Built to Last- Matthew 7:24-27
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Good morning church!
If you have kiddos 3rd grade and under, feel free to have them head on downstair to children’s church
Also 3rd grade through 6th grade has our foundations class starting TODAY!
Mike Harper is teaching that today and they are studying the question of “Who is God?”
So if you have 3rd through 6th graders, feel free to send them downstairs for that class as well
Or to stay up hear with us, we are always happy for children to stay with us in service
They learn how to be in church, by being in church
There is a saying, “If the church isn’t crying, it’s dying”
So when we hear cries and squeaks in the service it’s a reminder that God is blessing and building His church to with another generation
As you can tell, I am not Pastor Andrew!
This week he and Sarah were able to take a much needed weekend with just the two of them
So while they are away relaxing, I was trusted to bring the sermon for today
And since Andrew is away and can’t hold me accountable I thought I would bring up something that is entirely non-controversial
the election!
Everywhere I look I see signs for Trump or Kamala
Every time I open my computer or phone I see some article about a poll saying this candidate or that candidate is ahead
It seems every podcast I listen to has some new take on what is going on
Every single thing I read or see seems to be focused on the election
And most people are terrified
Terrified that their chosen candidate will loose
I know people who are effectively loosing their minds about the race
While I share concern, I have a peace about this state of affairs
Because “My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness”
This election is but a storm
A storm that reveals where we have laid the foundation of our lives
In Matthew 7:24-27 we see two calls for the reader: Hear and Do, and take Heed Lest You Fall
With that, let’s read our text
Reading the text
Reading the text
“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.”
Prayer
Prayer
Hear and Do
Hear and Do
In these verses Christ is ending His longest recorded sermon
For those of you who have never preached, a sermon largely has three parts
An introduction
the body
and a conclusion
It’s usually very very easy to get going
You give some illustration, maybe a recent headline that is on everyone’s minds and tie it to the text
Then as you’re going in the body, it’s usually smooth sailing
You just keep the course and follow the text
It’s the conclusion, the final note of application
The last words you want the people listening to remember
This is usually the hardest past of the sermon
These four verses
This final concluding illustration
Jesus has shifted who He is speaking about
Not many verses ago, Jesus had been talking about false teachers
Warning the listeners, and us today, to avoid those who come in in sheep’s clothing
Seeking to devour unsuspecting sheep
And this warning is still ringing in the ears of those who truly hear Christ
That not all who say they are Christian truly are!
I was just chatting with a friend this last week
He is a good Christian man and cares deeply for hurting people
And he sent me a link to a group that offers counseling that they claim is biblically based
But as I read through their material, I quickly saw deep errors in what was being taught
Within minutes it was evident that rather than than being biblically based, this group was based in naturalism and materialism
They used worldly concepts that denied the problem of sin and then slapped on some Bible verses
Why do I tell that story?
Because it is a problem throughout the church, not just this one ministry
Turn on nearly any TV preacher
Go into the Christian self-help section of the bookstore
Look at 90% of supposedly Christian media and you will find quickly under the surface deep rot and dependence upon the world
(Maybe 90% is an exaggeration but I think you understand my point)
The teachers who we listen to
The teacher who we go to to tell us the Word
They matter!
Because the rock on which you build your life matters!
Who’s words are you listening to?
Are you listening to the words of Christ?
Or are you listening to the words of the world repackaged?
Christ says the wise man is the one who hears HIS Words and does HIS words
There are many foundations upon which you can build your life
There are many voices
Many words
Many people claiming to give you words of life and truth that will stand the test of time
And there have been many of these who have come throughout the ages
And one after the other they have all fallen
The waves crashed against each one
And they washed away
And those who had built their homes, their lives, planted the whole of their being and their hope of eternity upon these words were washed with them
My friends, those who you listen to matter immensely!
Those who you fill your heart or mind with will influence your life
Are you mixing sand into the foundation of your life?
2 Timothy 4:3-4
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
Itching ears cause many to ruin their faith
Itching ears love to be scratched by whatever teacher will tell them what they want to hear
The question for us is not if we LIKE what a teacher says
Good teaching isn’t meant to always make you feel good
Quite often it is meant to pierce you deeply and cut your soul like a knife.
