Latest / Reformed Thinking / Built on the Rock: Hearing and Doing the Words of Christ (Matthew 7:24–27)

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Built on the Rock: Hearing and Doing the Words of Christ (Matthew 7:24–27) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reformed thinking. You know when you when you break
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an arm or a leg, the medical X-ray is completely binary,
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right? The jagged white line on that
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film is either there or it isn't.
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It's broken or it's not broken. It's totally objective.
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Yeah, the Doctor points at the film and the reality is settled.
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And I think we like things to be visible like that.
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Oh. Absolutely.
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We like clear categories in our life.
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We really do. But what happens when you turn
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that diagnostic X-ray on the the spiritual base of a human life?
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That is where things get really uncomfortable.
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Right. You step into the visible church
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and suddenly all that precision just kind of vanishes.
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We look at a landscape that is incredibly murky.
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Yeah, because people can look completely healthy on the
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outside. Right.
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They have the right vocabulary, you know, they show up to the
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right events, but internally the structural base is completely
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compromised. It's terrifying, honestly.
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It is so today. Our mission for this deep dive
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is to drag that X-ray machine directly over the words of
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Christ. We are tackling the famous
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passage of Matthew 7.24 through 27, the story of the two
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builders. And we really have to strip away
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the flannel graph, the Sunday School familiarity of this text.
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Yeah, the little hand motions and the cute songs.
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We have to confront the stark eschatological ultimatum Christ
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presents here. I mean, it's at the very end of
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his most famous sermon. We are looking at a text that
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addresses a massive, widespread crisis.
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It's the false assurance of nominal Christianity.
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Huge. Today, huge.
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We live in an age characterized by spectacular architectural
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failures, both physical and spiritual, and Jesus is forcing
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the listener, forcing the entire crowd gathered on that mountain
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to answer a terrifying question. What is your life built upon?
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Are you building on the shifting sand of human philosophy, easy
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believism, and just, you know, intellectual agreement?
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Or are you building upon the unshakable bedrock of his
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authoritative word? Right?
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This is not. It's not a gentle suggestion to
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make wise life choices. It is an absolute crisis of
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authority. And that means this, this deep
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dive is for you, the listener. As we walk through the
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historical, grammatical, and theological reality today, we
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are challenging you to examine your own footing.
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Yeah, you really have to look inward.
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You might know the theology, you might sit in a Pew every single
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Sunday, but what is the actual base beneath the floorboards of
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your life? That is the big question.
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OK, so let's unpack this by stepping entirely out of our
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modern context. Because to feel the true gravity
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of Jesus's words here, we really have to stand in the sandals of
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his 1st century Jewish audience. We do.
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We need to look at the physical landscape around them.
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Geography plays a massive role in this text.
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Yeah. Tell us what the setting?
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Well, the setting of this passage is absolutely vital.
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Jesus is delivering the Sermon on the Mount in Galilee.
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He is addressing an audience intimately acquainted with the
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topography of the Levant. The Land of Israel is defined by
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incredibly rugged terrain, rolling hills and deep plunging
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valleys. It's not a flat suburban
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subdivision. Not at all.
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And during the arid summer months, the scorching sun just
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bakes the earth. This creates flat, dry riverbeds
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known as wadis. Wadis OK, I've heard that term.
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Yeah, and to the untrained eye, or, you know, to a builder who
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is looking for a shortcut, a Wadi appears to be a highly
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attractive, convenient and ready made plot for construction.
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Because it looks completely solid, right?
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Exactly. I mean, the sun has baked the do
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it so hard it feels like pavement.
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It feels like concrete. Right, and more than that, it is
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flat. You do not have to level the
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ground, it requires 0 excavation.
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Which is a huge. Deal.
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We really have to remember what excavation meant in the Greco
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Roman world. They did not have diesel powered
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backhoes. No, they didn't.
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Digging down to actual solid limestone bedrock was a
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monumental back breaking task. It required excruciating labor,
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massive amounts of time, and significant resources.
