Hope Church LV Sermons
Two Roads :: What Foundation am I Building Upon
This is a very exciting weekend for us here at Hope because this weekend we get to welcome the newest part of our church family, our Boulder City campus. In Boulder City we just want you to know here at this campus how excited we are to have you as a part of our church family. So let's welcome the Boulder City campus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Boulder City we love you and we are excited that you're a part of the Hope family. We want to pray specifically for you tonight so let's pray together. Lord Jesus we come before you tonight and we thank you so much for this new campus in Boulder City. Lord what a joy it is to be able to as a church family wrap our arms around that city. God we thank you for the opportunity to do that. Lord I pray now that as we open your word God that you would speak to us, Lord that we would never be the same again as a result of what you speak into our lives tonight. Holy Spirit of God we welcome you in this place. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. That number that you saw displayed there on the screen is actually the population of the world. We live in a big world and it is growing second by second. Every second of every day the population of the world is growing. There are over 16,000 people groups in the world and by people group I mean they have their own unique language and culture, over 16,000 people groups in the world. These people groups are represented in over 200 countries around the world, over 6.8 billion people, over 16,000 people groups, over 200 countries around the world but as big and diverse as this world is. The reality is in every corner of the globe people are people everywhere. One of the things I love about our church family is the diversity of our church family. We are a very multicultural church. I love being a part of a multicultural church and we have that here in Las Vegas and as I travel and speak around the country and around the world we're very blessed here in our church because not all churches across America are multicultural. We enjoy a great blessing here in our church of being multicultural. You never know exactly what the worship service is going to be like, what the style of music is going to be like. There are a lot of cultures represented in our church and let me just go ahead and say to you what that means for all of us is. Being a part of a multicultural church means that at some point all of us are going to be a little uncomfortable in the worship experience. You know that, right? There are going to be some points when we're all a little bit uncomfortable, why? Because we're a multicultural church and as we allow worship to be expressed in the cultural diversity that is represented in our fellowship it's going to stretch all of us just a little bit. But as diverse as we are as a church we're not a white church, a black church, a Hispanic church, an Asian church, we are a kingdom church. Let me tell you what we look like. We look like what heaven is going to look like someday, amen? This is what heaven is going to look like. Yet with all the diversity that exists in our church there are some things that just because we're human beings we all have in common. It's true in our church, it's true in the 16,000 cultures around the world. There are some things that every one of us have in common and I want to begin by giving you three things that every person on earth has in common. First of all, every person has a dream we call life. Every person has a dream that we call life. We all have a desire for something, the word dream if you were to look it up in the dictionary. It's defined as something hoped for, something that somebody hopes, longs or is ambitious for. It doesn't matter where you are in the world or who you talk to, we all have a dream about what we want our lives to be. The reality is that many of the aspects of that dream are similar. You can go to different cultures around the world and you'll find that every one of us desires a loving family. That's all a part of our dream, that we have a family where love is demonstrated and where love abounds. We long to have a peaceful home. Everybody wants their home to be a place of peace, not a place of conflict, not a place of struggle. We want our home to be a peaceful place. We all long and dream of security. We want to be secure, not necessarily wealthy. We just want to be secure. We want to know that the foundation is solid. We all want comfort. We all want blessing for us and for the next generation. Everybody has as a part of their dream a desire that they're able to pass on to their children and their grandchildren and even greater life than we're able to have today. We want to pass that blessing on. Every culture on the globe has this dream we call life. Secondly, every person attempts to build towards that life. Every person is attempting to build towards that life. We all have a dream of what we want our lives to be and some may be more intentional than others. Some of us are more organized than others. Some of us are more disciplined than others and so the way it expresses itself may look differently. But we all have a dream of what we want life to be and we're all trying to build that life. We're all putting into our existence, our day-to-day routine the things that we think are going to allow us to enjoy that loving family, that peaceful home, security, comfort, blessing for us in the next generation. We're all building towards that and third, every person experiences life's ups and downs. We all have a dream of what we want our lives to be. We're all working and building towards that dream and on that journey of trying to live that out, every one of us is going to go through life's ups and downs, right? I mean, if you're living life, you are going to face some challenges and some storms. Nobody is immune from life's struggles. Life is not easy for anybody. And I want you to look at those three things on the screen. Every person has a dream we call life. Every person attempts to build towards that life and every person experiences life's ups and downs. I want you to think about it. It doesn't matter if you're black or white, rich or poor, American or Egyptian, Jew or Muslim, Christian or non-Christian. Every