Title: “Jesus gives the weather forecast”
The Most Famous Sermon - ever! ...The Sermon On The Mt.
Text: Mt 7:24-27
Subject; What’s the best foundation for our lives?
Complement: The person and works and words of Jesus
Big idea: Build Your Life On Christ The Sure Foundation
Introduction: News of a global pandemic... everything and everyone is facing fear and uncertainty (2020)
• Virus pandemic
• Economic stress
• Devaluation of the stock market
• Small business owners are worried
• Tourism industry is non-esistent
• Trust in govt leaders is suspect.
In Jesus day Israel is an occupied land ...
• Roman Dictatorship
• Occupied by a super power
• Might makes right
• Any Social net is absent...
• A land of Peasants stuck in poverty
• High taxes... corrupt tax system
• No democracy
• No unions
• No labor laws
• No human rights tribunal
Lets look at the conclusion to the most famous sermon... Matthew 7 24-27
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
1. Two People Are Contrasted By Jesus ...each person builds a house!
***Each house looks secure in good weather!
Life may be sailing along for you...
Graduate university
First job!
Marriage... “living the dream” ...
***Each house looks secure in good weather!
***Jesus is speaking into a volatile Jewish culture occupied by a foreign power – whom they want to overthrow... talk about uncertainty!!!
A couple of years ago I had the funeral for a dear old dutch man – he died at age 93 -- -when he was a kid in Holland – during the war ...he was in hiding in a hole in the field – hiding from the Nazis... how would you like to spend 4 years of your life doing that?
But he built his life on Christ...
2. Each House Experiences A Storm.
This is not a story about the weather...It's a story about building a house that can withstand the storm. Big
difference!
** Only the storm reveals how solid your house is!
2020 Storms...
Virus pandemic...
Stock market crash
Fear is everywhere
Isaiah 28:16
16 So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it
will never be stricken with panic.
Proverbs 12:7 “the house of the righteous stands firm.”
For both people in this parable there’s a choice to be made... this is the only difference ...
one man chooses to build on sand ...the other chooses solid rock.
What kind of foundation are you building on???
Why build on sand?
What is sand?
• Money is sand – stock market storm
? 1929
? 1987
? 2008
? Suicides followed...
• TORONTO -- Major North American indexes continued to plunge Thursday as news of large-scale cancellations failed to ease investors' concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
• "This is an unprecedented fall," said Allan Small, senior investment adviser at HollisWealth, who has been working in the investment world for almost 25 years.
• "I have never seen the velocity of this fall as steep or quick as it is."
• The S&P/TSX composite index plummeted 1,761.64 points, or 12.34 per cent, to 12,508.45 with every sector in the red and just above a daily low of 12,451.12 points.
• In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 2,352.60 points, or 9.99 per cent, to 21,200.62. That's the worst day for the index since a nearly 23 per cent drop on Oct. 19, 1987.
1 Timothy 6:17
• Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
• Beauty is sand
o You get old and wrinkled (storm is old age/dementia)
• Reputation is sand
o Social media can ruin you with (storm ) rumours
• Popularity is sand
o People are fickle
• Career is sand
o You can get downsized or passed over for a promotion (recession is a storm; changing technology is a storm)
• Health is sand
o One call from the doc can change everything (Medical storm)
• Talent is sand
o Hockey... blow out your knee (Bobby Orr – 9 knee surgeries)... injury is a storm
? Eric Lindros
3. Resolution – Build Your Life On Jesus ...On His Words And His Work.
Jesus makes this amazing claim!!! ... hear and practise my words!
• Is this true?
• Do you believe it?
...Most people don’t!
• Most people are building on sand...
• But Jesus calls us to build our lives on him...
o Build your life... your marriage...your finances... your relationships... your hobbies... your dreams...
• Don’t merely live for yourself... live for him
• Give yourself to his work and mission in the world.
• Don’t merely invest your money in your RRSP (uncertain)... invest in the kingdom of God!
What are these words of Jesus?
Some words of Jesus:
• I am the way the truth and the life – no one comes to the Father except through me.
• What does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
• Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
• Jesus to Nicodemus – unless you are born again you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven
• When asked the greatest command ? love God with all your heart/soul/mind/strength... the second is like unto it – love your neighbour as yourself.
Here’s the clincher... Jesus said he was going to be killed ... but then rise from the dead...
And he did!
Now he also says one day he’s coming back..., and he will!
“I go to prepare a place for you... that where I am there you may be also!
We are all shaking our heads about the run on tissue paper... fear is a powerful force...
“I’m afraid ...I’m not prepared... how ironic that people hoard tissue paper and neglect the core matter of our relationship with God.
Jesus invites us build our lives on him – the sure foundation.
Who wants to build on sand???
Golden Gate Bridge...
the San Andreas Fault (this incredible fault system that California's famous for) starts and runs all the way up through California. I
f you actually take a flight up California you can see the San Andreas Fault. It goes right under San Francisco, out to the ocean, up toward Alaska.
What if you added this one word to the terror of the storm? "This person built a house on the rock, and the rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew, and there was horizontal earth movement; and the house did not fall. And then a person built his house on the sand, and the rains fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and there was horizontal earth movement."
What if you added that to the parable? It would make it all the more terrifying.
Let me tell you something about earthquakes.
When the Coalinga quake occurred a couple of years ago, a lot of things were discovered.
Houses that were built and were bolted to their foundation withstood that 8.2R Scale quake.
The structure would go like this, but if it was bolted to the foundation, it withstood.
Now on the other hand, the houses that were built in a period when they did not bolt them to the foundation again, a perfectly good house when the horizontal earth movement occurred, the house moved maybe six or seven inches off its foundation. And that's what caused the house to collapse.
And so that was a great discovery made at Coalinga: Houses should be bolted to their foundation.
The San Andreas Fault is well known to Southern Californians, but it's even better known to northern Californians because of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco.
Our San Andreas Fault literally goes under the south pier of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Let me tell you about that bridge.
Two great piers: the north pier, the south pier.
The south pier is on the San Andreas Fault.
It has the two piers, it has this mile span, and in the middle, it'll sway feet.
And they've closed the Golden Gate Bridge only three times in its history because of windstorms. Not because the bridge was in danger ...it wasn't swaying that far but they closed the bridge because campers were tipping over on the bridge.
I want to tell you something that may surprise you. If you're making a trip to San Francisco and you want the safest place to go, you go to the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. That will withstand probably 9.0 on the Richter Scale. It's a magnificent structure. It will not fall, for two reasons. One, it's flexible that way. But I'll tell you another reason it stands: That bridge is a marvel of cantilever and suspension in construction. Every bit of concrete, and all the macadam and that pavement, and every bit of steel in that entire bridge all of it relates one piece to another.
Every piece of metal in that bridge finally relates to two giant cables, that finally come up to two great piers that go down into bedrock, and two anchors out on each side.
That's the genius of a suspension bridge every single piece of metal, every single piece of concrete, is preoccupied with its foundation.
And it's satisfied with the foundation!!!
The Message -- verses 24-27 “These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. “But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.” When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this. It was apparent that he was living everything he was saying—quite a contrast to their religion teachers! This was the best teaching they had ever heard.
