The Two Foundations

There’s a well-known story I want to tell you this morning about authority. Now, this story may or may not be true; I was unable to find the original source, so I can’t confirm whether it really happened or it’s just a good story.

It’s a favorite story of motivational speakers and leadership consultants, and it’s been used as a sermon illustration by so many preachers that I’ve concluded it must be a requirement of pastors to use this story at least once in their ministries.

So, in order to meet the apparent requirement — and because it illustrates so well what we’ll be talking about today as we conclude our study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount — I will share it with you now.

A U.S. battleship had been at sea on training maneuvers with its squadron during heavy weather for several days, when, one night, with patchy fog all around them and low visibility, the officer who was on watch on the bridge saw a light shining in the distance.

“Light, bearing on the starboard bow,” he reported to the captain.

“Is it steady or moving astern?” the captain asked. “Steady, Captain.”

That meant the battleship was on a collision course with whatever ship the light belonged to.

The captain called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: 'We are on a collision course, advise you change course twenty degrees.'"

Back came the signal, "Advisable for you to change course twenty degrees."

The captain said, "Send: "I'm a captain, change course twenty degrees.'"

"I'm a seaman second-class," came the reply. "You had better change course twenty degrees."

By that time the captain was furious. He growled at the signalman, "Send: 'I'm a battleship. Change course twenty degrees.'"

Back came the flashing light, "I'm a lighthouse."

So, the battleship changed its course 20 degrees.

Whether or not this is a true story, you can see why its such a popular one to share in leadership seminars and the like. And the moral is clear: When someone speaks with authority, there can be grave consequences for not following their directions.

And, as we turn to the last section of the Sermon on the Mount, beginning in Matthew 7, verse 24, we’ll see today that Jesus both spoke with authority and called for obedience from his listeners then and from us now.

Let’s read this passage together, and then we’ll talk about these closing words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 7:24–29 NASB95

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.” When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

Now, this is the fourth set of choices Jesus has talked about in His conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount.

He talked about the narrow and wide gates in the passage we studied three weeks ago. He talked about the good tree and the bad tree in the passage we studied two weeks ago. He talked about the true claim and the false claim in last week’s passage. And in today’s passage, He talks about the strong foundation and the weak foundation.

As you can see, in every case, there are only two choices. You see, the gospel IS exclusive, and that’s one of the things the world hates about it.

The world wants you to believe that all roads lead to heaven, that as long as you’re a good person (whatever that means), you will find, as one of my friends put it the other day, enlightenment.

But Jesus said that the gate is small and the road is narrow that leads to eternal life, but the road is broad and the gate wide that leads to destruction.

The world wants you to believe that everyone who says nice, Christian-y things about Jesus teaches truth. But Jesus said a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, and the bad trees will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Many in the Christian world want to believe that they’ve been saved because of some prayer they recited or because they were baptized or because they’ve been in church all their lives or even because of all the Christian work they have done.

But Jesus said “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for THEIRS is the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, blessed are those who understand that they are spiritually bankrupt and have no righteousness of their own that would put God in their debt.

And Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”

The world says it doesn’t matter how you respond to Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Actually, what the world often says is that Jesus was a great moral teacher, and this sermon includes some fine moral lessons.

But Jesus said He is the authoritative judge who will decide who is able to enter the kingdom of heaven, and He said only those whose righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees of His time will be admitted into His kingdom.

The others, He said, will be like the foolish man who built his house on the sand, and great was its fall when the rains fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house.

In this week’s passage, there is a wise man and a foolish man, and I want you to note that both of them heard Jesus’ words. They both heard what He taught. They both had that first element of faith that I talked about last week, notitia. They had the information He had presented.

Perhaps you do, as well. Perhaps you’ve been in the church all your life, and you’ve heard all the Bible stories.

Maybe you’ve heard that Jesus is the Son of God. Maybe you’ve heard that you are a sinner, separated by your sins from fellowship with the God who created you in His own image for fellowship with Him.

Maybe you’ve heard that Jesus came to earth to live a sinless life as a man so that when He sacrificed Himself on a cross, bearing the weight of and the guilt for all of your sins and mine, he could endure the just penalty for rebellion against God so that we would not have to do so.

Maybe you’ve heard that His resurrection on the third day was evidence that God had accepted His sacrifice on our behalf as full payment for our sins against Him.

Maybe you’ve heard that those who put their faith in Jesus and His sacrifice will be saved and have eternal life — life in everlasting and perfect fellowship with the Father and the Son in the kingdom of heaven.

Are you, then, the wise man or the foolish man from this parable of Christ that we read just a few minutes ago? There’s no way to know. Remember, the wise man and the foolish man both had the information. They both had notitia.

But remember that there was a second element of saving faith that we talked about last week — assensus, or agreement.

And you may recall that, as we talked about the two claims last week, we concluded that the question whose answer will matter when each of us stands before Jesus’ throne of judgment in heaven will not be, “Do you know Jesus?” but rather “Does Jesus know you?”

Jesus talked about two groups in verses 21-23, and both of them called Him “Lord, Lord,” so they both recognized Him as the King and rightful Judge. And one of those groups even described all the work they had done “in His name,” so they agreed that His name is powerful and authoritative.

But only one of those groups will enter the kingdom of heaven. To the other group, Jesus will say, “I never knew you; depart from Me.

I think there is a parallel between that passage and today’s passage. Both the wise man and the foolish man seem to have built houses that probably looked beautiful and strong to anyone passing by.