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The builder would have to use crude iron hand tools and Wicker
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baskets. Oh man, Wicker baskets to move
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dirt. Yeah, digging through layers of
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big topsoil, clay and loose gravel to finally hit the solid
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limestone ledge was exhausting work.
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So the foolish builder in Christ's illustration, he is not
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lacking intelligence in the sense of a low IQ.
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No, not at all. He is lazy.
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He prioritizes short term convenience over arduous
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preparation. He sees the Wadi, he sees the
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flat ground, and he decides to build right there in the dry
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riverbed to save himself months of agonizing manual labor.
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It's kind of like those modern DIY fail videos on YouTube, you
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know? Yeah, those are great.
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You see a guy who decides to build a massive 2 story deck on
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the back of his house. He goes to the hardware store,
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buys the lumber, but he does not want to dig the concrete
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footings down past the frost line.
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Because it's too much work. Right, it requires renting an
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auger, mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow and sweating for
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days. So he just rests the deck posts
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right on the topsoil. Oh wow, and it looks beautiful.
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In July he has a BBQ. His friends come over.
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The deck holds the weight, sure, but he is entirely ignoring the
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invisible underlying structural rules.
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Yes, and the original audience hearing Jesus say this would
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immediately feel a sense of of dread.
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Because they know what happens to the wadis when the seasons
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change. Precisely.
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They knew the terrifying geographical reality of their
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homeland. They knew the deceptiveness of
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the seasons. Because the weather doesn't stay
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dry. No, it doesn't.
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When the autumn and winter seasons arrive, bringing what
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the Bible calls the former and latter rains, the meteorological
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conditions shift violently. The baked earth of the
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surrounding mountains cannot absorb that sudden deluge of
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water, right? The soil is too hard to dry, so
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the rainfall runs off the hills and funnels directly into the
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valleys. Straight into the wadis, yes.
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Within minutes, the dry Wadi turns into a raging,
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catastrophic flash flood. Oh man.
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These floods violently sweep through the valleys with the
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force of a tidal wave. They destroy absolutely
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everything in their path. So a house built on that baked
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clay does not just suffer water damage.
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No, it is entirely uprooted and obliterated.
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So buying a house in a Wadi during the summer is like
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someone buying a beautiful, heavily discounted house in a
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dry valley today, completely ignoring the glaring warning
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signs that it sits squarely in a seasonal flood zone.
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Yeah, that is a great way to think about it.
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The house might have fresh paint, polished doorways and
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look structurally sound. In July you can have parties in
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the living room. The roof looks great, everything
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seems totally fine. But the architecture above the
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ground does not matter at all. If the footing beneath the
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ground is compromised when the river rises, the house is
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doomed. Absolutely, and Jesus is using
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this universally understood geographical fact to expose a
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spiritual reality. Right.
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Specifically regarding the religious leaders of his day.
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Yes, the historical backdrop here is dominated by the
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Pharisees and the Sadducees. Christ is confronting their
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specific brand of religion head on.
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The Pharisees were the quintessential builders upon the
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sand, weren't they? Oh, without a doubt.
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They constructed majestic, elaborate religious structures
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of outward tradition. They possessed the oracles of
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God, the temple, the law. They had broad factories and
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they offered long public prayers on the street corners.
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They looked great in July. Exactly.
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To anyone looking at them during the fair weather of outward
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cultural religion, their spiritual houses looked
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magnificent. But why did they build that way?
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I mean, it was not just an accident.
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You know, it was very intentional.
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They were occupied by the Roman Empire.
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They had lost their political autonomy, so they built this
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massive, complex system of external behavioral modification
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to maintain control over the populace and preserve their own
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elite status. Yes, that was the entire goal.
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They created fences around God's law, burdening the people, all
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while making themselves look incredibly righteous.
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They wanted the applause of men. They wanted the visible deck
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without digging the footings. That is the core issue.
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They were entirely focused on the sociological benefits of
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religion. They wanted to maintain the
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status quo right? They completely lacked the
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internal Holy Spirit wrought bedrock.
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They had all the religious vocabulary, all the external
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obedience to their own man made traditions.
