July 4 Sermon Notes

Independence Day
Hebrews 12

The Importance of the Foundation
Hebrews 12

If one is to build upon a foundation that is weak or cracked, what happens to the building? It will eventually fall apart and crack as well. What if no foundation exists and we try to build? The structure will rot, sink, move, etc. Or, like we found out with the shed this week, it blows over. If there is a problem with the foundation there will always be an inherent flaw with the building. Always. The same is true for any man or woman. Yes, I know I said man and woman and not Christian. The reason is because far too many professing Christians build on foundations other than Christ. According to Scripture, salvation, forgiveness, justification, being born again only happen THROUGH JESUS CHRIST and Christ is the foundation. To build on something other than Christ is foolishness.
Also as we read earlier, this unshakeable kingdom, this city that has foundations as chapter 11:10 puts it, is not something that can be earned or obtained. It is purely a gift of God. That means that the foundation has already been poured. It is plumb. It is finished and you can not improve it. Listen to the psalmist as he writes,

“He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.”

Praise God! He draws draws us out of the pit and clay and sets our feet on the rock! It not something that you or I can do on our own. Only God can do that. But too many people try to build and add on to that which is perfect. They try to improve the foundation that Christ has made. Either they try to improve it or they try to add on to it and what they unknowingly do is cloud what the foundation really is or. Is the foundation Christ or is it something else. They have put Christ on the open market of competition for our attention, focus, desires, admiration, and our worship. We make idols of all sorts of things and build our lives around them. It doesn’t work that way! Most of us adults know what I’m talking about. If not, and especially for the high school and college students, let me explain this.
What so many of us do when we reach an important decision in life is we have a really good tendency to pray for God’s direction and will in our lives. So for some of us, we believe God is leading us to teaching, nursing, agriculture, engineering or what ever it may be. That’s good right? Of course it is! So what happens next? We start picking colleges. Hopefully we pray about this decision too. But we have several items and expectations that go into this decision. We get it narrowed down to 2-3 schools and base our decision on;
1. Affordability
2. Job Placement
3. Distance from home
4. Where I want to go

You pack up, head for college and for most, and spend the next 4-6 years of your life, living like there is no God. You bounce from party to party and from relationship to relationship. Which if we are honest just teach us how to practice divorce? But somehow in this pagan stupor, we find the person of our dreams, fall in love, graduate, get married, find a job, have a baby, and hopefully it is in this order. All the while being “saved” and living that American Dream.
For a few years this from the outside seems to go rather smoothly. You move into a nice house in a nice community. You may have even earned a promotion at work and now have several nice things, as well as debt coming out your ears. The kids are getting older and asking questions. You begin to realize that there are larger things in life than fun and the world your children are growing up in is really as bad and depraved as your pastor told you it was. You decide to find a church so your children can learn right and wrong and learn the stories about Jesus like you did as a child. You find a church where the music is upbeat. The preaching is good. Not too harsh and not too deep because you really don’t want to be told about sin and hell and God’s judgment. After all, you are a good person and you go to church. Life is good. Norman Rockwell couldn’t paint this picture.
More years go by and work has slowly become such a stress. Nothing is going right. The boss is coming down on you because he’s not taking the blame for it. The stress is starting to spill over into your marriage and even that is getting unbearable. Your trophy wife isn’t such a trophy after a few kids. Your knight in shining armor is really not. He would rather hang out at the golf course or lake because that is the only place where he thinks he can get a little peace. But the wife thinks the same when she is out with her friends for coffee or for the every other week girls night out. Well both these situations only make the real situation at home worse. Our life has been shaken, shaken to the core. So what we do is avoid it, dismiss it, deny it.
Finally one day, we come home, late again. All that remains in the house is your recliner, clubs, guns, tv, and a note that explains how she left everything that was important to you. Your wife and kids have left. Ladies, statistics here say that you have been looking for and have more than likely found a new Mr. Perfect to make you feel wanted. Maybe you didn’t go out intentionally looking, but Satan took advantage and tore your faith, your family, your life apart. It seems that this is what the American Dream has become.
A question remains for us to answer though. “How do I build upon the foundation of Christ and only Christ and not possessions and earthly treasures?”
Hebrews 12:1-2
1. Lay aside every weight
Not everything that hinders the Christian life is sinful
2. Lay aside sin
Turn away from sin and towards God
3. Run with endurance
It is not a sprint, but you can’t stand still neither
4. Run the race set before you
It is your race, not mine. It is your race, not your parents.
5. Look to Jesus with joy

Objection
So you’re saying you don’t want me to have nice things or a career? No. God gives us these things in order to bless others. But have you allowed these possessions to become your God? Are they your idol?

What do you have that can’t be taken away? The only thing that can’t be taken away is Christ! Let’s look closely at Esau in verses 15-17.

Esau
- bitter
- troubled
- defiled
- sexually immoral (married Canaanite)
- unholy
- rejected

How many of us would look at Esau, and if we were Esau, we would blame Jacob? We’re good at that aren’t we? After all, it’s never our fault. Now here I do proceed with caution. Have you considered that in your life, the troubles and problems are not someone else’s fault? That maybe this battle isn’t against flesh or even powers and principalities? Maybe, it is God trying to get your attention? That’s what verses 3-14 are telling us. Wake up!! Pay attention to Christ!!! Look to Him!!! Friend you just might be being disciplined by God to bring you to repentance and if you don’t wake up, you could end up just like Esau, who found no chance to repent, even though he sought it with tears. Can I ask you something? What are we supposed to do with that verse? It’s literally telling us that Esau sought repentance, to the point of tears! And was rejected. Bitter. Troubled. Defiled. Sexually immoral. Unholy. Rejected.

Many of us feel we are being attacked and tempted. We are. But unlike in verse 4, we are not in danger of physical harm for our faith, you are in harm’s way because you have plenty. Many of us DO have storehouses of grain and treasurers. You are in danger because of wealth, things, distinction and honor, the American Dream. What do you have that can’t be taken away? The fact is, it can all be taken away. What, or who, is your foundation?

Are you willing to reclaim your faith from possessions and materialism? What does that look like? It is the;

- Nursing student who keeps her eyes with joy on Christ as she goes through college because she is going to go overseas to care for the sick in India. She doesn’t put obstacles in her way. She removes them.
- Teacher who leaves the public school system, sells all his possessions in order to go to a former Soviet country to teach orphans science and math.
- Heavy equipment operator who goes to Africa to build roads.
- Construction worker who find and organization where he can go build hospitals and schools in the name of Christ.
- Farmer who teaches others in a famine stricken land about crop rotation and conservation techniques.
- The family who isn’t called to go, but decides to cut out unnecessary expenses to give more to their local church. That church gives faithfully to the co-operative program. The co-operative program funds each of the people who went and took care of needs in countries that go without.
- The child who grows up knowing there is no greater call in life than to be pulled out of the clay and set on the rock of Christ. And because God is worthy of glory, honor and praise, he goes to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to a people who have never heard.

This kingdom, can not be shaken.