SERMON ON THE MOUNT
CHOOSING A SURE FOUNDATION
DR. JIM DIXON
FEBRUARY 10, 2002
MATTHEW 2:24-29
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is falling. One of the seven wonders of the modern world, it is falling. The lean of the tower has now reached 17 feet, and that lean is increasing every year, incrementally increasing by one millimeter per year. And someday it’s going to move one millimeter too far and that great tower is going to come crashing down. And it’s all because of a faulty foundation. The tower was built on a foundation of sand and mud and water—not a good foundation. Through the years, structural engineers, again and again, have tried to straighten the tower vertically. They’ve tried to diminish the lean of the tower. The most recent effort was in the 1990s when the Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed down for four and a half years, but they were only able to decrease the lean by two fifths of one inch.
You see, it’s just a matter of time and it’s all going to come crashing down. And what a fall it’s going to be. The tower is 177 feet high, and it weighs 14,500 tons. It’s made out of pure marble. The walls are 13 feet thick and it’s all going to come crashing down because itis built on a false foundation.
Now, in this passage of scripture, as Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount, He’s warning us of false foundations. He says we can build the house of our life on a rock or we can build it on sand. And He makes it very clear that He’s the rock. His Word is rock, and we are to build the house of our life on Jesus Christ and on His Word.
Now, He warns us about building on sand. The sermon of the Mount is really in a sense cautioning the followers of Christ with regard to two groups of people who built their lives on sand, two groups of people in biblical times who built their lives, built their houses, on false foundations. The first group was called the Pharisees. These people built their life on sand. And we know little about the history of the Pharisees. Their history is shrouded in mystery. Most scholars believe the Pharisees came from the Hasidim or they came from the Hasideans. We know that the Pharisees initially, as a group, as a religious sect, were seeking to fight the growing influence of Hellenization as Greek thinking, Greek culture, Greek language, and Greek philosophy were infiltrating the Jewish world. It was the Pharisees who stood for the Jewish law, both written and oral, and they built their house, they built their life, on religion.
They built their life on religion. And Jesus is warning us not to do that. Don’t build your life on religion. Don’t build your house on religion. Now, this needs to be understood: in the Bible there are two Greek words for religion. There’s the word “deisidaimonia,” and this word literally means “fear of the gods.” And it is always used negatively in scripture to refer to superstitious religion. And then there’s one other word for religion in the Bible, and that is the word “threskeia.” And this word threskeia is sometimes used in a bad sense and sometimes in a good sense, but when it’s used in a good sense, the word threskeia is accompanied with a defining term like pure or true so that it becomes pure or true religion to distinguish it from normal religion.
That indicates of course that the word religion in the time of Christ had a negative connotation. And I think today the word religion has a negative connotation. Now, social scientists tell us that religion consists of three things. It consists of a set of theological affirmations, a code of moral behavior, and a group of sacred rituals. It is theological affirmation, a code of moral behavior, and sacred rituals. Certainly the Pharisees had all of these things. They had a set of theological affirmations, and Jesus was generally in agreement with that set of theological affirmations. In fact, of all the religious groups in Israel, the theology of the Pharisees was closest to the theology of Christ.
Furthermore, their code of moral behavior was good. You rarely saw a drunk Pharisee. You didn’t see a Pharisee commit adultery. You didn’t see a Pharisee rob a person. You didn’t see a Pharisee commit theft. Their code of moral behavior was good, and their sacred rituals include included praying and fasting and festivals and holy days. And Jesus Himself participated in some of those sacred rituals.
So what’s the problem? What’s the problem with building your life on religion? You see, the problem is it can’t save you. Theological affirmation is important, but it cannot save you. A code of moral behavior is important, but it cannot save you. Sacred rituals are helpful. We’re participating in a sacred ritual this morning we call communion, but it cannot save you. You see, only a relationship with Jesus Christ, only a relationship with God through Christ, can save you. Religion is no substitute for relationship.
