With A Firm Foundation, Application Is Second Nature
Sermon
Sermons On The Gospel Readings
Series II, Cycle A
Object:
Practice makes perfect. If you do these things for Jesus, the Lord will bless you. Much Prosperity Gospel preaching advocates these themes. It's a word that America wants to hear. Even Reverend Rick Warren of the California megachurch, Saddleback Church, has said that:
I must apply its [the Word of God's] principles. Receiving, reading, researching, remembering, and reflecting on the Word are all useless if we fail to put them into practice. We must become "doers of the word."1
Let's get Jesus' "take" on this.
Jesus was concluding his famed Sermon on the Mount. You have heard about that famous discourse many times during your life in the church. Among its gems include The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12 -- where Jesus refers to the blessedness of those who mourn, are pure in heart, and are peacemakers). Matthew also reports that Jesus taught The Lord's Prayer as well the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13).
In Matthew's version, the sermon as a whole is a summons to a way of life. This emphasis fits the first gospel's orientation to making Jesus' teachings more important than any of the other three gospel writers do, presumably because some church leaders after the resurrection were not doing so.2 This seems evident in verses 21 through 23 in today's gospel lesson. New Testament scholars have concluded that the references to the judgment against those who have had charismatic experiences and performed healings are critiques of leaders of the post-Easter church who were not living in accord with the teachings of Jesus.3
So far it sounds like Pastor Warren is right about Matthew's version of Jesus -- that an emphasis on practicing, on doing the word and living our purpose is the heart of the gospel. But wait, there is another wrinkle to the agenda of the author of the gospel of Matthew. Its author seems to have been identified with a community of Christians which was still very much in dialogue with the church's Jewish roots. But while maintaining this continuity, while still desiring to affirm that the message of Jesus did not nullify God's law (5:17-19), the author of Matthew still sought to distinguish the gospel of the kingdom from rabbinic thinking.4 We can see this at several points in the gospel. For example, it becomes very clear in chapter 23 where Matthew has Jesus criticizing the scribes and the Pharisees, even to the point of contending in contrast to the rabbinic thinking of his day that one can observe all the precepts of the law and still be guilty before God (Matthew 23:28).5
This same concern to distance the gospel from Jewish and all other forms of preoccupation with the law and application through practice is evident at several points in Matthew 7 and in our gospel lesson for today. Pastor Warren and the other purpose-driven, Prosperity Preachers of the airwaves do not quite have it right. At the very beginning of Matthew chapter seven, Jesus warns in a very non-Pharisaic way that we are not to judge -- that the log in our own eye is likely bigger than the speck you see in our neighbor's eye. We are all sinners, in need of grace.
But later in verses 7 through 9 we hear the famous words of comfort, that when you and I knock, the door will be opened. The Father in heaven is there to give good things! Of course that's the way it is to be a Christian. We're receivers, not doers!
Martin Luther put it this way in a sermon on the gospel of Matthew.
To make good people does not belong to the gospel, for it only makes Christians ... So one is not called a Christian because he does much, but because he receives something from Christ, draws from him and lets Christ only give to him ... If you look at what you do, you have already lost the Christian name.6
If you spend too much time fretting about application, doing, and the living out of your purpose, be careful. You might lose the Christian name, Luther says.
Mathew and Jesus seem to agree. We see this quite clearly in verses 24 through 27 of today's gospel. Matthew reports that our Lord claimed that everyone who hears and acts on Christ's Word is like a wise man building his house on a rock. For such a believer, even if the rain falls, floods come, and winds blow, the house will not fall on account of its firm foundation. By contrast, everyone who hears these words, but does not act on them, is like a foolish man building a house on sand. People like that fall, their faith shatters when the hard times come, just like when rain falls, floods come, and winds blow, the house built on the sand will fall. The moral of the parable: No matter how spiritual you try to be, you need to be sure you have built the foundation of your faith on Christ. He is your firm foundation, the rock!
