Hearers & Doers

Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Debbie: Hey all, we are finishing up in the Sermon on the Mount. We've been in it all fall. And what's been clear through the Sermon is that God holds up countercultural values of mercy and justice, peacemaking and integrity. I was thinking about that, how interesting that is that over 2,000 years ago, those values were countercultural. They continue on today, which is a very interesting thing to think about.

But the Sermon on the Mount made me think about a talk I had heard a while back from an Episcopal priest, an author, an academic by the name of Barbara Brown Taylor. Many of you know that name. She was teaching a class on world religions to some college students. And it was so interesting because she said the hardest part of that class to teach was on her own faith as a Christian. And she said the reason that it was hard, that it was so hard to find a text that captured the character, the heart of our Christian faith. So many of the textbooks that she had chosen for that-- she was teaching in the class landed on those we believe statements like the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed, those sort of compact statements of faith.

And what she said was it left her students ice cold, especially those who found the foundational text for their faith from texts like John 3:16, “Whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Or John 14:6, “no one comes to the Father [but] by me.” These single verses that banked on believing in Jesus, the sense from all the students from her own life of faith that there's more to the life of faith than just a statement of belief. That's what this whole Sermon on the Mount is about. So one semester, she floated the idea of using the Sermon on the Mount as the text that captured the heart of the Christian faith. I mean, you think about it. It's the longest collection of Jesus's teachings in all four gospels. It's three chapters of Matthew. We spent the whole fall looking at it. It's full of instructions on how to live life in union with God and one another. And did Jesus teach the Beatitudes, last of the poor, those who mourn, the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers? We're reminded that we are the salt of the earth, the light in the world. There were teachings on kingdom righteousness, those teachings around anger, forgiveness, prayer, anxiety, loving your neighbor and loving your enemy, generosity, the golden rule.

The students were not left cold by this sermon. And what she said was they read it aloud together. And they went round and round. And they had heated discussions. And they had all these questions about the Sermon on the Mount. But ultimately, the question they all asked at the end was, how can we live like that? Hope we'll answer that a little bit in our text today. But my other hope is that you'll be reminded that throughout this series through the fall, it was never about condemnation. It was always an invitation, an opportunity to step into this life, the ongoing transformative life of faith. So last week, Justin talked about the narrow gate, false prophets, and that we would be known by our fruits, those fruits of the spirit, love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

But right now, we're in Matthew 7:24-29. It forms the final words of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. And it's a parable, a pronouncement, an invitation. We have a decision to make. And at the end of this great sermon, Jesus has one simple question. What are you building your life on? Because it's possible to hear everything that Jesus says, to admire it, to agree with it, and still not build on the right foundation. Jesus ends his sermon with this. He gives us a picture, two builders, two foundations, one storm, one builds on a rock, one builds on the sand, and the storm reveals the truth. Matthew 7, 24-29, here we go:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his 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 a rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall. Now when Jesus had finished saying these words, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes.

I think this isn't just a conclusion, but a call to a decision. Jesus has presented the way of the kingdom, and now he tells his listeners that hearing these words isn't enough. Hearing the words isn't enough, but they must be lived. That isn't new. I think we've woven that thread throughout our series here, but there's a little bit more as we work ahead. And I want to just make a statement about the text that this would have been very familiar to Jesus's Jewish audience, because wisdom literature was often contrasted with the wise and the foolish. Jesus was stepping back into that tradition, but with striking authority.

And this image would have been familiar because in Israel, storms, floods, they were actually common, especially by riverbeds. So a house on the sand might look okay during the dry season, but when the rains and the floods came, its foundation was completely exposed. It did not hold up. But a house built on the rock? That required some work. Some digging, building, building with care, but it endured. So Jesus is using this very familiar concrete image to reveal a spiritual reality.

And I think we can all understand, right? The parable is pretty clear. The house that equals your life, the foundation is obedience to living out. Jesus is teaching. The storms are the trials of our life. The rock is Jesus himself. And the sand, the sand is when we hear without doing. The wise builder. The wise builder is the one who hears and does.

And I think what I'm about to say in part answers those students' questions. How can we live like this? Because this is what it's about. It's about living like this, not perfectly, not instantly, but faithfully, slowly, daily. Because building on a rock takes work. It takes digging. It takes patience. It takes trust. And as a community whose mission is practicing the ways of Jesus by creating space for all to belong and to be loved, we are doing that. Every act of forgiveness. Every bit of hospitality. Every widening of the table. Every burden that we share. That is rock work. That is foundation work. That's the way of Jesus.

But Jesus also warns us you can hear all these same words and still not do them. You can talk about mercy without offering it. You can say all are welcome without making space. You can admire Jesus' teachings and never follow them. That's the sand. And sand will not hold up when the storm comes. And the storms will come. Jesus doesn't say if the storms come. He says when. When the winds rise and the floods come. When trouble hits your life. My life. Our community. And those storms can look like things like diagnosis and loss. Broken relationships. Conflict. Cultural turmoil. The testing of faith. Testing of community. And what do storms do? They reveal the foundation on which we stand. They tell the truth about who we are. Where we stand. Who we stand with. It's so many stories I could tell about the storms hitting.

