Master Reset, Pt. 6
Tim Ross | December 6, 2020
“Here’s the guarantee of you building your house on bedrock, that it won’t go down when trials come, that it won’t go down when the test comes, that it won’t go down when storms break out in your life. I’m not promising you that every day will be sunny. I’m promising you stability.”
Listen
Transcription
Hey, Embassy City Church. I am so grateful that you decided to spend some time with us today. Whether you are one of our ambassadors near or far, we are grateful that you have decided to spend some time diving into God's Word with us today. I'm super excited because we are still in our Master Reset series but here's the other reason why I'm excited is because we are a month away from being back together as a family. Who's excited about that?
I'm so excited that we will come back to worship altogether on January the 3rd of 2021. Unless COVID is turning us into zombies by that time, we intend to be back fellowshipping together. Of course, we'll have some safety precautions in place, but we're coming back to the building y'all and I'm super excited about that. All right. If you have your Bibles, I want you to go to Matthew 7. This is the Master Reset part six. I want to read you three verses out of Matthew 7 and then I'll give you the title of the message and we'll see what the Lord would say. Is that all right?
All right. Matthew 7, 24th verse. Here's what it says. This is Jesus talking. "Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash." It's only three verses. I want to read those again. Is that all right?
Verse number 24, "Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rains come in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash."
I want to talk today about Jesus. I told you all last week that these messages are meant to orient us back to God, the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. If you're taking notes on this message, the title of this message is three words, Reset the Foundation. We need to reset the foundation. Before we come back into this building as a corporate body, we talked about last week that we are going to make sure that God's presence is the number one priority when we gather together. We want to make sure that God is our number one priority when we're in our private devotional time. Without his presence, we are nothing. We can't do anything. The only difference is you. As God, the father, his presence means everything to us. I want to talk about God the Son. I want to make sure that we reset the foundation of what our lives is supposed to be supported by which is the Word of God. By your hands, let's pray over the Word. Shall we? Holy Spirit, strengthen our foundation. Amen.
I want to dive straight into these points because I have two points then I have three points for a total of five points. I want to dive right into this because I want to address the practicality by which Jesus tries to simplify what it is like to obey his words and his teaching. Point number one, please write this down. These are my two points before my three points. Point
number one, solid is good. I can't be more simplistic than that. I can't be more basic than that. Solid is good. As a reminder, here's what it says in Matthew 7:24, "Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it." Can I just pause? Listening is one thing. Following it is a completely different thing. Anybody got kids?
Anybody ever told your kids something, asked if they heard it, and then upon execution, you're like, "What did you just--? I just told you." Listening and following are two different things. "Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rains come in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock."
Jesus is trying to make his teaching so basic that even a fool could not listen to it and go, "I don't understand what He's talking about." He starts using construction as His backdrop and being a carpenter just makes perfect sense that He would talk about something that has to do with building. He says, "Hey, listen, I'm going to make this simple. If you listen to my teachings, and you follow what I say, you will be like a person that builds their house on bedrock."
Then He says something that I don't think a lot of believers understand. He said, "Though the rain comes in torrents, and the floodwaters rise, and the winds beat against that house. It won't collapse because it's built on bedrock." Here's what's not said, "Hey, if anyone listens and follows my teachings, they will be like a person who builds their house on bedrock. If they build their house on bedrock, it'll never rain." Hallelujah. "If they build their house, on bedrock, no floodwaters will come near you. If you build your house, on this bedrock, there will be no waves that come against your house because God will make sure that all your days are shiny, all your days are sunny, all your days will be bright, all your days will be blessed." He didn't say that.
He said, "Here's the guarantee of you building your house on bedrock, that it won't go down when trials come, that it won't go down when the test comes, that it won't go down when storms break out in your life. I'm not promising you that every day will be sunny. I'm promising you stability."
"I promise you if you listen to what I say, and you do it, there's nothing that can come up against you, that can take you out because you will be stable." The wind can gust up to category five, and you'll be like a palm tree. Have you ever seen a palm tree in the middle of a hurricane? This is the most unbothered tree. Every other tree is being taken up and out and a palm tree is like, "Yes, I got you. I got you. I got you. 145 miles an hour. I got you. I got you." Cow done flew by and hit the tree, bam. "I got you. I got you." Why? Because of its root system, because of the way that it's built up. It started off right because the foundation was right. When the rain comes, or the floodwaters come, or the winds come it won't collapse because it's built on bedrock. You will be straight.
