Imagine living in a house on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Floor-to-ceiling windows connect you to the ever-changing Alaskan scenery. Comfortable furnishings, accompanied by high ceilings and in-floor heat, create an inviting sanctuary away from the pressures of work.
Maybe you’ve built it yourself. Or with a group of friends like we did in Alaska. After thousands of hours of sweat and toil, you’re finally enjoying the fruits of your labors. People come and feel at home. It’s the dream house that you’d never dreamt of having.
But then cracks appear, doors no longer properly close, and the floor begins to sag. Like whack-a-mole, one problem gets fixed, and another appears. Experts come and discover a compromised foundation. Their geotechnical tests reveal shifting ground. The problem is deep and unseen, but the eroding soil is slowly but surely destabilizing your entire home.
Bringing it Home
Church leaders today assert that America has strayed from its moral compass, plunging it into a freefall unimaginable to previous generations. They warn that the nation’s foundational values are crumbling, leaving its future precariously teetering on the edge. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, believes, “Our nation is facing a crisis that threatens its very existence. We are in a moral decline of shocking dimensions.” Echoing these sentiments, Pastor John Hagee declares that “[America’s] future hangs in the balance. Our moral and spiritual foundations are rapidly being destroyed. Our arrogance is producing a socialist state that is becoming our god.”
These leaders see Christ’s parable of the wise and foolish man as instructive for our country. They say our nation’s moral and spiritual decay is likened to the parable’s shifting sand. America’s teetering on the brink of collapse, and only a return to foundational Christian values can save it. As Franklin Graham has said, “Without Christ as the solid rock on which to build, the nation will falter like a house on shifting sand.”
But read Matthew 7:24-29 again. Jesus is not addressing those in the “world.” It’s an inside-the-tent sort of teaching directed at “us” and not to “them.” The shifting sand is due to the actions of the faithful, and the standard is adherence to His Sermon on the Mount teaching.
The Sermon on the Mount challenges superficial righteousness by emphasizing inward transformation over outward appearances. Jesus addresses the heart behind our actions, proclaiming blessings to people embodying attitudes and virtues aligned with God’s kingdom. He calls those who are poor in spirit, meek, merciful, and peacemakers as salt and light. They are carriers of His Kingdom’s message to the world.
As a guide for Kingdom living, Christ’s Sermon on the Mount establishes foundational principles for every aspect of life, including love for enemies, forgiveness, generosity, selflessness, and humility. Serving as a blueprint for radical discipleship, it calls believers to embody Jesus’s ethics, offering society a glimpse of God’s ultimate restoration and the hope of the Gospel. At its heart, the Sermon presents a vision of countercultural living rooted in the values of God’s in-breaking kingdom. These are the essential “biblical principles” for the church, which is the Sermon’s primary audience rather than the world.
Spiritual Geotechnics
What if we took Christ’s teaching seriously? Seriously enough that we’d be willing to examine how well we’ve built our faith’s “house” on His Sermon’s teachings. We could call it a spiritual geotechnical test with questions drilling down into the “foundations” of those teachings. One part would be self-reflective, using behavioral scenarios to help assess our compliance. Another part would use friends and co-workers to provide an independent 360-degree-type assessment. I’m reminded of Haggai, where God tells the Israelites to “Give careful thought to your ways.” This would be that in a modern-day setting.
Some questions could assess adherence to the Sermon’s values like humility, mercy, purity, and peacemaking. We could ask: “How often do you seek to bring peace in conflicts, even when it extracts a personal cost?” Or, “Have you ever denigrated someone with a different political or theological view from yours?”
Other questions could assess our response to challenging or unfair situations. We could ask, “When someone unjustly treads on your liberty, how do you respond?” Or, “What is your response when people unjustly insult you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of your faith?”
Still, others could use scenarios to assess Sermon verities such as loving your enemies, turning the other cheek, and going the extra mile. We could ask, “Your coworker publicly criticizes you unfairly, yet later needs your help with a critical project: how do you respond?” Or, “During a team meeting, a colleague dismisses your idea and takes credit for a solution you suggested earlier; how do you respond?”
We’d then ask friends and co-workers the same questions about ourselves to provide accountability and a more complete perspective.
If we’re honest, this would be a tough test. None of us would ace it, as we all fall short of the mark. Yet some would get many questions right. Friends like Steve, Karen, Dave, Keith, Betty, Jack, Bill, and Rachel have all taken Jesus’ command to “Follow Me” seriously, and then matched that desire with intentional spiritual formation.
Ecclesiastical Geotechnics
Now, let’s imagine giving that test to the American evangelical church. Does the church put into practice the verities of this Sermon? Do they model Christ’s teachings in their engagements? Is their behavior in the public square reflective of Jesus’s ethics and Sermon on the Mount commands? Do they show through word, deed, and attitude that they are “Christ’s Ambassadors as if God was making His appeal through us [them]?”?”
We could use many of the same questions, such as “How often does the evangelical church seek to bring peace in conflicts, even when it costs the church personally?” Or, “Is the evangelical church a bulwark against division and cruelty through a “Beatitudes” posture that privileges the meek, merciful, and peacemakers? Or, “When someone unjustly treads on the church’s liberty, how do they respond?” Then, the same questions would be asked of those outside the church, who would assess the church’s adherence to the Sermon on the Mount verities.
