Matthew 7:24-29: Truth Needs Response — A ‘Christian Growth’ Message

Transcript

Good morning everybody, let’s bow our heads and pray as we come to the final words in the sermon on the Mount.

Our loving Father, we ask that as we turn to these few verses in this very famous section of your word, that you’d help us to see you more clearly, love you more dearly. And follow you more nearly for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Well, everybody here has heard these words, probably, the wise man built his house on the rock, the foolish man built his house on the sand. Matthew chapter 7, the last verses of the Sermon on the Mount. Some of us here are old enough to remember the song from Sunday school about how the rains came down and the floods came up, and it ends with a very big crash.

So most preachers would be very glad to end a sermon on something of a high, but Jesus is happy to finish his sermon with a crash. Now why does he finish the sermon with this illustration? Does he want you to say, I believe in Jesus, so I must be built on the rock, that’s all I need to know. Or does he expect you to say, I follow Jesus pretty well, so I must be OK. Actually these verses are more searching than that.

The illustration is not so that you’ll tick a box and say I’m on the rock. The reason Jesus tells this little parable illustration is because he wants to check if you have a pulse, a spiritual pulse that keeps on beating. And the reason he is concerned about you and me is because he’s a lover, and he’s a shepherd. And he doesn’t want us to perish.

Do you remember a few weeks ago, he turned, as it were, from the disciples to the crowds and conscious that many of them would not be in the kingdom, he said, enter the kingdom. I call on you. I urge you to enter the kingdom. And then a little bit later, just a couple of verses later, he said, there are so many deceivers out there. I want you to watch out for the false prophets, I don’t want you to be led away from the path.

And then a few verses later, he comes to the issue of deceiving yourself so that you just talk the talk, but you don’t have a life in your heart, and he says, not many who just say Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom. Many will say Lord, Lord, and they’ll be turned away, said Jesus.

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And then as we come to the end here. The word has gone out, says Jesus. Yes, the word has gone out. The question is, what are you doing with the word?

So Jesus, you see, is a lover. He’s an evangelist. He’s exposing the dangers of standing outside, of being deceived, of deceiving yourself, of making no response.

And if the danger last week of just saying Lord, Lord, was the danger of a shallow response, the danger this week, and it’s a terrible danger is that there will be no response at all. The pulse is dead.

And Jesus expects a response. The first response of course is to enter into his kingdom, his family, by coming to him, kneeling down before him, giving to him your sin, giving to him yourself. Enter is the first response, but then of course, as you’re following him as a believer, the ongoing response is to act on his word, not just to hear it.

So let’s turn in our Bibles as you have them in front of you, Matthew chapter 7, verses 24 and following, it’s on page 1445, and I have two simple points this morning. The first is that God’s word needs a response, and the second is that God’s word deserves a response.

First, God’s word needs a response.

He says, the wise man built his house on the rock. The foolish man built his house on the sand. One is a hear and do something type of man. The other is a hear and do nothing type of man. Now obviously if two people are going to build their houses, going to build their lives, they want to be happy, secure.

They of course in this little parable both building a house and the house is a symbol of your castle or your security or your safety or your hope.

And everybody here this morning, you wanna be secure, don’t you? You wanna be safe? Of course you do. And Jesus says to you, and he says to me, there’s a way to be safe, and there’s a way to not be safe. And the shock of this is that he says the way to be safe is that you act on what I say. And the way to be unsafe is that you fail to act on what I say.

Now, can you imagine me getting up this morning and saying to you you’re so fortunate to have me here because I’m going to say a few words now and if you put them into practise, you’ll be safe for eternity. Nobody would talk like that except Jesus, but he has the authority and he has the right to do it.

And that’s why this message of the two builders, which is asking the question, what are you doing with the word of God? Of course you heard it and you entered, wonderful, but now it keeps coming to you. What are you doing with it? This parable of the two builders can never be treated as a simple message which you treat like old news and you just basically throw it away.

