"You’ve Got To Stand for Something or You’ll Fall for Anything"
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Matthew 7:24 - 27
November 15, 2009

If you’re like me, you incorporate sayings into your life that may not originate from within your own mind.  Maybe you’ve incorporated into your list of things to say, some things you’ve heard other people say before.  Here are some I’ve heard other people say:
From a church billboard –
“Don’t wait for 6 strong men to take you to church…and back out again…Feet First…”
“Do we give God what’s right or what’s left?”
“If we pause to think, We’ll have cause to thank”
From my father during my high school years –
“I don’t care how big a man your friends think you are Saturday night, you’re never too big a man NOT to get up at worship God on Sunday morning.”
From my grandmother in her nineties as a general commentary about the state of things in this world –
“What the heck you gonna do?”
From singer/songwriter Aaron Tippin –
“You’ve Got to Stand for Something…Or You’ll Fall for Anything”

Our Savior gave us some pretty good sayings too.
Many of them come during his Sermon on the Mount.
And his Sermon on the Mount came as a result of something every rabbi was expected to be able to do.

You see, every rabbi was expected to give a commentary on the law.
And as a rabbi, Jesus was also expected to give such commentary.
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus does so in the Sermon on the Mount – chapters 5, 6, and 7 are Jesus’ commentary on the law.

The Talmud – meaning “instruction or learning” from the root “teach, study” – is a collection of ancient rabbinic writings on Jewish law and tradition (the Mishna and the Gemara).  The Talmud constitutes the basis of religious authority in Orthodox Judaism.  The Talmud is commentary on the law.
The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea around the Qumran Wadi, consists of about 900 documents, includes some of the only known surviving copies of Biblical documents made before 100 BCE, texts from the Hebrew Bible are found within the Dead Sea Scrolls – in fact, a large part of the Dead Sea Scrolls are commentary on the law.

The people in Jesus’ day expected our Lord to do that, and he did so in the Sermon on the Mount.

He begins his sermon with word “blessing” – the very same way the great law song (Psalm 1) begins, “Happy [‘the happiness of’…‘o how happy’…‘blessed’] are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked…their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.”  (vss. 1, 2)
So Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount – his commentary on the law – with the word “blessed” and then goes on to note nine blessings, we call those nine blessings the beatitudes –
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” 
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

And then Jesus makes a bold statement, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”
What a bold thing for Jesus to say – “I have come to fulfill the law.”
And then the Sermon on the Mount unfolds and Jesus goes on to make statements and promises as he unpacks the law.
It’s really a great passage of Scripture and I encourage anyone who has not read it before or who has not read it in a while to go back and check out Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7.

The teachings in these chapters have given theologians and lay people alike moments to pause many times over.
The church has struggled with the Sermon on the Mount by raising the questions:  How can anyone actually live this way?  OR Why would anyone even want to try to live this way in the first place? 
Given the subject matter these are legitimate questions.

Answers are available to these questions:
“The Sermon on the Mount is just common sense.”
“The Sermon on the Mount helps one be happy and successful.”
“The Sermon on the Mount is the way to gain heaven and avoid hell.”
Such answers though when placed against the litmus test of life often prove to be somewhat unhelpful and unrealistic, and maybe superficial at best.
When we place these answers within the gospel itself, they are anti-Matthean. 
They go against the original intent of the gospel writer himself.

For Matthew the sermon is inseparable from the Preacher – the two concluding verses in Matthew 7 read, “Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”  (vss. 28, 29)
Matthew relates not only the sermon to the Preacher – he also relates ethics inseparably to Christology – to who Christ is…the identity of Jesus Christ, particularly the relation of his human and divine natures. 

Who Christ is directly relates to What Christ does.

Now, when we go back and read through the Sermon on the Mount, we will find no explicit references to Christology – for the subject matter of the sermon is not the person of Christ, rather it is the kind of life Christ’s disciples are called to live.
Yet, the demands of the sermon are incomprehensible apart from the implicit Christology found there – for instance, take this statement Jesus makes in Matthew 5:21-22, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’  But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.”

The demand of that statement is incomprehensible apart from the implicit Christology of Matthew’s writer.
One cannot avoid Christology – who Christ is and what Christ does – and appeal only to the teaching or great principles of Jesus, for these are inseparable from the claims of his person.

Who Christ is and what Christ does are intertwined.
Who Christ is and what Christ calls us to do are intertwined.

And that is where our passage this morning comes into play.

In Matthew’s gospel, the writer is an orderly one.
He never sets out to do things haphazardly.
There is always a sequence of events and that sequence has a reason.

Matthew chapters 5, 6, 7 (The Sermon on the Mount) show us divine wisdom in speech.
Matthew chapter 8 is a chapter of miracles (7 in all according to world renowned Scottish New Testament interpreter William Barclay) and this chapter 8 shows us divine love in action.
Chapters 5-7 give us the words of Jesus.
Chapter 8 gives us an account of the deeds of Jesus.

So in a subtle, yet very profound way, Matthew uses this morning’s passage about the two builders as a transition from one section of his gospel to another AND at the same time sets before us an example of the Christian life.

While this story serves as the bridge between two sections of Scripture, it is also a story that links the two halves of a person’s life together.
This story is the pivot point on the see-saw of our lives when we begin to realize that God’s story of salvation revealed in and through Christ’s life, death and resurrection also has impact and direction for our story.
And then we begin to wrestle with what it means to live this life of faith.
A life lived in grateful response to God’s loving act of salvation in and through the gracious gift of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
This story is that point in our lives between BC-AC –before Christ became alive to us and after Christ became alive to us.