human being on the planet, 6.8 billion in counting has those three things in common. So then what makes the difference? A lot of some people find experience, enjoy, achieve that dream and others do not. 6.8 billion people on the planet, 16,000 people groups, 200 countries, we all have these desires. What makes the difference? Why is it that some get there and some do not? Well, the answer is not geography. No one corner of the globe has the corner on that market, right? I mean, you can go to different countries, you can circle the globe, you can land in different places. It's not a geographical issue. Some in the world think it is, they think, if you travel to other countries, many of them think that the dream is achieved by becoming an American. You know, that's not true, right? I mean, you can just do the polls and the surveys across our country. There's a lot of people that are still struggling to find that dream even here in America. It's not a geographical issue. It's not a financial issue. The answer is not financial. If you do the studies, the wealthier parts of the world have no better ratio of achievement on this than the underdeveloped parts of the world. Matter of fact, I've been in some of the poorest parts of the world, poorest parts of the globe, and I've seen life being lived and thought, man, I wish I had the joy that they have. The answer is not religion. You can travel the globe and go to the cultures and the people groups and the nations, and there's all kinds of religion and religion promises these things, but religion doesn't deliver them either. What makes the difference? I think the difference can be found in the answer to one very simple question. Here's the question. On what foundation are you building your life? I want you to think about that question this weekend. On what foundation are you building your life? It's a very important question, and it's the very question that Jesus is dealing with as He brings to an end what we've been studying now for 15 months, the sermon on the Mount. If I have your Bible, you can turn to the gospel of Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7, we're going to begin in just a moment reading verse 24 through the end of this message that Jesus preaches here in Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 5, chapter 6 and chapter 7 are the longest recorded single discourse by Jesus Christ in the Bible. Some have called it the greatest sermon ever preached. Some have called it the most famous sermon ever preached. Some simply call it the Sermon on the Mount because Jesus assembled a following of people on this hillside and He gave this great, great sermon. A sermon that Jesus delivered in an afternoon has taken us 15 months to unpack, and the reality is we could have stretched it out even further. We could have gone deeper because there's so much truth in these verses, but as Jesus comes to the very end, He's described this radical way of life, this life that really would meet every criteria of those three things that we all have in common. It promises joy, and peace, and contentment, and security, all of those things that we desire, and at the very end Jesus pulls them all close and He asks this question on what foundation are you building your life? Matthew chapter 7, look at verse 24, if you don't have a Bible, you can follow along with us on the screen. He says, "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and slammed against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 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 rains fell. The floods came and the winds blew and slammed against it, that house, and it fell. And great was its fall. When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching. For He was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes. Jesus kind of lays out those three things that we all have in common. He tells us here that this affects everyone. He uses that word a couple of times in these verses, everyone. It's all inclusive. And then He describes that every person is trying to build their life, some of them wisely, some of them foolishly, but every one of us is trying to build a life. And He says that every one of us faces storms. He said, "Every life that you try to build, the rains will come, the floods will come, the winds will blow." Jesus is teaching us here that the key is the foundation. What is the foundation of your life? It's okay to have that dream, that desire to be secure and to have a loving family and to have peace and joy and contentment. It's okay to have those desires and dreams. It's okay to set out to build those things. Jesus says, "The question is, what are you building it upon? What's the foundation? Because when the storms come, the most important thing is the foundation." I did a little research on the internet this week and I came across a website called doityourself.com. Anybody ever used that website before? Yeah, if you have used that before, I don't recommend it for me anyway. It's one of those things that I could try to do it myself.com and as soon as I do, I'm going to wind up calling somebody else and it's going to cost me twice as much money. Doityourself.com. Why don't you look at this quote on the screen. This is what they said, "Your home foundation is the most important structural part of the entire house because it has the job of shouldering the load of your homes weight. Every home needs a foundation so that it does not fall apart at the base or topple over." The construction we understand it, right? I mean, we're building our campus here on Cactus Avenue right now and they're in the process of laying a foundation. Why? Because the foundation is critical to whatever you're going to build. The thing that you build is only as strong as its foundation. Jesus says the same is true in life. As you and I set out to build our lives, the key is the foundation. What is the foundation of our life? Now, Jesus uses a very important phrase that describes what the true foundation for life is. Look at it in verse 24. He says, "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine." Now I've told you this before, anytime you see the word "therefore" in the New Testament, you should always look and see what it's what. What it's there for, right? I know it's corny. You remember it. That's a good