Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] Good morning, everybody. I'm Ben Fleming, one of the senior pastors here. And we're in week seven, the final week of a teaching that's going all the way through the Sermon on the Mount, which is a famous teaching of Jesus. The most famous, probably. It begins, if you don't know, with the Beatitudes. The blessed are the blessed are the blankets.
[00:00:26] So you might be familiar with that. And we're finishing up with a pretty iconic list of stories where Jesus is using these metaphors to help us understand the kingdom of God that he is trying to bring to us.
[00:00:38] Hope you're having a good Memorial Day. I know there's some people visiting from out of town, so welcome in to church on Memorial day.
[00:00:44] There's like 250 baseball teams here or something like that. And that's not an exaggeration right now. Did you know this?
[00:00:52] They're probably playing baseball in your front yard right now, and you don't even know it. They're using every little field, which, of course, you know, is like bringing a little heaven to earth. For me, of course, Memorial Day, the reminder of those who have given us their lives essentially in sacrifice for our country. We're so grateful. You're probably connected to someone in some way, shape or form, maybe close or distant family or friends.
[00:01:18] I lost a friend in 2007 named Daniel Leckle. He died in combat in Afghanistan. And Daniel was an exceptional human being.
[00:01:29] Many of you know, I come from a pretty small, poor town called Glendale in Southern Oregon, and Daniel lived in the poor part of town. In the poor town.
[00:01:39] Daniel was a terrible athlete. Daniel had a speech impediment.
[00:01:45] Daniel, this is how bad of an athlete he was. On multiple occasions, he took fly balls off of his head in Little League, and one time he took it so directly the ball bounced from right field off of his head all the way back to home plate.
[00:01:59] Yeah, it was pretty rough. Daniel was the kid that at the end of a basketball game, if one team was winning by a lot, whether it was your team or not, Daniel was the guy that you put in the game and everybody chanted his name so that he would shoot a three and hopefully make it. And we were losing a lot of basketball games. And so Daniel was kind of the only positive part of a lot of those blowouts. Daniel wanted to play football and coach Proc. I think after a couple years was like, hey, you're small and not athletic. And this is Dangerous.
[00:02:30] So we're not going to let you play, but you could be the team manager. And so Daniel, from, like, sophomore year through his senior year, actually pumped up footballs, and he mixed big batches of Gatorade. We called him the Slough Master, and he brought us towels. He did all kinds of things.
[00:02:51] Daniel once, after he had graduated, he had moved to Medford, which is about 60 miles away from where we were in Glendale.
[00:02:58] And he walked from Medford to Glendale, as in his words, he said, I didn't ask for a ride because I didn't want to bother anybody.
[00:03:07] Yeah. And so I went into high school thinking, I'm gonna be the greatest athlete this school's ever known. I'm gonna break the receiving records, I'm gonna break the strikeout records. I'm gonna do all this stuff. And I accomplished a lot as an athlete. But I'll give you one guess at who the football field is named after.
[00:03:25] It's not Ben Fleming. It's Daniel Eckell.
[00:03:28] And so this guy. Yeah, you can cheer for that.
[00:03:34] Pretty cool. Pretty cool story. We could share stories for a long, long, long time about that sweet, sweet man. He was made of different stuff than the average person.
[00:03:45] Daniel had every excuse to be really resentful about life, and he wasn't. He chose to serve in a pretty dynamic way.
[00:03:52] And Jesus is inviting people during this Sermon on the Mount into a similar kind of way of living. Now, remember Jesus in this context. He's preaching to a large group of people who are part of the peasant class that are looking usually for one of two things. They're either looking for a rabbi to teach them a secret trick on how they can get into the kingdom of heaven after they die. That was really common practice. People wanted to spend time with rabbis because they wanted the secret.
[00:04:20] And then there's this other side of people that were feeling disgruntled by the presence of Rome and the Roman government in Jerusalem, taking over their city and their nation. And they were hoping that Jesus would be a kind of messiah that would then overthrow the government. And Jesus does. What he so often does in his teachings is he doesn't give either group very much satisfaction. Instead, he invites them into something better than either of those two things.
[00:04:44] And really, it is this deeper life, it's this serving life, it's this other alternative way that isn't naturally a part of our human nature and it's not often taught in the world around us. That's what Jesus invites us into today. So Matthew 7. This is where it happens. He finishes this teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, and he says, enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Watch out for the false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ferocious wolves. And by their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear the good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
[00:05:44] Many will say to me on that day, lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons, and in your name perform many miracles? And then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers. Therefore, everyone who listens to these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the wind blew and beat against that house. Yet it did not fall because it had a foundation, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. And when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority and not just one of their teachers of the law.