So when we hear the words of a teacher, our first question should not be, “How did that make me feel?” but instead, “Does this teaching match the Scriptures?”
The question is NOT if this matches the most recent pop psychology
The question is NOT if this decision matches what I already desired to happen
The question is NOT if the instruction matches everything else I have been told in my life
The single question which is essential is simply, “Does this teaching match with the Word of God?”
If the answer is yes, then it must be submitted to in obedience
If the answer is no, it is to be rejected
The wise person is the one who hears the words, understands that they come from God, and is obedient to them
The fool is the one who hears the words of the Lord, and chooses not to be obedient to them in favor of anything else
They are those among us who mix sand into their foundation and when the storm comes, their house will collapse for there was no firm foundation
Pay attention friends
Check the foundation of your life
Check the words that you listen to
Think critically about those who you go to for teaching
Don’t follow your heart
Don’t follow those who merely echo your heart
Follow Christ
Listen to His words
And hold all others against Him
Take Heed Lest You Fall
Take Heed Lest You Fall
“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.”
It is not merely what you hear that matters, but what you do with what you hear!
What does Jesus tell us about the wise person?
Wisdom isn’t just sitting and listening to Him
Wisdom is to hear the words of Christ and DO them!
The fool heard the same words as the wise man
They sat under the same teaching!
When Christ spoke these words, He was speaking to one crowd
The fool and the wise man were sitting next to each other
Both hear the same words from the same Lord at the same time and in the same way
The difference was how these words impacted their lives!
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
How many of you, if I ask what you look like, can come up with a general idea in your mind?
This morning, as I got ready to come here today, I spent some time in front of the mirror
Brushing my teeth, styling my hair, curling my mustache
Every day, the same routine
Every day several minutes spent looking at my own reflection
I can tell you that I have one tooth that’s slightly more yellow than the others, that I have several stray eyebrow hairs that I probably should have plucked but didn’t, that the left side of my head has hair that doesn’t round off as much as I’d like, and that this side of my mustache sticks forward more then the other but no matter what I do I can’t get it to stay back
Now, if after seeing myself in the mirror, I forgot everything about my appearance, you would say I’m crazy
To look at my face every day and not be able to tell you that I have brown hair would be laughable
To hear the Word of God
To sit under the teaching of the Word
To read the Word
And to still not do it…
That is like looking in the mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like
To hear the Word of God declared week after week
To read the Word of God every day
And to refuse to live in it
This is the height of foolishness
To live your life as if nothing is wrong, while building on a sandy foundation is a terribly foolishness
And that is what is going on in our passage
Both people, the wise man and the foolish man are building houses
And everything we can see about them is identical
Their lives, these houses, they look the same to the person walking down the street.
Both people go to church on Sunday mornings
Both people are serving in their church
Both people are living outwardly moral lives
Both people have built for themselves lives that outwardly appear solid
But the error of their lives is at the root level
At the foundations
The wise man has heard the words of our Lord and responded in faith
Hearing the words of Christ, he has been broken by his sin
He has seen how insufficient he is
He has seen his complete desperation for a Savior
And he trembles under this
His response has been to believe the words of Christ and to throw Himself into His mercy and grace
Trusting the Lord for the fullness of his salvation
And repenting of his sins
Putting aside all those things that once defined him and rebuilding his life upon the Word of the Lord
He has seen the Lord in the Scriptures and cried out with David
The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock,
and exalted be the God of my salvation—
The foolish man has heard the words of Christ but has come away with an unbelieving heart
And though his life, his house, appears as solid as the wise man’s
There is no rock of his salvation
He has heard the words of Christ and instead of turning from sin, clings to his own strength to save him
He believes that it is the power of his prayers
The length of his Bible study
The extent of his service in the church
That these will save him
My friends, you can devote your entire life to the study of the Word of God
You can be knowledgable in all the facts of the things of God
And yet never have it touch your heart!
