SERMON
Foundation Matters – All 3 – July 26, 2026
Pastor Paul
The tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It stands at a staggering 2,717 feet tall—more than half a mile high—and doubles the height of our Empire State Building. It contains 160 floors, accommodates around 12,000 people, and holds numerous world records.
But perhaps the most impressive part of the Burj Khalifa is the part no one ever sees—what lies buried beneath the building. Extending 164 feet beneath the surface lies a massive concrete foundation weighing over 120,000 tons, which equates to over 240,000,000 lbs. It took a year just to build the foundation. Without a solid foundation, the tallest building in the world would become the world’s longest pile of rubble. Foundation matters.
This past week, I was on vacation in Western PA at Mahaffey Camp & Conference Center, a church camp I have been attending since I was fifteen years old. As I sat on the porch of my cottage writing this sermon, I looked around at the campground and reflected on the many years and countless memories I’ve had there. And I couldn’t help but think about another kind of foundation—not a concrete one buried underground, but a spiritual foundation that God had been building in my own life.
Some of my earliest memories of following Jesus took place at that campground, and over the past twenty-five years, Family Camp has been one of the places where God was shaping my faith. Every summer I looked forward to those ten days. And it wasn’t just another vacation or another event on the calendar, but a place where life slowed down, distractions faded away, and I could focus on God.
This year, I realized something I didn’t fully understand as a teenager. Mahaffey wasn’t just a place where I had fun or made lifelong memories. It was one of the places where God was laying the foundation of my faith.
Year after year, I sat in worship services, heard life-changing sermons, learned God’s Word, prayed, and watched leaders whose lives pointed me toward Jesus. It’s where I first met Jesus. It’s where I first felt called into ministry. I made decisions there that shaped the course of my life. Every year was an invitation to simply sit at the feet of Jesus and hear Him call me to follow Him more closely.
Looking back on my spiritual journey, I can trace so much of my foundation to those ten days each July at Mahaffey Camp. Mahaffey will always be special to me. But it isn’t my foundation. Jesus is. Mahaffey was just one of the places where Jesus taught me to build my life upon Him.
Over all the years I’ve been going to Mahaffey Camp, I don’t remember one dramatic sermon that changed everything. What shaped my life was returning year after year, hearing God’s Word, and responding to Him.
I can see now that God wasn’t building my faith all at once. He was laying one layer of my foundation at a time. One worship concert. One sermon. One altar call. One conversation. One act of obedience. That’s how foundations are built—not all at once, but one layer at a time.
And that’s exactly what Jesus wants us to understand in our passage this morning.
Toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount—perhaps the most famous sermon ever preached—Jesus gave practical teaching for daily living, addressing topics such as: marriage, retaliation, giving to the needy, prayer, money, worrying, and a plethora of other topics. And at the end of His message, Jesus challenged His audience—and us today—to take a good hard look at what their lives were built upon. He compared our lives to the construction of a house and His point was simple: every life is built on a foundation.
Whether you’re sixteen or eighty-six, whether you’ve been following Jesus for fifty years or you’re just beginning your faith journey, every single person in this room or watching online is building a life. The only question is what kind of foundation it is resting on.
Listen to what Jesus said:
“24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 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. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” – Matthew 7:24-27
Foundation matters. That’s Jesus’ point.
In this passage, Jesus talks about two different builders, two different houses, and the same storm. At first glance, the two houses may have looked similar. But what no one could see was the foundation underneath. And it was the foundation that determined what happened to the houses when facing the storm. And that’s Jesus’ point.
We spend a great deal of time working on the parts of our lives that other people can see—our appearance, our reputation, our accomplishments, even our public faith. But Jesus is far more concerned with what no one else can see: the foundation beneath it all.
But if we’re not careful, we’ll miss Jesus’ main point. This parable isn’t primarily about surviving storms. It’s about building a foundation that can withstand them.
Did you notice that both builders heard the very same words from Jesus? Both builders heard the exact same message. Notice Jesus doesn’t say, “the words of Moses,” or “the words of the prophets.” He says, “these words of mine.” Jesus is claiming that His own words are the foundation upon which a person’s life should be built. That is an astonishing claim—and it’s exactly why obedience to Him matters.
Both builders sat under Jesus’ teaching and understood what He said. But the difference was in what they did with what they heard.
You see, Jesus isn’t separating people into those who know His teaching and those who don’t. He’s separating people into those who hear and obey Him and those who hear Him but never put His words into practice.