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But inside. Inside their hearts were an
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active, hostile rebellion against Yahweh.
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The visible condition of a life cannot be judged by fair weather
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appearance. The foundation must be able to
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endure the storm. The audience would have
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understood the weight of these words as a direct, devastating
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indictment of the hypocritical religious establishment.
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Which shows that God's people have always been tempted to seek
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the shortcut of cheat grace or external religion rather than
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the arduous path of true inward discipleship.
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Yes, the shortcut is always so tempting.
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That shifts the conversation in a really striking way.
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It shows how perfectly the physical reality of the Wadi
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maps onto the spiritual reality Jesus has been establishing for
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three entire chapters. We really cannot just lift the
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story out of its setting. No, we can't.
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This passage, Matthew 7.24 through 27, is not an isolated
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proverb, right? It is not just Jesus offering
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some general life advice about making smart choices like ah,
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eat your vegetables, balance your checkbook, and build a
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strong house. That's how it's often taught,
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though. It is, but this is the climactic
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applicatory conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount, which spans
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Matthew chapters 5 through 7. We have to recognize what the
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Sermon on the Mount actually is. It is the Magna Carta of the
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Kingdom of Heaven. I like that phrasing.
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Throughout these chapters Jesus has systematically dismantled
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human self righteousness. He has taken the Pharisees
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external law and driven it straight into the human heart.
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He tells the crowds that their righteousness must exceed that
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of the scribes and Pharisees. He exposes anger as murder in
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the heart and lust as adultery in the heart.
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He is demanding A perfection that can only be imputed by
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grace, but a grace that absolutely must yield a changed
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life. The progression is so
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deliberate. He starts with the Beatitudes
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blessing the poor in spirit, those who recognize their total
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spiritual bankruptcy. Or the beggars.
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Yeah, he blesses those who mourn over their sin.
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And then he builds this massive framework of Kingdom ethics.
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And he ends with this terrifying ultimatum.
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But the immediate context the verse is right before the two
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builders might be the most shocking part of the entire
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sermon. Matthew 7.21 through 23.
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Yes, it sets a terrifying pretext for the house on the
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sand. Lay that out for us.
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In those preceding verses, Jesus says Not everyone who says to
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me, Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but the one
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who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
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That repetition of Lord Lord is haunting.
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It is He describes a future Day of judgment where people will
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appeal to Him based on their spectacular works.
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They will say, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name and cast
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out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?
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Notice the repetition there? They're pointing to their own
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resumes. Exactly.
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They're pointing to the visible architecture of their life.
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And these are not pagans. No, these are people who think
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they are Christians. They are using his name.
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They are pointing to their massive ministry success.
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They probably had huge followings.
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They probably wrote best selling scrolls if they they had such
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things back then. Christ's response to them is
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absolutely devastating. What does he say?
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He will declare, I never knew you depart from me, you workers
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of lawlessness. He rejects them entirely.
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They had the right vocabulary, they had dramatic outward signs,
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but they lacked the necessary requirement of doing the will of
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the Father. And that provides the direct
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literary setup for the parable of the two builders, yes.
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The house on the rock and the house on the sand are the
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logical application of that warning.
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Wait, I need to push back on this a little.
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Go ahead. If people can perform
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spectacular miracles in Jesus name, cast out actual demons
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prophecy, and still be cast out into eternal ruin for building
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on sand, what does that say about how we measure spiritual
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success today? Oh, it completely upends it.
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Because it seems like we look at a massive church campus, a
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charismatic leader or a highly emotional worship experience,
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and we just assume that is the bedrock.
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We do assume that. We assume God blessing is
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inherently tied to numerical or spectacular success.
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That assumption is precisely what this text annihilates.
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This passage devastates modern Mystics.
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Or, you know, anyone who seeks novel extra biblical revelations
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while living in practical rebellion against the written
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Word. A massive public ministry is not
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the rock. A highly emotional experience is
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not the rock. Claiming to hear private voices
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from God is not the rock. The text makes it clear that
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exposure to truth, or even involvement in spectacular
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religious phenomena, is not the same thing as submission to
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truth. Right.
