The Right Foundation
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
weather patterns and unpredictable forecasts
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.
25 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.
26 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.
27 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.”
28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,
29 for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
Pray
As we come to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we see Jesus give us a series of cautions.
He has warned to go through the narrow gate and be on the right path.
He has also warned about false teachers.
He warned about false confessions.
Finally, this morning, we are going to see that Jesus warned about building on the right foundation.
What makes a person a true Christian? Is it in what they say or what they say and do?
We know the answer to this is in what they say and do.
Jesus said in John multiple times that if we love Him, we will obey His commands.
To illustrate this, Jesus gives an illustration about two different types of people. Both of them have heard the words of Christ in this message that He’s been giving them, but what they do with those words makes all the difference in whether they are a true believer or not.
Look with me in Matthew 7:24-27 again.
We see three things that Jesus teaches about building on the right foundation in our passage today.
1. Build Your House on the Right Foundation (v.24, 26)
1. Build Your House on the Right Foundation (v.24, 26)
All of us are probably familiar with the story of the Three Little Pigs. You know that these three pigs built their homes and built them out of very different materials.
Well, long before there were the three little pigs, there was Jesus. And, Jesus teaches us to be prepared. He uses the image of building a house to describe how we build our lives based on what we believe.
Jesus uses two people who are building a house. Both houses may look similar and appear beautiful on the outside, but only one person built his house on the rock.
In the Palestinian climate, you don’t have weather like we have. There are seasons. You have a dry season and a rainy season. During the dry season, the ground can become rock hard. You’ve seen that here.
Well, what happens is the dry season turns into the rainy season in a hurry and all of a sudden a ton of rain can fall at one time. When this happens, the rains tend to run off the ground and forms streams and rivers where there were none before and flash flooding can happen.
In the illustration that Jesus uses, we have flash flooding that happens and a the storms begin to beat against these houses. The CSB really gives the description more vividly.
25 The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock.
Notice the description. The waters are coming down, they are coming up, and the wind is pounding on the house.
Before we move on, the point we first need to recognize is that these houses were built in the first place. Both homeowners prepared their houses.
You and I are building our spiritual houses as well. We cannot remain neutral in matters of faith. We are either with God or against God. You can’t sit in the stands and watch things from a distance.
Jesus is describing all of the people that are hearing him. They’ve heard his teaching and they have to do something with it. They will either listen and keep it to themselves, not acting on it; or they will hear what Jesus says and keep His commands.
This is the preparation of life. This life is not really where it is all at. We are preparing for a future. No matter who you are, as you get older, you realize how precious every day of this life is. We realize that this life is so short and the reality of it all is that we are just getting ready for the life we will live on the other side.
One day, every one of us will die. We will transition from this temporal life to our eternal life. Jesus has been warning us that there are many that are not going to be ready for that day. They are not going to have entered in the right gate and walked the right road. They will have listened to the false prophets and they will have made a false confession.
Jesus now says that they will have built their house on the sand. They might have looked at the ground during the dry season and thought it was stable and rock hard, but now the rains have come and beat up that house and it is collapsing.
Jesus is telling the crowds this so that they will be prepared.
But now let’s see the second thing He teaches us.
2. Be Ready for the Coming Judgment (v.25, 27)
2. Be Ready for the Coming Judgment (v.25, 27)
25 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.
27 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.”
Both of these houses experienced the storm.
This is an illustration and we have to be careful of how we interpret the meaning of the elements in this illustration. We don’t want to allegorize everything and assign meaning where there is none.
But here the storms are symbolic of the judgment of God. We see some similarities here between what Jesus teaches and what the Bible says in Ezekiel 13.
Ezekiel 13 is a condemnation of false prophets who had the outward appearance of being real prophets, but were as fake as could be. This was also true of the scribes and the Pharisees.
Jesus is speaking to kindred souls when he calls out these groups of false teachers. But I want to show you this idea of God’s judgment illustrated by a storm.
Now remember that Jesus later would call these religious leaders whitewashed tombs.
Ezekiel 13:1-16 - Have them turn there
You notice that God calls out their whitewashed wall and says He will storm against it and tear it down. The storm is an illustration of the wrath of God.
Jesus uses this same language and it’s hard to believe that the scribes would not have caught it. These men were ones who meticulously copied the Bible and also wrote down and stored up all of the additional teachings of the rabbis. The people would have to go to them to know what the Bible says, much like people used to have to go to the priests of the Catholic church to understand the Bible before Bibles were in the common language.
The people were being led astray and abused and Jesus hated it. What Jesus is trying to teach everyone is that they need to be prepared because God’s judgment is coming. It is coming on everyone, just like the storm beat against both of these houses.
But one of the houses was able to stand. It was the house that had been build on the rock. Luke says in his account that the man had dug down to the rock.
Illustration
There are some foundation companies that will come in a restore your foundation by doing this. They will use these jacks that they ram down through the soil until they hit bedrock and then lift your house up.
Isn’t it interesting to consider this and also the fact that Jesus questioned Peter as to what he believed about who Jesus was. He asked what the crowds said, but then he asked what Peter believed personally. This is where Jesus blessed Peter for believing what God had revealed to him.
18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
The name Peter comes from the word petros or “rock.”
We have to be ready and build on the Rock of Ages or we will be like the second man. He built on the hard sand, but it shifted when the waters came.
Whatever you may be building your life on right now, if it isn’t on the sacrifice of Christ and obeying His commandments, you are building it on shifting sand.
It is appointed unto man to die once and after that comes the judgment. We all face the wind and the rain, but the difference is that God has already sent the fierce wind and storm of His judgment for our sins who believe on Christ at the cross. We have been given an ark to protect us through the storm, like Noah. We will come through to the other side unscathed.
But not the man who is building his life on what he can make of it here. He may have a high wall or a fancy house and much more than the one who spent his time digging down before going up. But in the end it will all come crashing down.
Look at how Jesus describes the fall of the house.
27 The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.”
Again using the CSB we see a little more vivid language. It collapsed with a great crash.
How great will the crash be of those who don’t believe!
Conclusion
Paul taught us that this coming judgment is going to come upon everyone.
6 He will render to each one according to his works:
7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;
8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek,
Don’t misunderstand! This is not a works based salvation that we preach, but Jesus said that the one who has really heard Him, the one who really loves Him, will do what he says.
3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
It will not be easy to be a follower of Christ. In Acts 14:22, the Bible says that it is through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of heaven. But it is worth going through the storm so that we can get to the promised land.
What about you? Will you be prepared and build on the right foundation? Will you hear these words of Jesus and give them weight and authority in your life for you to obey? Or will you ignore them and act like you never heard?