00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Those of you who know me even a little bit will know that AFL is one of my passions and
00:00:06 --> 00:00:12 in particular you will also know that I support three teams. I support the West Coast Eagles,
00:00:12 --> 00:00:17 I support the GWS Giants and I support whoever is playing against the Sydney Swans.
00:00:18 --> 00:00:22 This has been at times a joyful experience and at other times somewhat painful.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:27 There was the year that the Swans beat the Eagles in the grand final, it's not one I like to talk
00:00:27 --> 00:00:33 about but I thought I'd share with you a little bit about why I have this distaste for Swans
00:00:33 --> 00:00:42 as a team and for Swans fans and it can be summarised in one word, bandwagon. Basically,
00:00:42 --> 00:00:49 my problem with the Sydney Swans fans is that people only support the Swans when they're winning.
00:00:50 --> 00:00:56 I remember as a young kid going to watch the Swans play, this was during the longest
00:00:56 --> 00:01:04 premiership drought in AFL history. They hadn't won a game in over two years and there was less
00:01:04 --> 00:01:10 than 2 people in the entire stadium but in the last few years they have managed to win once or twice
00:01:10 --> 00:01:17 and suddenly there is a lot more red or white to be found around Sydney and I just feel like if
00:01:17 --> 00:01:22 you're going to be a supporter, you have to take the bad with the good. You've got to actually earn
00:01:22 --> 00:01:26 the good, you've got to earn the wins and the right to brag. Now, I know that there are some exceptions,
00:01:27 --> 00:01:34 Rachel, I'm going to single you out as one of those exceptions, but your recruiting drive is
00:01:34 --> 00:01:37 single-handedly responsible for a significant portion of the bandwagon.
00:01:39 --> 00:01:46 I have an issue with fair weather followers. I have an issue with people who sign up and wear the
00:01:46 --> 00:01:54 jersey and wear the scarf only when things are going well. And that's kind of where Jesus ends up in
00:01:54 --> 00:01:59 this passage, not dealing with swan supporters necessarily, but dealing with fair weather
00:01:59 --> 00:02:05 followers. You remember that Jesus begins this sermon surrounded by a crowd, sitting on a mountain,
00:02:05 --> 00:02:11 talking to his disciples with a multitude eagerly listening in. And why are they listening in?
00:02:11 --> 00:02:17 Because they've seen the miracles. Because Jesus speaks impressively. Because it's a good show.
00:02:18 --> 00:02:25 And Jesus is looking at this crowd full of pseudo-followers, full of fair weather followers,
00:02:26 --> 00:02:34 and having explained that the narrow road, the kingdom of heaven, takes more than fair weather,
00:02:34 --> 00:02:47 he finishes with a very serious and scary warning. By basically putting on the table that many people
00:02:47 --> 00:02:54 who look like the genuine article when it comes to following Jesus will actually prove not to be.
00:02:56 --> 00:03:01 This is his final word after three chapters of unpacking what we should do, how we should treat
00:03:01 --> 00:03:09 other people, our purity, how we should worship. He finishes with the warning, some who look genuine
00:03:09 --> 00:03:17 will actually prove not to be. It's the scary word of verse 23 in chapter 7,
00:03:17 --> 00:03:26 then I'll tell them plainly, I never knew you, away from me you evildoers. And I can speak from my own
00:03:26 --> 00:03:33 life and I'm sure that sadly many of us can, refer to people who have been in church, who have been in
00:03:33 --> 00:03:40 youth group, maybe who have even served in ministry alongside us, who as life got more difficult, as the
00:03:40 --> 00:03:48 demands of following Jesus seem to increase, their commitments seem to decrease. And so Jesus finishes
00:03:48 --> 00:03:54 with the story of the two builders in verse 24, and he wants us to understand the difference between
00:03:54 --> 00:04:02 being fake and genuine. It's very, very simple. You ready? The difference between being fake,
00:04:02 --> 00:04:11 between being a fair weather follower of Jesus, and being a genuine Christian, is doing. That's what
00:04:11 --> 00:04:18 he says. Verse 24, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man
00:04:18 --> 00:04:24 who built his house on the rock. They're the genuine article. Or verse 26, everyone who hears these words of
00:04:24 --> 00:04:32 mine and does not put them into practice is a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The difference
00:04:32 --> 00:04:37 between the one who goes the distance and the one who is just showing up while things are going well, is
00:04:37 --> 00:04:46 doing. Hearing is only the start. It's a good start and it's an important start, but it's only a start. If we
00:04:46 --> 00:04:53 stop there, we haven't achieved anything. I wonder if sometimes you find yourself tempted to feel a little
00:04:53 --> 00:05:00 sense of pride because you sat in church and listened to a sermon today. Well, at least some of it. It was long.
