Well, good morning, Presidents, what a church. My name is Kevin and I have the joy of serving as one of the pastors here and I love getting to share what God is doing and I don't love so much asking for directions. Anybody else with me? I see all the guys' heads nodding their wives poking their husbands like you. I'm definitely one of those guys that if I get something like a flat-packed piece of furniture, I'm like, all right, we're going to tackle this without looking at the instructions. And I will get as far as I can into that project that I can before realizing, maybe I should have looked at those hieroglyphics to figure out how this thing is supposed to actually go together. And that has definitely been a constant theme in my life. And I was in my early 20s when I was a leader in our youth group and I was tasked with driving our youth pastor's suburban from suburbia in the middle of New Jersey, very affluent area, out to the metallands arena where the devils used to play. And they were doing a big Christian concert that night and I was like, all right, we've got the best intentions. We're going to get there. We're going to get there on time. These kids are going to have a great time. Somewhere along the way as we got off the highway, I realized I had lost the rest of the caravan. And this is the days before we carried one of these in our pockets. We didn't have GPS. If you wanted directions, you had to have a map or printed out directions from this place called MapQuest. You guys remember those days? And then if you missed a turn with that, you're like, I don't know where I am. But anyway, here I am with a suburban full of middle schoolers, and as I recall it, mostly middle school girls, and I'm pulling into like the middle of Newark as the sun is going down, and I'm like, uh oh. So as I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to tell these parents that I got all your kids kidnapped, I'm really sorry about that. I decided a better option was just to pull over and ask for directions. So I did stop, and I talked to the guy at the gas station, and he was able to get me where we were going, and I think we may have even gotten there on time, but that would be impossible to know. But I wish I could say that was the last time that I failed to know the right directions. But just this past week, I was getting ready early in the morning, Kurt and I had a meeting up in Montrose on Tuesday, and I'm coming down Kielersburg Road, and I see the sign ahead of me, road close, 3.7 miles ahead. Like that doesn't apply to me, but we're going to keep on going. So I drive that 3.7 miles and then see buses turning around, I'm like, uh oh, this is not a good sign, I'm like, well, we'll make it, and then I finally see it, I get to the stop and just dead stand still, like, oh, maybe I should have listened to the warning sign. So my 20-minute ride got a 30-minute detour added on to it, because I had to come all the way back up Kielersburg and go out that way. I was late for my meeting that morning, in case you were wondering, because I failed to stop and listen to the directions and do what they said, and that's so much like so many of our lives that we know the right way. I knew when I saw that sign, I should just turn left here and take this detour. I know it'll take me a little bit more time, but I failed to do the right thing. So how can we avoid going in the wrong direction? How can we make sure that the direction that we're heading in is helpful and avoid as many problems as possible? How can we tell if the path that I'm heading on is actually taking me where I want to go? You see, direction, not our intentions, determines our destination. You can have the best intentions in all the world, and yet still end up at the wrong destination because you didn't follow the right directions. I had every intention of getting that suburban full of middle school girls not stuck in the middle of Newark, in the inner city of New Jersey, but to a great Christian concert where they were going to experience Jesus in a whole new way. And yet, because I failed to listen to the directions or follow the right path, we ended up where we didn't want to be. And none of us ever intend to end up in financial ruin in a dead end job that we hate, in divorced situations, not talking to our kids. We never intend to end up there. Yet why are so many of us there? We're broken because our intentions don't determine our destination, our direction does. No matter how good our intentions are obedience to the directions we'll determine where we end up. And I hope that this morning we can lay down the firm foundation that God's Word is best for us because we all know the right way to do life, right? We all know that if I want to drop 30 pounds, I've got to eat less and exercise more. If I want to have a better financial future, I have to spend less than I earn. And if those things are so simple, why are we not all super fit multi-millionaires? Because we don't follow the directions. It's easy on paper, but life is messy, isn't it? And Jesus is going to talk to us about this, and what I love about Jesus' teachings is that he is not a man who has no idea what we're going through. Jesus knows every path and every temptation that you and I succumb to. He never did. He lived without sin. He experienced every temptation that you and I experience. And yet he stood up against them without sinning to live a perfect life. And in Matthew 7, he uses this picture of building a house to talk about what it looks like to truly follow after God, to listen to his Word, and not just listen to it, but to do what it says. So if you've got a Bible with you, go ahead and open right up to that. Matthew is the first book in the New Testament. It tells the story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. And this passage comes right