Solid is good. Say it with me. Solid is good.
All right. Point number two, please write this down. Sandy is bad. I told you all this was basic. I hope you're not offended like, "Bruh, go upstairs to the children's ministry." No, no. It's simple for a reason. He wants you to get it. Don't ever be-- Oh, I didn't even know I was going to say this. Don't ever be unarmoured
by deep theology. The deeper it is, usually, the more off it is. I'm going to tell you what my mama told me. "If it's new, it ain't true and if it's true, it ain't new." You hear somebody come in with some deep theology that no one's ever heard there's a 99.9% chance it ain't true. Because if it's new, it ain't true, and if it's true, it's not new. He's not saying anything that hasn't already been said. He's not even using examples that have never been used before. He's just speaking with such authority everybody's going, "I've never heard anybody speak with this much authority on the subject."
Solid is good, sandy is bad. Here's what it says in Matthew 7:26. "But anyone who hears my teaching, and doesn't obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and the floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash." Now, here's the thing. Here's what he's saying. Whether you build it on something solid, or you build it on something sandy, there's going to be a storm. Storms don't break out on bad people and leave good people alone. Do I have to use a phrase from Color Purple? "It's going to rain on your head." If the rain comes, the rain droplets aren't coming down like, "Yes, that person is a sinner." The raindrops aren't coming down like, "Oh, that person been fasting for three weeks. Let me get past that person. I didn't know-- Keep them dry. They're really living right."
No, storms come on the just and unjust. Rain falls on the just and unjust. Whether you good or bad, it doesn't matter. Something's going to come. But based on what you're built on, that's what's going to determine if you're going to be here or you're not going to be here. "The rains and the floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash." Let me tell you something. It matters what you're building your life on. It matters what you're using as the foundation to build your success upon. It matters the foundation that you're using to build your relationships on. It matters. The foundation matters when it comes to your career. Your foundation matters when it comes to your marriage, your foundation matters when it comes to your money. You don't need different foundations for all those different things I just listed. You need one foundation. The Word of God.
I told you last week that everything we want to do here is to make sure God's presence is honored and felt, that we have an experience with Him, not just once a week, but all week long, show us your glory. We facilitate that through worship and lifting our hands to guide them praising Him and being reminded of the great things He's done. Our foundation is going to be on the Word. I want to give you three reasons for the Word. Again, I want these to be so simple because I want you to be able to apply them. I want you to be able to use them when somebody tries to come at you and debate your faith and debate your fidelity to God's Word. I want it to be simple. You don't have to get into no big long argument with them. That's fruitless anyway. If they come in to argue they don't want to be won over to your point of view. They just want you to be held hostage to theirs.
I want to give you the three reasons for the Word. Point number one, please write this down. The Word was
in the beginning. You want to know the reason for the Word? The Word was in the beginning. Here is what it says in John 1:1, "In the beginning, the Word already existed." It was never formed, it was already there. The Word was with God and the Word was God. For those of you all that got a King James and New King James, "In the beginning was the Word." It was already here. It never had to get here. It was already here. In the beginning, the Word already existed, the Word was with God and the Word was God.
If you want to understand who Jesus is, He is the manifest presence of God's Word. It will go on later to say in verse 14 of John 1, "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth." The Word that always was, was seen. I grew up in-- I was born in '75 But that made me a '80s and '90s baby. I grew up on all the dopest hip hop, colloquialisms, and idioms. One of them that we say a lot was, "You see what I'm saying?" Because you know. You see what I'm saying? Some people can't-- It bugs me when people can't have a conversation without all the fillers. If you were to extract all the filler stuff they said, it would just be like this much of a sentence because they got to put all that cultural context into it. "You see what I'm saying? I went to the store, right? You see what I'm saying? When I got there, right? You see what I'm saying? The jeans wasn't there that I thought was there. You know what I'm saying?" You're like, "Actually, you haven't finished the sentence so I don't know. I have no idea what you're saying right now."
