Built to Last (05June26)

Built to Last
Matthew 7:13-29

Big Idea: If we want to build a house (i.e., a life) that lasts, we enter through the narrow gate of Jesus and do the words of the Jesus.

A few of years ago, when Sakiko and I were looking for a home we smitten by this cute, little house that was over 80 years old, not too far from here. The house was small, but we told were told by our real estate agent that we would have the option down the road of developing the attic—we could add what’s called a dormer… a section with a window that projects out of the sloping part of the roof.

But we discovered through our building inspector that in order for the house to support the extra weight of the dormer, we would have to have to redo the foundation…

We really wanted to buy this home, but our builder said, “A home that requires as much work as this one will take a toll on your marriage. This home is going to damage your ministry.”

We didn’t necessarily want to hear such depressing news because we wanted to buy this cute little house, but in retrospect we’re glad we heeded our building inspector’s words.

Neither Sakiko or I are especially handy or skilled at renovations (the words “easy installation” make me nervous!). Looking back for us that home would have been a big financial and energy drain.

Jesus ends his great Sermon on the Mount with a word of warning about building a house. He ends with warnings that may not be easy to hear, but like the words of our building inspector, they words that will serve us well if we heed them.
The Narrow and Wide Gates
13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
True and False Prophets
15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
True and False Disciples
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 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?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
The Wise and Foolish Builders
24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 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 sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
In the concluding movement of Jesus’ great sermon, he describes 2 people who are building houses (which of course is a metaphor for the building of a life).

A storm comes through with gale force winds and the torrential rains beat against both houses. One house is left standing, but the other collapses.

How do we construct a house, i.e. a life that will stand?

According to Jesus, by building on a rock solid foundation.

What was it about the first house that enabled it to withstand the storm? It was house built on the solid bedrock of Jesus’ words.

In verse 24, we read “Therefore who hears these words of mine and put them into practice…is a like wise a person who built there house on a rock.”

Vs. 24 begins with the word “therefore.” And whenever we read a “therefore” in Scripture, we must ask ourselves what is it there fore and the therefore of verse 24 refers back to the entire Sermon on the Mount, but arguably in particular to the warnings in the immediately preceding sections (vss. 13-23).

Jesus in verses 13, 14 calls us to enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road the 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.

The path that leads to life (the road that leads to a house standing in the end) is one with a small gate and a narrow way and only a few find it.

What Jesus is teaching us is that the way that leads to life will be a kind of minority choice, it’s not going to be the way that most people will follow…

When I get off an airplane and I can’t see a monitor telling me where my baggage is, I just look around and see where everyone else on the flight on seems to be going and I follow the crowd…

What Jesus is saying if you want to enter the gate that leads to real life, don’t follow the crowd, because most are walking through this gate.

Darrell Johnson says that being a follower of Christ means that we are in the middle of the crowd (not on the geographically distant edge), but it means that we are going in the opposite direction of everyone else.

Part of what it means to choose a path that will lead to true life in this life and that will enable us our house to stand at the end of time means that we choose the path of Jesus which happens be going in different direction than the crowd. It means that we live out his teachings how we relate to God, to people, our enemies, our sexual choices, investing our money, how we define success…

Choosing a path will lead to true life in this life and a house standing at the end of time, means we are moving to the music of a different musician. We are moving to score of Jesus Christ.

How do we build a house that will enable us to be left standing in the end?

If we look at the immediately preceding context in the sermon, we see that Jesus says, not everyone who says to me LORD, LORD will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the she or he who does the will father.

Jesus says in this passage that there will be people, who claim to believe in Him, who even say amazing, prophetic things in His name, there will be people who even perform miracles, but who on judgment day of some of these will not be admitted into the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus will say, to some of these (who say to him “Lord, Lord”) “Away from me I never knew you.”

How can this be? If God uses someone isn’t it a sign that that person belongs to God? Not necessarily. It’s possible for God to use people for his purposes that don’t even believe in him. God has spoken through a donkey! God a big wish, white shark, as a kind of submarine. He used an evil nation like Assyria to achieve His purposes. God can use for his purposes anything or anyone he wants to. And just because God uses them that doesn’t mean they belong to him.

Jesus says in vs. 21, NOT everyone who says to me LORD, LORD will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only he or she who does will of my Father.

Some of us who have read what’s often referred to as the New Testament part of the Bible may say, but doesn’t Paul say we are saved by faith, not by our good works? Yes, Paul says that. Are Jesus and Paul preaching different Gospels? Same truth. Different angle and emphasis.

Both Jesus and Paul teach that it is only trusting in Jesus Christ that we made acceptable to God. But when we trust Christ, when we truly believe in Christ, that trust, that belief will be manifest in what we do. What we do reveals what’s in our heart, what we believe.

Let says a woman gets off from work earlier than expected, but instead of calling her husband at home on her cell phone to let her know she’s going to be coming home earlier that evening than expected, she decides she show up and surprise her husband. She quietly opens the front door doesn’t see her husband on main floors goes up stairs, and quietly walks down the hallway and opens and find her husband in a bed with a another woman.

The man says, “Oh honey, you’re home early. This isn’t what it looks like. As hiswife turns walk down the stairs, “he says, honey you know I love you… you know I love more than anyone else in the whole world.”

Maybe so, but in that moment, was not the husband saying he when decided to sleep that that other woman, in that moment was he not saying he loved himself more than his wife?

Ultimately, what we really believe will be revealed in what we do.