[00:06:35] This is the word of the Lord.
[00:06:37] Father God, we pray that we would be inspired by this teaching again today, one more time in the Sermon on the Mount. Lord, I pray that we would be renewed in our vigor and desire to follow after this life that you have led us into. Not simply one led by our human nature or by the teachings of the world around us, but instead something greater accomplished through you. In Jesus name.
[00:06:58] Amen.
[00:07:01] So what Jesus is teaching in here is that there's a difference between something that looks strong and something that actually is strong, Right? And we. We know this instinctively, and this always begins. Something that is built with strength. It's built with its foundation. Whether you're talking about physical strength. You're talking about an athlete, right? There's core strength, there's leg strength. There's what connects us to the ground. This really matters is talking about construction, right? All these big, beautiful homes around Bend. It's so funny, whenever we go house shopping, I never once went to somebody and was like, wow, this house looks. This house looks great. But, you know, that foundation. Let me tell you what, this is the stuff right here. What is that? Slab? My goodness.
[00:07:42] You know, they talk like that, but we know that it's important, right? I spent a lot of time recently building a retaining wall out in front of my house. And it's really, really satisfying to move around these, you know, fairly large bricks, these really big bricks. When you move them all by yourself and nobody helps you.
[00:07:59] These really big bricks. And we're just going to meditate on that for a second.
[00:08:06] But what you realize if you ever built a retaining wall, that most of your time is not spent moving bricks around or stacking them on top of each other. That takes a second. Actually. You can stack a lot of bricks really fast. What you spend a ton of time on is leveling the ground beneath where the wall will go and tamping it down and then bringing in other materials and rock and things, putting these. These bricks on top of something that can actually withstand the weather and the water and all these different things. And that is where, you know, I bled a little bit. I lost a couple fingernails. Like, that's where it happened was in that part of the process. That's the difficulty. And that's the task at hand when you're building a retaining wall. And Jesus is saying this about a life.
[00:08:44] He's saying this about a soul. He's saying a house can be beautiful from the outside, and the paint can be fresh and the windows can be new, and the landscaping could be perfect. But if the foundation is unstable or it's cracked, all the rest of it doesn't matter.
[00:08:56] You can have a perfect house built in the perfect neighborhood in Bend, and it has zero value if its foundation means nothing.
[00:09:04] And so Jesus knows something that sometimes I think we forget that life has this way of. Of revealing what we're actually built on, because the storm always tells the truth about the foundation.
[00:09:17] And so that's where Jesus wants to end this sermon. And I want you to notice that it's not. So go out here and put in more effort and try harder and be better. Jesus ends instead with this choice. You've got two gates. You've got Two roads, you've got two kinds of fruit. There's two foundations and there's two outcomes. And one leads to life and the other one leads to collapse.
[00:09:39] And I want you to understand, before we get too far down this talk about a narrow road is that this narrow way that Jesus is talking about is not cruel. And it's not exclusive or some kind of club or resort kind of community that's meant to keep people out. That's not what the narrow road means, what he means. And when we hear this word narrow, we can sometimes hear it as this harsh and restrictive thing. It's small minded. Whenever I think narrow, I think small minded. They're small minded people. There's narrow people that can't understand the world around them or don't have a diverse understanding of how the world has worked or come together.
[00:10:14] And so you might imagine Jesus at the entrance of life trying to make things difficult for people, right?
[00:10:19] That he's waiting at this, at this pathway, trying to make things as difficult as possible for you. And I think sometimes we believe that because we've seen Christians do that and get a lot of excitement out of that, try to make this an exclusive and narrow pathway so that they can feel better. But that's not what Jesus is talking about. That's not what he's doing. Jesus isn't petty. He's talking about the reality and the necessity of the fact that this way that he's encouraging us into, which is the best way to live life, by the way he's encouraging them that this is narrow because that's the reality of how this work goes, of how this process goes. I'll give you an example. You're very comfortable with narrow ways in many different ways, aspects of your life. And this is how I know it. There's a very narrow way to fly a plane, very narrow way to land a plane.
