us beforehand so that we should walk in them.
SPEAKER_01: What Jesus is saying in this parable is that obedience to his teaching is really the only way that we can live the life we were meant to live.
SPEAKER_01: There's a popular idea that Jesus was this great teacher and that the Sermon on the Mount is one of the most powerful ethical discourses ever written.
SPEAKER_01: And you can see that.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just Gandhi loved the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_01: People from other religions, they've all pointed to how this is really great.
SPEAKER_01: But R.
SPEAKER_01: T.
SPEAKER_01: France said this: the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not meant to be admired, but obeyed.
SPEAKER_01: What would happen if we stopped believing it's enough to admire Jesus and started believing in the power of obeying Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: The second thing from the text today is this the foundation has power.
SPEAKER_01: So the foundation has a purpose, and part of that purpose is to have power.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the power of a foundation under a house is really structural integrity, right?
SPEAKER_01: That it provides.
SPEAKER_01: It allows the house to be built and not fall down.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way, when we obey the words of Jesus, we're laying a foundation in our lives that's powerful enough to build on.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Jesus' words, again in verse 24, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them, these words create responsibility for those who hear them.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone who hears does or does not do.
SPEAKER_01: So they create responsibility and they also create opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: One of those opportunities is for us and for others to witness the power of obedience.
SPEAKER_01: So let me ask you this question.
SPEAKER_01: Are you experiencing the power of obedience in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Because here's a few things that the Bible says about the power of obeying Jesus' commandments.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll put these up.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to ask him, put all these up at once, and I'll list these off.
SPEAKER_01: The first is evidence of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: James says, I will show you my faith, not by what I say, but by my works.
SPEAKER_01: I will give evidence of my faith by my works.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing is to show our thankfulness.
SPEAKER_01: We show our gratitude and our thankfulness to God by obeying him.
SPEAKER_01: The next thing, it will strengthen our assurance.
SPEAKER_01: John says in 1 John, by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
SPEAKER_01: We edify other Christians.
SPEAKER_01: Again, Matthew 5.
SPEAKER_01: Let them see your good works so that they give glory to God in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Think about the most on fire, God-loving person you know in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And think about how much impact they have had on you personally because you have seen their obedience.
SPEAKER_01: It adorns the teaching of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a different phrase.
SPEAKER_01: You probably don't use the word adorn much, but it comes from Titus chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: He says, he talks about bondservants and says, showing all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying there is obedient lives make the teaching of the gospel more beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: They make it more pleasing.
SPEAKER_01: They make it more attractive.
SPEAKER_01: And then finally, when we do good works, when we obey Jesus, it silences foolish people.
SPEAKER_01: This might be my favorite.
SPEAKER_01: Not because I like to win arguments, that's probably a fault of mine, but because it says this in 1 Peter 2.15.
SPEAKER_01: This is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
SPEAKER_01: Not so that we can win arguments, but so that the truth is louder than the foolishness.
SPEAKER_01: I've just been reminded this last week, last few weeks, really.
SPEAKER_01: No one's social media posts on anything probably changed anybody's mind.
SPEAKER_01: And if you posted something, I'm not yelling at you or doing anything.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not, I'm not, there have been a lot of things that have been good to post about and bad, but I doubt that anybody's mind got changed.
SPEAKER_01: What you do offline, though, in your day-to-day relationships with the people that actually see you and touch you, that will change.
SPEAKER_01: Because what you do when you have face-to-face people-people relationships is you have authority.
SPEAKER_01: You have authority because people have seen the way you lived.
SPEAKER_01: That's the problem with the internet.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm you're not the plot calling the kettle black.
SPEAKER_01: I use social media, uh, I enjoy all that good stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But the problem with the online realm is that everybody's voices are equal.
SPEAKER_01: And in reality, our voices are not equal.
SPEAKER_01: My voice does not have the same authority as someone else's voice who has experience and who's lived longer and knows more about something than I do.
SPEAKER_01: But we get online and get all fired up, and all of a sudden everybody's an expert.
SPEAKER_01: Some voices just carry foolishness, this foolishness that Peter talks about.
SPEAKER_01: But when you live a life of obedience and others can actually see and touch, you have a foundation you can stand on to speak wisdom over the foolishness.
SPEAKER_01: Now, all these things we put up here, they point to the power of obedience that we can have.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to stop here and just say that there is a power that obedience does not have.