Let's talk about foundations. Foundations are the chief means of supporting a building, supporting the loads (the weight) of the building. If the building were constructed on surface soil, any movement of the earth might topple the structure. The issue, then, is not how you apply Jesus' words, what you do, but where you "settle" with your life. No act guarantees salvation if it is not based on the foundation of Jesus (Matthew 7:22).7
There are rich implications for everyday life in this insight. Realizing that only Christ can provide your foundation makes living the Christian life, makes living in everyday American life, a lot easier. After all, I never saw a building sweat and agonize about how it is going to withstand the storms of life. If the foundation is firm, it may sway a bit in the wind (especially in the big thunderstorm or the hurricane), but it still stands tall and proud in the midst of the storm. What is the cause of the building's strength? Not the windows, walls, not even the columns and beams get the credit. No matter how strong these parts of a building are, they are not sufficient without the firm foundation. That is why these parts of the building are not what keeps things intact. That is sort of the status that your and my activities and practices have with regard to maintaining ourselves in life. No matter how many grand things you do, no matter how well you apply the teachings of Jesus, no matter how firm your faith and sense of purpose, it all tumbles down if you are not rooted in Jesus. He is the one, then, who gets all the credit! And because the foundation is firm, the other parts of the building do their thing effortlessly, just like our application of Jesus' teachings. Our carrying out and living out our divine purpose comes spontaneously, without much effort. Just like the windows, walls, columns, and beams do not keep the building erect and do not agonize over their tasks, so you and I have been set free from agonizing. Life is a lot less stressful, a lot more fun, when you are rooted and settled, in Christ.
Who gets the credit for this lifestyle? The foundation of course. Commenting on this text, the man who was probably the greatest, most influential theologian of the last century, Karl Barth, has claimed that "... the righteousness which the Sermon [on the Mount] exacts is inseparable from the one who exacts it. It is his righteousness. It does not consist in the greatness and splendor of what man himself achieves ... Everything depends on the fact that the required righteousness does not now consist in a self-assertive grasping a promise, in a self-willed desire to fulfill the law, as though this were an independent law...."8
Yes, Martin Luther was correct: Christians are receivers, not doers. In one of his sermons, a man widely recognized as perhaps the great preacher of the early church, John Chrysostom, wrote: "Wherefore both against our will He befriends us often, and without our knowledge oftener than not."9
This appreciation that we do nothing when it comes to Christ's benevolence to us, that the foundation of your life does all the work, will change your perspective on what you do with the gifts he has given us. It makes you grateful for what you have, not just grateful for the big things but even for the little, seemingly ordinary things you have, like friendship, family love, the food you eat, and the job you have. Again the "golden-mouthed one" John Chrysostom (this is what the Greek word Chrysostom means) said it well. Elsewhere in the sermon we noted, he wrote:
Let us therefore continually give thanks, for our own blessings, and for those of others, alike for the small and for the great. For though the gift be small, it is made great by being God's gift.10
This sort of gratitude will make another difference in your life. Again we turn to the latest scientific research on happiness, on what makes people happy. A University of California psychologist, Sonja Lyumbomirsky, has noted that satisfaction with life is boosted in most people who savor life's joys and count their blessings. This is hardly surprising, since other research on the brain has indicated that the more focused you are on projects and insights greater than you are, the more the pleasurable brain chemicals saturate the brain.11 With a firm foundation (in Christ), life and application is a joy. Even temptations do not shake faith when your faith has the firm foundation in Christ. That's what the great Reformation theologian, John Calvin, said in a commentary on our gospel lesson for today.12 Doing Christ's thing is both natural and joyful when you've got your foundation rooted in him.
Of course, there are still forces which try to pull you away and take away your peace and joy. It is still very possible to be pulled away from this insight, and instead focus on all the impressive activities, like the growing megachurches and the wealth accumulated by or promised to their members, which are said to be happening within certain Prosperity Gospel circles. Contemporary American social trends want to lure you away from where you are planted, providing instead its promises of self-fulfillment and novelty. To cling to a firm foundation seems to make you a "stick-in-the-mud." What is new and fresh and customized to your needs is what attracts us and makes us yearn. America and a lot of its religious convictions teach us that you've got to be flexible and think about what's in your own self-interest, about acquiring or being in the presence of what makes you seem like a winner.13
Martin Luther put it just right one time while explicating today's gospel lesson. It is as if he understood contemporary American dynamics:
I am convinced that if someone were to arise here today and perform just one sign, whole crowds would fall for it. That is how the crazy mob behaves. If someone pulls out something new in front of them and makes them stare, they forsake everything, the Word and God and doctrine, and go gaping after that.14
Those with a foundation in Christ, those caught up in his overwhelming love, are tempted to follow the crowd, to chase after what is novel and sensational. Those with Christ as their foundation do have to struggle, may sway in the wind. But the good news of our gospel lesson for today is that our firm foundation, Christ, will not give way. Take heart, friends, and rejoice. You and I are reminded today of his authority (Matthew 7:29), an authority that will not let you or me go! No matter how strong and turbulent the storms of this life blow, keep in mind the firm foundation of our lives that will not be shaken, will not let all our feeble efforts to apply his insights to become burdensome or to fail. Thank God for our foundation. Whatever purposes we are to have in life cannot ultimately fail when you are rooted in Christ! Amen.