[00:11:05] Have you ever gotten into one of these flights and one of these pilots is like, very exuberant and really talkative on the PA system? Those guys always make me a little nervous. Like, hello, welcome to Flight A 1178. I'm Greg and I'll be your party captain today. You know, and it's like, whoa, Greg.
[00:11:21] Less fun.
[00:11:24] I just, I just want you to focus. I don't need to be your friend and I don't need you to be my friend. I just need you to land this thing, you know, and imagine getting onto a flight where the pilot was like, all right, so I've been around this block enough times to know there's about 10 different ways to land this plane. No, there's one. There's just one.
[00:11:41] You know, I don't want to experiment with on our belly or in water or anything like that. Like pavement with wheels. That's all I want. There's a narrow way to do this, right? And I would imagine that you would agree with me. And so if you want a healthy marriage, there's a narrow way to do that.
[00:11:56] You can't build a marriage on secrecy and selfishness and contempt and emotional distance and expect intimacy to actually happen and flourish.
[00:12:04] If you want financial health, there's a narrow way to do that. You can't endlessly spend more than you have and expect peace to appear magically on the other end of it.
[00:12:12] If you want physical health, there's a narrow way to do that. Not because your body is cruel, right? Or too narrow, but because your body has actually been made and endowed with a certain kind of wisdom.
[00:12:23] Jesus is saying the same thing about our souls in this passage of scripture. He's saying there's a way that human beings were made to live. There's a way that leads to life. And this is the way of forgiveness, mercy, truthfulness, purity of heart, enemy love, prayer, generosity and trust. This is the makeup of the narrow way.
[00:12:44] And so there's this other way also. There's this broad road. And I was in a very list mood this last week, so you're getting like four different long lists for me today.
[00:12:53] But let me tell you about the broad road. This is what it's made up of. If you wanna walk down the broad road, this is what you can do. You can follow your anger, you can protect your image, you can manage your reputation. You can use people however you feel like you need to right in that moment.
[00:13:08] You can stay anxious enough to make sure that you feel in control. You can keep your options open and you can do what everyone else is doing and you can build your life around yourself.
[00:13:16] That's the broad road.
[00:13:20] And I gotta be honest with you, like, some of this is being taught as wisdom in the world around us. And I've been like, I've been really open with you and will continue to be. I have a therapist. I've been seeing a therapist for the last, like, four years. I will continue to do so. It's been one of the best moves that I've ever made in my life. I would highly recommend finding a good therapist, especially if you've been in some of these deeper, more difficult, kind of depressive areas of life. Like I have been in and out over the last decade or so.
[00:13:46] But I have also seen in kind of the pop psychology world that there's this tendency to be like, look, here's the deal. If you just create enough big, firm, strong boundaries around the scary world around you, and you insulate yourself and you remember that all the good stuff is in you and it's right here, and all the bad stuff is out there, and you have to build walls to keep it out, then you'll finally find a life that feels safe and comfortable and that you were meant to live. And I gotta be honest with you, Jesus teaching is not that. He's saying, if we follow the way of Jesus, our capacity will increase. So then we can not only just love and care for ourselves, but that we can love and care for the world around us in a deeper and truer and more purposeful way. This is the way of Jesus. And so he's saying, look, don't be tempted by this life in which you can just put yourself in the center of it and allow everything else to revolve around you, because that leads to death. Eugene Peterson says it better than I ever could. And he says, God is the creator from which all life develops. If we use our ego as the center from which the plot to plot the geometry of our lives, we will live eccentrically. What Eugene Peterson is saying, if you put yourself at the middle, if you make yourself the sun of your solar system, you will always live in irregularity and inconsistency because you will simply follow every whim of your own heart and your own emotions and your own feelings and those things which you. You should know better than anybody can be deeply wrong and inconsistent many, many times.
[00:15:10] And so Jesus is inviting this crowd and inviting us today to say, make me the center of this thing.
[00:15:17] Now, the difficulty with the broad road and the problem that I have with it is that the broad road is really good at signage and marketing.
[00:15:24] You'll notice that the broad road very rarely advertised itself. If ever as this is the way to destruction, come this way.
[00:15:33] You'll love it. It's never like that, right? It's like, this is the road to success.
[00:15:38] This is the road to meaning. This is the way to control. This is the way to being right. Oh, I love that sign.
[00:15:45] Find me the way to be right. Because there's nothing better than being right.
[00:15:51] Mmm, yeah.
[00:15:54] This is the way to getting what you deserve.