00:05:01 --> 00:05:06 Or maybe you read your Bible this morning and you go into the day feeling very proud of the fact that God's Word
00:05:06 --> 00:05:14 was speaking to you this morning and you heard it. Jesus' message is, hearing is good. It's essential. Without
00:05:14 --> 00:05:20 hearing, you've got no hope, but hearing is only the beginning. When I was younger, I used to go surfing with my
00:05:20 --> 00:05:27 brothers and my dad and often you would hear an alarm come out from the surf club letting us know that
00:05:27 --> 00:05:31 A, there's sharks in the water and B, if we want to be safe, it's time to come into the beach.
00:05:32 --> 00:05:39 Hearing that alarm is an essential step to me being safe, but it's not the whole thing. If I just hear
00:05:39 --> 00:05:44 the alarm but don't do anything about it, all that alarm does is tell me that I'm about to get eaten.
00:05:44 --> 00:05:51 Hearing is an essential step, but it's just the beginning. I need to do, I need to act, I need to
00:05:51 --> 00:06:00 practice what I hear. So it sounds simple enough, this passage. It sounds like we could finish the
00:06:00 --> 00:06:04 sermon now and everyone could go home, okay, I've got to do what I hear, tick, easy, ready to go.
00:06:05 --> 00:06:12 But there is an awkwardness because the thing that Jesus just said throws a spanner in the works.
00:06:12 --> 00:06:14 Look back with me at verse 21.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:21 Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the
00:06:21 --> 00:06:27 will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy
00:06:27 --> 00:06:33 in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly,
00:06:33 --> 00:06:37 I never knew you. Away from me, evildoers.
00:06:37 --> 00:06:48 Apparently, all we have to do to be genuine is do, is put into practice, is action. But those couple
00:06:48 --> 00:06:55 of verses before tell us that it's not just any actions that are going to be okay. Because the
00:06:55 --> 00:07:03 message of this whole sermon has been that you can do good things badly. You can do good things in a
00:07:03 --> 00:07:11 wrong way. In chapter 5, Jesus unpacks the commandments that these people have heard,
00:07:11 --> 00:07:20 the boxes that they are ticking. But he says, even as you tick the box, you don't actually honour me.
00:07:20 --> 00:07:26 He says, you have found a way to turn obeying commandments into doing the bare minimum and
00:07:26 --> 00:07:31 treating me like I'm this oppressive overlord. In chapter 6, we went through religious acts.
00:07:31 --> 00:07:36 In chapter 6, he talked about religious acts. He talked about prayer. He talked about giving.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:41 He talked about fasting. And he explained that you can actually do those things in a way that
00:07:41 --> 00:07:51 doesn't honour God. And then in verse 22, we see that you can even do miracles in a way that doesn't
00:07:51 --> 00:07:59 honour God. I mean, did you catch that? It's easy to skip past that verse. But verse 22 says that
00:07:59 --> 00:08:04 they prophesied in his name, they drove out demons, they performed many miracles. There's no reason for
00:08:04 --> 00:08:09 us to believe that what actually happened was they thought they did that, but it wasn't true.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:19 Apparently, they did miracles. Yet still, Jesus turns to them and says, away from me,
00:08:19 --> 00:08:26 I never knew you. So on one hand, the difference between being fake and being genuine is doing.
00:08:27 --> 00:08:33 But on the other hand, we need to be more specific because you can do the things that are in this
00:08:33 --> 00:08:39 sermon in the wrong way. So look closely at verse 24.
00:08:39 --> 00:08:49 Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who
00:08:49 --> 00:08:57 built his house on the rock. Jesus is being really specific here. These words are the thing that matter.