It always comes to us as the new news of the day. This little parable is not some kind of novel that you can read and put on a shelf. It comes like your phone ringing and says, what will you do, what will you do, what will you do?

I don’t mean, of course, that it’s a pesky phone ringing, but it’s a lover ringing you.

Well, the first minister who taught me the word of God, who subsequently became my father-in-law, was invited to be a bishop and was really asked to move on from the church after just 4 years, which was a very short, all too short time to be with us. And I remember he came down on his last weekend, and he addressed the young adults group that I was a part of.

And what he did was he read to us the parable of the sower. And you remember the power of the sower is the man who goes out with the seed, and some of the seed falls on a hard path, and some of it falls on shallow soil, and some of it falls into thorny soil, and some of it falls into good soil, and we’re all sitting there thinking, well, we’ve heard this many times. And then he said this, every time the word of God will come to you, you have the opportunity to be good soil.

Of course, he said, the gospel may have well landed in your heart, you have been good soil to receive the gospel, but every time the word of God comes to you, you will have an opportunity to be good soil, to receive it well, and to bear fruit. And therefore, he said aim for that. It was a very wise and wonderful thing to say as a pastor to a young group of people, as he was about to leave: every time the word of God comes, be good soil.

And so it is with the parable of the two builders here in Matthew chapter 7, it never loses its relevance or its significance.

We don’t read of the two builders and the two houses and the two foundations, and we say to ourselves, well, I’ve done all that. I’ve built on Jesus. It is important to build on Jesus, but it’s not the point of the parable. Nor do we say, well, I’m a very good follower of Jesus. That’s important, but it’s not the point of the parable. Jesus is asking you, what do you do with his words that have been given to you, that keep coming to you in his word.

I mean, have you entered the kingdom, that’s the first question, but if you have, and you’re now a disciple on the road following Jesus, what are you doing when the word of God comes to you?

Because our security is going to be primarily by entering the kingdom, and knowing Christ as our saviour, but of course, part of our security is also going to be taking seriously his word, so that we don’t drift off to the left or to the right.

We saw back in Matthew chapter 5, the first chapter of the sermon, that the new life which comes to the believer is going to be seen in godliness. It’s not as though we’re gonna be suddenly perfect, but we’re gonna have a desire in the heart to be godly.

And then chapter 6, the new life will be seen in new values. We’ll be asking ourselves the question, what does God value? Not just what does the world value, what does God value? And then in Matthew chapter 7, the new life will be seen in new priorities. So we’ll be asking ourselves what’s eternal, what’s forever, not just what’s temporary.

Now we need to ask this question, what does Jesus say to the person who may have been listening to the sermon, or who hears the message of Jesus Christ today and says something like this, look Jesus Christ, this is all very nice, but it’s not for me. You say that I should take you seriously, and I, of course I do respect you, but I don’t believe your message. I don’t believe your message is necessary, it’s nice, but it’s not for me. And this is what Jesus says to this person. He says, I want you to remember that your house is temporary.

And he’s absolutely right.

Your house, your life is temporary. There will come a time where your house will be removed, and it will be seen forever what foundations were underneath.

Now when Jesus says that there will come a time where the rain will come and the floods will come and the cyclone winds will come, he may mean there are certain trials will come, which will expose where you really are.

And I guess around the world there must be millions of Christians who are very thankful that God saved them through rain, through storm, through floods. I don’t mean literally, although that may be the case, I mean he brought them through because of sickness, or loss, or failure, or a sense of emptiness.

Or it may be the realisation that your worldview is bankrupt.

During the week I went to a book launch of a university professor who was studying in Oxford, and she went along to hear a series of lectures, and the lectures were given by a man who had absolutely no time for Christianity.

But as she listened to the lectures, she suddenly realised that this man had no ground underneath him to make an obligation of his teaching. It was all just suggestion.

And so this girl, this student, she decided that she would pursue something greater and she was drawn to the book by CS Lewis Mere Christianity, and that was what led her to Christ, and now she is a most faithful and useful Christian university professor.