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Jesus is driving a wedge between casual religion and saving
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faith. You can have a thriving ministry
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and still be a worker of lawlessness.
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That is heavy. So if both builders heard the
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exact same words, if they both attended the same synagogue,
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heard the same sermon on the mountain, and knew the same
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scriptures, what physically separates them?
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That is the key question. The answer isn't in their
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hearing, it's hiding right there in the original Greek syntax,
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and we need to unpack how this actually works.
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Let's look at the architecture of obedience.
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We. Really need to unpack the
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structural chiasm used in this section.
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Now, I know chiasm sounds like academic seminary jargon, so
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let's break it down for the listener.
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Sure, ancient cultures did not have printed Bibles.
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They could not use bold text, italics or highlighters to point
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out a main idea. Right, no underline.
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So they use literary structures to point the listener to the
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main point. A chiasm is an X pattern.
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It works like an ABBA sequence. OK.
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It acts like a giant neon sign pointing directly to the center
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of the sentence, the pivot point where the entire meaning hangs.
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OK, so map that onto the text for us, where is the neon sign?
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The text is governed by a command and result paradigm.
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In verse 24, Jesus says Everyone then who hears these words of
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mine and does them will be like a wise man.
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OK. That's the first half.
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Yes. Then verse 26 he says, everyone
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who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be
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like a foolish man a. Structural symmetry is
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undeniable. There it really is.
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Both men here, both men build, both men face the storm.
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The entire weight of eternal destiny hangs on a single pivot
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in the middle of that chiasm. And that pivot is the Greek
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negative particle MU meaning not yes.
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Yes. The sole structural difference
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between salvation and damnation in this passage is the presence
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or absence of the verb poi I, which means does or acts.
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So one man hears and does, the other man hears and does not.
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Exactly. The variable is not the hearing.
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Both hear perfectly well. The variable is the response of
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the human will to the authoritative words of the king.
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Hold on, I'm looking at these verbs.
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The tense of those verbs matters a lot too, doesn't?
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It it matters massively. Because we are not talking about
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a one time event, are we? This isn't about someone reading
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their Bible once on a Tuesday and then ignoring it the rest of
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the year. No.
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The verbs for hears, which is akunj and does which is push are
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present active participles. And what does that mean
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practically? In Greek syntax, the present
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participle denotes a continuous, habitual, ongoing action.
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OK, Christ is not Speaking of a man who heard a sermon once, nor
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is he Speaking of a man who did a singular good deed.
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Yes, he's describing A continuous habitual lifestyle.
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The wise man is characterized by a persistent, enduring habit of
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humbly receiving the word and continuously striving to obey
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it. Yes, and the foolish man has a
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persistent habit of hearing without ever allowing the word
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to penetrate his will and govern his actions.
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Here is where it gets really interesting thinking about that
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present active participle. The continuous hearing without
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doing it is like someone who buys a comprehensive fitness
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manual. Oh, that's a good analogy.
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Yeah, they read every single chapter.
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They memorize the caloric breakdowns.
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They ace a written test on human nutrition.
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They know it all in their head. Right, they can tell you exactly
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how protein synthesizes in the muscles, but they continually
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sit on the couch and eat junk food every single day.
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Wow. They genuinely believe that
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because they possess the knowledge, because they heard
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the fitness facts, they are somehow healthy.
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But they're not doing anything. Exactly.
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Their continuous action is completely divorced from their
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intellectual knowledge. When a health crisis hits, their
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intellectual knowledge cannot save their failing heart.
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Taking that fitness manual analogy further, the foolish
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builder possesses doctrinal knowledge without submission.
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He has religious experience without regeneration.
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The knowledge sits in the mind while the will remains an active
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rebellion. He substitutes taking notes on
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the sermon for actually living the sermon.
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Ouch, that stings. It does, and we must also note
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that in the Hebrew mindset, which heavily influences
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Matthew's Greek, the concept of hearing the word shama
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inherently includes obeying. So you can't separate.
