The Sermon on the Mount: The Right Foundation - Matthew 7:24-27

Introduction

Read Matthew 7:24-29

Matthew 7:24–29 (ESV)

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 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. 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. 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.”

And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

We have spent about six months of our time going through this sermon on the mount. We have looked at what it means and what it looks like to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven from one’s character, to how one acts and behaves to the way one trusts and submits to God. We have seen what it looks like to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees. Ultimately we have seen what it looks like to flourish in God’s creation according to God’s way.

Now, Jesus is going to close His sermon by giving us a parable. What a fitting way to end this sermon series as we were going through Jesus’ parables before we began this sermon on the mount.

This parable is an illustration that Jesus is using to ask us what are we going to do with the truth that He has presented us with? Are we going to build our lives on what He has taught us, or are we going to ignore what He has said and do things our own way?

So He gives us this illustration of two men building their houses. The image of the house signifies one’s life.

The home is where one finds rest and strength to fulfill the purpose of life. It is the source of comfort and identity for the one who lives within the house.

The houses are the same. Every person wants to flourish and find meaning and purpose in this life. They want to experience life to the fullest.

We will all go about doing that in different ways, but ultimately, we are all trying to live life according to what will bring the most meaning and fulfillment to our souls.

So the question is not if we are going to search for the best life possible. The question is where are we going to build the life we want to live? What is our foundation?

Jesus says these two men are both building a life for themselves. The difference is the foundation on which they are building their lives.

So He gives us this illustration of the foundations. Of course we all know that to build the strongest building, it must have a solid foundation.

But sometimes, we can tend to cut corners in order to save time, money, or energy to get the job done sooner or easier. But while it may be more costly and more difficult to build a solid foundation, we know that it is actually better in the end.

Because Jesus tells us that the storms of life are coming. It is not a matter of if, its a question of when. So Jesus is not telling us how to have an easy and pleasant life. He is telling us how to have a flourishing life that remains standing through storms of trials and temptations that seek to bring us to our knees.

Those storms can be representative of both the hardship of this life “In this world you will have troubles…” and the judgment that comes when we enter eternity. Are we going to stand when the trials and the judgment come upon us? We need to have a solid foundation on which to build our lives if we are going to stand in spite of the storm.

So the foundation we are building upon is the truth or worldviews we build our lives upon. Jesus has laid out for us how God has designed life to work best, and now He says for all those who listen and obey, they will be like the man who builds his house upon the rock. So the foundation is the truth we have chosen to build our lives upon.

Listen to the Truth

We must recognize our need to listen to wisdom. To build a good and solid house requires skill, education, and experience. It is not something one just decides to do without first learning what it takes to accomplish such an undertaking. So it either requires us learning how to do it, or hiring the help of someone who knows how to do it.

So the first question we must ask is, what truth are we going to listen to?

There are many voices calling out to us. There are many people or worldviews that claim to know how life should best be lived.

Unfortunately, just because someone claims to know how to build a house does not mean they really know how to build a good home. There are sadly some builders who can build a home fast and cheap, but when you move in, you find that it has some serious flaws to it and it won’t be long before you find that the house is quickly breaking down.

In the same way, we have many people selling their worldviews to us telling us how life should be lived. But unfortunately, all but one of those voices are going to lead to a life of destruction.

So it is vitally important that We choose to listen to the voice of truth.

Adam and Eve also heard two different voices. They had heard the voice of God, the voice of truth telling them that life would go well and they would have all they needed for life and godliness within the garden as long as they did not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Death would come from that fruit.

Good house - do not partake

Bad house - eat of the fruit

Of course, a second voice entered into the story telling them that God was just trying to hold them back. They could experience real life and flourishing if they would eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Two different voices.

The Shifting Sands - The changing lies of this world

Follow your heart

Trust your feelings

God wants you to be happy

Live your truth

Truth is relative

You do you

These truths are shifting sands because they are always changing. There is nothing stable about the world’s standard of truth. What was true 10 years ago has changed and there will be new ideas of truth in another 5 years. And all these truths will eventually let us down because these are truths invented by a worldview that does not truly understand how life is intended to work.

Only the Creator of an object can objectively say how something is to safely work and be used. The reason why there are so many warning signs on products we buy is because people use them in ways they were never intended.

In the same way, instead of living life according to the way our Creator has instructed, we have chosen to live life the way we want, and however good we might feel in the moment, it leads us to make a mess of our lives because life wasn’t meant to be lived the way we have chosen apart from Christ.