00:08:58 --> 00:09:03 These words are the things that we need to put into practice. These words are his way of referring
00:09:03 --> 00:09:08 back to everything that he has said in the last few chapters. And that gives us a clue that this
00:09:08 --> 00:09:13 sermon is not a list of things that you need to do and a list of things that you mustn't do.
00:09:13 --> 00:09:23 This sermon is one message from Jesus about life in the kingdom. This sermon is not a list of rules.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 This sermon is a gospel message from Jesus.
00:09:28 --> 00:09:34 Jesus is explaining what it means to follow him. This whole sermon, even when he says,
00:09:34 --> 00:09:40 you've heard it said, but now I'm raising the bar. This whole sermon is a message of grace.
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 It's a message of forgiveness. It's a message of God's love.
00:09:45 --> 00:09:49 It's there. We get clues the whole way through. The beginning of the sermon, chapter 5, verse 3.
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 Flip back there with me. The sermon begins,
00:09:52 --> 00:09:57 blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
00:09:57 --> 00:10:03 The essential starting point for this life that Jesus is describing is poverty of spirit,
00:10:04 --> 00:10:10 is an awareness that we're not good enough. As we go through, there's this clue that this life in
00:10:10 --> 00:10:17 the kingdom is about more than just obedience. There's the invitation for us to think of God as
00:10:17 --> 00:10:25 our Father. We're invited to pray to him as our Father in heaven. There's this incredible gospel
00:10:25 --> 00:10:27 message. Look at chapter 5, verse 43.
00:10:28 --> 00:10:32 You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemies. But I tell you,
00:10:33 --> 00:10:38 love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:45 He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
00:10:45 --> 00:10:52 The whole way through, Jesus, as he lifts the bar for obedience, keeps pointing to a God who loves
00:10:52 --> 00:11:00 people who don't deserve it. The message of this sermon is grace. It's that God loves you in spite
00:11:00 --> 00:11:06 of your failure. And maybe the most significant one, in chapter 5, verse 17, Jesus says,
00:11:06 --> 00:11:11 do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them,
00:11:11 --> 00:11:20 but to fulfill them. That includes the law that demands a sacrifice for sin. They might not have
00:11:20 --> 00:11:26 understood it at the time, but Jesus is pointing to the fact that he will die so that they can be
00:11:26 --> 00:11:32 forgiven. He will die so that they can know what this life in the kingdom is like, so they can know
00:11:32 --> 00:11:40 about that blessed life that we looked at a couple of weeks ago. Jesus' message at the end of the Sermon
00:11:40 --> 00:11:48 on the Mount is this, putting the gospel into practice is what matters. It's not about walking away
00:11:48 --> 00:11:54 from this series with a list of things to do and not do. It is about the gospel, the whole message,
00:11:55 --> 00:12:02 which means more than you think it does. Let me say that again. Putting the gospel into practice means
00:12:02 --> 00:12:09 more than you think it does. It means, at very least, knowing Jesus. I mean, did you catch the clue for us
00:12:09 --> 00:12:16 there? Back in chapter 7, having sent these people away who perform miracles, why does he send them
00:12:16 --> 00:12:27 away? His words are, I never knew you. Life in the kingdom is, first of all, about knowing Jesus.
00:12:28 --> 00:12:35 It's about knowing the King and being known by the King. It includes being forgiven. It includes being
00:12:35 --> 00:12:43 obedient, but first and foremost, it is about the relationship that God has made possible through
00:12:43 --> 00:12:53 Jesus. But more than that, putting the gospel into practice isn't just the beginning. Putting the
00:12:53 --> 00:12:58 gospel into practice isn't just about being forgiven because of Jesus' death on the cross so that we can
00:12:58 --> 00:13:05 begin this life. And then we leave the gospel and we move on to the next bit. The gospel is always.
00:13:06 --> 00:13:13 Jesus is always. That's why we come back to this at the end of all these rules which are still there
00:13:13 --> 00:13:18 and which still matter because the gospel is the essential bit. The message of the story of the two
00:13:18 --> 00:13:25 builders is that the minute you forget the gospel, it doesn't actually matter how well you build from
00:13:25 --> 00:13:31 that point on. It doesn't matter how hard you try to obey Jesus. It doesn't matter how much effort you
00:13:31 --> 00:13:37 put into being holy. If you forget the gospel, the foundation is gone and your house, your life, will
00:13:37 --> 00:13:44 collapse. The gospel is more than the starting point. It's the beginning. It's the middle. It's the end.