So, people will be saved, they enter the Kingdom based on what they believed, i.e., who they trusted, but we will be judged by our works, because what we believe is ultimately manifest in what we do.

In the context, of story of the two houses, it’s clear that both people hear the same sermon Jesus gives, both apparently profess to believe in God, both live in the same neighborhood (we know that because they are affected by same storm), both apparently go to same church, both read the same Bible…

But one actually truly believes in what Jesus teaches because he puts them into practice and the other person evidently professes to believe, but really does not believe because this person does not put the words of Jesus into practice.

The one who truly believes and puts Jesus words into practice is like a person who builds their house on the rock.

The one who does not believe in Jesus’ words enough to put them into practice is like the person who builds his house on the sand.

And sand, as we know is, is inherently unstable. We say no one could really be so stupid as to build on sand! Think again. When I was living in Southern California, I lived close the beach and I remember homes were built not far from our neighborhood on Sandy Cliffs overlooking the ocean. When the faults shifted or tremor hit, some of these lavish homes literally slid off the cliff on the beach below. And even after such disasters many of these people would rebuild their homes on these sandy cliffs.

People build on sand literally and figuratively.

While the sun is shining these people look great, but when the storms and hurricanes come… these people houses’, i.e. lives come down.

If we build our lives on the sand of our youthful beauty or physical strength, we will eventually be brought low.

Like you, I’ve heard for some time now when we turn age 40 we really only turning age 30, but I heard this past week on an infomercial on a nautilus exercise machine that when we turn age 50… we’re really turning age 30. I know chronological age and biological age are different, and we can slow biological age through diet and exercise, but there really will come a time when hit do 40 (biologically) and then 50 and maybe 60 and perhaps 80…. And if the foundation of our life is our physical beauty or virility and it’s going shift under us suddenly or slowly over time through erosion, we’ll going come down hard.

If our life is built on Christ and when lose these things, we’ll be experience disappointment, but we will not go down because we’re building on a solid foundation.

If our life is built on money… In the storm, we’re going to go down…

Earlier this month, our staff went our annual staff retreat. As part of our staff retreat, each of us shared our family genograms… As I was doing research on our family tree I discovered there are people in our family tree who have come into great wealth and lost it--like in a movie… it was a reminder of how unstable money as foundation can be. There are people in our family tree who seem have more money than they could spend in one life time, but that has not enabled them to buy healthy marriages, happy homes, and for some money has been a significant impediment in their relationship to God. They tend to feel little or no need for God.

A life built on money is not only build a foundation of sand, but that foundation can also keep from a building a priceless, eternal treasure.

If our life is built on money, and we lose it we’ll be devastated

If life is built on Christ and we lose our money, we’ll grieve, but we will stand…

If our life is built on our talent or productivity, we’re liable to be cut down in a storm.

A number of people know this so people and they’ve so ensured themselves. People like Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart have $6 million policy on their voices and the chief taster for Dreyer's Ice Cream has also insured his tasting ability, in the amount of $1 million.
If our life is built on our talent or ability to do something and we lose that talent, we’ll be crushed…
A very gifted pastor I know of had a brother who was also a pastor who was even more gifted that he. One day his brother through an accident became paralyzed and ended up taking his life.
If our life is built more on our ability to do something for God, more than God, it that’s taken we’ll be crushed…
If it’s built on Christ and we lose our ability to do something, we’ll mourn that loss deeply, but we will left standing.
So how do we do we know whether we’re building on Christ and His word or something else?

According to vs. 24, we know by whether we are in fact putting Jesus words into practice, according to verse 21 we know if we are doing the will of the father.

So we must ask ourselves are we (or are we becoming) the kind of people who puts Christ’s words into practice?

The questions is not are we hearing Christ’s word, but are we doing it?

Dale Bruner says, “The house that crashes is the house of Christians who find Jesus’ words important enough to listen to, but not realistic enough to live.”

A Christian friend of mine once, said I’m busy and I think it is important to pray, but I really I don’t have time to pray. But the fact is as I look at my life, I exercise about hour almost everyday. I thought I believed pray was important, but maybe I don’t.
Because I if really believe that, I’d pray, I’d make time.

Sometimes there’s a gap between our professed beliefs and what we really believe and the way we understand what really believe is by what we do. Dallas Willard we also act in a way that consistent with our beliefs, not necessarily our professed beliefs.

If we were to take an audit of our actual lives, could we say we living out or becoming people kind that Christ describes in his sermon. Do we relate to God humbly, in so far as we can are we seeking peace with people, are honoring Christ teaching about sex and marriage, our keeping our word, are we dealing with our enemies lovingly, are giving generously without needing applause, are we praying, fasting (saying not to say yes to God, are we investing our wealth with God in heaven, are about worrying less and seeking the Kingdom more, are we resisting to judge others condemning in a self-righteous way?

Because what we do reveals, what we believe, what our foundation is.

Last summer, during my study leave, I was thinking preaching the sermon on the Mount this coming year, I heard about a couple of people in community this who have memorized. I thought if they could do it and they older than me, I think I could do it. I thought if kids can memorize the Koran, I can memorize Sermon on Mount… I did. Then over the year, I forgot a bunch of it. But summer’s here and summer a good time to review memorize…I want to encourage you to consider memorizing it (you say I don’t get study job) ok or part of it… and then… Do it. Just Do it.

Tony Evans is an African American minister. He said when he was a boy his dad bought him a balloon boxing bag.