thing. What it's there for, the word "therefore" means this when you see it in the New Testament. It means based on what I've just said, now I want to say this. Jesus uses this word "therefore" as this big transition. Everything else He said in the message has led to this point. Jesus says, "Therefore, everyone who hears," and then He says this, "these words of mine." What is He talking about? He's talking about everything that He has just said in this sermon. Everything that we've been studying for 15 months as a family of faith, this radical way of life that Jesus has been describing that we have been calling kingdom living. Jesus says, "What I've been teaching you, what I've been sharing with you is the foundation for life, and the only way to build the kind of life that you want to build," Jesus is saying here, "is to build it on the foundation of what I've been teaching you." Well, what's He been teaching us? Well, over the last three weekends, we've been giving you a summary of what we've said over the last 15 months, and we've done it in two statements. I want to give it to you one more time this weekend as we bring this series to a close. Here's the first statement, "Kingdom living begins with following Christ." I want you to read that off the screen with me, all right, this weekend. Now, I don't care if you're here or in Boulder City, I want you to look at the screen. I want you to read this with me. You ready? "Kingdom living begins with following Christ." This thing of kingdom living is born out of a transformational relationship with God, and every person that has a relationship with God has a moment when that relationship began. Look at it there in verse 24. He said, "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them." Here's the reality. Every one of us that are followers of Jesus Christ, that are experiencing kingdom living, every one of us had a point in time when we heard the words of Christ. We call it the gospel. We heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, but hearing is not enough. He says, "Acted on them." It's that moment of responding to the gospel. I hear the message, the claims of Christ, and I respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. For every believer, there's a moment of conversion. That's what Jesus was speaking about to Nicodemus in John 3 when he said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Kingdom living begins with following Christ. Every person here tonight, if you are going to build on the right foundation, if we're going to build the kind of life that we desire, if we're going to build a life that is a life of peace and contentment and love and joy, it begins in following Christ. That's why Jesus says, "Therefore, if you hear these words of mine and you act on them, you respond, you follow me." It's like building your house on a solid foundation. For me, it happened when I was a freshman in college. You've heard me tell that before. When I was a freshman, I'd grown up in church, I'd grown up in a Christian home, but being around the things of Christ is not the same thing as following Christ. As a freshman in college, I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ and was born again into the family of God. I embraced the gospel. I heard the words of Christ, and I trusted in Christ. Kingdom living begins in following Christ, and Jesus is saying here that a sure foundation is all about kingdom living. It's everything he's been describing. If you and I desire a life that is a life of joy and peace and security and contentment, Jesus says it begins in following Christ. So as we bring this series to a close, I want to ask you a question that I asked you a few weeks ago, have you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ? How tragic. How tragic. If you've been sitting here week after week after week, month after month, as we've been sharing with you the claims of Christ, we've been sharing with you the key to a sure foundation you to walk away and hear, but not respond. Jesus describes that in the second half of this text. He says the foolish are those that hear, but they don't act. They don't act on them. They don't respond to what Christ is calling us to. Have you embraced Christ? Not have you grown up in church, not have you been to church, not have you been baptized, not do you know that God, have you embraced Christ? The second statement, it's our foundation, kingdom living, constantly pursues his life in me. And this text, Jesus says, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them." It's interesting both hears and acts are in the present tense. It means that it's an ongoing, continuous response. Here's what that means. Embracing Christ is not just a decision that I make in my life. Embracing Christ is a literal way of living. It's about constantly living my life out of the overflow of intimacy with God. You see, God has invited us not to a decision. God has invited us into a relationship. Yes, it begins at a point in time when I hear the gospel and embrace Christ, but now that relationship has lived out in my life day by day by day, and as I pursue intimacy with God, then Christ begins to live his life in me. And this sermon on the mount that we've been looking at, these radical statements about the way we're to live are not what you and I are to do. No, kingdom living is not me living for him. Kingdom living is his living through me. That is a radical difference. That's a major difference. As I pursue intimacy with God, Christ in me literally begins to live his life through me. I gave you a quote a few weeks ago that said this. Look at it on the screen. The real evidence of salvation is not a past experience. It is a present relationship. Too many times when we, well, if I really surrendered my life to Christ, we try to go back and bring up some experience in the past. Listen, yes, we need to have a moment of conversion, but the real evidence that I'm following Christ and the real evidence that I'm building my life on the right foundation is not an experience from the past. It's a relationship in the present. Are you currently living your life out of the overflow of intimacy with God? That's the other question I want you to think about tonight. Are you living your life out of the overflow of a love relationship with Him? Is that the pattern of