Sermon preached on 1/27/02 at Parkview Church of the Nazarene by
J. Richard Lord, Jr.
PRACTICING WISE
CHRISTIANITY
Matthew 7:24-29
INTRO:
Ravi Zacharias, a well-known Christian author and teacher did a lectureship at Ohio State University not too long ago. As he was being driven to the lecture, the car passed the new Wexner Art Center. The driver said, “This is a new art building for the university. It’s a fascinating building because it is designed in the post-modernist view of reality.” Zacharias looked at the building and noticed it had no pattern.
Staircases go nowhere. Pillars support nothing. The architect built the building to reflect life. It goes nowhere and makes no sense.
Zacharias says he turned to the man describing it and asked, “Did they do the same thing with the foundation?” He laughed and said, “You can’t do that with a foundation.”
There are many Christians today who say they love the Lord, who feel they are going to heaven, but are living lives of quiet frustration. On the surface, they seem to be successful. They have homes, cars, possessions, family-anything a person could want. They are living the American dream.
But their lives are going nowhere. They have no sense of real accomplishment. The pillars of their life: their faith, their family, their work, lack the emotional and spiritual support they need. Their lives are just like the building at Ohio State, they are going nowhere and life makes no sense.
Their stability is a fragile one. Because they have no support, the slightest upheaval in their existence shatters the structure of their lives. The result is families torn apart, or severely damaged. Peace and contentment are strangers. Their cry is much like Job’s, “Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?. . . I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil."(Job 3:11,26)
Psychological problems arise, which lead to physical illness. Stress is high. There is none of the joy and victory that is supposed to be evident in a Christian’s life.
Why is it that some Christians can go through tremendous trials and come through with victory and a glorious and shining testimony, stronger for their trial and are a tremendous witness for Jesus, whereas others seem to be cut asunder by their trial and crash in ignominious defeat?
I think that in this scripture Jesus puts his finger squarely on the problem.
We see in the scripture a description of two people who represent Christians today. We see a person whose “house” withstood a tremendous storm and another person whose “house” “fell with a great crash” in the storm.
The reason the “wise” man’s house withstood the storm was that he “heard the words of mine (Jesus) and put(s) them into practice.”
What “words” was Jesus referring too? The Sermon on the Mount, of course. He had just finished laying down the basic structure of what a Christian disciple should be. This is the foundation of all we are as His disciples.
It has been said that the Sermon on the Mount contains the entirety of Christian theology and doctrine. One could, if all the scripture he possessed was this sermon, lead an exemplary Christian life. If John 3:16 is the gospel or “good news” in a nutshell, then the Sermon on the Mount is the catechism.
All of Christian theology can be derived from the 2,333 words that make up this discourse.
Jesus said in 5:17 that he came to fulfill the law. He completed the Old Testament and the rest of New Testament builds on what He preached here.
It is hard to summarize what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, but I believe that there are three basic messages that He is showing us.
I. WE ARE LOST, BUT WE CAN BE FOUND.
America loves it rugged individualists, our heroes. The person, who, against all odds, struck out by himself and accomplishes great things, wins great battles, thinks for himself and doesn’t fit in the mold of society.
But the reality of life teaches us that we are not constructed to live unto ourselves. The song phrase, “No man is an island, no man stands alone” is very apt in describing the reality of mankind.
The essence of sin is when man attempts to live unto himself. This is when, in the course of our life, we choose to fulfill our own needs above the needs of others. We become our own “gods.” And that is when we become lost. God created us to be a part of Himself, to live under His wing. He is to be our God. When we choose, in the course of our life, to fulfill His needs before we fulfill our own needs, we become found. We become part of something bigger than ourselves.
And what are God’s needs? He needs us to serve Him by serving others. When we are found, we become secure in His love. That enables us to have “otherness.”
All through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about “others.” Be “salt” to others. Be “light” to others. Don’t murder “others,” commit adultery with “others.” He says to love “others.” Give to “others.”
Later in Matthew, Jesus says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (10:39)
The old timers use to talk about dying out. Part of finding ourselves is dying to ourselves.
It seems that there is a lot whiny Christians who have forgotten this. They have developed the “poor me” syndrome. They are so centered on their own problems, they have no clue to the fact that the best solution to our own problems is to lose ourselves in the service of God. The key verse here is Matt. 6:33, “ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
II. WE ARE WEAK, BUT WE CAN BECOME STRONG.
The very first verse of Jesus’ sermon is the beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” He understands that we are weak. God never intended for us to face the battles of life by ourselves. We simply do not have the strength.
When I first started learning how to drive an eighteen wheeler, I had trouble learning how to change gears. The more I ground the gears trying to get in the next gear the harder the transmission was to change. I kept on trying to “muscle” it in. I finally learned that “less” was “more.” All I had to do was to relax and use a just a little of my muscle and just ease it into gear. My gear changes became a lot smoother.
That what a lot of people try to do. They try to muscle their way through life. All they manage to do is to strip their spiritual gears and burn up their emotional clutch. They worry and fret about everything, “What shall we eat, what shall we drink, what shall we wear?” They have lost the foundation of Jesus.
The miracle of salvation is that is our very weakness that makes strong. Our strongest building is weak when it is not put on the foundation of Jesus. But the weakest buildings are stronger when they are fixed on the foundation of Jesus and His word.
III. WE ARE SINNERS, BUT WE CAN BECOME HOLY.
The climax of the Beatitudes is 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” It is very reminiscent of Hebrews 12:14, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” The very essence of our relationship to God is that He calls us out of the sinful life and into a life of holiness.
It is very important to understand that one cannot live a life of holiness and continue to sin. This is what purity of heart means. It is a “wholeness” of purpose of mind and heart to serve God and Him only.
A great many people claim to be Christians, but yet cannot seem to escape the bonds of sin that are on their life. How can one sing, “Victory In Jesus” when there is no victory over sin? There is no victory if sin is present in one’s life.
Verse 6:24 says, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Sin is either your master or God is. It cannot be both.
It is this very ambivalence in commitment that is at the root of many people’s failures. The commandment of God is to come out of the world, come out of sin and to live for Him only.
God has to be absolute first, above ourselves, our families and this world. Jesus says again a little later in Matthew: “I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.” (10:30)
It is that commitment that places us firmly on the foundation of Jesus, and it is that commitment that places us in the position of truly receiving victory in this life.
CONCLUSION
On Oct. 17, 1989 a massive earthquake struck the San Francisco area and the people there gave a lot of thought to the foundation they were built on. Buildings built on solid ground sustained much less damage than those built on "filled in" areas. The south pier of the Golden Gate Bridge sits directly on top of the San Andreas fault! Yet it was undamaged in that quake because the weight of the bridge rests on the two towers deeply embedded into the rock beneath the sea. Remember that double-decker freeway in Oakland that collapsed? It was built on land that had been filled in. It all looked the same until the time of testing!
Unless we are committed to build our life upon Jesus and His Word, learn and put into practice every precept, we are not anchored to the Solid Rock. Our lives will continue to filled with frustration. We will continue to be dissatisfied with the progress of our life. We will continue to have no sense of real accomplishment. And when the storms of life come, and they will, we WILL fall, not maybe, WILL. And great will the our crash.