In other words, the issue isn’t information. It’s transformation. Obedience is what turns Jesus’ teaching into the foundation of your life. Every act of obedience lays another layer in the foundation God is building in your life. The wise builder in this passage wasn’t wiser because he knew more. He was wiser because he lived differently.
Eugene Peterson captures Jesus’ point beautifully in The Message when he paraphrases verse 24 like this:
“These words I speak to you are no incidental additions to your life…They are foundational words, words to build a life on.” – Matthew 7:24 (MSG)
You see, Jesus isn’t interested in being an addition to your life. He’s not asking us to make a few cosmetic improvements to our lives. His words aren’t an addition to life. They are the very foundation upon which life is meant to be built. He’s calling us to build our entire lives on Him.
And I think that’s one of the most sobering parts of this entire passage. Both builders sat under Jesus’ teaching. Both could probably explain what He said. Both may have nodded in agreement as He preached. The difference wasn’t what they believed about Jesus’ words. The difference was whether they actually built their lives upon them.
Jesus isn’t asking, “Did you hear my words?” He’s asking, “What did you do with them?”
It’s possible to admire Jesus without obeying Him. It’s possible to know His teaching, agree with His teaching, even defend His teaching, and still never allow His teaching to shape the way we actually live. But Jesus isn’t looking for admirers. He’s forming disciples. And disciples aren’t recognized merely by what they know, but by how they live.
Every decision we make and every act of obedience is helping determine what our lives are built upon.
Very few people wake up one morning and decide, “I’m going to build my life on the wrong foundation.” Most foundations are chosen gradually, one decision at a time, often without us even noticing.
And whether we realize it or not, every one of us is building our lives on something. Some people build on money. Others build on success. Others build on relationships, careers, comfort, or reputation. Some even build on religious activity. But Jesus says there is only one foundation strong enough to hold the weight of an entire life.
The truth is that every foundation seems strong until it is tested. Money can disappear. Careers can come to an end. Health can change in an instant. Relationships can disappoint us. Even our own abilities eventually fail us. But here’s the thing: none of those were ever meant to carry the weight of your identity or your hope.
Jesus says there is only one foundation that never changes. Jesus Himself is that foundation, because He never changes.
That’s why building a foundation on Jesus isn’t simply the safest choice; it’s the only lasting choice. Everything else we build upon eventually shifts. Circumstances change. People change. We change. But Jesus is “the same yesterday and today and forever.” And when your life is anchored to Him, your foundation doesn’t move, even when everything around you does.
Notice that Jesus didn’t say “if the storm comes.” Because it did. The storm came to both houses.
Following Jesus doesn’t exempt us from hardship. The wise builder experienced the same wind, the same rain, and the same flood as the foolish builder.
The storm wasn’t the difference. The foundation was. Storms don’t create foundations. They reveal them.
Sometimes those storms come in the form of suffering. Sometimes they’re seasons of disappointment, loss, illness, temptation, or uncertainty. Sometimes they’re the ordinary pressures of everyday life. Whatever form they take, storms have a way of exposing what we’ve really been trusting all along. They reveal whether our confidence rests in our circumstances or in Jesus.
That’s why foundations are built before storms arrive, not in the middle of them.
I’m grateful those foundations were being laid in my life long before I knew what storms I would eventually face.
Throughout this series, we’ve seen the journey of the Kingdom of God in the life of a disciple. We’ve seen how the Kingdom begins as small, hidden, and transformative. We’ve seen how the Kingdom is valued and how it is worth giving up everything to possess. We’ve seen how the Kingdom is responded to—not merely with words, but with repentance and obedience.
And today, we’ve come to the final step. The Kingdom isn’t just something we discover. It’s not just something we treasure. It’s not just something we respond to. Rather, it becomes the foundation upon which we build our entire lives.
Twenty-five years ago, when I first came to Mahaffey Camp as a teenager, I had no idea what God was doing. I thought He was giving me ten great days every summer. But He was doing something much deeper than that. He was patiently teaching me, one act of obedience at a time, what it means to build my life on Jesus.
My prayer is that years from now, you’ll be able to say the same thing—not because your life was free from storms, but because, day after day, you built your life upon Jesus.
I hope you’ll be able to point to ordinary moments of faithfulness—times when you chose obedience over convenience, trust over fear, forgiveness over bitterness, generosity over selfishness. Those decisions may not have seemed dramatic at the time, but they were laying the foundation God was building beneath the surface of your life.