So Jesus may mean that the floods, the rains, the strong winds may come and knock you around and expose that there is nothing much there, but he undoubtedly means that there will come a day where judgement will come.

Nothing is going to sift us like coming to the end and facing the judgement of God, and Jesus has already referred to the judgement of God because he’s talked about the destruction, or he’s talked about the fire, and he’s talked about being told to depart. And this is of course the most, most terrible thing that anybody could face – being unforgiven.

And so in the short-term you see these two houses, these two builders, they may look identical. But the foundations will be revealed in the long term.

Nothing’s more tragic than pretending that a house that is built on sand is safe. Nothing is more wonderful than knowing that a house that is built on rock is safe.

And I want to say again that if you want to be secure in the Christian life, it’s not that you’ll just be doing good things, irrelevant to Christ. Any more than doing good things on the Titanic would make you safe. Security in the Christian life is responding to Christ. He is the lifeboat who will get you off the Titanic, and once you have entered into the lifeboat, who is Christ, he will then give you a new life, and he calls on you to live that new life wisely, faithfully and safely.

So, you can imagine on this particular subject of the word of God and needing a response. Just imagine somebody came in the middle of this service this morning and they came up the front and they whispered a few words to me and I gave them the microphone, and they said in a very responsible and a sensible and authoritative way, I’m sorry to say there’s been a bomb scare.

Now you would not, would you, if you’re the person giving the notice of the bomb scare, hoped that the congregation sitting here would say something like this. Didn’t he say that well? Wasn’t that nice? I found that very interesting. I found that very moving.

No, no, no, the person who’s giving a serious message would hope that the listener would say, I need to get out of here. I need to respond, I need to respond in an appropriate way, and that’s the first thing that we learn from this parable of the two builders with the two houses on the two foundations that the word of God needs a response. What will you do?

And that’s why as I cast my mind over the whole of the sermon on the mountain as I come to the end of it in this preaching series, I’m asking myself the question, what am I going to do when the time of anger comes? What am I gonna do at the time of impurity, revenge? What am I going to think about prayer? What am I going to think about riches? What am I going to think about worry and anxiety and salvation? And the answer is I must go back to see what God has said in his word.

And do what he says.

Second thing more briefly this morning is that God’s word deserves a response. It deserves a response.

When Jesus had finished speaking, we read in chapter 7, verses 28 to 29, the crowds were amazed, we might say they were astounded or they were astonished because he spoke with authority.

Now I love it to think of the crowds, listening to Jesus and saying this man is unique, he is supreme.

I don’t think it was just that Jesus spoke with a very loud voice. I don’t even think it was that Jesus gave the impression of having a very great intellect, although it was the greatest intellect. I don’t think it was that necessarily he spoke with a huge gravitas, although he may have. The clue is that he’s talking like somebody who runs the universe. Nobody else can do that. He is placing all his authority in himself.

And so he says things like this, I have come to do God’s law. You have not done God’s law. I have come to do it. Or he says, I’ll tell you how to pray. You don’t know how to pray, but I will tell you how to pray. Or he says, I’ll tell you not to worry because in actual fact you’ve got a heavenly Father and he’s going to be looking after you, or he says, I’m going to decide your future. There’ll come a time where you’ll stand before me and I will say either welcome or depart.

Or he says my words are crucial. You have to not only hear what I said, but you’ve also got to act on what I said because your eternity hangs on it. Dear friends, nobody talks like this, except Jesus Christ, or somebody who’s insane. Or deeply, deeply dishonest.

Jesus, you see, is putting the heart of his authority in himself, and he himself stands outside the world.

I’ve recently read a book called The Revolution of the World by a man called Andrew Wilson.

And in the book he tells of the situation where the American president, Thomas Jefferson, who was not a Christian, was putting together the famous American Declaration of Independence.

And he’d written these words as a kind of a draught, and these famous words, We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable that all men are created equal with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you’ll have heard that before.