"You see what I'm saying," seems like it came from urban colloquialism. It did. It came from Jesus. It came from God. God spoke His Word. The first messianic prophecy given with promise is in Genesis 3:15, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent, and he shall bruise his heel." That's the first prophecy about Jesus. Through 4000 years, He comes to the womb of a virgin. You know what God was really saying? "You see what I'm saying?" I told you, you can physically see what I told you I was saying, through all the prophets, major and minor you see what I'm saying?
On the cross, "You see what I'm saying? Don't ever question my love. You see what I'm saying." "I don't see what you're saying, Lord. "It's bleeding right there. You see what I'm saying." You want a justification for the Word, the Word was already here. Why would I need to make one up? That's why when I preach I don't need the Bible. Why? It's good right there. My words don't need to be all over on top of this. This is all good by itself. Which brings me to point number two. The Word was in the beginning point number two, the Word is in the middle. Here me. The Word was in the beginning. The Word is in the middle. The Word is with you right now. For those that built the foundation on the Word, the Word is with you right now. There is no part of your life that the Word is not involved with right now.
You could be having the best season of your life, the Word is involved. You could be having the worst season of your life, the Word is involved. You could have the best health of your life, the Word is involved. You could have the worst health of your life, the Word is involved. You could have everything that you ever desired, the Word is involved. You could have nothing that you've ever wished for the Word is involved. You are not in the middle by yourself.
Here's what it says in Hebrews 1:3, I have to go back to the New King James Version for this one because some stuff just don't hit right in the NLT so I had to go to the translation that was going to hit it right. Here's what it says, "Who being the brightness of His glory--" talking about Jesus. "Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person and upholding all things by the Word of his power when he had himself purge our sins, sat down
at the right hand of the majesty on high." That's good. Let me read this part again, "And upholding all things by the word of his power." Everything that is being upheld right now is being upheld by His Word. The reason why the sun is still where the sun is, because he has not given an updated word to tell it to move. Scientists have said if the sun was even to move in a mile closer from billions of miles away as it is, if it were to move a mile closer to us, we'd all burn up. You know what the sun is being upheld by? The power of His Word. You know what the moon is being upheld by? The power of His Word. We have some tsunamis, there are aberrations and the waters will come across some boundary lines, but do you know why we don't have a tsunami every week? The power of His Word. The water is, "No, we can't go past there."
You know why your dog can't climb a tree? The power of His Word. Dogs like, "He just didn't-- That's not the way we-- it's not what I-- I can bark, I can bite, but He just didn't give me that. The reason why you can sing, or not sing, power of His Word. The reason why you didn't die, the power of His Word. The reason why you didn't break down, the power of His Word. The reason why you're surviving this year, thriving in this year, living in this year, power of His Word. The reason why next year is going to be better, is the power of His Word. The reason why His grace is abundant is because of power-- You're being upheld by the power of His Word. It's not just you, it's not just your willpower. It's not the degree that you have on the wall. It's not the certification you got when you went back to college and audited that one class, because you didn't have enough money to take all the credit. No. It's the power of His Word.
I'm being upheld because His Word is in the middle. Thank you Holy Spirit. This is why I'm always pressing to read scripture. Why? The more scripture you have as a part of your spiritual diet, the more words you have to stand on when you get into a problematic situation. What the enemy is counting on is your biblical illiteracy. He's counting on you not to read His Word. He's counting on you not to have devotion, because the more words you have, the less ammo he has. The more words you have, the less traction he has. The more words you have, the less fear can creep in. The more words you have, the less depression can creep in. The more word you have, the less doubt can surround your life.
He's banking on you letting that Bible get dusty. He's banking on you to only pick it up once a week. He's begging on you to rely on your cell phone, and not have an actual paper Bible that you can turn the pages in. "Well, my battery was dead and so I didn't-- All my notes is in my phone, I don't know what to do no more." No, no, no. He's banking on you being illiterate because if he can keep you illiterate, he can keep you from standing. If he can keep you illiterate, he can keep you from building a solid foundation. Listen, there's only one-- I can't tell you how many times I've gotten myself into a situation or experienced a storm in life, and the Holy Spirit says, "Remember." He can only say, "Remember." If I read it.