[00:15:56] Ooh, that's a good one.
[00:16:00] But Jesus says, there's another way. And like I said, that's him.
[00:16:04] And so while the way is narrow and it can be difficult and often heartbreaking, I do want you to understand that I'm not describing what is a cramped life.
[00:16:14] I'm not describing a hopeless or a joyless life.
[00:16:19] I'm talking about actually finding all of these things. I'm talking about actually finding joy, hope, and purpose and finding the way in the kingdom of God.
[00:16:30] And this is where Jesus is taking us.
[00:16:33] So the question isn't simply, have I heard the words of Jesus? The question becomes something greater than that. And Dallas Willard talks about this really well, where he says, what matters most is not what we profess, but it's the kind of person that we're becoming. And so the question that I would ask you today is, what kind of person are you becoming?
[00:16:50] So that's what Jesus wants to know.
[00:16:54] And he illustrates this by telling us that the fruit reveals the root.
[00:16:58] When Jesus shifts images into away from roads, and then he goes into trees, which, by the way, I'm so grateful Jesus came with, like, word pictures and metaphors, because I would be lost if he came with math equations.
[00:17:13] And he's like, let me tell you a story about a tree. I'm like, oh, thank God I can get this.
[00:17:20] And he says that life eventually produces what's truly inside it, Right? A good tree bears good fruit. A bad tree bears bad fruit. And it's kind of this warning invitation from Jesus the teacher. It's a warning because Jesus says that not everything spiritual is healthy, and not every person who uses religious language is trustworthy. Whew. That'll preach.
[00:17:40] Not every impressive gift is evidence of deep character.
[00:17:45] And so someone can sound right and still be wrong.
[00:17:48] Someone can be charismatic and still be dangerous. And someone can speak in the name of God and still not reflect the heart of God. Jesus is saying, look at the fruit of these lives and of these people and of these souls. Someone made me a pastor at 19 years old over a group of young adults in Klamath Falls. And that was a tremendous mistake on their part.
[00:18:07] Why? Because not because I was bad at the job on the surface. It's because it was a mistake. Because I was incredibly charismatic.
[00:18:14] I was fun enough to be around, and I was really good at building this kingdom. Not around the kingdom of God, but a kingdom around me.
[00:18:22] And I could say a lot of things that would sound like wisdom, but instead, they would bring destruction. And I hurt a lot of people in that process. I hurt myself and set myself in a place that felt far from God. I was charismatic and still dangerous. And I was speaking in the name of God and not interested in reflecting the heart of God.
[00:18:39] This can happen to church leaders, especially. It happens in Mass in church leaders. It can happen with business leaders. It can happen with you, and it can happen with me. And it's important that all of us continue to ask these questions of is my life producing love and humility and peace and mercy and harmony and patience? And is it reflecting the character of Jesus?
[00:18:59] Jesus says, there's a simple barometer. You gotta continue to check me and my words up against exactly what's happening in the fruit that's being born in your life, because the fruit reveals the root.
[00:19:12] And so to be clear, this isn't about those false teachers out there necessarily. Right? It's an invitation for us to understand that we're producing something.
[00:19:23] What are the things in your life that produce something? Your habits produce something. Your thoughts, your calendars produce something. Hello, look at that calendar. How full is that thing he preaches to himself?
[00:19:37] Your spending produces something. Your anger produces something. Your prayerlessness produces something. Your secret life produces something.
[00:19:46] And Jesus loves us enough to say, you have to pay attention to the fruit of all these things, not because he wants to come and heap shame on you, but instead, so that you can actually come back to the real root of how this all began. The purpose that you're actually seeking after in Christianity is not fruit management. Right? I think Evan talked about this a couple weeks ago. Taping apples onto a dead tree is not the way that we produce fruit.
[00:20:13] And actually, that creates a whole lot of work for anybody that's trying to tape the fruit on there, because again, the wind blows, the water comes, all these things. And it was not meant to hold fruit in such a way. And some of you have walked in here today and you've built a life that's based on simply grading, getting plastic apples and going and slapping them onto the nearest dead tree that you find and saying, well, this is a life. At least is projecting the life that I wish that I had or who I hoped that I was. There's got to be something better than that.
[00:20:41] And Jesus provides us the blueprint here.
[00:20:46] And so he's not just saying, don't murder, right? Which is a great start.
[00:20:51] Okay, some of you need to hear this. Don't do that.
[00:20:55] Stop it.