It's hard to land on one. But I was thinking about this community and I was thinking about all the storms that have come and gone in this eight plus years since we left our home church of Christ Presbyterian Church over in Edina. We've said this we've been saying it all month about God's faithfulness to this community as we walked the storms of leaving a very comfortable and safe space to jump out on our own because we felt God's call on our lives. The Holy Spirit moving. We felt the storms when COVID hit. And all of a sudden we had to go online. We felt the storms when Minneapolis erupted over George Floyd's death. And all of a sudden we saw the need in the community. We felt the storms when the co-lead pastor that started up this church plant with me eight years ago had to leave this community.

We have weathered the storms. But here we stand because while we have said over the years we're a little bit messy, not always quite sure exactly what we're doing. But we've always stood on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ. Always. And if we ever veered off just a little bit, God brought us back to that foundation. And we can look at our own story. And we can thank God for the movement of His Spirit to keep us on the foundation of Jesus.

But I think this text still has more for us because this isn't new news. You can't just speak your faith. You've got to live it. It's not new news. But this text has a little bit more for us because we have to be people who say more than the right words. We have to be people that get their theology right. And yes, we have to be people who are doers of the will of God, but there's still more. There is a scholar out of Pittsburgh, Reformed Theological Seminary, and he has this to say about this particular text. If, Patti, you want to throw that up there?

The illusion of discipleship is now stripped down further. Cannot the church's ministry speak for itself? If by our fruit we will be known for whose we are, do we not now have the building of faith finally on solid rock? What Jesus teaches here is the development of what He has taught already. Truth, whether in word or act, does not lie in what we do but in Him. I am the truth. And no matter how seemingly good and evangelical our acts, insofar as that they are our acts, they are not true.

This isn't about the lack of good intention or the lack of love. Jesus is warning us about the danger of displacing Christian ministry with the ministry of the church. In other words, He's saying, "Guess what? It ain't about you all and all the good work you're doing. It's about the Spirit moving, my Spirit in you." That's what it's about. Because there is more than reciting the good deeds or reciting the creeds. There's more than nodding along with Jesus at a distance. There is an actual following of Jesus, the everyday, the inconvenient obedience that shapes the people that we are as followers of Jesus.

And hear this, even our obedience, it's not the source of our truth. And that's what I think this text is about today. Even our best doing is not where our righteousness comes from because Jesus teaches us that truth in word or deed doesn't live in what we do but in who He is. I think that's real easy for the church to get confused on. And all of a sudden when we get really good at what we're doing, we start thinking that it is about us and all our good work we're doing when in fact it's about Jesus. It is about God in us that is carrying on and partnering with this mission of bringing good news to the world.

And honestly, and I say this with all humility, I think part of the success of The Table has been Matt and I never knew what we were doing. We had no choice but to depend on God. And I mean that, in his leading and his guidance. And I kind of never want to lose that. I am confident in who Jesus is. I am confident in the call to live like that. And I've always said that, that I don't take myself that seriously but boy do I take Jesus seriously. And the minute we forget that, the minute we go off track.

Let's go back to the text for a minute. The crowd is astonished. More affirmation as to who Jesus is because Jesus teaches not as a scribe who quotes previous rabbis but he speaks with direct authority, personal authority. He teaches with an authority not rooted in tradition but rooted in his own identity. Next week we're entering that season. The word becomes flesh. This is God, God on earth and the heart of this message. This is what I want to bring home here. The heart of this message is truth. And I'll tell you what, truth matters. Truth matters in our relationships. It matters in this community. It matters in what's going on in our country right now. Truth matters. And our doing has to flow from his being.

And I think that's the rest of the answer to the students' questions. How do we live like that? We are reliant on the Holy Spirit. We are reliant on the Jesus that we know through Scripture. And there's a lot more than listening. There's living. But the life we live is rooted not in our performance but in Christ the truth. There's more than confession. There's compassion, compassion that springs from the one who embodies God's mercy. And there's more than precision of belief. There's the practice, forgiveness, mercy, tables expanded, doors opened, burdens shared. All grounded not in our goodness. It's grounded in his goodness. Because Christ is the rock. Christ is the truth. Christ is the foundation. And if we can walk out of here today being reminded that we don't build on ourselves, we build on him.

What does that mean exactly for us? And what it means is that we bring our lives, our real lives under the shaping of Jesus. That means our habits, our relationships, our words, our actions, our choices. And in this moment when everything feels a little upside down, because let's be honest no matter where you land, it feels a little upside down in our country, in our communities. There's so much coming at us all the time. And sometimes there might be moments where it's hard to discern what's true.

Where do we stand? We know the truth. We remember Jesus' words, Jesus' actions. And if we don't land under love God and love your neighbor, if we're not all about healing the sick and feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger, then we miss the Sermon on the Mount. We miss who Jesus is and how he calls us to live our lives. And it means all of us together practice our mission here at The Table, practicing the ways of Jesus by creating space for all to belong and be loved. Because that is not a slow win. That is a way of life that we are committed to. It means that we are rooted in daily prayer, compassion, honesty, forgiveness, a commitment to be shaped by Jesus' truth. And that's the hard work. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. But it's the hard work that Jesus calls us to and he calls us to the practices of hospitality and mercy.

How do we live like that? Lonely, daily, intentionally leaning on the truth of who Jesus is. Jesus ends his sermon with a call to choose our foundation. Sand or rock, words or obedience, self or Christ. I'm going to end here where Jesus began this particular text. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them. Let's be more than hearers of those words, more than doers. But reminded of the truth, the foundation that we stand on. May we be a people who hear and who do. May we be a community built on the rock. May we build our life, our life together on Jesus Christ, the truth, the foundation, the one who holds when every storm comes.