SPEAKER_01: Because we want to be careful here.
SPEAKER_01: What is not in the power of good works, it's two things.
SPEAKER_01: One, to pardon our sin.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says in Ephesians 2, by grace you are saved, not of works, so that no one can boast.
SPEAKER_01: And the second thing is it cannot merit our eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: So we cannot have our sin pardoned because of our good works.
SPEAKER_01: We cannot merit our eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: It's only through believing and submitting to what the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus has accomplished that we are even able to obey the words of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says this in 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, and which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.
SPEAKER_01: For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.
SPEAKER_01: That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
SPEAKER_01: So let's stop here and be careful that we don't isolate Jesus' words here in Matthew 7 from the rest of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Believing in and living in light of Jesus' work is ultimately what we do to obey the words of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And this passage says that in 1 Corinthians, we receive it.
SPEAKER_01: We stand in it, we are actively being saved by it, and we actively hold fast to it.
SPEAKER_01: This gospel news is the ultimate power of salvation for everyone who believes.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're ashamed of it, if your life doesn't bear out its consequences, then it's impossible for you to build on a solid foundation.
SPEAKER_01: Believing this gospel means that we have the power of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: True good works are empowered only by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Works done by non-believers, they may be good, they may be helpful, they may be done according to God's commands, but they cannot be done in the power of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8, verse 5 says this for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: But those who live according to the Spirit, set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.
SPEAKER_01: For to set the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, it cannot.
SPEAKER_01: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
SPEAKER_01: So this power that we're talking about in this foundation comes from this gospel, and it's what makes the power of obedience possible, and it's what makes our obedience necessary as a response to that gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Every day we have the opportunity to do what Jesus said, to do the words of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you hear them, do them.
SPEAKER_01: And this is everything from how I play on the floor with my daughters.
SPEAKER_01: It's the conversation I have with a guy sitting across from me at lunch.
SPEAKER_01: It's how I spend my money.
SPEAKER_01: Each one of these things are opportunities to do the words of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And opportunity is good, it's full of potential.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' words don't just create opportunity or potential, though.
SPEAKER_01: They create responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: And when we follow through on that responsibility, we see fruit in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: I am a very amateur gardener, and I love good tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes.
SPEAKER_01: And I've learned over the years that there's a time to plant them and a time not to plant them.
SPEAKER_01: When I planted them too late, by the time it's June here in Texas, you ain't getting no tomatoes because it's just too hot for the fruit to get set with a flower on that plant.
SPEAKER_01: But if you plant them early, if you plant them at the right time, you've got enough cool weather kind of in April and May so that you can have the fruit.
SPEAKER_01: When we obey Jesus, our lives can bear that fruit too.
SPEAKER_01: Our obedience to Jesus is this foundation that we can build on, that we can grow on.
SPEAKER_01: So the foundation has a purpose, and that purpose is for the people of God to show the glory of God by doing the work of God.
SPEAKER_01: And when that's done, it displays power.
SPEAKER_01: Attractive, consequential power.
SPEAKER_01: And the next thing we see from the text is that this foundation works because it lasts, and it lasts because it works.
SPEAKER_01: I want to start here at just verse 25 again and hear this again.
SPEAKER_01: After he built the house on the rock, the rain fell, 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.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell.
SPEAKER_01: And great was the fall of it.
SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing about this parable, I I've read this parable several times in my life.
SPEAKER_01: And each time I heard it, I thought this that hearing the words of Jesus and believing the truth of Jesus was this foundation, this solid rock that you can build on.
SPEAKER_01: But when you read the text, it doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_01: It says doing the words of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It's building the house on a foundation.
SPEAKER_01: That's the foundation, is the actual doing of the words.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the difference between these two houses is that one has a foundation and one does not.
SPEAKER_01: One has a foundation, one does not have a foundation.
SPEAKER_01: Now, these houses themselves, they both serve their purpose.
SPEAKER_01: When the weather's fine, but folks, the weather is not always fine.
SPEAKER_01: The weather is not always good.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine this for a second.
SPEAKER_01: You have storms, and they come for both the houses.
SPEAKER_01: It rains one day.
SPEAKER_01: The roof holds up.
SPEAKER_01: The water gets in.
SPEAKER_01: Good roof.
SPEAKER_01: House A, house B.
SPEAKER_01: They're both good.
SPEAKER_01: The floods come.