Now, many leaders within the church would call this assessment unfair. They’ve said, “The world is no longer receptive to a soft-spoken [meek] approach.” They’ve criticized the “winsomeness” of fellow leaders like Tim Keller by saying, “In a hostile culture, we need to be more assertive and less concerned with being liked,” In this current polarized climate, they say, a more confrontational or assertive stance must be taken. It’s a negative world for Christians, and you need people able and willing to fight.
So, who is right? Is it those like Tim Keller, who view the Sermon on the Mount as “a vision of what life should look like when it is completely transformed by the grace of God,” or the many evangelical leaders criticizing his winsomeness when “moral and spiritual foundations are rapidly being destroyed?”
Public Witness Geotechnics
Let’s bring this even closer to home. Now imagine giving that test to our political decisions. In doing so, we seek to assess the alignment between the candidates and policies we support and Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. In essence, we are saying that Christ’s teachings are the primary foundation of our “biblical values,” which shape not only our personal lives but also our voting and engagements in the public square. After all, if “all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction,” shouldn’t Christ’s most significant teaching address every part of our life, including political decisions?
But we’re electing a “commander-in-chief, not a theologian-in-chief,” said pastor Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. Former Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. chimed in and said, “We’re not electing a pastor; we’re electing a president.” Echoing that same sentiment, Franklin Graham, an evangelical evangelist, said, “We’re not voting for a Sunday school teacher. We’re voting for someone to lead the nation.”
Christ’s House Building Code
This is where our worldview matters. It writes the script for how we “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”
What if Christ’s teachings became the central basis of our worldview? What if His message about the Kingdom of God became so foundational to our faith that everything else was secondary—much like the apostle Paul, who resolved to know nothing “except Jesus Christ and Him crucified”?
N.T. Wright views the Kingdom of God as a transformative vision for life on Earth, centered on allegiance to Jesus, the King who restores all things. The Kingdom is both a present and future reality—already breaking into the world through Jesus’ ministry and His followers, yet not fully realized. With Jesus’ coming, everything has fundamentally changed, calling individuals to embrace its values and reorient their lives around its principles.
Embracing the Kingdom’s principles transforms faith from a private belief into a public witness. It calls Christians to a life of radical obedience and action, transcending worldly systems and priorities and placing God’s mission above cultural or political allegiances. Living in the Kingdom means aligning every aspect of life with its ethics. It means engaging “every square inch” of our world with Christ’s vision of countercultural living, where we love our enemies and honor meekness, humility, and mercy. In summary, the Kingdom of God is not merely an aspect of faith but the lens through which Christians understand their purpose and “biblical values,” as known through the Sermon on the Mount.
Here’s the Deal
When we, the church, fail to model the principles and ethics of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in our values, actions, and attitudes, cracks form, doors falter, and the structures of our society start to fail. Our failure to “put them into practice” creates shifting sand. We are the salt and light of the world; hence, the onus is on us, not the world, to establish firm foundations.
When the church rejects the principles and ethics of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in its voting and public policy decisions, cracks emerge, doors falter, and the structures of our nation weaken. It’s the church’s failure to champion a public square that “puts them into practice” that leads to shifting sands. This means that the utilitarian worldview of Christian leaders who separate their political values from Jesus’s Kingdom ethics is one of the most destructive forces in our nation.
An Example from Scripture
Last Sunday, our church sermon focused on the moment King Saul faced a dire crisis. The Philistines, armed with overwhelming strength, were threatening Israel. Saul’s fearful troops began to scatter as they anxiously waited for Samuel to arrive and offer sacrifices to seek God’s favor. Overcome by fear and impatience, Saul took matters into his own hands, offering the burnt sacrifice himself, a role God had reserved for Samuel. When Samuel arrived, he rebuked Saul for his disobedience, emphasizing that his actions, though seemingly well-intentioned, demonstrated a lack of trust in the ways of God. As a result, Saul forfeited the enduring legacy of his kingdom.
This story serves as a powerful metaphor for the modern church’s engagement in the public square. Like Saul, many in the church genuinely seek to combat the evils they perceive in society but resort to methods that stray far from the path God has outlined. Instead of embodying Christ’s teachings, particularly those in the Sermon on the Mount—principles of humility, love for enemies, self-lessness, and peacemaking—the church often adopts tactics based on fear and impatience, with rules of engagement rooted in worldly power. These choices, while well-intentioned, result in disobedience to the mission Christ entrusted to His followers: to influence society through faithfulness to His example, not through the pursuit of temporal power or divisive strategies. Saul’s failure is a cautionary tale, reminding us that God’s purposes should not be pursued through unfaithful means.
Something Has to Change
A prominent theologian, Miroslav Volf, recently said, “The Christ of the gospel has become a moral stranger to us. If you read the gospels, the things that profoundly mattered to Christ marginally matter to most Christians.”
A new paradigm shift is needed to show the world what our God is like through the words, deeds, and attitudes of people who take Jesus’ teachings seriously and their calling to be “Christ’s Ambassadors.”
In essence, we need a new set of 95 Thesis nailed to the door of the American church, which begins with
“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Follow Me,” he willed the entire life [both personal and public] of believers to be an imitator of his life and teachings.”