your life? Jesus is here describing the practice of our lives. That's why it's present tense. It's not just a moment of decision. It's the way we live. Now having spoken this truth about the Kingdom, for three chapters, Jesus has been describing this reality that Kingdom living begins and following Christ and Kingdom living constantly pursues His life in me. He now closes with this illustration about foundation, and I want to give you two defining statements and we'll bring this series to a close. Here's the first one. Finally, a relationship with Christ is a sure foundation for life. I want you to read that off the screen with me. You ready? Only. Start over. Only a relationship with Christ is a sure foundation for life. Listen to me. That is divine truth. That's not this preacher's opinion. That's not the position simply of this church. After these three chapters, Jesus closes by saying the only, listen, He doesn't say the best way, He's saying the only. You say, pastor, how can you preach such a narrow gospel? Because it is the only gospel that Jesus gave us. Jesus said the only sure foundation for life is a relationship with Him. And let me give you three biblical realities, why that's true. Here's the first one. God made us to know Him and to live our lives in fellowship with Him. Listen to me. God made us. God made us. And God made us to know Him and to live our lives in fellowship with Him. We call that eternal life. God made human beings, all of us, for eternal life. Let me show it to you in the Bible, John 17, 3. Jesus said it this way, this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sinned. God made us to know Him. Listen, here's what that means. You will never, I will never experience real life apart from a relationship with God. Why is that? Because God made us and He made us to know Him and to live our lives in fellowship with Him. And anything less than that is less than real life. It's less than real life. We can try all day long to build this life that satisfies, but we'll never have it apart from a relationship with God. Why? Because God made us to know Him. Let me give you the second reality. Sin destroyed man's ability to have a relationship with God. We hear this word sin and we think, you know, sin, okay, big deal, some mistakes, something I did wrong. No, no, no, sin is the biggest problem we have in understanding sin is we don't have a biblical perspective towards sin. Sin, not just big sin, all sin, the lust in my heart, the coveting of what somebody else has, the little lie that I tell, all sin calls the death of humanity's ability to have a relationship with God. The very reason we were created is to know God. The very reason we were created is to live our lives in fellowship with God. Sin destroyed our ability to know God and have a relationship with Him. Let me show it to you in the Bible, Isaiah, chapter 59, verse 2, listen what it says. It says, "But your iniquities," it's just another word for sin. Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. You hear what that's saying? The very reason that we were created was to know God and live our lives in fellowship with Him. The only way to have life, real life, a sure foundation for life is to know God. But sin entered the picture and sin destroyed my ability to have a relationship with God, meaning that I was born into this world, dead to God with no ability to have a relationship with the one that made me. Let me give you the third reality. Through Jesus Christ, God dealt with our sin and invites us into a relationship with Himself. There's the significance of what we're celebrating all week. This is called Passion Week leading up to Easter. We're celebrating Easter. What happened on Easter? The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why is it an event from 2,000 years ago significant today? Here's why. On the cross, Jesus took all of our sin. You see what separated us from God was sin. Jesus took our sin on Himself and on the cross, Jesus Christ died for our sin. He took the full blow of the wrath of God against sin on Himself and He died in our place as our substitute. But Jesus Christ did not stay dead. He rose again. Why did He do that? As a testimony that God accepted His sacrifice for our sin. And now Jesus is the great reconciler when I put my faith in Christ, that which I could not have a relationship with God. I now get to have why because of the amazing grace of Jesus. The very reason I'm alive is to know God and the only way to know God is through Christ. Let me show it to you in the Bible. First John chapter 5 verse 11, that's what it says. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. And carefully, He who has the Son has the life. He who does not have the Son of God, does not have the life. Listen to it, the life. What life is that? So one God created you to have, the life. Not just a life, the life, real life, true life, eternal life. How do we have that? Only in the Son Jesus Christ. Listen to me. How many of you believe in the law of gravity? Here's your hand. That's what I thought. Most of us believe in the law of gravity, right? If you look up gravity in the dictionary on the internet, here's what they tell us gravity is. It's most familiarly the agent that gives weight to objects with mass and causes them to fall to the ground when dropped, right? All right, this may be a train wreck, but I might have to do it. This may, I hope it doesn't get you wet, all right? What's going to happen when I drop this? How do we know that? I'll come on this side, so I don't get you wet. It's going to fall, right? Let me know if you believe it's going to fall. You sure? It's law of gravity, right? Whew, didn't bust. Now you can not believe in the law of gravity all day long. You can say, "I refuse to accept the law of gravity." Let me tell you something. If tonight you go down to the stratosphere and you come up to the top and you do that little deal where they let you hook the rope on and jump off the side and you just tell them, "Hey, I'm good. I don't need that rope." Let me tell you what's going to happen when you jump. You are going to hit the ground, right? You are going to what? Fall, hey, you have all the freedom in the world not to believe in the law of gravity. But if you jump off the stratosphere, you will fall. Listen, you have