[00:20:57] But he's not saying don't murder, right? He's healing anger.
[00:21:01] That's the whole idea. He's not saying, don't commit adultery. He's healing lust. He's not saying, give money. He's healing the need to be seen as powerful and influential. And he's not just saying, don't worry. He's healing this false belief that we are alone and isolated so that we must worry.
[00:21:18] That's what Jesus is after. This holistic, deep kind of movement within us. That's what Jesus wants. Our hearts and our souls and not just. Just our behaviors.
[00:21:28] Because Jesus understands that when the root is changed, the behaviors then will come from that place because the kingdom works inside out.
[00:21:36] And so why don't we, as a church and as a people, get past this idea of how we want to look temporarily impressive, but instead be formed into people that can actually bear lasting fruit?
[00:21:48] That's what this whole church thing is actually about.
[00:21:53] And then Jesus goes on and he gives us another word picture. He talks about two builders. One builds on a rock and one builds on sand. And from the outside, these two houses can look very similar. And Jesus doesn't say one house is big and one is small. He doesn't say, one's beautiful and then one's ugly. He doesn't say one's kind of spiritual and religious looking and one's not.
[00:22:13] The difference is not immediately visible in either of these two houses because the difference is underneath, one has a foundation and one doesn't.
[00:22:22] And so then the storm comes. And this is one of the most honest things I think Jesus ever says. He doesn't say, if you build your life on me, the rain will not fall.
[00:22:31] Did you notice that? If you build your life on me, you'll never see a storm again.
[00:22:36] That's what cult leaders say.
[00:22:41] So he doesn't say that. He doesn't say, look, you'll be immune from the rain. He says the opposite. He says, the rain's gonna come.
[00:22:46] The rain came down on both houses. The streams rose against both houses. The winds blew against both houses.
[00:22:52] In other words, discipleship doesn't exempt you from storms. So don't talk yourself into believing. If you do this Christian faith thing right, then everything will go well for you and everything will be smooth for you.
[00:23:02] Because our bodies will fail and our families sometimes will suffer and we'll experience deep grief and we'll feel like we're so alone and isolated and maybe that God doesn't exist and he's not hearing our prayers. We're going to feel this. This is a part of the normal part of the Christian tradition.
[00:23:18] You can find incredible saints and people you guys know. Have you ever read some of the letters from Mother Teresa, One of the most faithful and incredible saints who was the mother to all of these orphan children in so many of her letters, when she was close to that, she just said, I just feel like God's not real and I feel alone and like he's not hearing me. And I'm experiencing all of this in my brain and in my body. And she stayed fit. Look, this is a normal part of the Christian experience.
[00:23:48] And so thus we know that success in our faith doesn't come from avoiding the storms. Instead, it comes from being a people that are built in a way where we can withstand the storms. So there's something actually worth hanging onto on the other end of the storms.
[00:24:04] So what remains when they do?
[00:24:07] It's an important word for us because many people have sold this version of Christianity that if we do the right things, then nothing bad will happen. But that's not the promise of Jesus.
[00:24:16] And so I want you to know in here, especially if you're wavering on this edge of faith, wondering if you want to continue to participate or not, I want you to know that in our faith there is space. And actually it's not a bug, it's a feature, right, where we can be a life that can grieve and hope that we can have a life that suffers deeply and still loves that we can be shaken to our core and we can still stand.
[00:24:41] And a life that we can lose so much and we can still not lose our soul. Maybe you've been talked into this version of Christianity that's a lot more like a self help book.
[00:24:50] And it's so discouraging when you come to the other end realizing that that faith can't actually hold on to this picture perfect idea of life.
[00:24:58] And I used to think that scripture would support this in my ignorance, right? But then I did this thing like 15 years ago where I decided to read through what's called the wisdom literature over and over and over again. And part of the wisdom literature in Scripture is Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. And if you've read Proverbs, Proverbs is, is like math.
[00:25:17] It says the wise man does this and then reaps this reward. And the foolish man does this and falls down and breaks his whole body. You know, something like that. Almost every single proverb runs in that same formula. And so if you read that and you go, okay, if I do the right thing, then I'll be rewarded and the wicked and the foolish will do this and then they will be punished. And that's how life works in the kingdom of God. And then, you know, As a young Christian, nobody ever really encouraged me. Why don't you also read through Ecclesiastes? Let me sum up Ecclesiastes for you. It's a writer that goes to the page and goes, hey, you know, wicked people, they win everything.