Jefferson sent the words, the draught to Benjamin Franklin, again not a Christian. And Benjamin Franklin crossed out the words sacred and undeniable and put in the words self-evident. And so Jefferson, despite his views on Christianity, anchored the declaration in God, sacred, undeniable. He anchored the words in the Creator.

Benjamin Franklin, perhaps with a stronger opposition to Christianity, anchored the declaration in humanity, in our intellect. The sign that Franklin’s decision to change the words from sacred to self-evident.

The significance is that the words are obviously wrong, that it is not self-evident around the world that people are created equal and have the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We could name a whole lot of nations throughout history and even today who do not agree that people are equal. And who do not even care whether people have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So by removing the anchor of God, the sacred, the Creator, by removing the anchor outside this world, and placing the anchor inside this world, the authority was suddenly destroyed.

The foundations became sand.

Now you see what Jesus is teaching as he finishes the sermon, speaks with the authority of the one who basically runs the universe, that he’s claiming that ultimate security, our ultimate security lies with him outside this world. If it’s outside this world, it’s beyond the reach of sinful human beings. And of course it’s beyond our ability to achieve.

He’s teaching us the good news that our future hangs on our response to him and that cannot be taken away by anyone in this world. In other words, if you want to have some security, you need to go outside the world to him. You need to take his word and the life that he gives for yourself. And the authority of Jesus Christ is so great that it will anchor you in eternity.

Of course it also calls on you to give up all tiny rivals to his authority.

And so you won’t get to the end of Jesus’ sermon and with some sort of arrogance like a diving judge, say I give you 3.6 for that sermon. Or I found it quite pleasant. Or I like this bit and not that bit.

No, no, no, you’ll find yourself when you’ve listened to him preach saying, he deserves our response totally. Because he has the authority of God.

You may remember when the New Testament came to God’s people. And it came with great power and it found very humble listeners that the response again and again was what will we do? You see the humility of that? It’s not, I liked it. I thought it was interesting, not for me, thank you. The response was, what will we do?

Day of Pentecost preaching in the power of God, and the crowd called out, brothers, what will we do? Or the jailer in Acts 16 in the middle of the earthquake calls out to the apostle Paul, what will I do?

That of course is the right response.

Now, I know that of course there are many times where a sermon is preached and I’ve preached many of them myself and you wouldn’t have a clue what to do. Wasn’t particularly clear. Or some particularly obvious.

Sometimes, of course, you have to get to the end of a sermon and just say, well, I’ll go on believing. I’ll go on trusting, or maybe I’ll go on obeying. Sometimes the sermon will, the word of God will put the finger, so to speak, on something very specific, and you’ll find yourself saying, I must stop doing this, and I must start doing this.

But I want to close this morning and close the series by saying to you, all this talk of hear and do, hear and don’t do.

Well, we must recognise, of course, mustn’t we, that we are people in this world, who hear and don’t do. We need a saviour

And into the world has come this magnificent, wonderful saviour King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his policy and his practise from beginning to end was hear and do. What does God say, I’ll do it. What does he say, I’ll do it.

And he takes himself to the cross. And on him is placed all the sins of his people who have been hearing, not doing. And he gives to all who believe, all who believe. The privilege and the status and the cloak and the coat and the righteousness. Of being people who have from start to finish. Been hearing and doing.

He bears what we should bear. And he gives what he should have. And that’s the beauty of our salvation. We have a saviour, someone who has done the word of God perfectly. Died for those who have not, and is able to help us with forgiveness and a new life, as we walk with him, following him.

And increasingly and by His grace, a desire to hear and do. And be built on the rock.

Let’s thank Him.

We thank you, our Heavenly Father, for giving to us such a saviour, such a king.

We thank you that somebody has come into this world amazingly who has heard and has done exactly as you said.

And that there is a solution. A salvation for we who have done so much hearing and so little doing. We thank you for a saviour and we thank you for the forgiveness of the new life that he brings.

And we pray that you would give us the grace not only to enter into your kingdom and family by faith. But also to walk with Christ.

Increasingly hearing and doing your word to your praise to the good of many and for our own joy, we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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