The Pharisees had no relationship with God. They had their theology, they had the morality, they had their rituals. They did not know God. And therein lies the problem. Of course, there are dangers in religion when it is separated from relationship with God. It becomes very dangerous. Religion can produce pride and self-righteousness, particularly for those people who are good at their religion and have the discipline to follow their code of moral behavior. Religion can produce pride and self-righteousness, and Jesus is addressing that problem in the Sermon on the Mount. And of course, religion can produce judgmentalness, and Jesus addresses that problem in the Sermon on the Mount. People who use their set of theological affirmations and their code of moral behavior to judge and condemn everyone else… that’s what the Pharisees did. And Jesus talks about that. He warns us about that in the Sermon on the Mount.
And of course, religion tends to view morality as a set of external behavior. And Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that true religion begins in the heart. Morality begins in the heart. Pure religion, morality, begins in the heart. That’s why Jesus begins with the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the pure in heart.” And He warns us to not view our morality as simply external behavior. He says, “You’ve heard it said of old thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, whoever looks upon a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart. You’ve heard it said of old thou shalt not kill, and whoever kills will be liable for judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother or sister will be liable for judgment.” See, true spirituality begins in the heart. And so, religion is a false foundation. It can lead us to self-righteousness and pride. It can lead us to judgmentalness.
Religion cannot save us. You see, the gospel is an invitation to relationship. The gospel is an invitation to relationship with Jesus Christ, a relationship with God through Christ as you receive Christ as your Lord and as your Savior and as you enter into His family and you become a daughter of God or a son of God, a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. It is that relationship with the one who died for you that brings salvation. And religion can be a wonderful thing when it flows out of that relationship. But when it’s separated from that relationship, it’s dead.
And this was the grave mistake of the Pharisees. And Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount told his people to pray to God as Father—Pater. This was unthinkable to the Pharisees. It was too intimate. And in truth, pater is, pater is the Greek word. Jesus actually spoke in Aramaic. And we know from Mark 14 that Jesus really used the Aramaic word Abba, which in the time of Christ meant daddy. This was really unthinkable to the Pharisees. They had their religion, but they didn’t have a relationship with God. And to call Him Father, to call Him daddy, this was unbelievable. But Jesus is telling us we must build our life on Him and on a relationship with Him. He is the rock.
You see, even Christianity as a religion cannot save you. Even Christianity as a set of theological affirmations and as a code of moral behavior and as a group of sacred rituals cannot save you. Only Jesus Christ can save you. And we must enter into relationship with Him. I know some of you have heard of Thomas Edward Lawrence. You probably don’t know him by that name, but he was born in Wales. He graduated from Oxford University. He graduated with two degrees, one in archeology and the other in Near-Eastern Studies. And he is known to history as Lawrence of Arabia. And you’ve all heard of him. And of course, it was T. E. Lawrence, It was Lawrence of Arabia who sought to free the people of the Arabian Peninsula. He sought to free the people of Arabia from the oppression of the Ottoman Turks and the Ottoman Empire.
The year was 1919, just after World War I, when T. E. Lawrence invited some Arab friends of his to join him at the conference at Versailles. And this was in Paris in 1919 at the Versailles Conference. He took some Arab friends with him. And when they got into their hotel room, the Arab friends were stunned. They’d never seen running water. They couldn’t believe that you could just turn a handle and water would come out of the faucet. They’d never seen anything like that before. And they thought it was a miracle. Well, T. E. Lawrence has explained that when he went back to Arabia with his Arab friends, he discovered to his amazement that one of his Arab friends had actually taken the faucet from his hotel room with the handles with him. He had taken the whole faucet se- up with the pipe and the handles and had taken them to Arabia with him. He had not used them since he left the room, but he believed it would still work. And he believed that it was something supernatural that whenever he turned those handles the water would come out of the pipe.
