We are getting to the end of the Sermon on the Mount. We have moved pretty slowly through this just because it’s such a powerful set of texts. Next week we are going to continue on in Matthew, of course, but this is the last bit of the Sermon on the Mount and it says this (starting with verse 24):
“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.
So Jesus, in this text, is talking about obedience to Christ. He is talking about us not just hearing the word, but being doers of the word as well. James 1:22-25 talks about this same idea: that it is not the hearers of the Word that are justified but the doers of the Word that are justified, which is a serious thing for us to consider. If you are obedient to Christ in the day-to-day, that foundational rock will prove to be solid and true, but if you are not obedient then you’re going to walk around like you’re in sand; it will be a little bit wonky.
But, most likely, He is actually talking about a judgment: the last day. When Jesus comes again, we’re going to be judged by what we believe, for sure, but ultimately what we believe comes about in how we live. It’s the only proof we have; our words are cheap if they are not backed up by our lives. And that is what this is talking about to some degree. When Jesus is mentioning this to the disciples, their minds may have gone back to one of these two verses. One is Proverbs 10:25:
“When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous has an everlasting foundation.”
Then Ezekiel 13:10-16 says this about that whole idea of wind and destruction:
“It is definitely because they have misled My people by saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace. And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash; so tell those who plaster it over with whitewash, that it will fall. A flooding rain will come, and you, O hailstones, will fall; and a violent wind will break out. Behold, when the wall has fallen, will you not be asked, ‘Where is the plaster with which you plastered it?’” Therefore, thus says the Lord God, “I will make a violent wind break out in My wrath. There will also be in My anger a flooding rain and hailstones to consume it in wrath. So I will tear down the wall which you plastered over with whitewash and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation is laid bare; and when it falls, you will be consumed in its midst. And you will know that I am the Lord. Thus I will spend My wrath on the wall and on those who have plastered it over with whitewash; and I will say to you, ‘The wall is gone and its plasterers are gone,along with the prophets of Israel who prophesy to Jerusalem, and who see visions of peace for her when there is no peace,’ declares the Lord God.”
So, their minds very likely would have gone to one of these texts about the concept of God bringing flooding or wind; about Him destroying something. Their minds would have gone to the end of time; not necessarily to the day-to-day lives that they lived.
This is such a serious text. Scot McKnight, in his take on the Sermon on the Mount, says that this is so serious that we “should not have our children sing songs about this parable, which create a joyous and misplaced understanding of the seriousness of it.” And he’s probably right. Because we, as saints of the Living God, need to be aware of what God has called us to; the graveness of it. William Barklay says, “Knowledge must become action, theory must become practice, theology must become life.” As saints of the Living God, we need to be aware that this idea of us being built upon the rock (which is Jesus Christ) is so crucial — and so much a part of who we are — that the very thought of not doing (and proving) that should cause us some fear.
The scripture says, “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall…” And who are those founded on the rock, but “…everyone who hears these words of mine and who acts upon them.” So we have to first hear the word of Christ, and then we have to act upon the word of Christ.
I realized today – and I had never thought about this until this morning – in the story of Mary and Martha, Martha’s problem was that she wasn’t a hearer. She was a doer; but she had not even heard what to do yet. She was not willing to sit at Jesus feet and listen because she wanted to keep active and moving, and she was rebuked for that. Jesus said ‘your sister Mary chose the better place,’ which was to be a hearer. Jesus later goes on and He talks about “doing” so much that we understand: without doing, hearing has no value to us.
If I get sick – well, if I get sick, I go to Cherri and she gives me oils, but if something more serious were to happen where I had to go to a doctor and the doctor said, “You need to do this,” and I thought, “I’m not going to do that,” then there should be no expectation of me to get well. But so often we do that. We live our lives like: “Eh, I’m not going to do that.” “That’s too hard.” “That’s embarrassing.” “That’s out of my comfort zone.” And then we have an expectation that Jesus is just going to take care of everything when we are actually not doing our part; which, by the way, is the doing part. We hear and we do. We put ourselves in a position to hear, and then the Bible says we should act upon that.
This whole Sermon on the Mount, actually, exhibits a “versus” type of vibe. It’s Pharisees versus the followers of Jesus. Hypocrites versus the followers of Jesus. Good treasure versus bad treasure. Good eye versus bad eye. God versus mammon. The broad way versus the narrow way. The good tree versus the bad tree. And now He ends with this one: Doing versus not doing. Or, obedience versus disobedience, is what it amounts to. And when we sit down and actually think about the value of this, we come to grips with the fact that we should, at the very least, be attempting to do the things Christ says are important for us to do.
