12-31-20 Grace-Tucson New Year's Eve Sermon

Matthew 7:24-29 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke

New Year’s Eve Thursday, December 31, 2020 “Build Your Year on Bedrock”

By the time our service tonight is done, I expect that there will be roughly four hours left of the year 2020. How does that make you feel? Is it a relief? We finally made it! We dealt with what many people are calling the worst year ever, and it is about to come to a close. There are high hopes that some of the challenges that have come our way during the year will go away in 2021. Vaccines are being administered, and perhaps other treatments may help. The final steps of the national presidential election will be concluded and an inauguration take place. Perhaps 2021 will see a significant reduction in arguing and extreme rhetoric, in violence and hateful attacks. Perhaps it will see us returning to life that more closely resembles what we might call normal.

Maybe you feel differently about the end of the year. Maybe you are not feeling relief, but fear. Maybe the number of people sick and hospitalized and dying has you concerned about how things will go over the next few months. Maybe you are worried about what the government will do or won’t do. Maybe you realize that no matter what happens in general in 2021, for any given one of us, any year could turn out to be our own personal worst year.

No matter how you are feeling about the New Year, though, God’s Word has something to say to you. In fact, it has much more to say to you than what we could possibly cover in a single worship service or a single sermon.

We could have easily chosen any number of passages from the Bible to use in our service this evening or as the basis for this sermon, and we did include quite a few passages for our edification and encouragement.

Ultimately, the lesson in front of us for our consideration in this sermon includes the encouragement to continue reading and looking for those passages, to continue searching the Scriptures to learn more about what God says to you in your unique circumstances and with your unique feelings. And it says to not just look for those passages and read them, but also to take them to heart and do as they say. That is how you will build your year on bedrock.

The verses before us this evening come from the very last portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. That sermon is recorded in a few chapters of Matthew and includes some of the better known sayings of Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount is when Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” There he called on his followers not to worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. There he tells us to turn the other cheek and walk the extra mile. Jesus taught the people how to pray and how to fast and how to truly understand the commands of God. And he closed this sermon by making a comparison. He describes two houses, one that is built on a foundation of bedrock, and one that is built on nothing but sand. Both houses were buffeted by severe weather and rising rivers, both faced driving winds. The house built on sand came crashing down so that nothing was left intact. The other, the house with the firm bedrock foundation, stood strong.

And that comparison illustrated the difference in how people react to the teaching of Jesus. The house on sand is like the person who hears Jesus, but doesn’t do what he says, doesn’t take his words to heart, doesn’t really listen to him. The house with a firm foundation is the person who hears, listens to, and puts into practice what Jesus says.

The past year has driven home the point for us that we need a firm foundation, that we need to build our year on bedrock. How many times have you heard this year called “unprecedented”? Yes, I understand that it means we haven’t experienced anything quite like it before, but for most of us who feel that way, what it really means is that the things that we expected to be firm and lasting and reliable weren’t. The things that were so commonplace in our lives that we could take them for granted were suddenly taken away. The freedom to travel and to visit a restaurant or another business, the chance to spend time with friends or family, the opportunity to go to school or to work, so many things were taken away from so many by the circumstances. It was a more striking and more sudden reminder than we are used to that things don’t last and are not absolutely dependable in this world and in this life. If your life is built on those things, it’s built on sand. It can’t stand firm against challenges. We’ve seen that firsthand in a lot of ways this year.

It shouldn’t surprise us when times get tough in this life, and yet it often does surprise us. We have heard from God’s Word how every human being, from the very first, have been sinners turned against God and turned in

on their own selfish desires. We have heard the Bible tell us that we fit right into that category of sinner, someone who was born as an enemy of God and who cannot put that struggle against God away completely.

But we don’t always take that message to heart. We don’t always live that message. We don’t always live in daily sorrow over the wrongs we have done and repentance, a desire to change and improve and put evil ways behind. We start to think that we are decent people and especially so when we compare ourselves to others around us. And we become comfortable living lives that are not founded on God’s Word, but on ourselves and our ingenuity and resources and intellect. And so we start to think that everything is fine and it will all continue to be fine.

And sometimes God allows a painful reminder that those things are all sinking sand. He calls us to recognize that our lives are frail and that left to our own devices, they would most certainly end in ruin. He lets tragedy speak powerfully to us to drive us to his Word and to respond to his call to repent of our sin.

And that same Word offers us comfort and hope and certainty. In repentance, we look to God who sent his own Son into the world to take away our sin. In the place of what we deserved, the punishment our sins had earned, God gives us eternal life and salvation. We’re just one week past our Christmas celebrations, and the New Year is an ideal time to be reminded of what the Savior’s coming means for us every single day. He came to live and to die and to rise so that we might live with him forever.

See, the complete destruction of the house that Jesus talks about, the house built on sand, is not a life that doesn’t go the way that I had hoped it would. It is not dealing with suffering or pain or loss. All of those things are temporary. All of those things are overcome by salvation and forgiveness. The total destruction that comes because we don’t remain faithful to God’s Word is the destruction of losing our faith, turning our backs on forgiveness, and ultimately suffering in hell. That’s why it has been so important for us to build this past year on bedrock.

And that’s why it is so important to build our next year, our new year, on bedrock as well. What is going to happen in the coming year? I don’t know. You don’t know. We have our hopes and our expectations, but only God knows what the future has in store. Maybe 2021 will be much better in many ways than 2020 was. Maybe it will be far worse. Either way, the rains are going to come. The rivers are going to rise. There will be challenges. We are still living in a sinful world, and we are still sinners.

And where will we turn? What will be our foundation? Will our mantra be “listen to the experts”? Will we turn to politicians to rescue us from our troubles? Will we turn to the media to tell us what to do and how to live? Will we let the loudest voices or the most repeated facts, figures, and ideas lead the way? If that’s what we do, know that we will not have a firm foundation to rely on. Sure, any of those resources may be helpful and useful in particular ways, but none of them will tell us what is most important. None of them will tell us how God wants us to live and to love each other. And many of them will try to drill into our minds the idea that the worst possible thing that could happen to us is death.

Well, here’s another important reminder. Death could come for any of us this year. The life of people, the Bible tells us, passes away like flowers on a hot sunny day. There is no vaccination that will eradicate death, and there is no medicine that will overcome sin. The true tragedy comes when people perish apart from faith in Jesus. That’s what happens at the end of a life that has been built on nothing but sand.

So build your year on bedrock. Listen to the amazing promises of God. Consider what he has already done for you, yes in this past year but also in the years prior. Consider how he has led you to this place where you hear his Word. Read it. Learn it. Study it. Meditate on it and make it a part of your life. And then put it into practice.

Let it lead you to be sorry for sins as you recognize them in your life day after day. Let it lead you to repent of sins that you don’t even realize you are doing. Let it lead you to show love and care for your neighbors by supporting them in their need and encouraging them when they are fearful and comforting them when they are sad. Love your neighbors by telling them that you know what death means for you—it means life with Jesus in heaven. And invite them to celebrate that life with you because Jesus lived and died for them, too.

The new year will be here very soon. We’ll find out over the next days and weeks and months what it has in store. Perhaps we will be able to gather here one year from now and assess. How did it go? Was 2021 better than 2020? Was it worse? Either way, as long as we build our year, build our lives, on bedrock, we will be blessed.

The Text: Matthew 7:24-29 (EHV) 24“Everyone

who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on bedrock. rain came down, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house. But it did not fall, because it was founded on bedrock. 26Everyone who hears these words of mine but does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—it was completely destroyed.”

25The

28When

Jesus finished speaking these words, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29because he taught them as one who had authority, and not like their experts in the law.