He said, he’d hit it “boom” and it would hit the floor “boom, boom” it would go

“Bam, boom, and bounce” back “ping.”

“Boom, boom, boom”… “Boom, boom, boom… ping.”

One time he kicked it “Wap, wap… wap…wap ping.”

It kept coming back because at the bottom of the bag was a weight, at the foundation, that was heavier than the rest of the bag, so the weight at the bottom determined wear the bag would finally wound up.

When the storms of time go bam, if the weight of Christ is at our foundation we will keeping come back “ping.” When satan and darkness try to take us down and the go wap, we’ll bounce back, “ping…” When high water and hell go wap, wap, wap… we’ll bam, bam, bam. ping…”

Because the woman or man who builds their house on the rock of Jesus Christ who find themselves standing in the end!

Prayer:

Are you building your house on the sand or the rock?

The way you tell is by looking at whether you are putting into practice the words of Jesus.

There’s a old song which we won’t sing, but it goes, “LORD, I want to be in that number when Saints go marching.” Perhaps you want to pray that you will be in the number of people build their house in a way that will stand in this life and the life to come.

Judging Others(05-6-19)

Judging Others
Matthew 7:1-12
Big Idea: Judge others in the way you want to be judged…

I know someone who trains professional athletes and I recently asked him how he helps an athlete perform at his or her best during a crucial moment in the game.

How do you prepare a professional baseball player to rise to the occasion when the game is on the line? It’s game 7 of the World Series with 2 out, the bases are loaded and your team is down by 3 runs. And you step up to the plate.

How do you help that athlete with all that pressure come through in the clutch rather than choke?

Quoting a famous boxer this coach said, “Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. It can cook for you; it can heat your house. Or it can burn everything around you and destroy you."

Judgment is also like fire, in that it can be extremely beneficial or extremely damaging.

A father or mother, who exercise good judgment can their bless children. A manager who exercises good judgment can bless her company. But on the other hand, an inappropriate judgment by a parent, a manager or by a person in some other role can be very damaging.

Jesus recognizes this and so he warns against judging in a particular kind of way in Matthew 7. If you have your Bibles please turn to Matthew 7
Matthew 7:1-12
Judging Others
1"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
6"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.
Ask, Seek, Knock
7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
9"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
In verse, 12 we read the word “So” or as translated more in the more literal New American Version “therefore” do to others what you would want them to do for you (this is sometimes called the “golden rule”). Whenever you see a therefore in Scripture you must ask yourself what is it “there for”?

The “So” or the “Therefore” of vs. 12 refers back to verses 1-11 in his chapter. In verse 1-11 Jesus talks about judging others, and prayer.

Jesus says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Jesus is saying if we read our passage in the larger context, when it comes to judging others, ask yourself how you would want people to judge you, then take the initiative and judge others in the way you would want to judged. In your judging of others apply the golden rule.

Jesus words here about judging are among the most often quoted in the Bible, but some of the least understood.

In the context, when Jesus says “Do not judge,” it’s clear that he is NOT saying it’s always wrong to judge.
Right after this verse, Jesus speaks about removing a speck from a sister or brother’s eye. This involves judgment. Later in the passage Jesus speaks about not throwing pearls to pigs… What he seems to be teaching is that we are NOT to indiscriminately offer the treasures of Christ to a person who may stomp all over them… In order to follow these words we must exercise judgment…
As I mentioned earlier, in life we need to exercise judgment. If you have some kind of leadership role in the home or at work, if you vote in an election, if you serve on a jury, you will be involved in making judgments.

Jesus in this passage is not categorically condemning judging.

What Jesus does prohibit here is a judgmentalism that “writes someone else off.”

Why is it wrong to write someone else off?

It’s wrong to “write someone off” because when we do we presume to be in the place of God who alone knows all and therefore who alone can judge in an absolute way.

We never have all the information so we are never in a place where we can completely write someone off.
Steven Covey tells of riding the subway on a Sunday morning. Then a father and his children got on the subway. The youngsters were yelling back and forth, throwing things, grabbing people's newspapers. The father sat there and did nothing.
Covey says, "I could not believe he could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild and do nothing about it.
"Sir," Covey asked, summoning his nerve, "your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?" The dazed father looked out of it, but he snapped to attention. "Oh, yeah, you're right," he said softly. “They're usually not like this. We just came from the hospital where their mother died an hour ago. I for one don't know what to think, and I suppose they are not doing much better handling it."
The old native proverb says, Don't judge anyone unless you've walked in their moccasins one moon.

Realizing we don’t see the full picture should make us slow to judge and humble in our judgment.

If we ask our self how would we want people to judge us, we would say we would want them to have as much of the picture as possible. We are to apply the golden to rule to our judgment and judge in the way we would want to be judged.

Jesus also warns us not to write people off because the measure with which we judge others will be the measure with which we ourselves are judged.

In vs. 2 Jesus says, 2For the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

In another parable about an unmerciful servant, Jesus suggests that the standard with which we judge others will be the standard by which we are selves our judged on judgment day.

In what we call the Lord prayer, Jesus seems to say that if we are not willing to be merciful to others, we ourselves should not presume that God will be merciful to us.

We are to refrain from hyper-critical judgmentalism because we don’t see the whole picture and we are show mercy because in the way in which we judge others is the way in which we will be judged.

If we asked our self how we would want people to judge us, we would say we would want to them have as much of the picture as possible before judging us and that would them to be merciful. We are to apply the golden to rule to our judgment and judge in the way we would want to be judged.