after Jesus is speaking to a whole crowd in the Sermon on the Mount. It comes towards the end of that. And Jesus is telling everybody, hey, you've heard a lot of great things here. But if you don't do what they say, it's useless. You can hear a lot of great things here on Sunday morning, but if you don't do anything with it, there's a waste of time. God wants you to follow his Word and do what it says. So Matthew 7, starting in verse 24, by the way, if you don't have a Bible, you can download it on the YouVersion Bible app and get it on your phone, or you would love to get a paper copy into your hands. You can just ask at the Welcome Center for that. But in Matthew 7, verse 24, it says, "Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. We're going to skip over to verse 26, where he contrasts it saying, "But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds his house on the sand." Anybody who listens to my teaching and doesn't do it is foolish. And I love my father-in-law grew up in a coal mining town and a coal mining community in, you know, a town or a company owned house. So he would constantly bang his six foot three inch head on the low hanging rafters in the basement, and he would always get this gruff response from his grandfather who raised him. You know, David, the mules in the mines only ever hit their heads once. And if you're anything like me, you've hit your head way more than once. But a fool is going to keep on going down there and hitting their heads on the same obstacles over and over again. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. You want to end up somewhere different than you've always ended up before? You've got to do something different. You can keep on ending up in the same place because you haven't changed anything. If you want to end up somewhere good on purpose, you've got to follow the directions. God has given us this book so that we can live the best life, so that we can know him and be known by him in an amazing way. And when we follow God's directions, you're going to end up in a way better place. And as we look at this passage, we see Jesus saying, "It doesn't work. It doesn't help just to listen to my word, because both of these people had heard God's word. They knew the right instructions, but one of them did something about it." The other person just said, "Oh, that was a nice message," and walked out and lived the same exact way, falling into the same rut that they had always been in. But if you want to end up somewhere good on purpose, you've got to follow Jesus. Some of us are chasing after this shifting foundation, the house built on the sand that we know isn't going to hold up to anything. But we keep on chasing after, "Well, maybe this relationship will do it, maybe this amount of recognition, or maybe this new job title, or I'll make a little bit more money. Get this new house that I always wanted. Do this and do that and do and do until you're spent and you're broken and you're tired." That's not what God wants for you. That's not His best for you. God wants what is absolutely best for you and what is absolutely best for you is to find your identity in Christ alone, to build your life on the firm foundation that is Jesus Christ and His teachings. Now some of us had those foundations poured so long ago that we've forgotten they exist, and we've heard of Jesus, we've gone to church longer than we can remember, and that foundation is just growing stale. And I hope that's not the case for you. I hope that you'll be amazed again and again by the teachings of Jesus and how powerfully He moves in our lives. And that's what I love about being a part of Bridgewater, where we get to see a brand new life coming in Jesus Christ week after week. We see people saying yes to Jesus, and if you're not surrounding yourself with people who are new to Christianity, who are new to Jesus, and being amazed at the great love that God has for us, your foundation is going to grow stale. And I don't want that for any of you, because knowing the directions doesn't get you where you want to go, following them does. And as we see more and more people jump onto this highway of following Jesus, we're going to be reminded constantly and consistently that God is doing a bigger and better work than we can begin to imagine. We need to not just know the directions, but to follow them. Because just knowing the directions isn't going to get you where you want to go, obedience to the directions will get you there. And as we jump back into the beginning of this passage, we're going to read the whole context of this to look at the picture that Jesus paints for us, starting in Matthew 724 once again, "Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand, when the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash. If you're building your life on anything but Jesus, your foundation is going to collapse someday. But when we trust in Jesus Christ, we have a firm foundation that will help us weather these storms. And I love that this points out that just because you trust in Jesus and you're following Him doesn't mean that the storms are going to stop. It doesn't mean that I now have this holy umbrella that's going to protect me from anything bad that could possibly happen. No, these storms are still going to come, but you don't have to worry about it. How many of you woke up this morning and your first thought was, "Huh, I wonder what the foundation of my house is like this morning?" Hopefully none of you, because if that was you, that means you've got an issue. But I hope that you can wake up each morning knowing my foundation is solid and secure. I've got nothing to worry about. The worst droughts can come, the worst storms can come. If God takes something away from my life, I can trust Romans 828 that God works in all things