Calvary Chapel Staten Island

Guest (Female): Life can be messy, but you don't have to figure it out alone.

Guest (Male): Hey, it's the Luscos.

Guest (Female): Join pastors and bestselling authors, Levi and Jenny Lusco on "Hey, It's the Luscos" for honest conversations about faith, marriage, family, grief, ministry, and all the unexpected moments in between. You'll laugh, you'll be encouraged, and you'll be reminded that God is faithful through every season.

Guest (Male): It will always come back to Jesus in the end.

Guest (Female): That's right. Tune in to "Hey, It's the Luscos" with Levi and Jenny Lusco, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome to God in Our City, the daily edition. Your host and Bible teacher is Pastor Dave Watson. Pastor Dave has been the pastor of Calvary Chapel on Staten Island for 35 years. In addition, he is the co-founder and president of the New York Institute for Biblical Studies.

To receive a special downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, please go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Now, here's Pastor Dave and our show.

Pastor Dave Watson: Welcome everybody. Welcome to the God in Our City broadcast. Thank you so much for joining us here in the early days of August. It's hump day. Hopefully you'll get over the hump today. Actually, you already have if you're listening to us at night. God bless you. May He just continue to shine His face upon you. May He just continue to help you grow in Him.

So, we are finishing up this week an incredible study that we've taken 13 weeks to do. We've taken 13 weeks out of our schedule and we've done a deep dive on Matthew 5 through 7, known as the Sermon on the Mount. We're drawing this incredible sermon of Jesus and our study of it to a close.

I hope you have enjoyed it. All of this is archived. You can find it wherever you get podcasts: Spotify, Apple, everywhere, iHeart, everywhere. Also at wmca.com. Just look under God in Our City podcast. We are privileged to be a part of oneplace.com. That's where all the major ministries—and we're just there by the grace of God—where the major ministries house their podcast.

So you can hear these podcasts right there at oneplace.com. You can go there and just listen to all of them. You should binge God in Our City to catch up. I'm just jesting, but it's all right there for you. It's our intent to always put stuff there, not behind a paywall, but free so that you can have it. It can be a blessing to you. You can share it.

That's the goal, right? You hear a strong Bible message. What do you want to do? You want to tell somebody else about it. You want to share it with someone. If you're watching right now through YouTube or Facebook, you can simply share or export what you're hearing. If you're listening to us on WMCA, you can text a friend and say, "Man, you've got to listen to this. This is good stuff." That helps us to grow and it's a blessing.

We try to make it incredibly easy for you to follow along. We have these study guides that are free at calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Go there and download the free study guide. It's the last week they're going to be there, at least the last three days. You can order the Matthew journal, the last three days that it will be available. It's free. There is a little thing to fill in to tell us where to send it. We pay the postage and handling. There's no gimmick. We want you to have it. It's a great resource, so please think about getting that.

Then also think about making a donation to God in Our City as we try to reach our city. I believe New York is the greatest city in the world. I believe it's the capital of the world. I believe that because it's not New Year's until that ball drops on New Year's Eve. It's not New Year's in the rest of the world really. This place is a special place. I came here, beginning my ministry here in 1980 as a student missionary working with Manhattan Bible Church.

I did that for two summers and then prayed that God would send laborers to His harvest, and He sent me. I was just so privileged to be here, and I've had that privilege since January 1st, 1990. So join with us in doing what we can to reach our city. That will be a huge blessing if you can. All gifts are important and all gifts are tax-deductible. All gifts make a difference. It really helps if you can give a recurring gift.

Beyond that, let me just say this and it's noteworthy: if you want the study guides and you don't know how to download them, that's fine. Call us and we'll send them to you. 718-720-5390. If you want to make a donation or get the Matthew journal and you don't want to fuss with the internet, I understand. Call us at 718-720-5390. You need someone to pray with you or you have a question. Call us at 718-720-5390. We will do our very best to help you.

Now we're going to finish up this week our Sermon on the Mount series. Beginning next week, we have a brand new series. But if you go to Calvary Chapel, it's not new. We're going to do something we've never done before on God in Our City, the daily edition. We're going to actually take the sermons from Calvary Chapel—there's five of them—on Psalm 23 that we've been going through this summer.