Martin Luther says this: “The gospel is a good and precious thing. But it is not being preached for the sake of being heard, but for the sake of action and application to life.” And how true that is. I mean, I don’t stand up here — and I don’t think any pastor in their right mind would stand up — to preach a message just so that people could hear it. We know you have to hear, but the point is for that word to then be put into action — to be proved and to change our lives. If we live our lives not trying to be obedient to Christ, or not attempting to hear Him, then we won’t be obedient and we won’t hear. If we live our lives hearing and trying to be obedient, then our lives are going to go well the Scripture tells us. And I’m not saying we’re not going to have trouble, because we are going to have trouble. But things will go well. And the more you are obedient to Christ, the quicker you are to respond to Him. It’s like everything else we do in our Christian walk: we grow into it. The more we hear the voice of Christ, the more we tend to respond to that voice. If the Scripture tells us to respond in a certain way, we should respond in that way. And the more we actually take those things to heart, literally, the more apt we are to hear the words of Jesus. And the words of Jesus are incredibly valuable to us.
One of the commentaries shared this story, talking about the importance of obedience; even instantaneous obedience:
Years ago (in what must have been England because he called it the Royal Navy) there was an article in a paper regarding disobedience within that realm of the Navy. A seaman had not responded correctly to an order from a commander, and they never said what it was, but the thought was that it was too severe, and the punishment was way out of line. Once the paper got a hold of it, people who weren’t in the military started talking about it and pretty soon it became a big deal. They asked another seamen about it and he said, ‘Let me tell you a story.’ He said, ‘We were in a bad storm, towing a ship behind us. We were in a big boat and our captain was up in front watching what was taking place. All of a sudden, our captain said: “Down.” Everybody hit the deck. The captain had seen that a wire had broken from the ship, and that wire whipped through our boat. Had anybody been up, they would have most likely been cut in half. Obedience to that commander, who saw this happening, saved everybody’s life.’ And this seaman said, ‘Whether you think the punishment is too severe or not, the fact is, when we’re given a command in that world, we should do it.’
And Christ also gives us commands. NOT for his benefit; He’s not doing this so He can be proved to be glorious. He’s doing it for our protection and our life. He wants us to be the best people we can be in Him. And when we get a hold of that, then His commandments all of a sudden become less burdensome to us. We understand that this is actually about our lives being protected and kept from whatever dangers lie out there for us. And we have plenty of dangers. Let’s face it: our culture is more and more often choosing to disregard plain words of Scripture. We are not talking about disagreements over Calvinist and Armenian theology, or disagreements over small things, but rather, the very plain words of Scripture are being challenged on a regular basis. And we are given opportunities to be obedient to what the Word of God says — to be hearers and doers of the word. Or we can be, simply, lovers of self. We see it in homosexuality, abortion, the way we deal with gossip and greed and humility. All the while the world disregards Scriptural truths as being non-essential in this idea that you get to be whoever you want to be.
I had a strange dream last night. I don’t typically remember dreams, but this one stuck with me because we were talking about homosexuality a little bit this morning during Sunday School. And in my dream, somehow I had been moved to a community where there was any number of people around me, including some homosexual couples. I was sitting there and I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do when they finally come up and say, “So, what do you think about us?” ‘ And my thought, in my dream, was, ‘I’m going to tell them, “I love you. Just like Christ loves you. The way you live your life is going to destroy who you are. But me and you? We’re good. And I would do anything to help you.” ‘ And I think that aspect of love is not understood outside of the church of Jesus Christ. People say “we love the sinner and hate the sin” and people don’t understand how that is possible but it is. And I’ve seen it in my Christian life; I’ve seen many of you guys respond this way. You are very loving to people who are in sin, but you absolutely hate what that person is doing. You are not saying it’s okay — and you’re making sure they know it’s not okay — but you actually would do almost anything for that person, because you have a sincere love for that person. The world has no comprehension of that. It can’t, because it moves on it’s own self-loving mentality, instead of God-loving mentality. The Scripture is that place in which we find the “hearing,” and then we get to go out and actually “do” the things that God has asked us to do, whatever they may be. Likewise, when we think about this passage of Scripture, it says, “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.”