__________
1. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), p. 191.
2. For these observations about the gospel of Matthew I am indebted to Eduard Schweizer, Good News According To Matthew, trans. David E. Green (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), pp. 179-180.
3. Ibid., pp. 178-179.
4. Ibid., pp. 16, 188.
5. Ibid., p. 189.
6. Martin Luther, The Gospel and Christ, Or Jairus' Daughter Raised and the Woman With an Issue of Blood Healed (n.d.), pp. 5-6, The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 3.1, ed. John Nicholas Lenker (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000), pp. 329-330.
7. Op cit, Schweizer, p. 191.
8. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. II/2, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), p. 692.
9. John Chrysostom, Homilies On the Gospel According To St. Matthew (pp. 386-388), XXV. 4, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 10, ed. Philip Schaff (2nd printing; Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), p. 175.
10. Ibid.
11. See page 233, notes 7-8. Also see Sonja Lyumbomirsky, as summarized in Claudia Wallis, "The New Science of Happiness," Time, January 17, 2005, pp. A8-A9.
12. John Calvin, "Commentary On a Harmony of The Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke" (1555), in Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVI.I, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2005), p. 370.
13. For such an analysis of American social dynamics, see my Blessed Are the Cynical: How Original Sin Can Make America a Better Place (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2003), esp. pp. 22-23, 114-115; Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), pp. 55-63, 101-102; Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), esp. pp. 241-245.
14. Martin Luther, Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount (1532/1533), in Luther's Works, Vol. 21, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia, 1956), p. 280.
I must apply its [the Word of God's] principles. Receiving, reading, researching, remembering, and reflecting on the Word are all useless if we fail to put them into practice. We must become "doers of the word."1
Let's get Jesus' "take" on this.
Jesus was concluding his famed Sermon on the Mount. You have heard about that famous discourse many times during your life in the church. Among its gems include The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12 -- where Jesus refers to the blessedness of those who mourn, are pure in heart, and are peacemakers). Matthew also reports that Jesus taught The Lord's Prayer as well the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13).
In Matthew's version, the sermon as a whole is a summons to a way of life. This emphasis fits the first gospel's orientation to making Jesus' teachings more important than any of the other three gospel writers do, presumably because some church leaders after the resurrection were not doing so.2 This seems evident in verses 21 through 23 in today's gospel lesson. New Testament scholars have concluded that the references to the judgment against those who have had charismatic experiences and performed healings are critiques of leaders of the post-Easter church who were not living in accord with the teachings of Jesus.3
So far it sounds like Pastor Warren is right about Matthew's version of Jesus -- that an emphasis on practicing, on doing the word and living our purpose is the heart of the gospel. But wait, there is another wrinkle to the agenda of the author of the gospel of Matthew. Its author seems to have been identified with a community of Christians which was still very much in dialogue with the church's Jewish roots. But while maintaining this continuity, while still desiring to affirm that the message of Jesus did not nullify God's law (5:17-19), the author of Matthew still sought to distinguish the gospel of the kingdom from rabbinic thinking.4 We can see this at several points in the gospel. For example, it becomes very clear in chapter 23 where Matthew has Jesus criticizing the scribes and the Pharisees, even to the point of contending in contrast to the rabbinic thinking of his day that one can observe all the precepts of the law and still be guilty before God (Matthew 23:28).5
This same concern to distance the gospel from Jewish and all other forms of preoccupation with the law and application through practice is evident at several points in Matthew 7 and in our gospel lesson for today. Pastor Warren and the other purpose-driven, Prosperity Preachers of the airwaves do not quite have it right. At the very beginning of Matthew chapter seven, Jesus warns in a very non-Pharisaic way that we are not to judge -- that the log in our own eye is likely bigger than the speck you see in our neighbor's eye. We are all sinners, in need of grace.