for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. So I don't know what the end looks like, but I trust in the God who knows that already. Everything in Jesus doesn't mean the storms aren't going to come. It means that you're going to have an anchor through those storms, a foundation that is not going to crack or let in water when things are going wrong. But we can trust in the God who is known to end from the very beginning and know that His way is best and perfect. Now last week we got introduced to a man whose name we don't know. He was only known as the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8 of the Bible, doesn't appear anywhere else. We never learn his name or anything else about him, but a man named Philip encounters him. And that encounter with Philip changed his life and changed his direction forever. And as Philip came across him, this Ethiopian man who held such a position of high power, he was filthy rich and yet he was horribly broken. He knew that something was wrong. He had tried to chase after things in this world probably and found all kinds of shifting sand to set his foundation on and realized that's not going to cut it for me. So he was searching and searching and searching. He went to Jerusalem and they said, "You're not allowed in the temple. You're broken. You're a eunuch from far, far away. You're not allowed in here." And he said, "But look at all the money I have. Doesn't this do something?" And he said, "Well, that's kind of nice. How about we tell you this lovely scroll of the book of Isaiah?" And this horribly broken yet filthy rich man walks away with the scroll and is reading it in his carriages. Philip comes across him and when Philip comes across him, he's just moments away from reading this passage that gives a promise to a foreigner who is a eunuch, who's got no right by earthly standards to approach God. He wasn't allowed to worship in the temple. And yet God's Word says, "There's a promise that's bigger and better for you." And Isaiah 56, it says, "Don't let foreigners who commit themselves to the Lord say, "The Lord will never let me be part of his people." And don't let the eunuchs say, "I'm a dried up tree with no children and no future." And some of you are sitting here this morning and you're just feeling like, "Man, if you only knew my story, you would know that God doesn't want anything to do with me." That's not true. God created you in his image to be loved and known by him to experience that love to the fullest extent. God created you in his image to live a life that Jesus says is life to the fullest. He doesn't give us this book to give us all these rules and regulations so that we can break them and he can say, "Ha, see, you're not good enough." He gives us his books so that we can live life to the fullest, to experience life the way that God created it to be. And he promises us a better future than even sons or daughters can bring. And instead of saying, "I'm a dried up tree," like those eunuchs may have said, "With no children and no future, God promises us a hope and a future." And in Jeremiah chapter 7, a different prophet speaks to it this way. He says, "But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and who have made the Lord their hope and confidence." Are you trusting in the Lord today and making him your hope and confidence? That's him as your foundation. He says, "They are like trees planted along a riverbank with roots that reach deep into the water, such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green and they never stop producing fruit." So what's the difference between a dried up tree that has no hope and no future and a tree whose roots run deep and is never failing to produce fruit? It's trusting in Jesus' leader and forgiver. And we have confidence that God's plan is way better than my own. I can come to him and say, "God, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what you're doing, but take my life. Use it in whatever way you want and whatever way you can, because I believe that your plans are better than mine." That's the difference between being a dried up tree and being one that never fails to produce fruit. We trust in Jesus and say, "God, here's my life. Take it and use it." I set my life on your foundation and I trust that whatever is happening, you're going to do something bigger and better through. We have to be careful as we look at our intentions and as we set our hope and our path, because that same passage continues on to say, "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things in Jeremiah 17-9." The human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked who really knows how bad it is. Sometimes we can have the best intentions, but those best intentions take us away from what's best for us. We have the intentions that, "Well, I'm just going to work a little bit harder, a little bit longer this week," and it's okay because it's just for a season and we really need this extra money right now and all the while we are walking closer to the edge and farther from our family, farther from trusting in God as our leader and say, "I need to provide." And there's some semblance of that that's true. But when we trust in God for provision, we say to Him, "God, whatever needs to happen, may my roles not be confused because I know for my life that God has called me to be the leader of my family, to be a great husband to my wife, to be a great father to my children." And if I'm not following God's direction in that, the best intentions that I have can still lead me astray. And my hope is that, well, my truth is that God's word is going to give me the best guidance in how to live my life, how to be a great husband and father, how to be a great worker and friend. As I follow the example of Jesus Christ, who loved me and gave Himself for me, and I say, "My life is not my