He didn’t understand the whole concept of plumbing and the whole need for a source. And you see, a religion when it’s separated from relationship with Christ is just like a detached faucet that serves no purpose. You can turn the handles and it doesn’t bring water. You have no source. It’s not connected to the Son of God. It’s not connected to Christ. Theological affirmation when it’s separated from relationship with Christ is just dry. It’s like a faucet that’s not connected. And even a code of moral behavior when it’s separated from relationship with Christ is dry. So you see, Christ wants us to obey Him and He wants us to obey His Word, but He doesn’t want it to just be religious discipline. He wants us to love Him and respect Him and out of that relationship seek to please Him. And that’s the difference between spirituality in the sense of following Christ and mere religiosity.
Well, there’s a second group of people that Christ warns us about in the Sermon on the Mount, a second false foundation. And that is the Sadducees. And if the history of the Pharisees is mysterious, the history of the Sadducees is even more so. Bible scholars and Jewish historians are not even certain with regard to the etymology of the word Sadducee. And there are those who believe that it comes from “tzadikim,” which means righteous ones. There are those who believe that comes from “sagikoi,” which means judges. There are those who believe that Sadducees comes from “sons of Tzadok,” who was of a priestly line. But the truth is we don’t know. We do know they were associated with the Hasmoneans, and we know that they had great power. It was the Sadducees who headed the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews.
We know they were wealthy. In fact, if the sin of the Pharisees was religiosity, in building their house on religion, the sin of the Sadducees was materialism. They built their house on wealth. They built their house on money. They were the richest people in Israel. They were the aristocracy of the Jews, and they were so wealthy, and they didn’t even believe in an afterlife. They didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. And Josephus, the historian, tells us they didn’t even believe in the continuing existence of the soul. They believed the soul died at death. So everything was this life. This life was everything for the Sadducees. And in this life, the goal was to get as rich as you could.
They had actually entered into agreement with the Romans, the oppressor of their own people, in order that they might retain their wealth. And they believed that God had given the law, the written law—they did not believe in the oral law, but they believed that God had given the law to prosper us in this life. It was all about wealth in this life. The Sadducees built their house on money.
I think if you look at our culture and you look at our nation, the grave error of our time is not the error of the Pharisees. Very few people in our culture are building their house on religion. No, the error of our time is the error of the Sadducees people building their house on materialism, people building their life and seeking to find meaning in life through money and wealth and possessions. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus seeks to repudiate this false foundation. So He warns about laying up treasure on earth where rust and moth consume and where thieves break in and steal. He says, “Lay up treasures in heaven,” because there is heaven, there is life beyond, and it’s far more important than life in this world. “Lay up treasure in heaven where no rust consumes, neither rust nor moth consume. No thief break in and steals. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Then Jesus spoke about the single eye and how your eye needs to have a single focus. And that focus cannot be money or material things. It must be the kingdom of heaven. And then Jesus spoke about how you cannot serve two masters. You’ll either love the one and hate the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. You cannot serve both God and mammon.
Then He goes into the whole section of the Sermon on the Mount where He talks about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. And it’s all about materialism. Seek first the kingdom of God with your wealth, with your money. Seek first the kingdom of God. If you do that, you’re going to need to trust God for provision, just like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. The whole central section of the Sermon on the Mount attacks the false foundation of the Sadducees. And I think the false foundation of our culture and of our time is certainly materialism and has not only infiltrated our national culture but it has infiltrated the evangelical community. It’s infiltrated the churches.
And according to a Barna research that’s just recently been completed, the evangelical population in America is shrinking—people who might rightly be classified as evangelicals. Only 8% of the people in America now, according to Barna, believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God. And more and more people are leaving their biblical foundations. And amongst evangelicals, Barna says 33% of evangelicals claim that they tithe, that they give a 10th of all that they make to the work of God. But when you check their income statements and their charitable contributions over and against their net income, you find that 66% of those evangelicals are lying and that in reality only 12% of evangelicals tithe. And you see, the truth is that the giving of Christians across this country is pathetic.
And honestly, the truth is, even in this congregation the giving is pathetic. And I don’t mean that your individual giving is pathetic. God only knows that. But as a congregation, our giving is pathetic because we’ve built our house on this false foundation and our giving is just pathetic. 57% of our attenders, over half of the people who attend here, give nothing to Cherry Hills Community Church. Nothing. 26% of our members, people who have promised to support this church with time, talent, and treasure, give nothing to the church. And what’s true of us is true of churches all across America. And that’s why so many ministries are crumbling. And we’re in grave danger here. If our giving continues at the level that it’s at right now, when we reach the end of our fiscal year, the end of June, we’ll be $400,000 in debt, $400,000 behind expenses.