00:13:44 --> 00:13:51 It's the everything. And the danger for us when we read something like the Sermon on the Mount with all
00:13:51 --> 00:13:58 these rules that are in there is that we get scared of the commands because we look at them as a standard
00:13:58 --> 00:14:04 that we can't actually reach. They're like an ideal and all that we get from them is this sense of guilt.
00:14:05 --> 00:14:11 And so we just try and pretend they're not there. We try and dismiss them as unimportant. We try and
00:14:11 --> 00:14:17 rush to the bit where God says he loves us and where God says we're forgiven. But the problem with that
00:14:17 --> 00:14:23 and the problem with the way that the Pharisees obeyed the law in Jesus' day and the problem with
00:14:23 --> 00:14:31 the miracle workers in verse 21 and even the problem with us is that sometimes we look at these
00:14:31 --> 00:14:36 laws, no matter how many times we've heard the gospel, we open the Bible and we look at these laws as a
00:14:36 --> 00:14:43 means of being good enough for God. We feel a weight because we think if God is going to love me,
00:14:43 --> 00:14:49 I need to meet the standard that is in these pages. Yeah, I know Jesus forgave me. That's how I started
00:14:49 --> 00:14:54 out. But now that I'm a Christian, if I don't live up to this standard, I'm going to somehow fall off.
00:14:54 --> 00:15:00 I'm going to somehow miss out. I'm going to somehow be those people who are sent away. But there is
00:15:00 --> 00:15:08 nothing wrong with the laws in these pages. Jesus is speaking them. Jesus is telling us that they still
00:15:08 --> 00:15:19 matter for our lives, but our motivation for obeying them is what matters. If our reason for obeying the
00:15:19 --> 00:15:27 laws that we read in Scripture is hoping that somehow we can earn God's love, then what we actually do
00:15:27 --> 00:15:36 is reject Jesus. If the instructions that you read in these pages make you feel a weight because you feel
00:15:36 --> 00:15:43 like you need to hit a point or a mark before God will love you, then what you're saying is,
00:15:44 --> 00:15:53 somehow I can do it by myself. It might be a difficult task, but somehow I can do it and therefore I don't
00:15:53 --> 00:16:01 need Jesus. And no matter how long you've been around church, no matter how many times you've heard
00:16:01 --> 00:16:07 the gospel, it is a temptation for us to slip back having been forgiven into the kind of obedience
00:16:07 --> 00:16:14 that feels like we need to do this if God is going to love us. And when we do that, we change these rules
00:16:14 --> 00:16:20 and make them into something that they were never supposed to be. We hear the gospel, but we don't
00:16:20 --> 00:16:25 actually put it into practice. Now the scary thing as we've worked through this sermon is that people
00:16:25 --> 00:16:30 who are on the narrow road, people who have built their house on the rock and people who have built
00:16:30 --> 00:16:36 their house on the sand or who are traveling on the broad road might look very similar. They might
00:16:36 --> 00:16:41 even be doing similar things. I mean, we know for a fact that there was miracle workers on the wide
00:16:41 --> 00:16:47 road. There are miracle workers who built their house on the sand. It might be that both are praying,
00:16:47 --> 00:16:52 it might be that both are trying not to murder, trying not to be angry, but the difference is
00:16:52 --> 00:16:59 the relationship between what they are doing, between their obedience and Jesus.
00:17:01 --> 00:17:08 One person sees their obedience as taking the place of Jesus and the other person sees their
00:17:08 --> 00:17:19 obedience as a response to Jesus. If there is obedience but no forgiveness, there is nothing.
00:17:19 --> 00:17:28 Obedience without forgiveness is useless. But there is a balance warning for us. This isn't a
00:17:28 --> 00:17:33 get out of jail free card. This isn't put up your feet because you've been forgiven. This isn't Jesus
00:17:33 --> 00:17:37 putting a little clause on the end of the sermon going, I know you're feeling pressure, but don't
00:17:37 --> 00:17:41 worry about it, you're forgiven, so it doesn't matter. This isn't instruction to pull out the hammock.