Maybe, just like those who would say that the Sermon on the Mount is simply a great moral code, they took the moral lessons Jesus taught here and applied them to their lives. Perhaps they agreed that this code of conduct Jesus had presented made sense and might even make the world a better place.

If you do that, you will, indeed, appear to be enlightened. If you pursue peace; look for ways to make things right in the world; control your anger; renounce lust; love your spouse; live authentically, honestly, and generously; love your enemies; give to the poor and fast and pray, then you will have built a beautiful house, indeed.

You will have that second element of saving faith, assensus or agreement. You will have shown that you agree with Jesus that this is the way people are supposed to live.

Both of the men in this parable of warning heard what Jesus said, and they both built houses, and to the casual bystander, both houses looked beautiful and strong.

But what was the difference? One had a foundation on the rock, and the other was simply built on the sand.

I can imagine that the one who built on the sand must have looked at his finished house and marveled at how good a job he had done.

How many hours must he have spent squaring all the corners and cutting all the fine details of the trim and staining the deck.

And yet, when the trial of the storm came — that great trial of judgment before the throne of Christ — the house fell, and great was its fall. It was utterly destroyed.

His beautiful house had been built without a foundation, and the storm of Christ’s judgment revealed all those beautiful works for what they were — an assemblage of sticks that could not weather the storm.

But then there’s the wise man, who built his house upon the rock.

It’s interesting to think about what his house might have looked like. Maybe it was just as beautiful as the foolish man’s house. Maybe he had been just as careful as the foolish man to square his corners and cut out the fine details of the trim and even stain the deck.

That’s certainly the proper way to build a house, and as we peel back the metaphor that Jesus used in this parable, we can see that living the way Jesus described in this Sermon on the Mount is the proper response for those who call Him their king.

To act on Jesus’ words is to, as Matthew Henry put it, “conscientiously ... abstain from the sins that he forbids, and to perform the duties that he requires. Our thoughts and affections, our words and actions, the temper of our minds, and the tenour of our lives, must [conform] to the gospel of Christ; that is the doing he requires.” [Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994), 1647.]

But what’s really interesting to me is that the wise man’s house did not weather the storm of Christ’s judgment because of how well it was built. No, the wise man’s house stood through the storm because of the foundation upon which it had been built.

Maybe he didn’t stain the deck. Maybe all the light switches, like in the house my father built, were installed upside down. Maybe the paint was peeling and the corners were out of square.

Maybe he never conquered anger or lust in his life. Maybe he wasn’t as generous as he should have been. Maybe he forgot to fast and pray.

All those things will have an effect on the rewards he will receive in heaven, because they will reveal that he loved something on earth more than he loved Jesus.

But none of those things will cause his house to fall before Jesus’ throne of judgment, because his house had been built on a rock.

Jesus is the rock of our salvation. He alone is the firm foundation that will support your house on the day of judgment.

And houses that are built upon that rock have all three elements of saving faith. The have notitia, the information about the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have assensus, agreement that the gospel is true.

And, finally, they have fiducia, trust in — and only in — this gospel message, trust that Jesus Christ alone is the way, the truth and the life, trust that He alone can save you from the great fall and complete destruction on that day of judgment.

Way back at the beginning of this series on the Sermon on the Mount, 18 weeks ago, we looked at the first four of the Beatitudes, and we saw that these four blessings are the marks of a Christian. They describe the proper relationship between Christians and God.

And the first of those blessings, the one that set the tone for the entire rest of the Sermon on the Mount, was this: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The world says that you’ll be blessed if you are good, that you’ll be saved because of the good works that you do here on earth.

But Jesus says the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who understand that there is nothing good in them, that they come to the gates of this kingdom with nothing to offer God that would put Him in their debt, nothing that would require God to open the gates to them.

Jesus says, through the Apostle Paul, that we are saved only by God’s grace, through faith in Christ, and that both the grace and faith are gracious gifts of God.

Without Jesus, all the good works you will ever do are being built on the sands of a storm-tossed seashore, and when the hurricane of God’s judgment comes, they will all be washed away, and you will find the gates of God’s kingdom locked against you.

Where are you building your house?

Have you built it on the shifting sand of your own righteousness or have you built it on the rock of Jesus Christ?

He is the only truly righteous one, and He took upon Himself our sins and bore the just punishment for them so that we who put our trust in Him would receive the righteousness of Christ and be able to stand before God, unmoved and undamaged, on that terrible coming day of judgment.

You’ve heard the facts. You know what Jesus said. Perhaps you’ve even come to the point of agreement, recognizing the authority with which He spoke.

But are you ready, like the captain of that battleship, to adjust your course based on that authority? Are you ready to start building on the rock? Will you trust Jesus today?

Let’s pray.

Now, if you are a baptized believer — if you have placed all of your trust for salvation entirely in Jesus and His finished work at the cross — I want to invite you to join us this morning as we participate in the Lord’s Supper.

Jesus commanded that we observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him and as a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him.

So, if you have made the decision to follow the risen Christ in faith that He is the Son of God and Redeemer of your soul, then I hope you will join us as we participate in this sacred meal that dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.

If you are a Christian watching at home, feel free to join us with bread and juice or water — the early church used both as part of its communion observance.

The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today, but the significance was the same as it is today.

Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:26 NASB95

While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.

“In [Jesus} we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:27–28 NASB95

And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

Take and drink.

“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

Maranatha! Lord, come!

Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.

Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”