Matthew 7:24-27 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. 25The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and great was its fall.”
We have now come to the conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount…and maybe you’re saying to yourself… “I sure hope Jesus didn’t spend as long preaching this as what you have”.
Let me tell you…He spent longer…He spent the next three years…living this sermon out for the disciples to witness first hand.
He personally showed them what it meant to be:
…poor in spirit–to mourn–to hunger and thirst for righteousness–to be pure in heart–to be merciful…He demonstrated to them what it meant to be salt and light
…how to love your neighbor…and every time He was confronted by the scribes and Pharisees what it means to not judge hypocritically but show discernment.
The Sermon on the Mount covers a variety of different topics.
Matthew 5:3-12 – The Beatitudes
Matthew 5:13-16 – Salt and Light
Matthew 5:17-20 – Jesus fulfilled the Law
Matthew 5:21-26 – Anger and Murder
Matthew 5:27-30 – Lust and Adultery
Matthew 5:31-32 – Divorce and Remarriage
Matthew 5:33-37 – Oaths
Matthew 5:38-42 – Eye for an Eye
Matthew 5:43-48 – Love your enemies
Matthew 6:1-4 – Give to the Needy
Matthew 6:5-15 – How to Pray
Matthew 6:16-18 – How to Fast
Matthew 6:19-24 – Treasures in Heaven
Matthew 6:25-34 – Do not worry
Matthew 7:1-6 – Do not judge hypocritically
Matthew 7:7-11 – Ask, Seek, Knock
Matthew 7:12 –
The Golden Rule
Matthew 7:13-14 – The Narrow Gate
Matthew 7:15-23 – False Prophets
Matthew 7:24-27 – The Wise Builder
I’m not going to comment on every section…I’ve already done that…but if I were to give a brief summary of what it contains…if I were to summarize the Sermon on the Mount in a single sentence, it would be something like this:
Now at the end of the sermon… Jesus begins the section in [Matt. 7:24] with, “therefore,” that tells us that this illustration is the conclusion of everything that He has said from Matt. 5 up to this point…He is describing the qualities of those seeking to enter the Kingdom…what the lifestyle of those seeking to live in the Kingdom should be demonstrating.
So, lastly…Jesus says here’s the benefit for those who incorporate into their lives the ideals I have talked about…He gives us a description of what happens when we employ these principles as part of our Christian foundation.
Last week I pointed out what has been identified as ‘the two ways’ … where Jesus begins to make a series of contrasts between the ways that are offered to everyone.
This is a recurrent theme in the Sermon on the Mount…in [v. 13&14] Jesus tells us that there are two roads…a broad road that leads to destruction or the narrow way leading to life. You are on one road or the other.
In [v. 15-20] Jesus tells us that there are only two kinds of trees…good trees that bear good fruit and bad trees that bear bad fruit. You are either one or the other.
Today’s verse is a continuation of the ‘two ways’ that Jesus has been teaching… Jesus tells us there are two types of foundations people build their lives on… because in reality… everyone is building their life on one of the two kinds of foundations.
What is most disturbing about these verses in addition to the idea that ‘you’re either one or the other—on the narrow road or with wide road—that your either good fruit or bad fruit—that your life is built on one foundation or the other,
is the warning that there are only a very few on the narrow road…only a few are considered to be the good tree with the good fruit…and only a few have their lives built on a firm foundation.
This analogy has everything to do with who does and who doesn’t make it into heaven…there are only a few people that make it to Heaven…how many times in your life have you ever heard that said…probably very few… it is a reality.
Jesus finishes His sermon in [v. 24-27] by continuing on with that theme by stating there are only two choices regarding what spiritual foundation you are building your life on.
He gives a parable depicting two foundations…one man builds his house on the firm foundation of a rock…the other builds his on the foundation of sand.
One foundation will withstand storms and one that will not…the picture is clear… you are either walking with God…experiencing His transformation in your life… or you are walking away from God. You are one or the other …you either build on a solid and deep foundation or you are building on a weak foundation.
This parable gives every indication that these two houses looked identical…they may have both been attractive…spacious…and comfortable…on the surface you couldn’t really tell which house was built on the sand and which was anchored deep in the rock.
Then Jesus says “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew” …one of the things to notice in this passage is that the storms were the same for BOTH houses…the same trials came to BOTH of them: BOTH of them had rain; BOTH of them had floods, and BOTH of them had winds.
I’m sure all of you have seen pictures of what a storm can do to a coastal community…houses and property that have all been washed away…but…you notice other homes that have only slight damage…what makes the difference between one home left standing and another left fractured and falling into the ocean?
Certainty not the quality of the building materials…most homes on the beach are multi-million-dollar homes…only the best materials were used…the difference was what they were built upon.
Those homes which had their foundation laid in the bedrock stood firm against the storm while those homes whose foundations were laid in the sand broke and fell apart as the sand was swept away and the foundation collapsed.
It doesn’t matter the cost and quality of the building materials used…a house built on sand is only as strong as that sand. It will collapse when put to the test.
Jesus uses this same analogy to bring out his final point in His conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount…it has been suggested that this sermon is actually bringing out two points:
First…this is a parable about how people prepare themselves for the ordeals of life.
Secondly…and it get overshowed by the first point…is… it is a parable about how people will spend eternity.
Here’s what we need to understand about what it means to build your life upon the rock …it doesn’t mean what a lot of people thinks it means.
This parable does relate to the storms of life–the trials and struggles that all of us go through…one of the things we should learn from this is that you are NOT somehow exempt from the trials of life if you build your house on the rock…quite honestly most of you have probably figured that out by now, right?
