The Foundation

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ 24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” 28 And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, 29 for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Lesson

Jesus began this sermon with the statement:

Matthew 5:20 NKJV

20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Shocking, I know. The Pharisees were experts in the minutia of outward lawkeeping. They were meticulous.

But as Jesus said, inside they were full of dead men’s bones. Their hearts were far from God.

They had all sorts of rules about adultery - but if you divorced and married, then divorced and married again - on and on - you could find loopholes. Never-mind that you left a trail of wounded, impoverished and desperate women in your wake.

You couldn’t take a knife and stab someone. But you could destroy them with words, slander, gossip, “just asking for prayer”, and go away patting yourself on the back for not gossiping.

We have gone through all of these in this sermon.

The gist of the sermon is the same thing that Solomon was saying in Proverbs

Proverbs 2:10–22 NKJV

10 When wisdom enters your heart, And knowledge is pleasant to your soul, 11 Discretion will preserve you; Understanding will keep you, 12 To deliver you from the way of evil, From the man who speaks perverse things, 13 From those who leave the paths of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness; 14 Who rejoice in doing evil, And delight in the perversity of the wicked; 15 Whose ways are crooked, And who are devious in their paths; 16 To deliver you from the immoral woman, From the seductress who flatters with her words, 17 Who forsakes the companion of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God. 18 For her house leads down to death, And her paths to the dead; 19 None who go to her return, Nor do they regain the paths of life— 20 So you may walk in the way of goodness, And keep to the paths of righteousness. 21 For the upright will dwell in the land, And the blameless will remain in it; 22 But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, And the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.

A man might know all of the religious phrases, and be destitute of righteousness. A man might even work miracles and raise tons of money and build huge institutions, but be destitute of love.

This is the point of the whole sermon up until now.

The problem with the Jews was that they lacked wisdom. If you don’t have wisdom, you will be seduced by sin, sucked into evil, and perish far from God.

“Depart from me; I never knew you.”

When you depart from wisdom, wisdom declares it on the last day.

Jesus is the wisdom of God made flesh. Solomon says of wisdom this:

Proverbs 8:22–24 NKJV

22 “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old. 23 I have been established from everlasting, From the beginning, before there was ever an earth. 24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, When there were no fountains abounding with water.

Our first problem is that we think that we have wisdom, so it never occurs to us to ask for it.

So because we think we have wisdom, we would naturally consider ourselves to be righteous and wise and loving.

But our default position is the position of the fool - the house on the sand.

When we hear of the requirements of the law, we say to ourselves, “With excitement and proper exercise of the will, with the proper motivation, I can keep this law because I am just that good. I can at least do better than the other guy.”

The problem is that when you see what the law of God actually says, it goes to the heart and convicts everyone.

Lust in the heart. Calling your neighbor a fool. Trusting money and riches. Not resting. Using words to manipulate rather than tell the truth.

Which is why Jesus says Matthew 5:20

Matthew 5:20 NKJV

20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

So we substitute our own law. We gerrymander the boundaries - those inside are the righteous. They are like me.

Those outside are the wicked. They are like the people we don’t like.

Inside are those who do everything the proper way, like good proper people. They know when to say, “Lord, Lord” and they know the proper things to do and the proper things to say.

Outside are the worldly, who laugh on the Sabbath, go to the theater, wear miniskirts. Dress like hippies, don’t shine their shoes, listen to the wrong sort of music...

So - final warning first:

First - That day.

There is a day of judgment coming. The Scripture repeatedly speaks of the “day of the Lord”

But Amos 5:18

Amos 5:18–19 NKJV

18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness, and not light. 19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion, And a bear met him! Or as though he went into the house, Leaned his hand on the wall, And a serpent bit him!

The Jews thought like we all do - when the Lord comes in judgment, we will be just fine.

Why? Because we said, “Lord, Lord” and did the work of the church and taught sinners the law and built huge organizations and everyone thinks well of us.

But Jesus echoes the prophets of old. What good is the day of the Lord to you? How do you think you will escape when God comes in judgment

Second - Jesus is the judge

This would have shocked the Jews. Jesus is claiming that he is the Son of David and he is claiming the right to sit in judgment.

Putting these ideas together, Jesus is the one whose coming was foretold as “the day of the Lord” - a day of judgment and consummation.

But he has already come, but the “day” has not yet come.

What is new is that the day of the Lord has been divided into two - first, he comes with salvation.

THEN he comes in judgment.

Third - the nature of the judgment

It isn’t the outward religious activities, but doing the will of God.

In the context, it is obedience from the heart, just as he described in his sermon.

It must be a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.

The righteousness which can stand before God must be perfect throughout and wholly conformable to the divine law.

Galatians 3:10 NKJV

10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.”

If we are honest - which we can only be if we are awakened by the Holy Spirit - we will realize that we are in trouble.

What is the solution?

The house on the rock

Wasn’t there something in the Old Testament about getting something that would protect you from sin and ruin?

That’s right…wisdom.

Not only will Wisdom guide you in the right paths, but it will ALSO take away all of your sins, cover you with perfect righteousness...

As revelation unfolds we realize that God has provided the righteousness that we cannot.

All we can say is “Lord, Lord” - but what good is that when our hearts are full of death and decay.

Building your house on the foundation of wisdom - and building your house on the perfect, finished work of Christ are the same thing.

1 Corinthians 1:22–24 NKJV

22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The Jews seek power - a sign, like Moses in the wilderness - forgetting how quickly the nation turned away from God. Earthly power can never cut to the heart and bring life out of death and ruin.

The Greeks seek wisdom, thinking that if they just knew enough and saw the big picture, they would make the right choices - but they all died, alienated and in misery.

And they rejected the gospel. They could not fathom a messiah, a wise one, a Holy One from God, dying on a cross.

They thought that with the proper exercise of power and the proper exercise of wisdom, their righteousness would exceed the requirements - and they built on that house

And that house fell, and it’s fall was tremendous.

“Depart from me, you who work iniquity.”

In every age, the blustering person, the master of wisdom and prudence and insight - and the curtains are being pulled back - and behind the mahogany walls and ivory towers, the death and ruin of the bodies run over are piling up.

Because they thought that they could build a house on their own wisdom and insight, on their wealth and power, on their numbers and coalitions - and the houses will always fall flat.

Because if the house is on the wrong foundation, if it is built upon anything other than the cross of Christ, it will always, always bring forth the works of the flesh. It cannot but fall into ruin when the storms come.

Only one foundation brings life - another way of looking at the bride, the groom, the shepherd, the sheep, the kingdom and the king.

His righteousness covers us completely.

His sacrifices takes away all curse

His spirit guides and directs us and sanctifies us

So that we learn more and more each day about the wonderful love of Jesus, which passes all of our understanding.

And only on THAT foundation will we stand at the Day of the Lord. All other ground is sinking sand.

And the Hebrew word for a solid foundation that will not collapse is “amen”.

To believe is to stand on that foundation. To declare the promises of God in scripture to be “amen”. He will walk with me through the shadow of death. he will guide me every day of my life. He will never let me go.

Amen.

To amen the promises of God is to be amened by God - this is the play on words that Isaiah said to ‘Ahaz. If you will not amen, you will not be amened.

To build your life on anything else is to build your life on folly. That is the default. That is what we have if we don’t ask for wisdom, don’t seek after her, and don’t build our life on her. And wisdom is a person, who became flesh and dwelt in our midst.

His foundation is the one that never fails, for he is the “beloved son, in whom God is well pleased” and when we build on that foundation, we are in him - and what is his is ours. WE are the beloved sons, and heirs of the promise.