Scripture says, "He will bring--" This is in John 14, 15, 16, Jesus starts saying, "Hey, I'm going to go, and I'm going to leave you the Holy Spirit, the advocate, the paraclete. He's going to come and he--" In one place he says, "And he will remind you of all the things I said." He can't remind you if you didn't hear it. He can't remind you if you didn't read it. It's like those kids that wait till the last day before they have to take a test. Then they pray, "Lord help me with this test. Give me the answer to this test." He said, "If you would have read at least a chapter, I could have probably brought some back to your memory, but since you didn't, what I'm I going to do?
You need a word for your situation. "I don't like reading the Bible. A lot of it I don't understand." Just read it. I'm going to Spanish right now. I don't know what I'm reading.
I'm reading it anyway. I'm reading whole articles and only getting like maybe 14 words that I actually understood. But my comprehension is based on my repetition. I'm going to let that marinate. My comprehension is based on my repetition. I don't know exactly what this article was about, but I did get about 14 words out of there that I understood. I'm going to hold on to that, then I build from there.
This is the same way as you build-- I'm not saying that everybody's going to have a doctorate in divinity and be able to exegete the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament. What I am saying though is you going to need something when your boss fired you. You're going to need something when you have an altercation with your manager and they've written you up. If you don't have a word to stand on, then you just go and stand on your own words. That's sandy. You want to have some words that Jesus gave you as opposed to some words that you gave yourself in your relationship, or it's going to collapse because that's sandy.
"I can handle this myself." That's sandy. "I'm going to do me." That's sandy. "Only God can judge me." That's sandy. You want solid? Put God's Word in the middle is see if He won't uphold you. Upholding all things by the Word of His power. This is what made Satan's temptation of Jesus so asinine. Because the first temptation-- This is a Matthew 4, the first temptation that Jesus endures with Satan is coming off a 40-day fast. Some of y'all hungry now.
Just imagine 40 days you haven't eaten and Satan waits for his first temptation to be the day after fast is over. He says, "Hey, why don't you turn this stone into bread?" Jesus's response, "It is written--" Now let me tell you something, the Word quotes the Word. "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." He actually quotes Deuteronomy. Something that doesn't even seem like it applies to Satan. You're missing a whole lot words to stand on thinking that doesn't directly address your situation. Just read it and see what He says about it because he might have something to say in that chapter that's obscure, but it fits your situation to a T. He said, " It is written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Satan's response was, "Oh, huh? Oh, so you're going to quote the Bible?" Temptation number two, he says, "Hey, let me take you up to this high pinnacle and I want you to throw yourself down because the Bible says--" Now he's going to quote scripture. "The Bible says, the Angels will come in and swoop you up lest you dash your foot against a stone." Satan quoted the Bible. Satan tried to use the Word against the Word. The Word's response was, "That's not what I said." The Word's response was, "Scriptures also say--" You know how he got through the strongest temptation that He ever had to experience outside of the Garden of Gethsemane? By standing on the Word. Now, if the Word was going to use the Word, what are you going to use? If Jesus Himself was quoting scripture, why are you trying to remix it?
I promise you, it's fine like it is, it does not need your co-sign, it doesn't need your re-interpretation. It's fine just the way it is. Point number two is that He is the one that upholds you by His Word, the Word is in the middle. Point number three, please write this down. The Word is in the end. Basic. I'm so basic. I love being basic.
The Word was in the beginning, the Word is in the middle, the Word is in the end. Here's what it says in Revelation 1:8. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, God. I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One." "I'm Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, I was, I is, I is. I was, I is, I is. I was in your past. I am in your present right now and I am your future. You not running away from me."
I don't know who I'm talking to right now. Somebody is watching this. I don't know where you're watching. I don't know what type of day it is. I don't even know what continent you're on. You're not running away from God, you're running into Him. You're not running away from His Word. You have a date with His Word. You're going to run right into Him. This is a Tom and Jerry cartoon and you thought you ran out of the frame and turned the corner, He right there. I guess that's a dated reference now and generation z has no idea who Tom and Jerry is. Maybe.