In verse 3 Jesus says, 3"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your sister or brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
Eugene Peterson, says “It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the sneer on your own.”
We tend to “over blow” the faults of another person, while we “under blow” the size our own.
Dale Bruner calls this the “the law of critical gravity,” which causes us to judge in our favor.
There are certainly people with extremely sensitive consciences who tend to be more conscious of their own faults, than the faults of others, but generally speaking we, myself included, tend to magnify the faults of others and minimize our own.
We have the infinite capacity for rationalizing our own behavior.
The person involved in an affair may rationalize saying it’s not like I’m paying for sex. The person who drinks heavily may say at least I am not doing Crystal meth. The person who steals a cable, may watch a news channel on their newly stolen cable channel… and say in disgust “Those guys involved in the sponsorship scandal were stealing my tax dollars…”
We tend to compare ourselves with those whose sins are different from ours and worse than ours.
There were 2 brothers Joe and Harry who were involved in a life of crime. One day one Joe suddenly died and Harry went to a priest and said would you do my brother’s funeral? And please describe him as a saint. During the funeral the priest said Joe was a criminal, he was arrogant, he was a thief, he cheated on his wife, but compared to his brother Harry here, he was a saint!
When it comes to our faults, we tend to compare ourselves with people beside whom we look at lot better.
Jesus seems to be teaching that in order to be able to judge someone else we must be willing to recognize our own sin, i.e. the log in our eye so as to be able to remove the speck from someone else’s eye.
The heroic German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s in Life Together writes,
If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all. My sin is of necessity the worst, the most grievous, the most reprehensible. Brotherly love will find any number of extenuations for the sins of others; only for my sin is there no apology whatsoever. Therefore my sin is the worst.
When we see our sin as being the worst as far as we are concerned, it will engender in us a healthy humility and grace toward others so that we are able to help others.
Alexandr Whyte was a godly, gifted, and esteemed preacher in Edinburgh, Scotland… back in the 1800s.
There was a bombastic American evangelist preaching in the area and he was highly critical of the Christianity of Scotland.
And as an assistant told Alexandr Whyte that they American evangelist was saying that churches of Scotland had fallen into disfavor with God because of their pride, luke warmness and grevious sins, Whyte became indignant and began to pace in his office.
And the assistant and said, “It gets worse, the evangelist is questioning whether such a minister (whom he named) was saved and whether such a such minister (whom he named) had a relationship with God and whether such and such a minister (whom he named) had the Holy Spirit.”
As Whyte heard about a number of local ministers whom he personally knew, being attacked liked this, his became visibly angry and slammed his fist to this desk and said “How dare he say those things!”
The assistant them said halting, “Dr. Whyte… I haven’t told worst yet… the American evangelist, has questioned whether you are really saved or not.”
At that Dr. Whyte became still and sat on in chair… and turned to his assistant and said quietly, “Would you please excuse me, I need some time to examine the condition of my own heart.”
Sometimes accusations come at us from left field and there is a healthy kind of differentiation where we say this is not true of me.
But there is also value in saying is there a kernel of truth in this criticism here that I must pay attention to?
As a minister and as a private individual, I have faced some withering attacks and in a many cases, I’ve learned from those attacks something I needed to know and work on.
So, in a strange way, I am grateful for those attacks, in some cases they’ve been part of my necessary education, i.e., tuition free, and helped me, I hope, to take some planks out of my eye.
If we asked our self how would we want people to judge us, we would say would want people to know the larger picture, be merciful, and first judge themselves before judging us. We are to apply the golden to rule to our judgment and judge in the way we would want to be judged.
To those inclined to hastily judging others, Jesus says.
5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
He tells to take the log out of our eye in this passage, but Jesus doesn’t categorically prohibit judging….
He simply says before we judge we are to take time to soberly judge our self. As we remove, the log from our eye we will be able to clearly remove the speck from your brothers’ eye.
Sometimes there are things we need to say to someone we believe would be helpful for them… but we just “let it go” (and don’t say anything).
Recently I felt like I had to saying something to someone.
I have connection to foundation that helps give funding to young emerging leaders.
There was a young leader who communicated seemed to communicate with me only when he wanted to get funding. When I tried a get a response from him on other things, it was very difficult to get any kind of response.
Without sharing his name, I was talking about this situation to a friend.
He said, it’s easier to “let it go,” but “You may be depriving him of wisdom.”
So, I communicated with this young, emerging leader and affirmed him, but also said the way you tend to communicate make you come across as self-centered and that I think this will hurt you in the future, he wrote back and said…
Thank you for your words of exhortation. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." And though it hurts to hear your words…. I truly appreciate your willingness to speak boldly into my life--I need people like you! I have made a commitment to the Lord to work on this area and I make the same commitment to you.
Thank you, my brother, for "as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another".
He’s changed his ways.
If we asked ourself how you would we want people to judge us, we would say we would want people to judge themselves first.
The text goes on to talk about asking, seeking, knocking.
Darrell Johnson helped me to see that the context of Jesus encouragement to ask, seek, and knock follows in this passage on judging.
Darrell points out that while this passage is a kind of open encouragement to pray, but there seems to be a special application in praying for those we are inclined to judge.
While a student, I was active in student government role… There was a very hostile person on student council member who was a really radical feminist… she was very angry and hostile and her life seemed to be defined what she stood against more than what she stood for. At times she was highly critical of her fellow student leaders.
A friend mine said, you need to pray for people who oppose you. When you pray for someone, it’s hard to dislike the person, in fact you come to love that person.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says in Life Together the most significant thing we can do for another is pray for them. He writes:
A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others.