SPEAKER_01: Floods in Israel, where Jesus told the story, they could come out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_01: They get flash floods because it's very mountainous, and all of a sudden you've got a flood out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_01: Both houses are fine.
SPEAKER_01: They've both been built high up enough.
SPEAKER_01: So the floods didn't hurt the houses.
SPEAKER_01: And then the winds came, but the walls were well framed, they had a good structure, and it was sound.
SPEAKER_01: So the question I have to ask myself when I read this text is well, what changed what the house was built on?
SPEAKER_01: It's not the quality of the house that was tested, it's the foundation that was tested.
SPEAKER_01: Over time, that sandy foundation, it experienced erosion.
SPEAKER_01: And that erosion has destroyed any foundation that that house may have had.
SPEAKER_01: For us, the realities of life, whether it's a worldview, an opinion, a circumstance that happens, a belief, a personal experience, anything that you could imagine, they're going to be assaulted.
SPEAKER_01: They're going to be assaulted by a storm.
SPEAKER_01: You can go to church, but you can do it without obedience.
SPEAKER_01: You can say, I sing the songs, I listen to the sermon, I pray the prayers, but you can do so without obedience.
SPEAKER_01: It's only through faithful obedience that we have a foundation.
SPEAKER_01: Because without faithful obedience, this foundation of our faith, it just erodes away into nothingness and uselessness.
SPEAKER_01: But the good news, Jesus says here, is that his words are trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: And that obeying them will give us assurance.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of words in this life we could obey, but it's the words of Jesus that give us assurance.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I say, mean when I say the foundation works.
SPEAKER_01: It works, it does what it's supposed to do.
SPEAKER_01: When we believe Jesus, when we love Jesus, when we walk in a good conscience with Jesus, we have this assurance.
SPEAKER_01: So let's stop believing that hearing and agreeing with this message is enough.
SPEAKER_01: Let's be sure that we do what we say we believe.
SPEAKER_01: This is why it's important to I love this phrase, to preach the gospel to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta learn to preach the gospel to yourself and look at obedience as a response to the grace you've received, not as a way to merit, to earn grace.
SPEAKER_01: This is what makes Christianity different from every other religion on this planet.
SPEAKER_01: Every other religion says, okay, here's a goal, here's a way to get there, and then here are steps that you have to take to reach that goal.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity says you can't take the steps, you can't meet the requirements of the steps.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus has.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has for you in your place, and he has met the goal for you.
SPEAKER_01: Now you respond.
SPEAKER_01: That's the gospel, is us responding in obedience to what Jesus has done for us.
SPEAKER_01: So when we have these trials and we have these storms, we get to look at them not through the lens of punishment, of God's wrath, but as reminders that he is testing the foundation and to remind us that it's good.
SPEAKER_01: Not because of us doing it, but because of the words that we are doing.
SPEAKER_01: We're doing the words of the Son of God, of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So take heart that when the house is shaking and you don't feel assured, the Bible says you're not alone.
SPEAKER_01: There are men and women who have had to pray this prayer.
SPEAKER_01: You've probably prayed it yourself sometime.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: That's a great prayer to pray, especially these days.
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's past, present, future, the foundation you build on is going to be tested.
SPEAKER_01: It will either fail and great will be the follow of it, or it will last.
SPEAKER_01: The foundation of obedience to Jesus will last because the foundation works.
SPEAKER_01: And the foundation works because it lasts.
SPEAKER_01: Another way of saying that is that God made the Christian life to be a life of assurance.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's a life that can persevere no matter the circumstance.
SPEAKER_01: And it can persevere because it has that assurance that no one or nothing can separate us from the love we have in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we mean when we say this foundation works because it lasts.
SPEAKER_01: There's a man, G.K.
SPEAKER_01: Chesterton, said this.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting.
SPEAKER_01: It has been found difficult and left untried.
SPEAKER_01: I want to back up a little bit and look at the actual builders in this story that lay the foundation.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus describes two types of builders, a wise builder and a foolish builder.
SPEAKER_01: There's no other options, there's no middle ground.
SPEAKER_01: There's either a wise builder or a foolish builder.
SPEAKER_01: Now, no one goes out to build a house looking for sand to build on.
SPEAKER_01: Not if they have any common sense.
SPEAKER_01: But what they're doing in this parable is really failing to take seriously the need for the right foundation.