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Them you cannot. In biblical terms, to hear God
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and not obey God is to not have heard Him at all.
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That brings us to the specific vocabulary Jesus uses to
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describe the builders and the ground they build on.
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Let's look at the wise man first.
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The Greek word used here is fronimos.
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Yes? What does that tell us about his
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mindset? Well, Matthew uses Fronimos 14
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times in his Gospel, far more than any other New Testament
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author. Oh wow.
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Yeah, if we look at Greco Roman extra biblical usage like in the
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writings of Aristotle or the Stoics, Fronomos does not refer
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merely to a high intellectual IQ or theoretical knowledge.
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It's not about being book smart, right?
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It refers to practical moral prudence.
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It is spiritual sanity. It is the ability to perceive
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reality accurately and govern one's actions accordingly.
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The wise man builds for the coming storm, not for the
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present moment. He is calculating the long term
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reality of divine judgment. And then there is the foolish
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builder. The Greek word is muros.
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From which we derive the English word moron.
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Oh, really? Yes, in ancient Near Eastern and
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Greco, Roman thought Murrow's described A dull, sluggish and
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senseless mind. But it is not a lack of brain
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power, is it? No, it is a culpable ignorance.
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The foolish man is willfully dull to eternal reality.
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He refuses to perceive the coming judgement, preferring the
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temporary comfort and ease of his sandy foundation.
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He chooses to suppress the truth.
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Yes, actively. And the materials themselves,
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the rock in the sand, Jesus is very specific with the
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geological terms here. Jesus says the wise man built
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his house upon the Petra. He does not use the word lethos.
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What's the difference? Lethos refers to a detached
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stone, a boulder that, while heavy, can still be moved or
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rolled away. OK Petra refers to a massive,
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unshakable ledge of solid bedrock.
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It is the structural crust of the Earth.
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That's a huge distinction. It is the Fool, however, builds
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on ammos, which is loose, shifting sand.
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He bypasses the arduous work of digging down with the Petra.
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He chooses the path of least resistance.
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Which brings us to the true test of the structure.
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The test is completely out of the builder's control.
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The weather will change for both of them.
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Both builders face the eschatological storm.
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The finality of judgement in this text is unavoidable.
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The storm is universal and impartial.
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Jesus repeats the exact phrasing for both houses, word for word,
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Word for word. The rain descends, the floods
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come, the winds blow and they beat on that house.
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The repetition is highly significant.
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So true discipleship does not grant exemption from the storm.
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No, it doesn't. Jesus does not teach that
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obedience prevents the rain from falling.
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He teaches that obedience reveals a foundation that can
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endure the rain. Both the wise and the foolish
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experience the exact same external pressures, but the
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grammar shifts radically when the storm arrives, doesn't it?
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It really does. We move away from those
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continuous, present tense verbs we talked about earlier.
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Wait, what does that mean? Practically?
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We were just talking about continuous action, the daily
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habit. But when the storm hits, the
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text feels violent, sudden. Very sudden.
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Why did the tense shift so aggressively here?
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You are noticing the shift from the present continuous to the
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aorist indicative active tense. OK, lay that out for us.
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The syntactical shift in the Greek text is staggering.
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While the hearing and doing were ongoing, the verbs describing
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the storm descended, which is Kate Kahogi, canvas, which is
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Elthon, blue, which is epnucen, and slammed, which is
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persepesen. They are all in the aorist
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tense. Explain the aorist tense for us.
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Give us an analogy. The aorist tense emphasizes a
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sudden, definitive, punctilier event.
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OK. It is a Thunderbolt.
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It is a car crash. It depicts inescapable finality.
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So when the storm hits, there is absolutely zero time to pour a
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solid base. None.
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You cannot decide to start digging down to the bedrock when
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the flash flood is already cresting the horizon.
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It's too late. Yes, what was hidden underground
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during fair weather becomes violently exposed in a crisis.
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The storm does not create the foundation, it reveals it.
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So while the storm certainly includes earthly trials, you
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know, cancer diagnosis, financial ruin, cultural
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persecution, the loss of loved one, its ultimate meaning is
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eschatological. It points to the end of the age.