You're going to run into God because God's Word about you is in the past, present, and the future. You're never outside of the realm of His Word. That's what you want to be covered by because His Word is in all the places that you're ever going to be. The Word was where you are. The Word is where you are. The Word is where you're going. Not will be, is. The next door that needs to open for you, God's Word is there. You're not praying it into existence. It's already there.
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I am the one who was, who always is, and who is to come." That should make at least 10 people happy. I promise you. If that is your orientation, that means you can stand on a word in this season and the season can be two months, it could be two years. It's not going to expire. God gave me a word 12 years ago. 12 years ago, I went down to Costa Rica and I preached there in Costa Rica with an interpreter. I came back and I was just so on fire. I was like, "Oh, man, I love Latin America. It's amazing." The Holy Spirit said to me, 12 years ago, "If you learn the language, I'll give you Latin America." He said, "If you learn Spanish, I will give you Latin America." I said, "[shrieks] [foreign language]"[laughter]
Tim: See. I got hyped. I started learning Spanish and I had a tutor that was coming up to the church and then I was listening to Spanish worship songs. After about four months because of my schedule and a whole bunch of stuff, I couldn't keep up with the studies. That was 12 years ago. I got sick two months ago, I was flat on my back, and I was watching a show. 85% of the show was in Spanish, so it had English subtitles. While I'm watching the show, the Holy Spirit says, "Hey, I told you that if you would learn this language, I would give you Latin America." I hadn't thought about that in 12 years. I said, "That's still on the table? You would still do that even now?" Guess what? That word 12 years ago, still here. He hadn't gone back on the Word.
I wasn't late to it. I don't know who this is for. I know I'm talking to somebody. You're not late. Well, I made a mistake and I made a detour and all that kind of stuff, and God's like, "The Word's still right here. It'll be here when you're ready."
Here it is, 12 years later. I'm in a completely different season of my life. I got all the time in the world. I have a Spanish teacher from Bogotá, Columbia teaching me Spanish. I am embarrassed, I am messing up, and I'm learning. I'm failing forward to not only comprehension but articulation. I'm learning words. We need to learn His words. I tried to do them and I failed. Fail forward, do it again. Do it again, because He's promised you some things and you're not going to get them outside of His Word. You'll only get it on solid, you will not get it on sandy. How are we going to grow? We grow by putting our lives and every aspect of it, every category of it squarely on the foundation that is the Word of God.
[singing]
You are Alpha and Omega.
We worship You, oh, Lord.
You are worthy to be praised.
You are Alpha and Omega.
We worship You, oh, God.
You are worthy to be praised.
We give You all the glory.
We worship You, oh, God.
You are worthy to be praised. This should be the song of our heart. He's behind us, He's in front of us, and He's in the middle. I said, He's behind us, He's in front of us, and He is in the middle.
If I'm building with him, bring on the rain. If I'm building with him, bring on the flood. If I'm building with him, bring on the wind.
It can huff and it can puff, but my house is not going down. I don't say that out of pride. I don't say that out of arrogance. I say that because I know what I'm standing on. I'm not standing on manipulation, I'm not standing on control, I'm not standing on conniving, I'm not standing on games and schemes. I'm standing on the Word. Why has Embassy City worked for five years? I got a word from God.
I didn't come up with this church. I was not thinking about this church until January of 2013 when I was in a hotel room minding my own business on the top floor of a great hotel, eating some bad nachos
in Sydney Australia. The Holy Spirit said, "The name of your church is Embassy." The moment he spoke, everything else was just about my obedience to walk in it. The moment he said it, I was walking into it. I wasn't asking Him every step of the way, "Please open the door, please open the door." I'm walking in the same Word five years later. Why? Because he's the one that spoke this church into existence. If it was my idea, It would have failed by now, or it would be a horrible misrepresentation of what the kingdom should look like.
That's the only two things that can happen when you're not standing on His Word. There's a difference between a church that grows and a church that swells. A healthy body grows, a dysfunctional body swells because something is either twisted on the inside of it, something's torn on the inside of it, or something is sick on the inside of it. That's the difference between what His Word would build and what our words would build. I'm trying to stop. I am going to stop. Next week, we're going to talk about the Holy Spirit and then we'll be done. It's the seventh-week completion might as well stop there. It seems good to me. I love you guys so much and if you don't know Jesus, get him. Bye. That's it. Bye.