As a Christian, you will still get sick…you will have problems with your job… your marriage…or kids…you still have “rain…and floods…and wind.”
It’s not like: “OK, now that I’m a Christian, nothing bad is going to happen to me.”
If you don’t know this already, you need to get it today…the message of Christianity is not: “just ask Jesus into your heart” and everything will be smooth and easy from this day forward…that is a false gospel and you are setting yourself and others up for bitter disappointment if that’s your idea of Christianity…it’s not true.
There is “rain…floods…and wind” for everyone in this life…for those who build their life on the rock as well as for those who build their life on the sand…the storms of life are common to us all.
Everybody sounds like a believer when times are good…when God is giving us what we want…we’re all cheering Him on…at that point it’s impossible for us to tell who is genuine in their faith…it is only when the storms hit that you can see the difference in the foundations.
BUT…if you look closely at what Jesus has been talking about since [v. 13] you will quickly realize that He is sharing with the disciples something far more serious.
He is continuing on in His description about the importance of entering through the narrow gate…everything since [v. 13] up to the end of the chapter…including this parable is focused on one important factor…the final judgment.
The beating storm that the house must endure is nothing less than the judgment that Christ himself will render when he evaluates our lives on judgment day.
Jesus is continuing to reiterate the importance of being on the narrow path… remember last week we looked at Jesus comment: “not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Many people think that “building your house on the rock” means saying that “Jesus is my rock, so I’m gonna stand and not fall.” …saying that Jesus is your “Rock” is a great confession of faith — but that’s not what Jesus means to build your life on the rock.
WHAT IS “THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK”?
He says in [v. 24] that “everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts upon them may be compared to a man who built his house upon the rock.”
The key word is “Compared” …He’s saying this is an illustration and we don’t have to try to interpret the illustration…unlike many of Jesus’ parables…He specifically tells us what this means.
He says the man who built his house on the rock, is an illustration of the person who “hears these words of Mine and acts upon them.” …just saying Jesus is your Lord is not “building your life on the rock.”
The man who built his house on the rock is a picture of the man who “hears these words of Mine and acts upon them.”
Here’s what’s important…there are a lot of people who think “I’ve built my house on the rock…I go to church every Sunday and hear the word of the Lord…but you’ve got to understand: both men in this story did hear Jesus’ words.
— The difference here was NOT that one man listened to Jesus and the other one didn’t.
— The difference was NOT that one of them went to church and the other one didn’t.
No, Jesus says they both heard His words…they both might have gone to church… the difference is not that they didn’t both hear His words…the difference is that one heard and did what He said…and the other heard but did not do what He said.
Building your life on the rock means DOING what Jesus says!
The only difference here is doing or not doing.
The question at hand, then, is whether or not we will “enter the kingdom of heaven” [v. 21], or hear the awful words, “I never knew you, depart from me.”
In order to enter the eternal kingdom and live forever with Jesus, we must be like the man who built his house on the rock…and Jesus states very, very clearly what that means in [v 24] “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
When he speaks of “these words” he is referring to what he has just taught in the Sermon on the Mount.
So…after four months of preaching on this text we’reat the end of the greatest sermon ever preached…the Sermon on the Mount…Jesus is saying…there is one thing you’ve got to get…merely “hearing” what I have just said in this message is not enough…you’ve got to do it…you’ve got to live it.
Let me ask you a question this morning…what are you doing in your life as a result of something God has shown you in His word…are you doing what He says to you through these messages we share on Sunday morning?
When was the last time you purposefully changed something in your life…OR did something different than you were going to do, because of what you read or heard in the word of God?
I have to admit; I enjoy it when people tell me after the service that the message was good…every pastor or Sunday school teacher wants to hear that…the most encouraging thing of all is when someone tells me that they are doing what I preached about…that’s “building your life on the rock.”
The goal of the church is NOT just to get more people coming —I am glad when more people come—our goal is NOT just to get more new members —I am grateful for new members—our aim is not just to gather people every Sunday who “enjoy” hearing the sermon…but have no intention of applying it to their life.
A church that gathers crowds of people who hear the Word but don’t do it…it’s like a house that is built on the sand…that church will not stand the storms that come against it.
In the same way…if your personal life is just hearing God’s Word and not doing it…then your life is built on the sand.
Jesus realized even then…looking into the future, that there would be far too many people who will be deceived into thinking that they have “built their life on the rock” …thinking they’re faithful Christians…going to Church every week… reading their Bibles every day…all the while…not understanding the eternal consequences of the statement “few who find it.”
You are not building your life on the rock by just going to church and reading your Bible unless you are doing what you are hearing and reading.
“Christianity” is not about just “hearing” His word; it is about doing what His word says.
We are living in perilous times…on a national level our nation is in complete chaos… we have a Congress that is stagnate…our country is already in the midst of a moral and spiritual collapse.
On an individual level…there’s personal tragedy and testing of one kind or another ahead for all of us…for the rest of our lives…we will all be tested.
Just like Jesus says here: the rain is about to fall; the floods are about to come; the winds are about to blow…Jesus is referring to two things here:
ONE…is the everyday trials of life…are you going to stand or fall when those things come?
SECONDLY…Jesus is also talking about what occurs after this life…in order to enter the eternal kingdom and live forever with Jesus, we must be like the man who built his house on the rock.
Jesus states very, very clearly what that means in [v 24]. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
Jesus says it all depends on one thing, and one thing only: are you building your life on the rock.