Our Foundation as a New Culture Family.

Happy Sunday, friends. If we have not met, my name is Abbie. I have the honor of getting to pastor this church, and it's so good to see all of your faces. So today is Sunday at the Table, and it's also a significant Sunday in the history of our church as we are celebrating becoming a sovereign church and having our first ever members today, which is exciting. We can get excited for that.

And it just so happened to fall as we are wrapping up the Sermon on the Mount. And last week, Nathan did an excellent teaching on the end of Matthew chapter 7. So make sure you catch up on the podcast the past couple weeks as we have been spending the past couple months in the Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. And the reason that's so powerful is because the name of our church, New Culture Church, actually comes from Matthew 7:24. And so I want to talk about that today and talk about what, when it says this idea of us practicing and culture, what is that that we're doing.

So the Sermon on the Mount happens after Jesus was baptized. Jesus comes down after his baptism and he goes into the wilderness for 40 days and nights where he is tempted. And after that, he gathers the people and he gives this sermon. And so he starts with the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5, where he says:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:3-10

Basically, what Jesus is going to do over these next few chapters, and what we've been reading and studying and walking through, is how he flips this idea of what is the blessed life. What is kingdom living? And it's no longer living for ourselves, but for the sake of others and for the sake of Jesus and following his example of laying his life down.

And so the passages we've talked about everything from salt and light to loving our enemies, to being the narrow gate and what does that look like to build our house upon Jesus as our firm foundation. And so I want to read that passage in Matthew 7 once more today and kind of center these next few moments around that. It says:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. 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. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell with a great crash. When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed.

Matthew 7:24-29

And last week we talked about other translations say astonished at his teaching because he taught as one who had authority and not as the teachers of the law.

Creating a new culture through practice

So just about seven years ago, we gathered at a synagogue in James Madison Park, and we talked about this idea of what does it look like to create the culture of Christ. Because Jesus uses his first kind of moments of preaching with this great authority to say, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who builds his house upon the rock." And then he goes into this illustration to help us understand what he's talking about here.

And this idea of culture is all about customs, beliefs, and practices that have been passed down for generations. And so if you're ever like, "Why did they name the church new culture? It kind of sounds like new cult, and that's a little creepy." That's why. It's all about what are we passing down. How are we following the footsteps of Jesus, looking at the life that he lived every single day, and putting those things into practice.

And so one of the things that over the years has developed then is our shared practices, our rule of life, which is why we have the app and the journal to help us every day practice being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing what Jesus did. That is what we're after here. And so the invitation I sense for us today, whether this is your first time or you've been here for years, is to continue to evaluate where or who or what am I building my life upon. To take that inventory and say, am I following the life of Jesus in a way that every day I am being with him, I'm abiding, and through that I am becoming so that it is just this flow. That the culture that I create, that I pass down, is that of Jesus.

One of the things that I kind of love about this passage and this illustration is it's pretty timeless, right. The house upon a rock or the sand and talking about the storms that come. How many of us have experienced a storm in life. One that you're like, everything's kind of shaky right now. And maybe you're in one of those seasons where you're like, everything feels a little shaky. Here's the reality. Storms are just a part of life. The scripture in Jesus isn't using an illustration to say, "I'm going to come and I'm going to take every storm away from you. You're never going to experience a storm." But rather when you do, if you build your house, your life upon me as your firm foundation, you will withstand everything that comes upon you. The storm will come, but that does not mean that we have to fall when it does.

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength and whom I will trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Psalm 18:2

Jesus is our firm foundation, of whom we can trust.

When we founded this church

The first Sunday that I ever preached at New Culture seven years ago in the summer when we called them our preview services, I went up and I tried to find like in my Gmail, my Google Drive, do I still have those notes? And I did. My notes were way more unorganized back then. I could hardly, I was like, "How did I preach from this. This is crazy." So needless to say we've developed a little bit through the years in our organization.