00:17:42 --> 00:17:46 To say that the gospel matters doesn't mean that we don't have to do anything.
00:17:46 --> 00:17:51 It doesn't mean that all of this sermon was a big waste of time because really all Jesus needed
00:17:51 --> 00:17:56 to say was, I died, I'm alive and you're forgiven. That would be missing the point of the gospel.
00:17:57 --> 00:18:03 That would be missing the point of grace. Just as obedience without forgiveness is useless,
00:18:05 --> 00:18:08 forgiveness without obedience is incomplete.
00:18:08 --> 00:18:17 The gospel message is one that calls us to a new kind of obedience, not to no obedience at all.
00:18:18 --> 00:18:24 I remember when I was growing up playing football, I was around 11 or 12 and I had aspirations that
00:18:24 --> 00:18:30 one day I would play for a team that wasn't Sydney. And I remember that the first step in this process
00:18:30 --> 00:18:34 was getting out of the team that I played for on the weekend, my club side, into the representative
00:18:34 --> 00:18:41 squad. And what I had to do to do that was go to tryouts. And it always amazed me how the second
00:18:41 --> 00:18:46 you surround a group of 11-year-olds with men and clipboards judging whether or not you're in or out,
00:18:47 --> 00:18:53 how quickly the standard dropped. The pressure of somebody else deciding whether or not I got to
00:18:53 --> 00:18:59 meet this goal of playing in the representative game, of being a Sydney representative, would just
00:18:59 --> 00:19:04 completely make me unable to do things that I could normally do. Suddenly I couldn't catch a ball.
00:19:05 --> 00:19:11 Suddenly I was tired after running 15 metres. Suddenly trying to kick a goal was just beyond me.
00:19:13 --> 00:19:21 But then, once you're in the team, it's like you're totally relaxed again. It's not that you stopped
00:19:21 --> 00:19:26 playing football. It's not that you stopped doing the things from before. But now you're doing them
00:19:26 --> 00:19:31 for the enjoyment in anticipation of the game that you were trying to get to all along.
00:19:32 --> 00:19:37 The kind of obedience that Jesus is calling us to in this Sermon on the Mount is an obedience that
00:19:37 --> 00:19:46 is growing, that is increasing. But it's no longer an obedience that dictates whether or not we are on
00:19:46 --> 00:19:51 Jesus' team. It's no longer the line that decides whether we're in the kingdom or out of the kingdom.
00:19:51 --> 00:19:58 It's now the life that he has given us in anticipation of the eternal life that he has prepared for us.
00:19:58 --> 00:20:03 Where finally we will get all of these things right and live all of them the way that we are supposed to.
00:20:04 --> 00:20:09 Jesus has lifted the burden for us, but obedience still matters.
00:20:11 --> 00:20:15 Because grace is not just the means by which you start the narrow road.
00:20:15 --> 00:20:20 It's also the thing that empowers you to live your life as a follower of Jesus.
00:20:22 --> 00:20:25 Look quickly at chapter 5 with me, where we started two weeks ago.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:29 The Beatitudes begin with our need for grace.
00:20:29 --> 00:20:33 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
00:20:34 --> 00:20:36 But very quickly we find in verse 6,
00:20:36 --> 00:20:50 Grace both offers us unconditional forgiveness and releases us to start running and obeying more
00:20:50 --> 00:20:57 with greater intensity, with deeper love, with more motivation, with more freedom.
00:20:59 --> 00:21:01 Grace doesn't release us from the law.
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03 Jesus says, I've come to fulfill it.
00:21:04 --> 00:21:05 Grace doesn't take the law away.
00:21:05 --> 00:21:10 What it does is it empowers us to use the law the way it's supposed to work.
00:21:12 --> 00:21:16 Not as something to give us guilt, not as something to intimidate us,
00:21:16 --> 00:21:22 but as a model for life in the kingdom.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:30 As a model of what we are being called to on that final day when Jesus our King will arrive and right every wrong.