SPEAKER_01: I love to imagine Jesus, who was a carpenter.
SPEAKER_01: He was the son of a carpenter, and he was a carpenter.
SPEAKER_01: I love to imagine him just getting up and going out to work with Joseph one day.
SPEAKER_01: And they're walking along with the other carpenters, and they're going to build houses, you know, and they walk and they walk.
SPEAKER_01: And one guy over here, he starts working.
SPEAKER_01: And they're just walking and they keep walking.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus looks up at Joseph and says, Why are we still walking?
SPEAKER_01: These other guys are working.
SPEAKER_01: And Joseph just says to his son, son, it's important to find the right foundation.
SPEAKER_01: It requires patience.
SPEAKER_01: It requires looking, looking hard.
SPEAKER_01: Now that story's not in the Bible, so don't send me an email and say, Clive, where's that in the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: No, that's not.
SPEAKER_01: I just think that we need to remember that Jesus was a man.
SPEAKER_01: He lived a life.
SPEAKER_01: He tells these stories from his own experience as a man.
SPEAKER_01: Even though he's the perfect son of God, he was also perfect man.
SPEAKER_01: And I just think about them going and looking for these foundations.
SPEAKER_01: This same parable is actually told in Luke.
SPEAKER_01: And in Luke, this phrase is added that the builder, when he found the rock, he dug down deep.
SPEAKER_01: It's not enough just to find it, it takes work.
SPEAKER_01: You got to dig down deep.
SPEAKER_01: You can't get distracted.
SPEAKER_01: I found this obedience is boring.
SPEAKER_01: Obedience is distracting.
SPEAKER_01: But we don't give up because we know that with the right foundation, what we build will last.
SPEAKER_01: And what this means for us is that as believers who are doing our best to obey the commands of Jesus, we can persevere because we know that it's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: We don't persevere as people without hope.
SPEAKER_01: We don't persevere because we're so strong and have a lot of endurance.
SPEAKER_01: We persevere as people who have encountered and been empowered by grace.
SPEAKER_01: This is what we call perseverance.
SPEAKER_01: And it means a few things.
SPEAKER_01: It means you cannot lose your salvation because the all-perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful God has saved us.
SPEAKER_01: He has started something in us that he will see to the end.
SPEAKER_01: And so what that means is that if he's all-powerful and all-perfect, the salvation he has accomplished for us is also all-powerful and perfect.
SPEAKER_01: So let's stop believing that we can outsend the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We cannot change our position of being in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Another thing I think, when not I think, but the Bible's clear on this, when we talk about perseverance, I want to say two words, one to the older believer and one to the younger believer.
SPEAKER_01: If you're an older believer, don't give up.
SPEAKER_01: Don't start thinking that your greatest spiritual victories are in the past.
SPEAKER_01: Just because the body starts wearing out as you get older does not mean you wear out spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women like me that are younger, that have young kids, or that are still early on in their life, we need to be able to look around and see older fathers and mothers of the faith that have had success and that have had failure of laying the right foundation that can teach us and come alongside us and say, yes, keep going.
SPEAKER_01: It's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: And then to the younger believer, I would just say to you, uh don't forget this is a marathon.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a sprint.
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to get this built in a day.
SPEAKER_01: But look around for those older saints who have learned and who have failed and who have succeeded at laying the good foundation.
SPEAKER_01: And be encouraged.
SPEAKER_01: Don't pay attention to the house at the expense of the foundation.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to just go into a house and start paying attention to the way it flows and look at, I like the kitchen, and I might change that paint color.
SPEAKER_01: I like where the fireplace is at, nice bathroom.
SPEAKER_01: When my wife and I bought our first house, our current house actually we're living in five years ago, our realtor said, okay, y'all need to get a building inspector.
SPEAKER_01: And we're like, great, something else we got to pay for?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm glad we did uh because the building inspector comes and I found out what they do.
SPEAKER_01: Their job is to actually look at the guts of the house.
SPEAKER_01: To look at all the things that I would never think to look at, my wife would never think to look at.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and the builder goes, Yeah, you might want to have a foundation looked at there.
SPEAKER_01: You got a little crack right there, and we're like, huh?
SPEAKER_01: And called the foundation company, they looked at it, said you're good to go.
SPEAKER_01: Um But here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: You hire an inspector when you buy a house because you pay attention to how the house looks.
SPEAKER_01: An inspector pays attention to how the house lasts.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Jesus is saying to us today.