Because when Jesus is your foundation, the storms may shake you, but they will never destroy the life that is built upon Him.
But perhaps the most impressive part of the Burj Khalifa is the part no one ever sees—what lies buried beneath the building. Extending 164 feet beneath the surface lies a massive concrete foundation weighing over 120,000 tons, which equates to over 240,000,000 lbs. It took a year just to build the foundation. Without a solid foundation, the tallest building in the world would become the world’s longest pile of rubble. Foundation matters.
This past week, I was on vacation in Western PA at Mahaffey Camp & Conference Center, a church camp I have been attending since I was fifteen years old. As I sat on the porch of my cottage writing this sermon, I looked around at the campground and reflected on the many years and countless memories I’ve had there. And I couldn’t help but think about another kind of foundation—not a concrete one buried underground, but a spiritual foundation that God had been building in my own life.
Some of my earliest memories of following Jesus took place at that campground, and over the past twenty-five years, Family Camp has been one of the places where God was shaping my faith. Every summer I looked forward to those ten days. And it wasn’t just another vacation or another event on the calendar, but a place where life slowed down, distractions faded away, and I could focus on God.
This year, I realized something I didn’t fully understand as a teenager. Mahaffey wasn’t just a place where I had fun or made lifelong memories. It was one of the places where God was laying the foundation of my faith.
Year after year, I sat in worship services, heard life-changing sermons, learned God’s Word, prayed, and watched leaders whose lives pointed me toward Jesus. It’s where I first met Jesus. It’s where I first felt called into ministry. I made decisions there that shaped the course of my life. Every year was an invitation to simply sit at the feet of Jesus and hear Him call me to follow Him more closely.
Looking back on my spiritual journey, I can trace so much of my foundation to those ten days each July at Mahaffey Camp. Mahaffey will always be special to me. But it isn’t my foundation. Jesus is. Mahaffey was just one of the places where Jesus taught me to build my life upon Him.
Over all the years I’ve been going to Mahaffey Camp, I don’t remember one dramatic sermon that changed everything. What shaped my life was returning year after year, hearing God’s Word, and responding to Him.
I can see now that God wasn’t building my faith all at once. He was laying one layer of my foundation at a time. One worship concert. One sermon. One altar call. One conversation. One act of obedience. That’s how foundations are built—not all at once, but one layer at a time.
And that’s exactly what Jesus wants us to understand in our passage this morning.
Toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount—perhaps the most famous sermon ever preached—Jesus gave practical teaching for daily living, addressing topics such as: marriage, retaliation, giving to the needy, prayer, money, worrying, and a plethora of other topics. And at the end of His message, Jesus challenged His audience—and us today—to take a good hard look at what their lives were built upon. He compared our lives to the construction of a house and His point was simple: every life is built on a foundation.
Whether you’re sixteen or eighty-six, whether you’ve been following Jesus for fifty years or you’re just beginning your faith journey, every single person in this room or watching online is building a life. The only question is what kind of foundation it is resting on.
Listen to what Jesus said:
“24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 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. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” – Matthew 7:24-27
Foundation matters. That’s Jesus’ point.
In this passage, Jesus talks about two different builders, two different houses, and the same storm. At first glance, the two houses may have looked similar. But what no one could see was the foundation underneath. And it was the foundation that determined what happened to the houses when facing the storm. And that’s Jesus’ point.
We spend a great deal of time working on the parts of our lives that other people can see—our appearance, our reputation, our accomplishments, even our public faith. But Jesus is far more concerned with what no one else can see: the foundation beneath it all.
But if we’re not careful, we’ll miss Jesus’ main point. This parable isn’t primarily about surviving storms. It’s about building a foundation that can withstand them.
Did you notice that both builders heard the very same words from Jesus? Both builders heard the exact same message. Notice Jesus doesn’t say, “the words of Moses,” or “the words of the prophets.” He says, “these words of mine.” Jesus is claiming that His own words are the foundation upon which a person’s life should be built. That is an astonishing claim—and it’s exactly why obedience to Him matters.
Both builders sat under Jesus’ teaching and understood what He said. But the difference was in what they did with what they heard.
You see, Jesus isn’t separating people into those who know His teaching and those who don’t. He’s separating people into those who hear and obey Him and those who hear Him but never put His words into practice.