If we asked our self how would we want people to judge us, we would say we would want to get a much information as possible, to be merciful, to judge themselves first, and to pray for us. We are to apply the golden to rule to our judgment and judge in the way we would want to be judged.

If we applied the golden to rule to our judging our relationships would change and if we did collectively our world would a completely different.

This is so obvious that is sounds banal. But for all of our accomplishment in other areas of life we have not been able to live out the golden rule. And we cannot act like this on our own.
Douglas Coupland the well known North Vancouver author of Generation X in his book Life After God concludes:
My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.

It is as we realize we need God and turn to his son Jesus Christ who perfectly embodies the Sermon the Mount, that we can become people who love others we would want them to love us…


Silent Prayer…

Benediction: May you receive the love of God and may God himself sanctify you through and through… may your whole mind, soul, and body be made blameless until the day you see Christ face to face, faithful is he who called you and He also will do it.

Antidote to Anxiety (05-06-12)

Antidote to Anxiety Ken Shigematsu
Big Idea: When we know that God provides, we can be free from fear and free to seek his Kingdom first.
Long after finishing school, I had this recurring dream—I mean nightmare that I was back in school. I had forgotten to attend math class or French class all semester long, it’s now too deep into the term to drop the course, and I have a major exam to write.
Do you have anxieties? Anxieties about school or work or relationships or money?
According to a recent Ipsos-Reid poll most Canadians do NOT believe they will have enough funds to cover their expenses if they became ill and unable to work.
Do you worry about health or perhaps some trouble half-way around the world?
If so, you’re in good company. TIME magazine has said anxiety is the most prevailing quality of modern culture.
Not all anxiety, of course, is bad. Recently a 27-year-old woman working on a re-forestation project north of Fort Nelson was mauled by a black bear. She’s been recovering in an Edmonton hospital, with bites to her scalp, ear and legs. She says adrenalin helped her to survive.

Anxiety can trigger the adrenalin we need to either “fight or flight.”

But a lot of anxiety can be damaging. As we know anxiety can produce ulcers and can make us more vulnerable to all kind of illnesses.

Most of our anxiety is likely unhealthy and useless.

I heard of someone who disagrees. Wally Morgan says, “Don’t tell me worry is useless. When I worry about something, the thing I worry about almost never happens.”
In our text today in the Sermon on the Mount we’re going to look at what Jesus says about dealing with anxiety.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Matthew 6:19
(I want to say that if you have Panic Anxiety Disorder or if your body is not releasing enough natural tranquilizers like Cortisone or Cortisol, it may be that you need to not only pray, but see your doctor. There’s no shame in that.)
Treasures in Heaven
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[a]?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
In verse 25 we read the word, “Therefore.” Whenever you see a “therefore” in Scripture you must ask yourself what is it there for? What is it referring back to?

In the preceding context, we see that Jesus is talking about 3 things. He talks about treasure, vision, and masters (Last Sunday I spoke on Treasure and Money and you can pick up the tape or cd). All these things tie in directly to Jesus’ words on worry and anxiety in vss 25 to the end of the chapter 6.

Jesus encourages us (in vss 19-21) not to focus on hoarding up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

People often seek to accumulate worldly riches in order to create security for themselves.

But the irony is the more we invest in things that we think will create safety for us, the more we tend to experience anxiety.

We buy a stock (which also interesting called a security) and we become anxious about the performance of the company we’re investing in; we buy a computer and we hope it’s not a lemon so we fork out money for an extended warranty or for an on site service option, we buy a home and then we buy home insurance for it and we buy a security system or a big dog in order to secure our things.

We think that having things will provide us with a certain level of security, but the more things we have the more we have to be anxious about.

But, if our primary treasure is not on earth but in heaven, because we have invested in heaven, in God, in people… in things that will last forever, we will have the peace comes having a treasure that can never be taken from us.

2nd Jesus speaks in the preceding text about vision.

If our focus is on material things and the passing treasures of this world Jesus (in vss 22-23) says that our eye, like a blind person’s, will not be able to take in light, we lose our perspective AND as result of the that we will experience anxiety.

If our life is built on a passing treasure whether it’s money, our career, our physical beauty and we lose things, we’ll experience great anxiety…

If our treasure is the Lord and we lose our money, our career, our physical beauty… we’ll experience sadness, but we won’t experience debilitating anxiety, because we know that in our Lord, we have a treasure that is better and longer lasting than anything on earth.

Third, Jesus speaks about having the right master: God, not money. Often people will seek to make money because they think that money will serve them and will set them free hopefully before age 65. So people talk about “Freedom (at) 55”… “Freedom (at) 45.” But what often ends up happening is that people who are focused on money end up not being free at all. They become slaves to money.

There’s a relatively new term called “Affluenza” which describes a person who is sick because they are addicted to making money…

Sam Walton’s wife, Helen, kept saying to her husband we’re making a good living, how many more stores do we need? Why keep expanding, the Wal-Marts are getting further and further away. She said after the 17th store, “I couldn’t stop him.” Affluenza.

John D. Rockefellor was asked how much money it would to take to a make a person happy, “Just a little bit more” he said. Affluenza.

If money is our master we will be driven and anxious.

But if our master is God, we will be at peace.

Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Jesus is arguing here from the lesser to the greater… He argues that if God cares for relatively small things like birds and grass, will he not also take care of us? If his eye is on the sparrow, you can know he watches us.

This aspect of God’s character that provides is called providence…

But God like a very loving human being may provide does people in general, there is a special sense in which God provides for those who turn him as their father.

There is someone I know who in the last couple of years has been turning his life toward God…

This person is a gifted writer for magazines.

As result of the being in the “wrong place and at wrong time” the person ended up spending time in prison as a crime suspect.

He told me about how his reading glasses got picked with the laundry in prison. That prison had over 500 inmates and a lot of sheets, clothes etc. He was told, “Give up hope of ever seeing them again.” But, getting a new pair of glasses in prison could take quite a long time. As a professional writer and as someone who was reading a book every two days and so this was no small dilemma.

He prayed that his glasses would be returned and the very next day they were, in perfect condition as well. The guard on duty said, “You I must be doing something right as that has never happened before.”
Back in the 90’s in response to invitation from a local government in Actau, Kazakhstan, I went there to I gave a series of lectures to public teachers on teaching ethics in a post-communist era. I used the 10 commandments as my starting point.
At end of my closing lecture, I said it’s important to have a knowledge of ethics, but the more important issue is whether you have the will to do the right thing. I said in my own life having a personal through Jesus Christ has given me the will to choose to the right thing…
If you would like to pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and my Lord Jesus Christ, I want to give you that in the opportunity now to speak to pray to him in the silence of your heart.
A few people prayed to receive Christ.
We were in this desert region, when you turned on the facet, all you would get was a few drops of what look apricot juice: rusty water.
One of the women who prayed to receive Christ, then prayed that God would give her running water… She went home turned on the tap and out came crystal clear water…. She checked with her neighbors in her apartment who were on the same water pipe system and they said, said weren’t don’t have any water, just a little bit of wet rust.
This was an early indicator for this woman that God provides.
Eugene Peterson in his book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction says… that
The Christian life is going to God. In going to God, Christians travel the same ground that everyone else walks on, breath the same air, drink the same water, shop in the same stores, read the same newspapers, are citizens under the same government, pay the same prices for groceries and gasoline, fear the same dangers, are subject to the same pressures, get the same distresses, are buried in the same ground.
The difference is that each step we walk, each breath we breathe, we know we are preserved by God, we know we are accompanied by God, we know we are ruled by God.
If this is the case… then our lives don’t need to be consumed with worldly building security, the stuff we eat and drink… the treasures of this world…

Jesus says, 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

When we know that God is watching over us and will provide for our needs, we don’t need to be consumed with our security, with accumulating temporal treasures… we can use the energy that would otherwise be directed to these things on focusing on God and his work and his reign in the world…

Jesus said, “Seek First the Kingdom of God and His righteousness…”

Between undergrad and seminary I remember being interviewed by SONY in Tokyo.

I remember walking going up a high rise at Sony Building in Ginza, Tokyo. Walking into the board room with a long board room table and 3 men other side and a secretary sitting quite a ways down to take notes.

I was intimidated.

At one point in the interview, the manager in the middle (the big guy, square jaw, and gruff voice) asked, “If we were to hire you, would stay long term?”

I said, “If I was hired by you I’d be very committed for that time period, but I’m hoping to go into ministry one day.”

“So which branch of the government are you hoping to work, finance, trade and industry?”

“I’m a Christian, I am hoping very one day become the minister of a church.”

The manager in the middle, furrowed his brow, and asked “WHY?”

It got really tense.

I said, I think becoming a minister would be the best way for me to use my gifts in serving the world.

That’s all I could think of at the time. Later I thought… the reason I want to go into ministry is because I so want my life to be invested in things that will last forever.

For me personally the best way would be through vocational ministry. But through you the best way to invest in eternal things may be through the marketplace (I loved working for Sony and had opportunities to reach out to business and government leader that are not as readily accessible as a minister of local church). God may you to invest in eternal things in the marketplace, medicine, or education, or on the construction site, tour guide, or as a homemaker or an as artist or a pray-er.

If you are follower of Jesus, the question is not will you invest your life in eternal things, in things of God, but where and how?

Because when you are called to be a follow Jesus Christ you are called to invest not in things that will last on into eternity.

You’re called to live for a better and longer lasting treasure.

You are called to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Jesus says when you do this, you will be provided for.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added to you as well.

Jesus says “If you serve me in the Living room of your life, I will make sure that there is a steady supply coming for in you’re through the kitchen of your life.

I know that is true. The first ministry job in ministry I took out of seminary paid $200 per month. Yeah, those were US dollars, but trust me $200 even if you adjust for the exchange rate and inflation was not a lot. But God always provided that I needed and more.

Some day hike through some B.C. see how God feeds the birds and paints the wild flowers… and let these preach on how God provides.

The irony is if we seek the first the world, we get neither God nor the world in the end. We may well get affuenza or one of it’s cousins be spiritually sick and we will die and we will lose everything.

We seek God first, we get God and we get the world thrown in too, we what get what we need in this life and become inheritors of the new heaven and a new earth.

Queen Elizabeth not the current one but the 1st Queen Elizabeth was looking for a skilled navigator to explore what was then considered the “new world.” She hired the equivalent of what we would call a head-hunter, a recruiter and he came upwith the name of one person who seemed head and shoulders above the other candidates in terms of navigational skill.