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
How much effort
How much toil
How much hardship building that entire house
Building up your entire life
Assuming you used al the right materials
Thinking that you had built the strongest and loveliest home
Only to have it destroyed in a day because you paid no heed to the foundation
How great the pain, how horrifying the day
When many will stand before the throne of the living God thinking their prayers had reached His ears to save them only to be cast from His presence as He declares “I never knew you…”
Those words echoing in their ears for all eternity
Matthew 7:25 and 27
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 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.”
The rain fell
The floods came
and the winds blew and beat on BOTH houses
Both houses faced the same storm
Both people faced the same trials
The same difficulties
The same calamity
You see, no one is going to escape hardship in this life
If you go into my office, you will find on my desk a basket full of tea
A lot of it is loose leaf tea, but if you take one of the tea bags and put it into a cup, what happens?
Well it it’s in the cup by itself, nothing happens
You can look at two teabags and they can look exactly the same from the outside
But if you put them into a mug and then pour hot water on them, what happens then?
Well then you see what was inside of them all along
The heat has brought out what was inside the teabag
We are like that teabag
We have all built houses of our lives
Houses that appear the same on the outside
To the world around us our lives may look very very similar
But when testing comes
When the heat is poured on
When the storms crash against us
That is when the foundation of our lives are revealed
When our families sin against us and break our hearts
When our saving vanish as the economy slips
Sickness takes loved ones
When a literal storm destroys our homes
It is here when the contents of our heart, when the foundation of our life is made evident
It is in the storms of life that we find the foolishness of trusting in anything other than the very Word of God
It is in the storm of life that we find the self-help books are empty and vain, when we cannot help ourselves because we never could
It is in the storm of life that we find the promises of health and wealth and prosperity are so empty
It is in the storms of life that we see our hearts longing to control everything around me was always doomed to fail
And it is in the storms of life that we see the only rock emerging from the flood water is the rock of Christ the only Savior
The only house left standing is the house built upon His Word alone
The house built on the sand was washed away, the house built half on the rock and half on the sand slipped off the rock
The only house that remained was firmly secured on the Rock of Christ
Unable to be swayed by the quickly changing winds of the teachers of the world
Oh my friends the storm will come
Will your house remain standing?
What is the foundation of your life?
Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
Do not think yourself so spiritual, such a faithful Christian, that your life could not fall with the fool’s
Mightier man than you have fallen under the storm assuming that their house would be the one to stand and their neighbors be the one to fall!
Examine your life
Take heed of your life
Check the foundation for cracks now, for sand seeping into the foundation of your life
because the storm could crash tomorrow
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 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.”
When the storm crashed against the lives of these two people
The wise man’s remained standing “because it had been founded on the rock”
The Rock of Christ
The Rock of the revealed Word of God
And the same wind crashed against the house of the fool
Who had built his life upon his own understanding and the wisdom of the world
And it fell
And great was the fall of it
Do not trust your heart
Do not trust your feelings
Do not trust your conscience
How often do our deceptive hearts mislead us
Bind them to the Word
Do not trust in kings or politicians
Do not trust in presidents, whoever it may be
Do not trust in the people around you
For they are but sand and provide no security for your soul
Conclusion
Conclusion
My friends
Whose words are you building your life upon?
What is the rock on which you have built your life?
Because there is one rock that will resist the crashing waves
There is one fortress that will withstand all attacks
It is Christ and Christ alone
His Words are life everlasting
He alone provides stability in a world that is shifting sand
Check your heart
Examine your life that you are built upon the rock
Because while the storms will come
If you have built your life upon the Word of Christ
Then you have no reason to fear
For when the rains come down and the floods come up and the winds beat against the walls of your home
It shall stand for the foundation is the unshakable Rock of Ages
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee;
let the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure;
save from wrath and make me pure.”
In a world so chaotic
So unstable
So terrifying
Where else should we turn for stability?
What wisdom will hold us up?
On whom shall we depend
But Christ and Christ alone
And when the storm of life rages
And the waves beat against you
We who are built on Christ can repeat Charles Spurgeon that, I have learned to kiss the waves that cast me against the rock of Christ.”
Prayer
Prayer