We're going to take those sermons, those messages, and we're going to play them here on God in Our City. I think they'll be three weeks' worth of messages on Psalm 23. We'll be giving away the book "A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm." That will be available to you. But that's next week. I'm just giving you a little bit of a preview. I'm praying and asking God to help me to know exactly what He wants me to do, what He wants God in Our City to do in the fall. I'm not going to tell you quite yet, but I think you'll be very excited with the direction that we go.

So let's get into our scripture reading and have a word of prayer and continue on with our study. We've been reading Matthew 7:24 through 29 as our scripture. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

Heavenly Father, thank You so much for the Lord Jesus. Thank You so much for His teaching. Thank You so much for the wisdom that He presented. Thank You so much, Lord, that You are right now working in our lives. You are touching us. You are changing us. Lord, You never give up on us. Thank You, Lord, that we can study Your word today and Lord, know without a shadow of a doubt that it is You who is speaking to us.

So please touch each listener's heart. Provide for each listener's needs. Bring each listener closer to Yourself. Lord, help God in Our City to be a blessing to them and a blessing to the rest of our city. If there's someone today who's listening who's never given their heart to Jesus Christ, may today be that day. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

Our Lord is speaking here about two foundations. He's told us in Matthew 7:13 and 14 that there is a narrow gate that we should seek to enter through. Because that narrow gate is the gate that leads to, as it were, eternal life. He wants us to enter the narrow gate because the other gate is wide. The other gate is easy and it leads to destruction. The gate that is narrow is hard, it leads to life, and those who find it are few.

So the two gates are presented to us as our two options, just like these two foundations are presented to us as two options. The foundations are simple: it's either rock or sand. The question we need to ask ourselves is, "What am I building my life upon?" What am I centering my life on? How does it go with reference to my life and how it's going to be remembered?

Am I going to be remembered as someone who built on a rock, or am I going to be someone who built on sand? I can't tell you, I can't emphasize enough, how important the foundation of a house is, how important the foundation of any building is. I grew up in Western Massachusetts and my family bought the house across the street from us. It had a big barn and, of course, a house.

The big barn was up on rocks, and you could actually crawl under the barn and see its foundation, what it was on. The house had problems all the time that we owned it, and the problem just got worse and worse in that it was slipping off its foundation. We were concerned that the living room of the house would sink, would fall off, because if the rock foundation moved a little left, a little right, things were going to go bad. We tried to shore it up but never had it to perfection.

So a foundation is critical. A foundation is really what holds us up and holds us together. So in this particular piece of scripture, we're being told what the foundations are. It starts out with the house that's built on the rock. He just kind of walks us through this truth. Every man then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. The subjects of the analogy here are all, whoever. This transcends any barriers: Jew, Gentile, free or slave. All, anyone then, who does what? Who is hearing the words of Jesus. Akouō is the word here. They're hearing the truth.

This thought transcends time. It transcends whatever type of person you are, but it also transcends time. It doesn't matter when the time is, but even those of another time, if they will do this. So even us, if we will do this. And these words of me is the content of what we need to hear. So we hear these words of me, these sayings of Christ here in the Sermon on the Mount.

The sayings are produced by Him. For this instance, He limits to just those sayings, the aforementioned sayings that He's made. In the future, this person who hears these words and does them, this person will be likened, perhaps by us, but more likely by God, to be a prudent individual. The Greek word here is phronimos. This person is practically wise or is a sensible person.

They hear with the intent of doing, not simply they hear it, but they hear it with an intent on actually putting it to practice. You're going to do them. So the one who hears—that will be likened by God to be like a wise man. And what did the wise man do? He built. He constructed. It's a completed action. So the house is already completed.

He built his house. So the person we're talking about here is this one who builds a home. He's the contractor. This house, this dwelling place, he built it upon what? The rock. The petra, the bedrock, rock upon which a foundation can be laid. He built his house upon the bedrock. Please note the intentionality of his action.

He chose that he was going to build his house on this situation. Proverbs 27:12 gives us just a little more insight into this particular thought. I want to just read it now in your hearing. Proverbs 27:12 says, "The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it." This is a prudent individual who looks at the situation and makes a deliberate choice: "I am going to build my house upon this bedrock, this bedrock."