In other words, the issue isn’t information. It’s transformation. Obedience is what turns Jesus’ teaching into the foundation of your life. Every act of obedience lays another layer in the foundation God is building in your life. The wise builder in this passage wasn’t wiser because he knew more. He was wiser because he lived differently.
Eugene Peterson captures Jesus’ point beautifully in The Message when he paraphrases verse 24 like this:
“These words I speak to you are no incidental additions to your life…They are foundational words, words to build a life on.” – Matthew 7:24 (MSG)
You see, Jesus isn’t interested in being an addition to your life. He’s not asking us to make a few cosmetic improvements to our lives. His words aren’t an addition to life. They are the very foundation upon which life is meant to be built. He’s calling us to build our entire lives on Him.
And I think that’s one of the most sobering parts of this entire passage. Both builders sat under Jesus’ teaching. Both could probably explain what He said. Both may have nodded in agreement as He preached. The difference wasn’t what they believed about Jesus’ words. The difference was whether they actually built their lives upon them.
Jesus isn’t asking, “Did you hear my words?” He’s asking, “What did you do with them?”
It’s possible to admire Jesus without obeying Him. It’s possible to know His teaching, agree with His teaching, even defend His teaching, and still never allow His teaching to shape the way we actually live. But Jesus isn’t looking for admirers. He’s forming disciples. And disciples aren’t recognized merely by what they know, but by how they live.
Every decision we make and every act of obedience is helping determine what our lives are built upon.
Very few people wake up one morning and decide, “I’m going to build my life on the wrong foundation.” Most foundations are chosen gradually, one decision at a time, often without us even noticing.
And whether we realize it or not, every one of us is building our lives on something. Some people build on money. Others build on success. Others build on relationships, careers, comfort, or reputation. Some even build on religious activity. But Jesus says there is only one foundation strong enough to hold the weight of an entire life.
The truth is that every foundation seems strong until it is tested. Money can disappear. Careers can come to an end. Health can change in an instant. Relationships can disappoint us. Even our own abilities eventually fail us. But here’s the thing: none of those were ever meant to carry the weight of your identity or your hope.
Jesus says there is only one foundation that never changes. Jesus Himself is that foundation, because He never changes.
That’s why building a foundation on Jesus isn’t simply the safest choice; it’s the only lasting choice. Everything else we build upon eventually shifts. Circumstances change. People change. We change. But Jesus is “the same yesterday and today and forever.” And when your life is anchored to Him, your foundation doesn’t move, even when everything around you does.
Notice that Jesus didn’t say “if the storm comes.” Because it did. The storm came to both houses.
Following Jesus doesn’t exempt us from hardship. The wise builder experienced the same wind, the same rain, and the same flood as the foolish builder.
The storm wasn’t the difference. The foundation was. Storms don’t create foundations. They reveal them.
Sometimes those storms come in the form of suffering. Sometimes they’re seasons of disappointment, loss, illness, temptation, or uncertainty. Sometimes they’re the ordinary pressures of everyday life. Whatever form they take, storms have a way of exposing what we’ve really been trusting all along. They reveal whether our confidence rests in our circumstances or in Jesus.
That’s why foundations are built before storms arrive, not in the middle of them.
I’m grateful those foundations were being laid in my life long before I knew what storms I would eventually face.
Throughout this series, we’ve seen the journey of the Kingdom of God in the life of a disciple. We’ve seen how the Kingdom begins as small, hidden, and transformative. We’ve seen how the Kingdom is valued and how it is worth giving up everything to possess. We’ve seen how the Kingdom is responded to—not merely with words, but with repentance and obedience.
And today, we’ve come to the final step. The Kingdom isn’t just something we discover. It’s not just something we treasure. It’s not just something we respond to. Rather, it becomes the foundation upon which we build our entire lives.
Twenty-five years ago, when I first came to Mahaffey Camp as a teenager, I had no idea what God was doing. I thought He was giving me ten great days every summer. But He was doing something much deeper than that. He was patiently teaching me, one act of obedience at a time, what it means to build my life on Jesus.
My prayer is that years from now, you’ll be able to say the same thing—not because your life was free from storms, but because, day after day, you built your life upon Jesus.
I hope you’ll be able to point to ordinary moments of faithfulness—times when you chose obedience over convenience, trust over fear, forgiveness over bitterness, generosity over selfishness. Those decisions may not have seemed dramatic at the time, but they were laying the foundation God was building beneath the surface of your life.
Because when Jesus is your foundation, the storms may shake you, but they will never destroy the life that is built upon Him.