But later in verses 7 through 9 we hear the famous words of comfort, that when you and I knock, the door will be opened. The Father in heaven is there to give good things! Of course that's the way it is to be a Christian. We're receivers, not doers!
Martin Luther put it this way in a sermon on the gospel of Matthew.
To make good people does not belong to the gospel, for it only makes Christians ... So one is not called a Christian because he does much, but because he receives something from Christ, draws from him and lets Christ only give to him ... If you look at what you do, you have already lost the Christian name.6
If you spend too much time fretting about application, doing, and the living out of your purpose, be careful. You might lose the Christian name, Luther says.
Mathew and Jesus seem to agree. We see this quite clearly in verses 24 through 27 of today's gospel. Matthew reports that our Lord claimed that everyone who hears and acts on Christ's Word is like a wise man building his house on a rock. For such a believer, even if the rain falls, floods come, and winds blow, the house will not fall on account of its firm foundation. By contrast, everyone who hears these words, but does not act on them, is like a foolish man building a house on sand. People like that fall, their faith shatters when the hard times come, just like when rain falls, floods come, and winds blow, the house built on the sand will fall. The moral of the parable: No matter how spiritual you try to be, you need to be sure you have built the foundation of your faith on Christ. He is your firm foundation, the rock!
Let's talk about foundations. Foundations are the chief means of supporting a building, supporting the loads (the weight) of the building. If the building were constructed on surface soil, any movement of the earth might topple the structure. The issue, then, is not how you apply Jesus' words, what you do, but where you "settle" with your life. No act guarantees salvation if it is not based on the foundation of Jesus (Matthew 7:22).7
There are rich implications for everyday life in this insight. Realizing that only Christ can provide your foundation makes living the Christian life, makes living in everyday American life, a lot easier. After all, I never saw a building sweat and agonize about how it is going to withstand the storms of life. If the foundation is firm, it may sway a bit in the wind (especially in the big thunderstorm or the hurricane), but it still stands tall and proud in the midst of the storm. What is the cause of the building's strength? Not the windows, walls, not even the columns and beams get the credit. No matter how strong these parts of a building are, they are not sufficient without the firm foundation. That is why these parts of the building are not what keeps things intact. That is sort of the status that your and my activities and practices have with regard to maintaining ourselves in life. No matter how many grand things you do, no matter how well you apply the teachings of Jesus, no matter how firm your faith and sense of purpose, it all tumbles down if you are not rooted in Jesus. He is the one, then, who gets all the credit! And because the foundation is firm, the other parts of the building do their thing effortlessly, just like our application of Jesus' teachings. Our carrying out and living out our divine purpose comes spontaneously, without much effort. Just like the windows, walls, columns, and beams do not keep the building erect and do not agonize over their tasks, so you and I have been set free from agonizing. Life is a lot less stressful, a lot more fun, when you are rooted and settled, in Christ.
Who gets the credit for this lifestyle? The foundation of course. Commenting on this text, the man who was probably the greatest, most influential theologian of the last century, Karl Barth, has claimed that "... the righteousness which the Sermon [on the Mount] exacts is inseparable from the one who exacts it. It is his righteousness. It does not consist in the greatness and splendor of what man himself achieves ... Everything depends on the fact that the required righteousness does not now consist in a self-assertive grasping a promise, in a self-willed desire to fulfill the law, as though this were an independent law...."8
Yes, Martin Luther was correct: Christians are receivers, not doers. In one of his sermons, a man widely recognized as perhaps the great preacher of the early church, John Chrysostom, wrote: "Wherefore both against our will He befriends us often, and without our knowledge oftener than not."9
This appreciation that we do nothing when it comes to Christ's benevolence to us, that the foundation of your life does all the work, will change your perspective on what you do with the gifts he has given us. It makes you grateful for what you have, not just grateful for the big things but even for the little, seemingly ordinary things you have, like friendship, family love, the food you eat, and the job you have. Again the "golden-mouthed one" John Chrysostom (this is what the Greek word Chrysostom means) said it well. Elsewhere in the sermon we noted, he wrote:
Let us therefore continually give thanks, for our own blessings, and for those of others, alike for the small and for the great. For though the gift be small, it is made great by being God's gift.10
This sort of gratitude will make another difference in your life. Again we turn to the latest scientific research on happiness, on what makes people happy. A University of California psychologist, Sonja Lyumbomirsky, has noted that satisfaction with life is boosted in most people who savor life's joys and count their blessings. This is hardly surprising, since other research on the brain has indicated that the more focused you are on projects and insights greater than you are, the more the pleasurable brain chemicals saturate the brain.11 With a firm foundation (in Christ), life and application is a joy. Even temptations do not shake faith when your faith has the firm foundation in Christ. That's what the great Reformation theologian, John Calvin, said in a commentary on our gospel lesson for today.12 Doing Christ's thing is both natural and joyful when you've got your foundation rooted in him.