00:21:30 --> 00:21:36 Grace gives us a way of dealing with the fact that we fail and fall short.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:39 It gives us a way of coping with guilt that isn't hopeless.
00:21:39 --> 00:21:46 Now when we look at this instruction not to be angry or not to look at another man's wife lustfully,
00:21:47 --> 00:21:51 instead of wallowing in self-pity because we've stuffed that up 15 times in the day,
00:21:52 --> 00:21:58 we're driven to the cross, to Jesus, to the confidence we have.
00:21:58 --> 00:22:06 Because in the cross we find forgiveness and we find that desire to want to live life in God's kingdom.
00:22:06 --> 00:22:12 When we look at Jesus we are given the motivation to obey,
00:22:12 --> 00:22:17 to live the life that he has designed, to get the blessing that he has built into our obedience.
00:22:19 --> 00:22:24 See what Jesus is arguing for throughout this sermon is the difference between two kinds of obedience.
00:22:25 --> 00:22:27 He's not actually talking about obedience and disobedience.
00:22:27 --> 00:22:33 There's the obedience that is trying to be good enough for God which rejects the gospel.
00:22:34 --> 00:22:44 And there is the obedience which is fiercer and deeper and greater in light of the forgiveness that we have been shown
00:22:44 --> 00:22:47 and the grace that we have received in Jesus.
00:22:48 --> 00:22:53 The difference between these two kinds of obedience is the relationship with Jesus.
00:22:53 --> 00:22:58 They might actually look very similar to the outsider.
00:22:59 --> 00:23:03 But according to this passage Jesus says eventually it will be obvious.
00:23:04 --> 00:23:07 When the storms come, when Jesus returns,
00:23:08 --> 00:23:11 those who know Jesus will be welcomed into his kingdom.
00:23:13 --> 00:23:16 Those who are still carrying the burden of trying to be good enough
00:23:16 --> 00:23:19 will be sent away to their fearful fate.
00:23:23 --> 00:23:26 So what does it look like for us to live out this kind of obedience?
00:23:28 --> 00:23:30 Well it looks like using whatever God has given you.
00:23:32 --> 00:23:37 If last week you were convicted and challenged about the temptation to be hypocritical
00:23:37 --> 00:23:39 in the way that you do your religious acts,
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 if you attempted to pray to impress people,
00:23:42 --> 00:23:45 if you attempted to show off about your personal devotion,
00:23:46 --> 00:23:47 to show off about your generosity,
00:23:49 --> 00:23:50 then open the Bible.
00:23:50 --> 00:23:54 Memorise verses that convict you that God is the only one worth living for.
00:23:55 --> 00:23:59 Gather a Christian brother or sister that God has provided to hold you accountable.
00:24:00 --> 00:24:00 Pray.
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 Ask God to change your heart.
00:24:04 --> 00:24:06 Do whatever it takes.
00:24:07 --> 00:24:09 Because obedience matters when we're forgiven.
00:24:11 --> 00:24:12 It doesn't make us forgiven,
00:24:13 --> 00:24:17 but forgiveness without obedience is incomplete.
00:24:17 --> 00:24:17 Complete.
00:24:18 --> 00:24:23 This sermon begins with a need for us to be poor in spirit.
00:24:24 --> 00:24:26 To depend on Jesus.
00:24:27 --> 00:24:33 And this sermon ends with a reminder that we need to stay poor in spirit.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:37 That it is the gospel at the beginning,
00:24:38 --> 00:24:39 it is the gospel in the middle,
00:24:39 --> 00:24:42 and it is the gospel until Jesus comes back.
00:24:42 --> 00:24:45 We need Jesus to stay front and center
00:24:45 --> 00:24:48 when we fail and when we try to obey.
00:24:49 --> 00:24:53 Because that protects us from that burdensome kind of obedience.
00:24:53 --> 00:24:58 I want to finish off by looking again at verse 24.
00:25:00 --> 00:25:01 In chapter 7.
00:25:02 --> 00:25:07 Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice
00:25:07 --> 00:25:09 is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
00:25:10 --> 00:25:12 The rain came down, the streams rose,
00:25:13 --> 00:25:15 and the winds blew and beat against that house.
00:25:16 --> 00:25:19 Yet it did not fall,
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 because it had its foundation on the rock.