The Rock solid foundation - The eternal, unchanging truth of God’s Word -

Jesus’ words - The Sermon on the Mount - Jesus’ explanation on God’s Word - We have spent the last six months examining Jesus’s words and teaching. He is telling us that this is truth, that this Sermon is showing us how we can build our lives upon the solid rock that will keep us secure when the trials and temptations of life seek to break us down!

Jesus Himself - But, the truth is not simply the words He is speaking. Yes, He is speaking truth, but that is because Jesus Himself is the truth!

John 14:6 (ESV)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus did not just preach this sermon, He lived out the Sermon on the Mount. He is the Word of God on display. If we are to listen to God’s Word, we must fix our eyes upon Jesus.

How do we know that Jesus spoke the truth though? Again, there are many voices claiming to know the truth. How do we know His voice and life are what we are to listen to?

Miracles

Matthew 8:1–3 (ESV)

When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

The Greatest Miracle

The Resurrection is the greatest proof that Jesus is the Truth that we are called to follow. No other religious leader has risen from the dead because they were not the truth.

Christianity rises or falls not based upon someone’s vision or subjective opinions. It rests upon the historical event of the resurrection. And there are historical evidences for the resurrection. In fact, there is more historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus than for the existence of Alexander the Great. If we did not have the New Testament Gospels, we could still reconstruct about 75-80 % of what we have through the historical accounts of others like Josephus and other early church historians.

The gospels themselves were written within 30-60 years of the events of the life of Jesus. And they were written by eyewitnesses or those close to the eyewitnesses of everything that took place.

If we are going to build our lives upon this rock, it must be built by submitting our lives to Jesus Christ as He is revealed in His Word!

If we are going to listen, we must spend time in His Word. Building our lives upon the Rock requires that we listen to God’s Word.

Romans 12:2 (ESV)

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Paul tells us not to conform to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed. He says do not listen to the lies of this age, but to be transformed! Our lives can only be transformed by the renewal of our mind. This is, by listening to the Truth, who is Jesus Christ!

Obey the Truth

Jesus is sharing this parable with all those who have just heard and listened to the truth expounded upon in this grand sermon.

So Jesus’ words here are for those who have sat under His teaching.

But it is not enough to simply hear and listen to the truth that is expounded and explained.

The wise man listens to the truth, but then he also follows through and obeys the truth.

Lego Masters - the judges will often give advice and direction to the contestants. The advice tells the contestants what the judges are looking for. They get to hear any warnings and directions that are given. But sometimes the contestants decide they know what is best, so they refuse to listen to the words spoken to them. And they end up paying dearly for ignoring and disregarding the advice given to them.

In the same way, it is to our detriment if we ignore Jesus’ words in this sermon.

It is possible to appear to be following what is laid out in this sermon, and yet still completely disregard the directions.

Wrong Obedience

There is a way that looks like obedience but is really a religious way of building our lives upon the sand.

There is a huge wave of deconstruction or apostasy that has been taking place over the last 5-10 years from leaders within the Christian subculture.

One prominent deconstruction story comes from a man name Joshua Harris. Back around 1997, he wrote a book called, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye.” This was the time in which the purity culture and True Love Waits was really beginning to gain in popularity. Now, the overall messaging of this movement was good. Part of this sermon on the Mount is to strive for righteousness and purity. But in the call for purity, there was a legalistic spirit to this movement where many of its leaders were preaching the message that if you remain pure in singleness then God will bless you and give you a great marriage with great benefits in that marriage. Now, as we see, Jesus’ words are meant for our flourishing and for our best and following these principles can definitely help strengthen our relationships with one another. But the problem with this was it was making promises they could not deliver. God never promises that if we do everything He says we should that life will go well for us. The problem with this was that the goal was not to seek for Christ’s righteousness, but rather it sought after God’s blessings that He was obligated to give if we did everything right. When this particular teaching began to come to fruition and those who followed these principles found that marriage was still a struggle because we live in a fallen world and that the storms of life still hit even when we do everything right, people began to fall away from the faith, including Joshua Harris. A few years ago, the man who preached purity in sexuality and who kissed dating goodbye, also kissed marriage goodbye when he and his wife divorced and they both declared they were no longer Christian. He apologized for all the harm he had done by promoting the purity culture.

There have been other stories like this. Which begs the question, why couldn’t they stand when the storms hit?

Go Back to the Beginning

If we are going to obey the truth Jesus here has taught, we must start back at the beginning with the Beatitudes.

