SEPTEMBER 7th, 2025 PASTOR DON PIEPER
Jesus' Kingdom Message James 1:16-25 / Matthew 7:21-29
“GROANING OR GROWING?”
Can it be true? Summer is through? No....! Waaah....!
As a nod to all the kids and youth heading back to school, and those of you who have to get up early tomorrow morning to go back to work, this is what such mornings looked like for me growing up.
Mom: (standing and yelling from seat) Wake up, Don! It's time to get ready for school. (sit)
Don: Uhgggg... Ma-gardelee-gook (pulling up covers)
Mom: (standing) Don! Are you up yet? (making her way up to the front)
Don: (climbing out of bed and 'getting dressed...')
Mom: (walking up near Don) Just checking. I'm glad you're up and dressed. (walking off)
Don: That should throw her off the trail for a while! (climbing back in bed) On days like this, I wish Mom would come in, lay an extra blanket over me, pat my head, and say...
Mom: (walking quickly up to foot of bed) HEY, LET'S MOVE IT!! This is the third time I've called you! You're going to miss the bus! LET'S GO!!
Don: Groan...! These mornings are going to kill me.
There's an inclination within all of us to pursue the path of minimal effort, even if it kills us spiritually and causes us to miss out on the life God intended for us. Jesus' sermon on the mount is his wake up call to those of us who claim to believe in and follow him.
As Jesus spent time with his disciples it was apparent that it was not enough to simply believe in him; he wanted to inspire those near him to be like him, to do as he did. The problem though is, left to our own, most of us are inclined to do more groaning than we are growing. You know how it is.
You got snail mail. You got e-mail. You got voice mail, Facebook, Twitter – all demanding a response. The alarm clock rings. The telephone rings. The doorbell rings. Your head begins to ring.
Your child has a question. Your spouse has a question. Your boss has a question. Your friend needs help. Your neighbor needs help. Your church needs help. Even your dog needs help. Groan! Not on the rug! The baby cries for food. The child cries for attention. The driver cries, “Out of the way!” And you groan, “Oh, for crying out loud!” Then you crawl into bed and do it all again the next day.
And deep inside we groan. We groan – whether we're aware of it or not – we groan.
When I was seven my family moved. Our new house, the parsonage, was beautiful. It had sliding doors, walkin closets & a large picture window, but after a while we began to notice that some-thing wasn't right. Our new pool table developed a strange table roll, the walls in the basement looked like Niagra Falls every spring and at night you could hear a kind of eerie...groan...
Our house, in spite of all its beauty and benefits, was in a world of hurt. It was aesthetically appealing but essentially appalling. So much was invested above the ground and yet so little had been invested in what went below the ground! The house creaked and groaned...! It was scarey! When I returned years later our former house was vacant and smelly. It had been condemned.
In his conclusion to his sermon on the mount Jesus weaves three parabolic vignettes, including a little ditty about two houses and the men that built them. Once the houses are finished, a mighty storm blew in. “The rain came down, the floodwaters rose, and the winds blew and beat against the (wise man's) house; yet it did not fall because it was built on solid rock.” (Matthew 7:25)
-2-
But the second house, built by a man Jesus identifies simply as foolish, was built on sand. He apparently liked the beachfront view. But when “The rain came down and the floodwaters rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, it fell with a mighty crash.” (Matthew 7:27)
Here's the thing - creaks and groans always precede the crash. They're the warning sign that all is not right with the house. Ignore the creaks or suppress the groan, and the crash will inevitably follow. So it is with us as well. Those inner groans reveal our vulnerabity.
Relational friction and fractures cause stress & strain on the foundation of our proverbial house. So how's your house holding up? Will it endure the next storm? What if you get hit with illness, loss or injury? What if the storms of life like a financial crisis, or a relational fallout, or the loss of a loved one threaten to bring it all down? Scripture informs us that: “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the foolish just prod on and ultimately pay the price.” (Proverbs 22:3)
So its prudent and wise to take note of the danger, to stop and assess and not just keep going. Jesus compares two builders. One built on sand. The other built on rock. He sets the stage and focus of the parable by stating that the wise one is the one who “hears these words of mine and puts them into practice.” (Matthew 7:24) So what are these words of his which Jesus refers to?
His statement comes at the conclusion of Jesus' sermon on the mount, a message that begins with Jesus saying that “God blesses those who are desperate for him”, (Matt. 5:3), those who respond to the groan by pursuing God and His will for their lives with everything they've got. Later, when asked what was the most important thing, the most critical teaching of Scripture, Jesus echoes that by saying the most important commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind and soul, demonstrated by loving on those God puts in your path. That's the way to life, the narrow path so few are taking, evident in the subabsorbed tendencies of a culture consumed with self-gratification and correction of others.
Too often the little parable about the narrow gate leading to a less traveled road is interpreted to refer to the exclusive path to heaven but Jesus makes no mention of heaven there. He's talking about a radical way of life in which we live to bless others as opposed to pleasing ourselves, as the Beautitudes in his sermon introduction indicate: (Blessed are the merciful, the peacemakers, justice). It's the path he modeled by loving on those that were slipping thru the cracks – harlots, cheaters, lepers and such! The narrow path is not easy but it is so rich with the joy of life, a life overflowing with the fruit of his Spirit
It's why we encourage folks to repeat the Alpha Course, serving as helpers of cooks, and in doing so shifting the focus from seeking to be fed to making sure that others are.