And that’s unacceptable. We might say, well, we need to be more cautious and careful. We need to cut expenses. And we’re already doing that. I mean, if we weren’t doing that, it would be worse. Because our giving is at such a level, we’re going to come in at a million dollars below budget and only $400,000 below expenses because we’ve already tightened our expenditures and we’re just trying to save money in every way we can. But we’ve reached the point where the only way we’re going to be able to save more money is to cut ministries and to cut staff. And if our giving doesn’t increase, we’re going to have to cut ministries and we’re going to have to cut staff. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s going to grieve Christ, because our ministry departments here are not overstaffed. They’re understaffed and they’re overworked.
And the truth is, we have the money. We just need to be more faithful and we need to build our house on a different foundation. That’s what it’s all about. Now I know there are some people who think, well, you know, this is a large church, a part of what they call the megachurch movement. And large churches are just bottomless pits financially, and they just suck the money out of their people. And if you are thinking that you couldn’t be more wrong. There are countless studies that prove that the greatest stewardship is in large churches—that it costs less on a per capita basis per member. It costs less money to sustain the ministries and facilities of a large church than it does a small church. If we were to split this congregation up into a bunch of smaller churches and they each built their own buildings and hired their own staff, it would cost more money per person.
I mean, there’s no better bargain in the world of ministry than a large church. It costs less money to sustain the ministry. But you see, there’s no church large or small that can do well when 57% of its attenders give nothing or 26% of its members give nothing. And so, I know God is saying to us that we need to search our hearts. We need to search our hearts and if we’re not giving we need to give. And if we are giving, we need to ask whether we’re giving enough. And I would suggest and I do propose that we enter a three month period here—the remainder of February, March, April, and half of May—and during that three months period see if we can’t rescue these ministries and staff that will have to be cut. See if in the next three months we can’t increase our giving as a people.
I think it’s going to test the foundation of our lives—whether we’re really Sadducees, whether we’ve really built our house on sand, whether we’ve really built our house on material things, or whether we seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. Because Jesus said, “I’ll build My church, and the powers of hell will not prevail against it.” And we have to make a choice. Are we going to be part of that? Are we going to do nothing to enable the growth of the kingdom of heaven on earth?
As we close, I know many of you have heard of Aesop’s fables. He lived 600 years before the birth of Christ. Aesop was a Greek slave. He was the teller of tales. He told stories. All of his stories centered on animals. But Aesop didn’t really care about animals, he just used animals to convey messages that were for people. And of course, every one of his stories had a message or a theme. And you know the story of the tortoise and the hare, and it’s a message about perseverance. You may know his story about the ant and the grasshopper, and it’s a message about industriousness and hard work. He also told the story about a bat and the two kingdoms at war. And in the story, he says that the bat was created at a time when the beasts of the field and the birds of the air were at war. The beasts of the field and the birds of the air were at war, and a bat was created and the bat wanted to fit in, but it wanted to be on the winning side.
The bat wanted to be on the winning side. So when it looked like the birds of the air were winning, the bat pretended to be a bird, and the bat just took off and flew with the birds and appeared to be a bird. Then when it looked like the beast of the field were winning, the bat pretended it couldn’t fly. It began to just kind of walk around like a small animal, part of the beast of the field. And of course, the whole message of that story( because the bat was discovered for his hypocrisy and he was banned to only be awake at nighttime and have to be a creature of the night) is you can’t be a fence sitter. You can’t be a fence sitter. You have to choose a side. And that’s really what the Sermon of the Mount is about. Whose side are you on? There’s a war between light and darkness, and there’s a battle for the soul. Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of heaven? That’s the question that He asks us. Do we seek first as kingdom? Are we building our own kingdom? Let’s close with a word of prayer.