[00:25:53] Yeah, it's the worst. And you know what? Time kills all of us. Isn't that rough. And I read through Ecclesiastes, like, what is this?
[00:26:02] What is this? Depressed, angry, you know, and it's not just that, but that's a lot of it is. Life is hard on every single one of us. And also life is short and bad people win all the time.
[00:26:16] And I begin to understand as a Christian, like, oh my gosh, there's place for the proverbs, wisdom and living a life that we should. And there's also this honesty, difficult reality check. And it's all available in scripture. And by the way, it's all available in faith, grief and suffering and joyfulness and success and prosperity. It's all in scripture and it's all a part of your life.
[00:26:40] And so it's not about will the storms come or will always things always be perfect. But of course, what foundation are we built on? So the goal of discipleship is not to create a storm free life.
[00:26:49] The goal of discipleship is to become the kind of person that's rooted in the eternal life of God.
[00:26:56] I'm like out of time and come ask me for the other three pages of this sometime. Okay, talk on it. It's the third time I've done it.
[00:27:09] Okay, so we need this foundation, right?
[00:27:12] So we need a willingness to participate in this process.
[00:27:15] It comes with this willingness to start. Not start perfectly, not start like a saint or a pastor or whatever, just start.
[00:27:23] And that could be as simple as saying, I'm going to start praying, I'm going to start giving. I'm going to stop feeding my contempt for the world around me. People on the other end of the political spectrum, I'm going to bless my enemy. I'm going to seek first the kingdom, whatever the kingdom means going to build my life on the words of Jesus. It's just start, participate, be willing to jump in. Don't be a cynic that sits on the outside of faith and life and Christianity and simply poke fun at everybody that's doing their best inside of it. Jump in and participate and begin to pull on this thing.
[00:27:57] And then once you've done that, once you've made the decision to participate, understand that this is where the work actually begins. Now the good news for you is that you can start building this foundation or rebuilding this foundation today. You can start it right now. The bad news is, is that it will break your heart, and it will be difficult and often painful. Sometimes it will expose you.
[00:28:21] And it's also beautiful and joyful and completely worth it.
[00:28:25] And this is why the foundation is actually formed in the most ordinary places.
[00:28:32] I'm a pastor. I get to do, like, Easter Sunday is a big deal around here. Christmas Eve is a big deal around here. We've got, like, six services, and all these people show up, and it's really cool. We do a midnight Christmas Eve service, which is just pure Christmas magic.
[00:28:48] We bring in Santa. Just kidding. We don't do that.
[00:28:51] Santa's cool, though. Me and Santa are cool.
[00:28:55] And I get these, like, holy moments that are, like, baked into my job, which is pretty cool and special.
[00:29:02] They're these little bit of, like, a mountaintop kind of moment where every time we finish up on Christmas Eve after that midnight service, there's, like, it's the best feeling in the world. That quiet drive home. And those moments feel holy to me.
[00:29:14] And I look forward to those moments because of that feeling and that understanding.
[00:29:19] But what I've learned over the last several years of my life is that what holy places exist in more places than just that. And so today's Pentecost Sunday, and if you're unfamiliar with the story of Pentecost, how the nation of Israel understood the presence of God was that the presence of God existed in a tabernacle in the holy of holies. And the high priest was the only one that could go experience that presence of God and learn something from that space and then come out and speak to the people. But what happens when Jesus dies is the veil to that holy of holies is to.
[00:29:49] And the idea that we understand from that, because the early church in Acts chapter two, experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is now, because the veil is torn. The Holy Spirit, the presence of God, the holy place is now available to all of us here today, wherever we go.
[00:30:04] And so that makes ordinary places now extremely holy, because the presence of God is in them.
[00:30:12] And so one of the holiest places that I've tried to find myself is making lunches for my kids.
[00:30:21] Okay?
[00:30:22] So for those of you who don't know, this is an uncrustable.
[00:30:26] Also known. For those of you who are Old Testament scholars, this is manna from heaven.
[00:30:31] Okay?
[00:30:32] This is unbeatably soft bread.
[00:30:36] When I first read that, I thought it said unbearably And I was like, oh, yes.
[00:30:41] Unbearably soft bread. These things are fantastic.
[00:30:44] Okay.
[00:30:46] And if you've ever made kids lunches for. Ours are 11 and 9.