SPEAKER_01: Pay attention to what lasts.
SPEAKER_01: Pay attention not to what you see through the eyes of flesh, but through the eyes of faith.
SPEAKER_01: As Christians, let's get in this habit of self-reflection in such a way that we pay more attention to the foundation that we're building on than just what other people see.
SPEAKER_01: There's a hymn that we sing here a lot.
SPEAKER_01: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: On Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking stand.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean when we say to wholly lean on Jesus' name?
SPEAKER_01: It means to obey Him.
SPEAKER_01: It's not enough, as we begin with, it's not enough to say, Lord, Lord, I did this for you.
SPEAKER_01: Because the storms are gonna come.
SPEAKER_01: When storms come, when darkness hides his face, or even when we're in the sweetest frame, as the song says, when we're just feeling like we're in the best place spiritually, or or with our kids, or with our life, or with our job.
SPEAKER_01: When our circumstances are great or not so great, we have this foundation of spirit-filled obedience to remind us that God is still working.
SPEAKER_01: When we obey Jesus, we are wholly leaning on his name.
SPEAKER_01: And if we're going to wholly lean on Jesus, we have to pay attention to our life and our doctrine.
SPEAKER_01: If you remember where we started, Jesus said to those who say, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this?
SPEAKER_01: Didn't we do that?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says to them, Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness, because I never knew you.
SPEAKER_01: The invitation for all of us today is to be able to say that Jesus knows me and I know him.
SPEAKER_01: Lindsay's gonna come and she's gonna play, she may sing something.
SPEAKER_01: Um here's the question we want to that this text asks us today.
SPEAKER_01: Will you hear and believe and obey?
SPEAKER_01: Or will you just hear?
SPEAKER_01: The warning is that any other foundation other than obedience will fall, and great will be the fall of it.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way of foolishness.
SPEAKER_01: But building on the right foundation, one with the right purpose, one with power, one that works, one that works and it lasts, this provides us comfort and it gives us hope.
SPEAKER_01: Because when the rains come, the waters rise, the wind beats on the house, we can have hope and we can have comfort.
SPEAKER_01: Not because of what we have done, but because of the one telling us what to do and what he has done for us.
SPEAKER_01: So let's take time now, let's pray for the wisdom and the obedience it takes to have a good foundation.
SPEAKER_01: Bow your heads.
SPEAKER_01: Father, as we take a moment to hear your spirit speak to us from this text now.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I ask that you would be the God that helps us.
SPEAKER_01: Help us be a people with ears that hear, with eyes that see the way they should, and with hands and feet that respond appropriately.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we're listening.
SPEAKER_01: Speak.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we thank you for grace.
SPEAKER_01: Because grace is the only, as we said in the other song we sing sometimes, it's the only thing that makes us really want to change.
SPEAKER_01: Not our effort, but the only thing that makes us want to change is this grace that keeps on going.
SPEAKER_01: So, Father, I ask that you would fill us with a knowledge of this grace, and that being filled, we would act accordingly.
SPEAKER_01: Father, help us be that light, help us be that salt.
SPEAKER_01: And in so doing, Lord, be be a part of the plan you have to save this place.
SPEAKER_01: This broken, beautiful, and being redeemed world.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being with us today.
SPEAKER_01: Um, there are a few things that we want to make you aware of before we end.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing is the blood drive that's going to be coming here in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have a slide with some information on it about it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's actually next week, excuse me, not a few weeks, next week.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so to be a part of that, go to the website, register.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, great opportunity uh to help others.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the second thing, just to remind you of our reopening schedule, we are back in two weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Uh there is kind of a uh step-by-step process by which we're doing that, uh, starting on June 21st, no child care or anything.
SPEAKER_01: Uh again, the details you can see, we've sent in an email.
SPEAKER_01: You can take a picture if you want right there of that screen.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's kind of our plan as we kind of ramp back up to bringing our people back together, which I, for one, cannot wait to have.
SPEAKER_01: Uh just a final reminder uh today, if you worship through giving, you can do that.
SPEAKER_01: You can send your check to the church, you can uh use our online service.
SPEAKER_01: However, you do that, uh, thank you for doing that.
SPEAKER_01: Let me invite you to stand and let's end our service with a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_01: Let us not grow weary of doing good.
SPEAKER_01: For in due season, we will reap if we do not give up.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.