The Queen and said, I need your navigational skills to explore the new world. I want you to lead an expedition for me.”

The man said, “Your majesty, God knows I love my country, but I a man who’s married with several children and I just started a new business. If go out to sea now, my new business will flounder and my family will suffer.

The queen said, “If shall you take care of my business, I’ll take shall take of yours.”

That’s a great deal.

And God is saying “If you take of my business, I’ll take of yours.”

I don’t know about you, but I want to live that way…

Pray.

Let’s take time to pray and respond to the Holy Spirit’s work in us.

Sernon (05-6-5)

Treasure and Money by Ken Shigematsu
Big Idea: How do we become wise investors? 1) by realizing the superiority of heavenly investments (better and longer lasting 2) by realizing that heavenly investments shape the heart 3) by having the right vision and 4) by having the right master.
As a young child, once in a while I would fantasize about finding a very, very old map, which I imagined to be yellowed with time and cracked in certain places because of it’s age…
I envisioned that this map that would lead me to chest of treasure filled gold coins, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, deposited by pirates year ago…
I don’t think about finding that ancient map anymore, but I still think about treasure from time to time…
You probably do to.
It may or not be a financial treasure, but we’re thinking about some kind of treasure.
Perhaps the treasure you’re hoping to find treasure through your education, through a career, through a relationship, through an object, through some kind of service…
Jesus is considered most spiritually and morally exemplary person whose ever lived, but he’s best treasure guide of all time (He’s always out top performing investment mangers at companies like Templeton and Merrill Lynch!).
Today as continue to make our way through the Sermon the Mount we come to Matthew 6:19 where Jesus shows us how we become people who discover true wealth.
Treasures in Heaven
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Jesus in this passage is not denying our desire to accumulate treasure.

He’s simply elevating it.

He realizes that it’s not so much that we are too ambitious--it’s that we’re not ambitious enough.

He argues that we tend to aim to too low. We tend to set our sights on treasures that will fade and perish…

He argues none of our “earthly” investments are secure or lasting….

In Jesus day people would accrue wealth by collecting fine garments, by hoarding grain, or through accumulating gold. He pointed out that none of these investments were truly secure. After all, our garments could make a tasty lunch for a moth, grain could be eaten by mice, and a thief could cut a hole in your clay house break and steal our gold.

Jesus says, “"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”

Jesus would argue today that no earthly treasure is truly secure or lasting. Our stuff can be stolen (as many of us who live in Vancouver know first hand), our investments can be diminished through a market downturn or eroded by inflation, or completely taken way through death…

So, Jesus says aim higher…

19"Don't hoard treasure down here corroded by the ravages of nature, time or stolen by burglars or by death itself… but store treasure in heaven.
There was a man who worked all his life and saved as much as he could. He loved money. It was his security, meaging, and happiness.
Just before he died, he said to his wife, "When I die, I want you to take all my money and put it in the casket with me. If there is an afterlife, I want to take my money with me." His wife promised she’d fulfill the last wish her dying husband.
At his funeral, just before the undertakers closed the casket, his wife put a box in the casket. The undertakers shut the casket and rolled it away.
The wife's friend and confidant whispered to her, "You didn’t… tell me you didn’t put all that money in there with that man."
I promised him I would put that money in the casket with him."
"You mean to tell me you put that money in the casket with him?" her friend asked!
“Well, I wrote him a check."
You can’t take your treasure with you… but you can send on ahead.

I remembering at College Church in Wheaton Illinois, hearing about someone who was having a “garage sale” but not selling off not junk, but these very valuable antiques… Someone asked the owners, why are selling these beautiful antiques? The owners, said we heard about a mission in great financial need and we want to able to contribute more than we are, so we’re selling stuff we cannot keep, for invest in a cause that will last forever…

These couples understand Jesus words about not hoarding treasure on earth that moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal… but storing treasure in heaven…

Jesus is not denying our need to accumulate treasure, he’s simply saying aim higher, much higher, aim for heaven.

In the context of the chapter it seems that some of the ways we can accumulate treasure in heaven is by giving, praying, saying no to something to say YES to God (which is the essence of fasting). We can also accumulate treasure in heaven by becoming a certain kind of person, serving, investing in people, helping people into a relationship with God.

As a new Christian, I remember seeing a plaque that read:

"Only one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last…"

You want to be a wise investor, think beyond the next quarter, way beyond that quarter… think about eternity.

You want to be wise investor…

Understand that your investments shape your heart.

Jesus said where your treasure is there your heart will be also.

He did not say, “Where you heart is there you treasure will be also.”

Jesus teaches her that our heart follows our treasure (not vice-verse).

When we invest in heaven, the things which matter to God, our heart follows.

Investing in heaven, investing in the things of God, is not only eternally secure, but this also reshapes our heart.

When we invest something like a stock, a car, a home or whatever part of our heart goes there. You buy a stock suddenly concerned about the performance of the company (you don’t check every stock in the paper, but you check yours), you buy a Honda Civic, suddenly you’re noticing Honda Civics (even if you’re Japanese, but you’re kind of into Civics), you buy a home, suddenly your interested in real estate values in your neighborhood. As we invest our heart develops a corresponding interest and attachment, the more we invest the more we tend to become attached.

The writer Samuel Johnson was invited a tour a mansion of magnificent beauty, surrounded by manicured lawns.

Late he quipped to a friend, “A place like this makes it difficult to die.”

The more we build up here, the more our hearts will be here, and the more difficult it is to walk away in life or in death.