But I read this and I wanted to read this to you. The first thing when we were setting this vision and stepping out in faith to say, "What does it look like to start a new community here in this city?" I said this from the very beginning: "We want to be intentional in the way that we form culture. What types of patterns and customs and beliefs are we passing down for generations. We believe that what God is starting here will be something that will impact this city, this state, and this nation for all of eternity."

And then I look over at this wall that we put up just a few years ago that says "Create the Culture" and all of those pins represent different places that people who are a part of this church have now moved or the missions that we support and seen that impact in just a few years.

The body of Christ

There's several different metaphors in scripture, but the first one that we talked about that I feel like is still significant for us today as a church is us representing the physical body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 talks about this. I'm just going to read some of the verses from here where it says:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into the body. And but as it is, God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be. As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 18, 20

There's this quote from a theologian when he talks about this scripture that I absolutely love and has been foundational in my life. He says: "God did not design human life to be a bunch of individuals whose paths cross only occasionally. Human life is meant to be interconnected and interdependent on one another. Although each person has an individual call that God has placed on their lives, that call involves being in community, working together to serve the body of Christ and be the hands and feet of Jesus."

Community in its original form and design is representing the body of Christ and it's coming together in unity. And it's this idea for us when we say yes to following Jesus that we're entering into a community that is no longer going to be about personal gain, but about personal giving. It's this idea of all of us giving of ourselves, laying down our lives for the sake of our community, our city, our world in the same way that Jesus did and making way for people to encounter his presence. Jesus is calling us to create a community that's culture is so much more than just personal gain, but it truly is about laying down our lives for the sake of the gospel.

And so what does this look like for us. This means that we need to refuse to pass down and actively seek out passing down these customs of seeking just what we can gain rather than what we can give. We need to continue to be intentional about combating the selfish living that can creep up in us over and over again. Jesus went first in the way that he laid down his life so sacrificially.

And so as I think about these past seven years as a community and what God has in store, my prayer is that we continue to lean into living this type of way. That we would continue to be people that say yes to that invitation that we read about in Ephesians 5:1-2, where he says:

Be imitators of Christ, therefore as dearly loved children, live a life of love just as Christ loved us and laid down his life for us as a living sacrifice.

Ephesians 5:1-2

That is the invitation that we have. And sometimes you hear that and you're like, "Okay, we're talking about laying down our lives. Like that's not an easy thing." Which is why when we're in community together and we have people that are also giving their lives for the sake of us to know Jesus, we see this beautiful thing start to happen. Where when our foundation is shaky, we have other people that can help us put our foundation back on Christ again.

The practice of following Jesus

Here's what we need to realize though. Jesus, when he's laying out this blessed life in the Beatitudes, so much of it is opposite than what we're going to see around us. And so there's going to be a reason where sometimes we face this tension. But to continue to look at the life of Jesus. If Jesus were here, if he was living in this situation, if he was working my job, if he was taking my classes, how would he do that. What would that look like.

And remember in this, this idea of practice. That we are practicing the ways of Jesus. We practice. Jesus is the one that purifies. Jesus is the one that perfects. Jesus is the one that heals. He shows up in mercy and power and we get to practice. Now that takes some of the pressure off of us when we're not aiming for perfection because we can never do that on our own. But as we follow the footsteps of Jesus, he forms us into his likeness and then it flows from us in a way that we could never earn on our own.

And so even today, as we are about to share a meal, it's a continuation of communion. This is communion, this remembrance, this repentance, this celebration. And so I want to even invite you today to think about where have you built your house. Is your foundation shaky. To think of what does it look like for me to build my life upon Christ, the solid rock.

Now, as we think about this, I want to remind us what sand is. Sand is pieces, broken up pieces of rock and glass, something that used to be firm but now it's a piece. One of the biggest ways that the enemy gets to us is through the half-truth. These pieces of the truth. And maybe for some of you today you realize like, "I feel like I'm building my life on Christ, but like there's all these other things." And maybe what it is is it's a piece. It's something that maybe has a just a taste of Jesus but it isn't the real thing.

What does it look like for you to rid yourself of all the broken pieces, the false promises, and to instead say nothing but Jesus, nothing but Jesus, Christ, our firm foundation.