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27 When you hear the message of the gospel,
00:25:28 --> 00:25:31 when you hear that Jesus loves you even though you don't deserve it,
00:25:31 --> 00:25:34 when you hear that Jesus died for you so you could be forgiven,
00:25:34 --> 00:25:39 when you hear that Jesus rose and has designed this incredible life in the kingdom for you,
00:25:39 --> 00:25:41 and you live in wholehearted obedience,
00:25:41 --> 00:25:45 then that word is for you.
00:25:46 --> 00:25:48 Whatever storms may come,
00:25:48 --> 00:25:49 whatever struggles,
00:25:49 --> 00:25:50 whatever persecution,
00:25:51 --> 00:25:51 whatever guilt,
00:25:51 --> 00:25:52 whatever obstacles,
00:25:53 --> 00:25:54 you will not fall.
00:25:55 --> 00:25:57 You will not be moved.
00:25:58 --> 00:26:00 That is the message of the gospel.
00:26:01 --> 00:26:03 We have an unshakable hope
00:26:03 --> 00:26:05 that even when we fail,
00:26:05 --> 00:26:07 God's love cannot be broken.
00:26:07 --> 00:26:11 To those of us
00:26:11 --> 00:26:13 who are burdened by the weight
00:26:13 --> 00:26:16 of what Jesus demands from us in these chapters,
00:26:16 --> 00:26:19 who feel hopeless and inadequate,
00:26:21 --> 00:26:22 hear the promise of the gospel.
00:26:24 --> 00:26:26 Blessed are the poor in spirit,
00:26:27 --> 00:26:29 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:33 And put that into practice
00:26:33 --> 00:26:35 by embracing a new,
00:26:36 --> 00:26:37 joyful kind of obedience.
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 And for those of us who are more tempted to relax
00:26:43 --> 00:26:44 in light of the gospel,
00:26:45 --> 00:26:46 tempted to put our feet up,
00:26:47 --> 00:26:49 hear the words of Jesus,
00:26:50 --> 00:26:53 blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
00:26:54 --> 00:26:55 for they will be filled.
00:26:56 --> 00:26:58 And put it into practice.
00:26:59 --> 00:27:02 With a deeper desire for obedience,
00:27:03 --> 00:27:05 even in those who feel the weight
00:27:05 --> 00:27:06 of their eternal destiny.
00:27:07 --> 00:27:09 Because our God is worth it.
00:27:10 --> 00:27:13 And because His love demands nothing less.
00:27:15 --> 00:27:16 Let's pray.
00:27:24 --> 00:27:27 Father God, we want to thank you so much
00:27:27 --> 00:27:29 for the message.
00:27:31 --> 00:27:33 We want to thank you for
00:27:33 --> 00:27:36 the life that you have designed for us.
00:27:36 --> 00:27:38 We want to acknowledge that
00:27:38 --> 00:27:39 so quickly
00:27:39 --> 00:27:41 we forget your love.
00:27:42 --> 00:27:43 We forget your grace.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:46 We forget all that you have done for us.
00:27:48 --> 00:27:50 We want to admit that so quickly
00:27:50 --> 00:27:51 when we remember,
00:27:52 --> 00:27:53 we get lazy.
00:27:53 --> 00:27:59 Father, forgive us for both of these errors.
00:28:01 --> 00:28:03 Instead, God, fill us with the peace
00:28:03 --> 00:28:06 that comes from knowing that our Savior is risen
00:28:06 --> 00:28:10 and that our forgiveness is eternal.
00:28:10 --> 00:28:15 Fill us with the hunger and thirst that Jesus describes here,
00:28:15 --> 00:28:17 that we might grow in righteousness,
00:28:17 --> 00:28:20 that we might grow in our obedience to you.
00:28:21 --> 00:28:24 May we fight for our purity and for our holiness
00:28:24 --> 00:28:28 in anticipation of the eternity
00:28:28 --> 00:28:31 that you have prepared for those who love you.
00:28:32 --> 00:28:34 Thank you for our unshakable hope.
00:28:35 --> 00:28:37 Thank you for Jesus, our Savior.
00:28:37 --> 00:28:39 Amen.