I don’t about you, I want my heart to be more set on God, on people, on things that will last on into eternity than things.

Part of the way, we set our hearts on eternity and part of the way we have peace is by investing in things of God: giving, praying, saying no to say yes to God, becoming, serving, investing in people, helping people find God.

How do we become wise investors by understanding that investments in heaven are superior (better and much longer lasting!), by understanding that investments on earth and heaven shape our hearts and third by having the right kind of vision.
In vs. 22 Jesus speak about vision "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
Sounds complicated, but the point here is quite simple. If our eye is working properly, it will let in light and we can see properly. But if our eye is not working properly we light will not be able to come into our body properly and it will seem like everything is dark.

The movie “Ray” is as you know about the famous singer Ray Charles. He’s blind. One very early in his career, he’s cooking friend chicken in the dark and his landlady comes home in a says, “How many time I told not to cook in the dark!” Ray says, “Lights on, lights off it always dark to me.”

If our eye is not working properly everything will seem dark to us.

If we focus on material treasures, Jesus is teaching that will have a dark or blurred perspective.

If our focus on material things, our perspective will be darkened. How so? We’ll tend to believe that it’s more important to choose a career based on income earning potential than based on what we can contribute to the common good, we’ll tend to think that money is our real security.

There were a couple of young women studying at a college who gave their lives to Christ. The they really felt God calling them to become missionaries. When they told their parents… both sets of parents said “Oh no… before you become missionaries, you must get some your master’s degrees, have had a few secure jobs so you can put something in our resume get started in careers, and have money in the bank.”

They went to one of their Christian professors Dr. Addison Leech they and explained their parents had said. What should we say to he parents? He said you should say… we live on this little ball of rock that is spinning through space called earth and it only the grace of God that’s holding us in orbit. At the end our lives, a trap door will open under us. When that trap door opens up, there will either the everlasting arms of God or nothing at all. And you think a master’s degree or some job will provide with security?

Jesus if we focus on material things our vision will be darkened, but if we focus on God and on eternity we will have the right kind of perspective.

If you want to be a wise investor, understand securities in heaven are superior to securities on earth, understand where you invest shapes your heart, have an eternal perspective, and finally have the right master.
Jesus says in verse 24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
Jesus does not say it’s unwise to have two masters or that’s we shouldn’t have two masters, he saying it’s IMPOSSIBLE to have two masters.

It’s possible to have two employees, it’s not possible to have 2 masters, i.e. two parties who demand complete allegiance, and God and money which require complete allegiance.

How would we know whether money is our master?

Most of us don’t think we have a problem with money, but Jesus talks money all the time. He warns us to be aware of the snare of greed.

If those words about greed were relevant in a society where most people were just barely getting by, just eking out a subsistence existence, living not even cheque to cheque, but to day to day, how much more relevant are these words for those us living in one of the most wealthy countries on earth? But materialism and greed can be so subtle and hard to detect.

With some sins are obvious if you’re doing them… if you’re commiting adultery, it not like you say, “oh you’re not wife!” “Oopps you’re not my husband!”

But materialism and greed are much more subtle.

We can often tend to figure, we’re not greedy or materialistic because we all know people or of people who are making 10 times what we’re making. So compared to them, we’re not extravagant or materialistic or into money at all, we think…

May I ask us, myself included, some questions, that might helps us determine whether money is too important to us.

1) How do you view the poor? Do you tend look down on people who are in a lower-socio-economic bracket than you?

Do you not only regard people who are of lower socio-economic bracket as below you economically, but somehow below you.

Do you feel superior to poor people?

If so, could it be that money is too important?

2) How do you view the rich? When we walk into a beautiful home… are we awestruck? Are we wowed when we great displays of wealth… or are we intimidated? If so, could be it be that money too important?

Or do we disdain people who are really wealthy? Could it be that if it’s money causing much or reaction, money is too important to us?

3) How do you view God’s call give? Here I want to speak in particular to those of you who consider yourselves to be in some kind of relationship with God. Does God’s call to give the tithe, i.e., at least 10 percent of our income away bother you? The Bible teaches in Malachi 3 that the first 10th of our income is not ours, but God’s. In response to this truth, does your heart say, I thank God I can make money and giving is a privilege. The first tenth represents a sacrifice in my lifestyle, but this is the right thing to do.

Or in your heart do your resist the call, do you resent it…the call to give God what is rightfully his?

If there’s resistance… could it be that money is too important? Or that you’re putting your trust in it for your happiness, meaning, or security? Could that money, not God, is your functional God?

How can we become people who know that God is our master and our treasure?

By realizing that we are God’s treasure? How do we know that?

We know what a person’s treasure by seeing what a person is willing to give their life for.

If we see that a person giving up their life or their career or some kind of success or some person, we know that which they are giving up their lives for is what they treasure.

When we look at the cross do what we see is God who is saying, I treasure you so much that I became a human being and to die on the cross to pay debt for your sins so that we can be reunited.

When understand we are God’s treasure, it not a far step for God to become our treasure and our master.

How do we become wise investors of the only life we have? By realizing that heavenly investments better and longer lasting than earthly treasures, by realizing they shape our heart, by having an eternal vision and by having God as our master…

Pray… What is our treasure? What do we want our treasure to be?

On the night before Jesus Christ went to the cross, he gave a little picture of just how much he treasures… he took and broke it…

You’re his treasure? Is God yours?

As you know you’re his treasure, make God your treasure…