Regarding this scripture, I cannot think of any rock but the Rock of Jesus Christ and who He is. If you want to turn over to Matthew 16:18, Jesus speaks of the rock. He says, in verse 15,
“But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
We sometimes misunderstand this text, but in my mind, the only way we can look at that is that rock is Jesus Christ. And in this case, the rock is Jesus Christ as Peter expressed who He was. Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus said, ‘Peter, blessed are you Simon Barjonah, because you know at this moment in time, what the rock is. The Rock is me, the Rock is your confession of me that you just made.’ [paraphrase] And he stood on that. He went so far as to say, “Your name will now be Peter.” Sometimes people mistranslate, but the name Peter means “stone” or “little stone.” So he is saying to Peter, ‘You are a little stone upon this Rock — this confession — you just made of me. That is what I will build my church upon.’ And when we grasp that when Jesus is talking about this rock being built upon, it is not a system of laws, or of “dos and don’ts”; not a system in which we are going to punished if we don’t and we’re going to be given rewards if we do. That is not what this is about at all. But we build upon this rock which is Jesus Christ – he is the only solid thing that the world has. It’s why His name should be on our lips — Christ is that solid thing.
If you want to turn back to the Psalms, Psalm 18:2 is a passage that talks about “the rock,” and I think 19:4 is another one. Psalm 18:2 is the first one, and it says, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge.” Psalm 19:14 says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.”
Throughout the Scripture, the Lord God is called the Rock. And so, when Jesus says, ‘those who build their house upon the rock are going to stand,’ we can be assured that Rock is Jesus Christ and upon the name and the person of Christ, it stands. In Israel, if it were summer and you decided to build a little house or hut, you could find a little wash out area because that’s where the sand is the best and you’ll be able to construct it easily. You won’t have to go into the bedrock; won’t have to dig or chip it out – the work is easy. You could build this thing and then for three, four, even five months, everything is going to be good. But then the winter months are going to come, along with the rains. And your little wash out area? It’s called a washout for a reason: because water flows through there. And because you are in the sand, you have no ability to keep that house safe. Christ says, “The foolish man builds his house upon the sand.” Foolishness builds upon things that come naturally and easy to us: our own wants and needs, our own selfish desires, the ways we want to just get through life and coast as easily as we can. If we build things on that, Jesus says that’s not going to sustain anything. It’s not going to last or help anybody, because in the end that is going to be washed away — completely washed away. As saints of the living God, He intends for us to be hearers of the word.
Today I’m standing up here talking and I’m also a hearer. You guys are hearers — listening to the Word of God. And if that’s all that you ever get out of this; that is super sad. If we go out into the world and do nothing to be doers of the Word, then what use is our life? I get it; we don’t want to be legalistic. But the fact is, you guys, no matter how we try to get around it: We proclaim Christ with our life. We proclaim Christ in how we live. And sure, there are parameters in there and different ideas about how that should be done, but the fact is that your life is going to be recognized as a Christian life not by the things you say, first and foremost, but by the things you do. The way you live you life will cause people to be intrigued and they might come and say, ‘Help me understand why you are this way.’ Then they get to become hearers of the Word, but if that is all they get and they never change their life, then what is the use? What really is the use?
And I understand that we can sit down and disagree on what a doer of the word is: the way he might talk and the actions he might take. We can flesh that out to some degree, but the point is, all of us know that ultimately it comes down to whether we are doing or not doing. Not whether we are hearing or not hearing.
A few years back – and we’ll just close with this – a few years back I had written this down. We were going through the Sermon on the Mount and I was thinking about the verse in James 1:21-25:
“Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.”
James — and numerous other passages — tell us clearly that our response to the Gospel is crucial. And I had written this down:
“I am a saint of the Living God; called and accepted by God through Jesus Christ, Who redeemed me, not with perishable things, but with His precious blood. I am a new creature in Christ with a new heart, a living soul, and I have the mind of Christ. As a matter of fact, Jesus dwells in me by the Holy Spirit, who He sent from heaven to earth to protect me. My “doing” keeps these and other things at the front of my mind. I don’t do to be this way, I do because I am this way. When I stop doing, I forget who I am in Christ and I have to start relying on my own carnal nature for any worth I have; therefore, I become false, shallow, defensive.”
And it’s so important for us to remember this: We are not working to become saints, we are saints. When we, as saints, comprehend who we are in Christ because of Jesus, and then we “do” out of that, then our doing has immense power. But when we forget that and our doing becomes something with which we are trying to attain, or earn, or gain the favor of God, all of a sudden we become different human beings. It’s one of the great mysteries of the flesh: The flesh is glad to do good if the flesh can get the credit. But we give it no credit; we give our honor and praise and all things precious to Jesus Christ.
So I encourage you, by the grace of God, to seriously consider your “doing.”