A lot of people are living oblivious to the danger of living like the majority of the world around us, a self-consumed, shallow life that's full of bad fruit. At the climax of his sermon Jesus offers a chil-ling warning: “I'll reply to those (who don't do my Father's will): 'I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God's laws.” What laws does he mean? To love God & your neighbor as yourself! (Matthew 7:23)
It would appear, that even among those who talk a good talk, may even be able to quote the Bible, as did the religious leaders of Jesus' day, we are a people in desperate need of fresh perspective. Inclined to pick and choose what portions of Jesus' teachings to follow we are at risk of groaning our way through life rather than growing in Christ, deceived and distracted by the voices of this world rather than listening to and practicing what Jesus has to say. As he warned: “Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as 'Lord', but they still won't enter the Kingdom of heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
-3-
As Pastor Andy Stanley put it: “First century Christians considered Jesus a living king. He was not merely Lord of their worship practices, he was Lord of how they lived their lives. His authority held sway over every facet of life, superceded national alegience even. His kingdom reigned every-where so wherever his consituency found a foothold, the world became a better place. It wasn't because of how they worshipped but because of how they behaved. Their loving actions stood out!
The self-serving, self-preserving, fight or flight posture that characterizes certain streams of evangelicalism today stands in sharp and disappointing contrast with the new covenant behavior that characterized the early church. Believing has become a substitute for following. When we behave as Jesus taught and modeled we become blameless and pure children of God, without fault in a warped and crooked generation. That's when you will shine among them like stars in the sky!” (Phil 2:14-5)
(from Andy Stanley's Not In It To Win It)
The awareness of the bad news, of Jesus' warning, helps us to recognize the good news – and its profoundly good news! Jesus' gospel...was that Israel's long story had reached its climax in him – that he had come to reunited heaven and earth and usher in what he called the Kingdom of heaveen, a God saturated society focused on following Jesus' lead by meeting the needs of others with the natural and supernatural resources of God. Jesus' central message was that this in-breaking kingdom is available now to everryone, no matter who you are or what your history is, you can enter in and live blessed life.
To be sure, to do so, we'll need to access a power beyond ourselvees to break old life habits, those molded by the kingdom of this world, and become who we were always meant to be – people of his otherworldly kingdom. That's what Jesus meant by his repeated invitation: “Follow me!” He didn't simply call us to believe in him, but to become like him, to “do the will of (our) Heavenly Father.”
(Matthew 4:19; 8:19,22; 16:24; 19:27 / 7:21)
We may have experienced God's grace and opened our hearts to him, but over time we'll dis-cover aspects of our lives still resting on false gods and self-reliance. We also all have our own soft, sandy spots... Unearthing these soft spots is challenging, but it is also incredibly liberating. As Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free!” (John 8:32) “So do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, than you will know God's good and perfect will...” (Romans 12:2-3)
In the film, Inception, a couple has built their lives on the sandy shores of self-deception. He urges her to see what he's recently discovered. “We were lost”, he says. She doesn't see it. She recalls their pursuit of happiness, isolated from the hurting world around them. She asks him what he believes. He confess to being confused, of his guilt, of a state of hopelessness. He speaks of a truth she'd once known but soon forgot, and in so doing became trapped, unable to break free. He knows that they were lost but she fails to see it...and she groans. “An unhealthy tree produces bad fruit.” as Jesus said. (Matthew 7:17)
Jesus urges us to take action so we no longer live enslaved to the groan and the lies locked away deep inside, but instead live lives built on the solid rock of Christ and his life-giving Way, a way that does not involve the house of our lives collapsing with a mighty crash when the storms of life assail us.
(Matthew 7:27)
So it is that we seek to grow into the Christ-like character that Jesus makes possible by remov-ing our heart of stone and giving us a new heart as we risk transparency. It's those who take that risk in in Alpha/TPM whom we've seen such transformation. This brings us to a place of hope and healing. To get there we need to unearth soft spots and build a life fully entrusted to God. To do that, we must submit ourselves to the only one who can transform us...through the renewing of our hearts and minds.
-4-
As Dallas Willard so eloquently put it: “The greatest issue facing the world today, with all it's heartbreaking needs, is whether those who are identified as 'Christians' will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of Heaven in every corner of human existence and experience,starting with their own.”
(Dallas Willard)
Or as John Mark Comer puts it: “The Gospel story is not just about Jesus becoming like us but also about us becoming like him. It's less of a transaction and more of a transformation. It's not just about what he has done for us but also about what he's done, is doing, and will do in us if we appren-tice under him. It's about a person not only loved by God but who embodies His love to others. For Jesus, salvation is less about getting you into heaven and more about getting heaven into you.”
(John Mark Comer)
Where are you currently focusing your energy? Where's the shifting sand in your commitment to Christ and the narrow path he would lead you on? Be encouraged – for “Everyone who hears (the Good News) and puts it into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock! Small is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life” - but oh, what a life it is, for all who find it and live it!
(Matthew 7:24,14)