9:30 Worship
It’s a little like this… [show embedded video clip of powerpoint.]
“Ouch, that hits a little close to home.”
But it’s when we feel that tug out of our comfort zones that…*

8:15 & 11:00 Worship
[And it’s at that point in life when] *…we start to wrestle with the decisions we make in this life – decisions that show the world what it is we stand for in life so that we will not be knocked over by the push and pull of the storms raging around and within us.
In a way, this parable is a parable about our choice – the choice between doing and not doing God’s will.

This story of the two builders is the point where Jesus says to his listeners during the Sermon on the Mount “Now that you’ve heard what kind of life I call you to live… how will you live it out?”
This story of the two builders is the point where we are reminded today, “Now that we’ve heard what kind of life we are called to live…how will we live it out?

To hear what Christ calls us to do is the foundation upon which we build our lives, so that when faced with choices in life we can then do what Christ calls us to do.
Why do we worship? 
Why do we participate in Christian Education? 
Why do we encourage our children AND our parents to be involved in Sunday School or midweek Bible studies?
Why do we read our Bibles at home and discuss faith in our families? 
To learn what Christ teaches, so that we are ready to do what Christ calls us to do.
To firm up the foundation our lives are built upon. 

Now, for many of us, we might be thinking to ourselves, “yeah, but isn’t this a lot like the billboard that reads, ‘The best time to plant a tree was 200 years ago.’” 
For many of us, we think we’ve lived a lot of life and we didn’t put the work into building the foundation way back when, we don’t have time to build the foundation now and it may very well be too late…we may as well not even start.
For those of us in this group, don’t forget the billboard just one mile down the road after that one claiming 200 years ago is the best time to plant a tree the billboard reads, “The next best time to plant a tree is TODAY.”

It’s never too late to start something.
It’s never too late to say, “Today is the day we begin the process of growing more firmly rooted in our faith.”

Faith isn’t so much about when we say “yes” to God.  – While that is an important moment in our lives and don’t misunderstand me, I am always interested to hear about other people’s faith journey – however that moment is not the only part of our faith journey – that is the beginning.
The next step is discovering what will we do once our eyes are opened to the presence of God at work in our lives? 

How will we convey to the people around us what God’s grace has done in our lives?
How will we tell anyone who will listen what it means to be in the life-changing relationship with God that has been most fully revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ?
How do we faithfully respond to God in this world once God’s Amazing Grace grips us and takes hold of our lives?

Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie, former chaplain to the United States Senate, tells of a common saying they had in their Senate Bible studies, “Without God we can’t; Without us God won’t.”

A group of junior high youth were on a mission trip with their church in a very poor part of the United States.
They had built five houses in five days.
It was the last night and they were in small groups, processing through the week’s events.
Their leaders had the goal of trying to discern where their students were in their faith.  They wanted them to talk about what was going on in their hearts and in their lives.
“You could divide my group right down the middle,” one leader said, “there were the boys and there were the girls.  The girls in the small group were crying and saying, ‘This has been the best week of my life,’ and ‘I’m forever changed,’ and ‘I understand God now.’  And the boys were like, ‘Are we done yet?’ begging me to let them out of there.”

After that night was over, this leader lamented to one of the other leaders, “You know, I think the girls get it in my small group, but I think the guys don’t.  I wish there was a way to get through.”

The next day the group went to the houses one last time.  They were dedicating the houses and presenting Bibles to the families.  They prayed for each family and blessed their new houses that they might become homes.  As this leader was standing to get on the bus to go home and counting heads to make sure everybody was accounted for on the ride home,  he saw four guys from his small group coming towards the bus and they didn’t have their shirts on and they didn’t have their shoes on.

He stopped them and said, “Whoa, fellas.  You’re not that cute yet.  The girls aren’t going to be all that impressed.  Why don’t you put your clothes on and then you can get on the bus?”
The boys didn’t even answer him; they just pointed over their shoulder to a group of kids who were standing next to their home – a group of kids who had grown up in abject poverty, all of whom but one wearing a brand new American Eagle or AeroPostale T-shirt. 
One of the junior-high boys pulled this leader’s ear down to his and said, “You know, I think that kid would look good in your shirt.”

So he walked over and gave him his shirt and got back on the bus – no air conditioning, windows open and hot; and some of them were half-naked church members.
And he realized:  Yeah, they get it.  They really do.

Every day – God is calling us to get something…do we get it?
Many of us have felt God tug at our hearts and we have neglected what he’s called us to do:
A letter of forgiveness;
A kind word to a family member;
More time at home with your children;
Volunteering in an outreach ministry locally or overseas;
A line in the sand at work;
Or maybe even the shirt off our back.

Fortunately, what we believe is it’s never too late to start placing our lives under the tutelage of Jesus, the Christ.
For the God we worship did not just hear the cry of his people in bondage, he delivered them out of slavery.
The God we serve, did not forget his children lost in the wilderness, he led them into a promised land.
The God we love did not, and does not, leave us alone in our sin, he actively pursues us.

We have a faith that works because we have a God who works.

We have choices to make and a God to serve.

What will we stand for?

Amen & Amen. 

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