And then there is a story in this analogy. It's a simple story. There are subjects and then there is this story. And what's next? The rains came, perhaps expected rain. The rains, the Greek word here is broche. It becomes rainy season. And then the rivers came, perhaps expected river. The river here is potamos. It's flood season.

The wind blew, perhaps expected wind, anemos. It's hurricane season. So it's rainy season, it's flood season, and it's hurricane season, but all of that is to be expected. This is what happens. So here on Staten Island, we had Sandy about 15 years ago, and people still speak of it and there was loss of life.

But they call it a 100-year storm. It's a once-in-a-100-year storm. So it was raining incredibly hard recently and my wife said to me, "Has it been 100 years already?" But so what's next? This individual chose to build their house on bedrock. Now, maybe the view wasn't as good because it was in a certain location. Maybe the price wasn't perfect, might have been a little bit higher because it was in a certain location.

Maybe it wasn't near who they wanted to be because it was in a certain location. But the prudent individual saw that there would be a rainy season. They saw that there would be a flood season. They saw that it would be a hurricane season. So the story in the analogy is the rain, the river, and the wind all come. And they fell upon this house.

This house is the object of all three, maybe at once or maybe over three seasons. But this weather could be anticipated. This weather could be anticipated. And the rain on the roof, the flood on the foundation, and the winds on the wall—these elements fell on it. It's just a scary, scary, scary story. And it—that is the house—fell not.

The wind, the rain, and the river fell on it, but it didn't fall. It's still standing in spite of the storm. What's the substance of this story? It gives the reason why it didn't fall. It had its foundation laid in the past with ongoing results by the prudent man. To lay a foundation or to form a belief system is critical.

To have the right worldview is critical. What has Jesus done in Matthew 5, 6, and 7? He's turned the worldview of the Jewish people of His day, which had been corrupted by the corrupt religion that Judaism had become, and He turns it on its head. And He gives these people a brand new foundation. Of course, no other foundation can be laid than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.

And the building stayed. In Luke 6, it says it this way: "Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and it could not shake it, because it had been well built." Wow.

It's upon the bedrock. It's that which doesn't shift in times of life's storms, in times of life's storms. Can I speak to you candidly today? I watch followers of Jesus. I'm a follower-of-Jesus watcher. And they're very casual, so many of them, so many of us, with the words of Jesus, with the thoughts of Jesus, with the commands of Jesus.

We just don't take it as seriously as we should, and we don't build our life upon it exclusively. We take a little of Jesus, a little of this, a little of that, a little new age. We need to be all in for Jesus and we need to listen to what He says. And we need to put it into action. And that especially goes for the words on the Sermon on the Mount.

We need to review them, we need to know them, and we need to put them in our life because our life is going to face storms. It's a 100% chance. It doesn't say, "Count it all joy if trials come upon you." It says, "Count it all joy when trials come upon you." We're going to have difficulties. And how are we going to stand up?

We are going to stand up, we're going to hold it together because our lives are built on the rock. So whether it be rainy season, windy season, flood season, we will be able to stand because our house is built on the rock, on our Savior. Let's pray. Father in heaven, help us to grasp these truths and put them into practice.

Help us, Lord, to become the people You want us to be. Help us to apply Your word. Help us to build our house upon the rock, upon the sayings of Jesus. In His name we pray, Amen. Be sure to pick up your study guides, they're only available a couple more days. Calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Ask for the Matthew journal. Consider making a gift to God in Our City. See you again, God willing, tomorrow on another edition of the Daily Edition of God in Our City. God bless everyone.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to God in Our City with your host, Pastor Dave Watson. We hope the show was a blessing to you. Again, to receive a downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Please check out Pastor Dave's blog at nycshepherd.com. That's nycshepherd.com. Please invite a friend and join us every weekday for another edition of God in Our City.

Guest (Female): Life can be messy, but you don't have to figure it out alone.

Guest (Male): Hey, it's the Luscos.

Guest (Female): Join pastors and bestselling authors, Levi and Jenny Lusco on "Hey, It's the Luscos" for honest conversations about faith, marriage, family, grief, ministry, and all the unexpected moments in between. You'll laugh, you'll be encouraged, and you'll be reminded that God is faithful through every season.

Guest (Male): It will always come back to Jesus in the end.

Guest (Female): That's right. Tune in to "Hey, It's the Luscos" with Levi and Jenny Lusco, available now wherever you get your podcasts.