all the freedom in the world to reject the claims of Christ. You have all the freedom in the world to choose to live your life apart from a relationship with God. You don't have to believe one thing I'm saying. When I have you read off the screen only a relationship with Christ, you have all the freedom in the world to choose to reject that and seek to build your life on anything else. But listen to me. This is what Jesus said, only a relationship with Christ is a sure foundation for life. Hey, you don't have to believe the law of gravity to fall. You have the freedom to reject the claims of Christ, but listen, your rejection of the claims of Christ do not make them any less true. Listen, you can go try to build your life on all kind of stuff. Let me tell you what you're going to come up. You're going to come up empty because only a relationship with Christ is a sure foundation for life. That leads me to the last defining reality and I'm finished. Anything other than a relationship with Christ is a sure foundation for destruction. Read that out loud with me. Anything other than a relationship with Christ is a sure foundation for destruction. You see, it's not just do I want the life for just a little bit less. No, what Jesus says here is if you build your life on anything else, you're full. Jesus uses an interesting word here for the word fool. It's the Greek word moros. You'd get an English word from it moron. Jesus says there's only one foundation for life. Anything else leads to destruction. Now if you know that to be the truth, you know what it is to build your life on anything else? It's foolish. It's foolish. I want to give you a couple of applications as we close this. What I'm talking about tonight, what Jesus is talking about here this weekend, applies both to those who know Christ and to those who don't. Here's what I mean by that. If you're here this weekend and you're not a believer in Christ, you're not a Christian. You've never embraced the gospel. You've never become a follower. Listen to me. You will never experience life, the life, real life, eternal life. You have all the freedom in the world to chase any dream you want to chase, but you'll never find it apart from a relationship with Christ. What Jesus is saying here, He's speaking to those that don't know Him. He's speaking to those that have never embraced the gospel. He's speaking to you tonight. If you're here and you're not a Christian, He's telling you, He's saying to you, the only foundation for life is a relationship with me. But this also applies to people who know Christ. Because here's the reality. There are some of you here tonight. You already know Jesus. You've given your life to Him. You've trusted Him as your Lord and Savior. You've surrendered your life to Him. You've embraced the gospel. And yet day in and day out, you're still attempting to build your life on things other than a relationship with Him. As we say kingdom living, as it begins and following Christ, we all need to be born again into God's family, but then it constantly pursues His life in me. You know who the most miserable people are on the planet? People that know God, and yet they're trying to build their life on things other than intimacy with God. You know what Jesus says about that? It's foolish. It's really bad here in America. In America, we have so many things to chase, so many things that the enemy dazzles us with. Materialism, possessions, fame, prestige, career, there are a lot of Christians who know Christ. And yet you're living foolishly. See Jesus wasn't just speaking to unbelievers on this day. He was speaking to people on this day that had embraced Him, but were caught up in the bondage of the religion of the day. They were just going through the motions, the hypocrites, the Pharisees, some of them like Nicodemus. They embraced Christ, but they were caught in this religion, performance, works. If you're not a Christian and you're seeking to build your life on something other than Christ, you'll never find life. But listen to me, if you are a Christian and you're seeking to build your life on something other than your relationship with Him, you're just as foolish. And you'll never know the joy of living, apart from living out of the overflow of intimacy with Him. Here's the last application. This applies both now and in eternity. You see, a relationship with Christ is the only hope for abundant life today, but the reality He is today is not all there is. Christ is the only hope for a foundation in this life, but also the only hope for a foundation in the life to come. Every one of the 6.8 billion people on the earth will spend eternity somewhere. Every person in this room will spend eternity somewhere. The Gospel writer Luke writes a narrative of this, a description of this same sermon that Jesus was preaching. It's an abbreviated section of it in Luke 13. I want you to look at it on the screen, listen what He says. He says, "Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many I tell you will seek to enter and will not be able." Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door saying, "Lord, open up to us," then He will answer and say to you, "I do not know where you're from." Then you'll begin to say, "We ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets and He will say to you, 'I tell you, I do not know where you're from, depart from me all you evil doers.' In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out. You say, "Pastor, do you really believe that people who reject Christ spend eternity separated from God in a place called hell?" Listen, to be honest with you, what I believe is irrelevant. What the Bible teaches is what matters. Let me tell you what the Bible teaches and what I do believe. The Bible teaches that every person that rejects Christ will spend an eternity separated from God in a place called hell. It does not matter what you read in a book or what you see on television. Every person who rejects Christ. That's why Jesus says here, "The only sure foundation for life in this life and the life to come is a relationship with Christ. Every other foundation leads to destruction in this life and the life to come." Now close with the question I began with on what foundation are you building your life? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.