We must first humble ourselves and see ourselves as having nothing to be able to offer to God. We are spiritually bankrupt. We are completely unable to carry out the demands of this sermon in our own strength.

We must learn to see, with Paul, that everything we might count as a gain is really a loss to us.

Philippians 3:7 (ESV)

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

As we see our sinfulness and our spiritual bankruptcy, we should so hate our sinfulness that we mourn over how we have rebelled and listened and believed the lies this world has told us.

As we mourn and hate our sin, we no longer live for ourselves. We take on an attitude of humility and meekness and understand that life is to be lived for the glory of Christ rather than our own glory and pleasure. My best life is not seeking my own interests, but the glory and pleasure of God!

And as we humble ourselves, we begin to learn that what we really need is not to be in control of our own lives, but to submit our lives to the truth of God’s Word and to hunger and thirst for the righteousness that Christ has provided for us through His death and resurrection!

There’s a fundamental difference here. Obedience is not living to put God in our debt or to gain the things of this world. It is great when God blesses us and we need to have gratitude when He does bless us. But Obedience is submitting ourselves to God in order to become more like Christ.

2 Timothy 4:10 (ESV)

For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.

The deconstruction that we are experiencing today is nothing new. Demas was a fellow friend and coworker with Paul, but ended up leaving the faith because he too was in love with the things of this world.

We understand that in this fallen world, things are not as it should be and that life will still be hard for those who are living faithfully. But we live in obedience because we want to know Christ, not because we want to have a better marriage or a great love life or success in business or a great home or kids. We live not for our own benefit, but for the glory of Christ.

Philippians 3:7–11 (ESV)

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Paul is showing us what true obedience looks like here. It is not his own righteousness. It is the righteousness that comes from trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross so that he can know Him and become more like Him, even if that means suffering and dying like Him.

This obedience then means that we will become merciful to others. When others do not treat us the way we think we deserve, we will be merciful to them, not because of our goodness, but because of Christ’s mercy. It will change our relationships with one another in the body of Christ, the way we relate with our spouses, the way we love our enemies!

This obedience will lead us to be pure in heart because of the work of God’s grace. And what is the reward for being pure in heart? We will get to see God!!!!

True obedience will lead us to rejoice in persecution knowing that we are being made like Christ and getting to identify with Him in His sufferings.

Our true obedience to this sermon is not to live it out in our own strength or for our own purposes, but to live for the sake of knowing Christ and to make Him known!

Teach the Truth

But part of our building our lives on Christ include helping each other build our lives on him.

First, this means reaching out to those who do not know Christ and sharing with them the truth of His Word. They cannot hope to build their lives on the rock if they never hear of what the Truth really is.

Romans 10:13–15 (ESV)

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

We are called to teach the truth to others so they too can build their lives upon Jesus!

We are also called to encourage and teach one another. That includes teaching both what Christ has said and also reminding each other why Christ is worthy of our faith and love.

Hebrews 10:25 (ESV)

not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

im proud of how Garrett and Tiffany have been working on this goal to help the challenge students grow in their faith and confidence in who Christ is. They have been doing apologetics on Wednesday nights looking at why we believe what we believe and answering the tough questions people have of Christianity and of Christ.

our sunday school classes help to fulfill this role as we teach and encourage each other and I would like to encourage everyone to be a part of one of our classes as we continue to grow in the truth of Christ and build our lives upon Him.

Our ladies’ bible study and prison ministry that Linda Brown, Jayme and Brent Avery, and Rusty Elliott are all involved in.

Sunday nights

awana

this fall we will be specifically talking about how to think biblically about many of the hot topics that the world is trying to speak their truth about. We want to help our teenagers and parents and grandparents be able to look at these issues through a biblical worldview. I hope everyone here will take advantage of this opportunity and join us for that study As we continue to learn how to follow and submit to Christ.

finally I want to share the lyrics to a song that I want us to consider this morning.

When you’re tempted and you’re tried

By the storms of life

There’s a place that you can hide

In a world of shifting sand

On Christ we stand!

He’s the only perfect plan

There is a rock

That stands the test of time

Where the wind and waters rise

And waves are always breakin’

There is a rock

Where we can build our lives

His name is Jesus Christ

And we will not be shaken …

So the question for us this morning is what are we building our lives upon? Are we looking for the pleasures of this world, maybe the blessings and gifts that God can give or are we hungering and thirsting after righteousness so we can know Christ Himself?