own. God do what you want with it. Galatians 2.20 says to us, "I wish I knew what it said. I am crucified with Christ and nevertheless I live, but the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in God, in Jesus Christ who loved me and gave Himself for me, that my life is not my own anymore. I've been bought with a price, so everything that I do from the moment that I trust in Jesus is my leader and forgiver is for Him. It's not about me. Say that with me. It's not about me. One more time, it's not about me, because God's plan is bigger than mine. And you can predict your destination by looking at your current direction. Am I walking closer to Jesus? Am I taking time out of my day to spend time in His Word to allow it to shape me? Or am I walking further away from Him? Is my Bible gathering more dust on the shelf? Am I getting more and more behind on that you version Bible app and it just feels daunting that I can never be good enough, that God says, "You're mine." If you want to change your destination, you've got to change your current direction, just like that eunuch was on the path away from God. We need to turn around and say, "God, I'm going to trust in you. I want what's best for my life and I know that's in you." If you want to end up somewhere good on purpose, follow Jesus. Some of you are like Jason who you've been around church as long as you can remember. Yeah, you've never said, "Jesus, I want you to be my leader. I want to follow you. I know that I need a forgiver because I am so broken. I've hurt so many people." Or I need to follow your example in forgiving because I have been so hurt and so broken. If you want to end up somewhere good on purpose, follow Jesus, his plan is absolutely best for your life, even when it doesn't make sense in the moment. And I love the awe that people are going to see in Jesus as this passage finishes out. In verse 28 it says, "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority quite unlike their teachers of religious law. And I know some of you have lost your awe of God. It's just become rope for you. We drive through the beautiful endless mountains of Pennsylvania and it's not majestic scenery anymore. It's just, "I need to get where I'm going." And we see the amazing things that he does in people's lives and we've just grown callus to it and we forget that God is still changing people's lives. God wants to change your life too. And we believe at Bridgroy that everybody has the next step. Maybe your next step this morning is to be the next carnation next Sunday morning to say, "God, I don't know what I'm doing with my life, but I know I'm not doing it right. I need a leader and I need a forgiver." If your next step is to trust in Jesus, don't leave this building without talking to somebody about it. Say, "Hey, I need to do this." We've got some resources that we would love to get in your hands because following Jesus is going to be hard and you're going to get attacked. We want to walk through that with you. We want you to know that you're not alone in this. But maybe you've trusted in Jesus as your leader and forgiver. Maybe your next step is to obey him in baptism. We've got a baptism coming up on October 20th. If you haven't taken that next step yet, we would love to talk with you about that and help you walk in obedience, to take this picture of being made dead to your sins and raised to walk in a new way of life. We would love to help you walk through that and to trust in Jesus in that simple step of obedience. Maybe you've done those things and your next step is to get involved in a small group where you are known and you know people and you have people who love you and care for you enough to keep you from walking over the edge. Somebody's going to be able to stop you from walking over the edge. If they don't know your life, they don't know that you're there, share your struggles with people. The only thing that God said that was not good in his creation was for man to be alone. Do you have somebody in your life who knows you enough to know that you're coming too close to that edge? Maybe you've got a different next step this morning and God is speaking to you. Maybe to be bolder about telling people about the firm foundation they can have in Jesus. But whatever that next step is for you this morning, don't wait. Because your direction, not your intention, will determine your destination and God wants you to take that step of obedience, whatever that may be. So let's pray together as we consider what that might be and as we close out the service. Lord God, we thank you that your plans are absolutely best for our lives. We thank you that you use even the messiest situations that we would really much rather have not gone through. We thank you that you use even those disasters for your glory and your kingdom. And Father, I pray for those in this room who have not yet trusted in you as leader and a forgiver and just ask them the simple question of why wait, what's holding you back. And Father, for those of us who have whose foundations have just grown stale remind us of your awesome work and power. Help us to see that you are working so much bigger and better things for your glory than we can even begin to imagine. Help us to be odd and amazed by your teachings. And God, we pray that many will come to know you this morning and that many more will take a step closer to you by what you're doing in their lives and by their obedience to what you're calling them to. God, we want our ultimate destination to be in your arms in eternity forever. And Father, we want that for our friends and neighbors and relatives too. God, we know that we're lost without you. Thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ alone. It's in His awesome and holy name that we pray. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]