Of course, there are still forces which try to pull you away and take away your peace and joy. It is still very possible to be pulled away from this insight, and instead focus on all the impressive activities, like the growing megachurches and the wealth accumulated by or promised to their members, which are said to be happening within certain Prosperity Gospel circles. Contemporary American social trends want to lure you away from where you are planted, providing instead its promises of self-fulfillment and novelty. To cling to a firm foundation seems to make you a "stick-in-the-mud." What is new and fresh and customized to your needs is what attracts us and makes us yearn. America and a lot of its religious convictions teach us that you've got to be flexible and think about what's in your own self-interest, about acquiring or being in the presence of what makes you seem like a winner.13
Martin Luther put it just right one time while explicating today's gospel lesson. It is as if he understood contemporary American dynamics:
I am convinced that if someone were to arise here today and perform just one sign, whole crowds would fall for it. That is how the crazy mob behaves. If someone pulls out something new in front of them and makes them stare, they forsake everything, the Word and God and doctrine, and go gaping after that.14
Those with a foundation in Christ, those caught up in his overwhelming love, are tempted to follow the crowd, to chase after what is novel and sensational. Those with Christ as their foundation do have to struggle, may sway in the wind. But the good news of our gospel lesson for today is that our firm foundation, Christ, will not give way. Take heart, friends, and rejoice. You and I are reminded today of his authority (Matthew 7:29), an authority that will not let you or me go! No matter how strong and turbulent the storms of this life blow, keep in mind the firm foundation of our lives that will not be shaken, will not let all our feeble efforts to apply his insights to become burdensome or to fail. Thank God for our foundation. Whatever purposes we are to have in life cannot ultimately fail when you are rooted in Christ! Amen.
__________
1. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), p. 191.
2. For these observations about the gospel of Matthew I am indebted to Eduard Schweizer, Good News According To Matthew, trans. David E. Green (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), pp. 179-180.
3. Ibid., pp. 178-179.
4. Ibid., pp. 16, 188.
5. Ibid., p. 189.
6. Martin Luther, The Gospel and Christ, Or Jairus' Daughter Raised and the Woman With an Issue of Blood Healed (n.d.), pp. 5-6, The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 3.1, ed. John Nicholas Lenker (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000), pp. 329-330.
7. Op cit, Schweizer, p. 191.
8. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. II/2, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), p. 692.
9. John Chrysostom, Homilies On the Gospel According To St. Matthew (pp. 386-388), XXV. 4, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 10, ed. Philip Schaff (2nd printing; Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), p. 175.
10. Ibid.
11. See page 233, notes 7-8. Also see Sonja Lyumbomirsky, as summarized in Claudia Wallis, "The New Science of Happiness," Time, January 17, 2005, pp. A8-A9.
12. John Calvin, "Commentary On a Harmony of The Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke" (1555), in Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVI.I, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2005), p. 370.
13. For such an analysis of American social dynamics, see my Blessed Are the Cynical: How Original Sin Can Make America a Better Place (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2003), esp. pp. 22-23, 114-115; Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), pp. 55-63, 101-102; Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), esp. pp. 241-245.
14. Martin Luther, Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount (1532/1533), in Luther's Works, Vol. 21, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia, 1956), p. 280.