[00:30:51] And my wife makes the majority of lunches. No doubt. My kids know when I make lunch, because my daughter will come home and she'll be like, yeah, I had, like, five beef sticks in my lunch.
[00:31:01] And I'll say, treat others how you would like to be treated.
[00:31:06] Yeah, somebody's a beefsteak fan, right?
[00:31:08] You guys, beef sticks are so good.
[00:31:11] And.
[00:31:13] But if you've ever done this practice with young kids, there's a method, like, you have to have enough calories in there in order to get them through the day so they're not little rage monsters when they come home. You want enough nutrition, right? You want a little bit of fruits and vegetables. But fruits and vegetables that they will eat, and they won't just rot inside of their lunchboxes. You want other stuff that they're going to enjoy. And, you know, so they're not just simply trading other kids for their food because they like it better. Like, there's an art form to it. And this whole idea of lunch can cause me a little bit of anxiety. You're like, this is so stupid. I'm so sick of this peanut butter and jelly figuring out how to. How to thread the needle for what you want and what you need.
[00:31:54] And it's little tasks like this that just. They just come and go every single day.
[00:32:01] You walk the dog and then you walk back, and then you wake up and you do it again. Tomorrow, you water the garden that you have, you go to work, you sit in the cubicle, you hike around your neighborhood, you see your friends, and you go to happy hour and you go to dinner.
[00:32:19] These, my friends, are the holy of holies.
[00:32:24] This is it.
[00:32:28] Tish Harrison Warren, who wrote a book called the Liturgy of the Ordinary, which I would highly recommend in that's where I first got the idea of the peanut butter and jelly.
[00:32:37] She says it simply this way. How I spend this ordinary day in Christ is how I'll spend my Christian life.
[00:32:47] And so it's through these powerful and beautiful ordinary things that we begin to build a life on this foundation of Jesus.
[00:32:59] It won't happen all at once, and it won't happen perfectly, but it will happen steadily.
[00:33:07] This house that stands in the storm isn't built right in this peak of this massive storm. It's revealed in the storm, right? The foundation's been laid. And this is a challenge and a hope to us.
[00:33:19] It's challenging because we cannot take, we can't fake a foundation forever.
[00:33:28] But it's hopeful now because today, right here in this moment, it matters.
[00:33:34] And so here's another short list of things that matter that maybe you've forgotten.
[00:33:38] A small act of obedience today matters.
[00:33:42] A quiet prayer. Today matters.
[00:33:45] An apology today matters.
[00:33:49] A peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a trip to a boba drink station matter.
[00:33:56] A small act of open handedness and generosity today matters.
[00:34:01] A decision to resist outrage today matters.
[00:34:07] A decision to trust God again today in a small way matters.
[00:34:13] And if we believe this, then all of a sudden we will be a people that are never just trying to get through a day. Instead, we will be reminded that we are becoming someone today.
[00:34:26] And so what do we do with this?
[00:34:29] I think Jesus invites us to kind of audit our foundation with honesty.
[00:34:34] We're not going to pray just now, but I want to ask you a question that I'm let you sit on for about 15 seconds, okay? I want you to ask yourself, what am I building my life on? If I'm being really honest, you have to say it out loud, yet you don't have to admit it to anybody yet. I just want you to be honest in your mind. What are you actually building your life on?
[00:34:51] Are you building it on success, control?
[00:34:56] You building on your reputation?
[00:34:59] You're building on comfort, financial security?
[00:35:04] Building on being right, being needed?
[00:35:08] Are you building your life on your ability to keep everyone happy?
[00:35:13] You building it on comparison, outrage, anxiety?
[00:35:21] Just take a moment to ask yourself the question.
[00:35:39] You can open your eyes.
[00:35:40] I ask you this because humility and honesty are the key to being willing to actually begin to live this life that maybe you don't even know it, but it's the one you really want to live.
[00:35:51] We got to be careful in how we can teach ourselves to become our own Savior, because we are tempting in that way.
[00:36:00] But it's sand to build this life on our own understanding and wisdom.
[00:36:06] And it's funny, right? Like we always talk about how this kind of irreligious life can be sand. But I want you to know a religious life can be sand too.
[00:36:14] The only foundation that actually holds is Jesus himself. And so today we are reminded that Jesus can't be an accessory, a mascot, or a weekend inspiration, a church service or a theological idea that we get to haggle and fight over. Jesus is Lord, he is teacher, he is baptizer, he is Savior, and he's the foundation of our life.