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This isn't just a bad Tuesday. No.
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In the context of Matthew 7, the storm represents the great white
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throne judgement. It represents the fierce,
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unyielding wrath of God against sin.
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Every man's foundation will be tested by fire.
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Every single one. The collapse of the Fool's house
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is not minor roof damage, the text says.
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And it fell, and great was the fall of it.
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It's a total loss. Total loss.
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The ruin corresponds to the greatness of the privilege
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rejected. It is eternal perdition.
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It is the terrifying end of religion without regeneration.
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So what does this all mean? We're talking about obedience,
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about doing the words of Christ to survive the final judgment of
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God? Yes, if survival depends on
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doing, are we supposed to earn our own salvation through works?
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Are we back to a system where we have to achieve a certain level
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of moral perfection to be saved? That is a very valid question to
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ask. This feels like a critical
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theological boundary line we need to establish, because if I
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am supposed to perfectly keep the Sermon on the Mount to be
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saved, I'm terrified. We all should be.
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Right. I have failed.
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I have been angry. I have lacked meekness.
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That is the most vital question we can ask, and the answer is
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definitively no. To read this passage as a
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mandate to earn salvation through human effort is to miss
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the entire framework of the Sermon on the Mount.
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Walk us through that. Bring to mind how the sermon
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began. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
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Right. Spiritually bankrupt.
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Exactly. The Kingdom belongs to those who
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possess 0 spiritual merit, those who recognize their total
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bankruptcy before God. Justification is by faith alone.
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The bedrock of solified faith alone, but how do we reconcile
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that with the absolute demand for obedience here it's.
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Attention for. Sure, if we are totally
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depraved, if we have no ability to build this house perfectly on
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our own, how does anyone survive the storm?
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We reconcile it through Christological fulfillment.
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OK, unpack that. Notice Jesus's staggering,
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unprecedented claim here. He says, Whoever hears these
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words of mine, he assumes divine prerogative.
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No prophet in Israel made himself the final base of truth.
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Moses spoke the words of the Lord.
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The prophet said. Thus says the Lord.
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But Jesus speaks with an authority that belongs
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exclusively to the divine Son. The Apostle Paul confirms this
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in 1st Corinthians 10.4, declaring that the Rock is
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Christ. OK, so the rock isn't just my
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good deeds. No, the entire edifice of the
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Christian faith rests upon His person and His work.
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You literally cannot build this house yourself.
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You have to rely on Christ's resume.
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Right. So to build on the rock is not
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just adopting A moral code, it is resting on Christ himself.
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Theologians talk about this in terms of Christ's twofold
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obedience. Yes, that's crucial.
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Due to total depravity, no human can perfectly fulfill the
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sermons demands. Naturally, we are all by nature
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foolish builders, right? Therefore, believers rely on
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Christ's twofold obedience. OK, define the first one.
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Active obedience. His active obedience means he
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perfectly kept the law of God during his earthly life.
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He nevertheless he never harbored unjust anger.
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He perfectly loved the Lord his God.
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He fulfilled every demand of righteousness.
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Yes, he did the digging for us, so to speak, and the.
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Passive obedience. The passive obedience refers to
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his willingness to endure the cataclysmic storm of God's wrath
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on the cross, satisfying divine justice on behalf of His people.
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He took the floodwaters of justice so we do not have to.
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Yes, when we are united to Christ by faith, His perfect
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righteousness is credited to us. But how does the listener know
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the difference between resting on Christ's grace versus trying
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to manufacture their own merit? Because the text still says the
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wise man does the words. It does say that.
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It doesn't say the wise man just intellectually agrees with the
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words. The distinction lies in the
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nature of the faith itself. OK, the foolish man has a dead
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demonic faith. As James 2.19 describes.
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The demons believe in shudder, but they do not obey.
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A dead faith yields no sanctification, no hatred for
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sin, no genuine love for God's law.
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Exactly the wise builders Obedience is the inevitable
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spirit wrought fruit of a justified life.
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You do not obey to be justified. You obey because you have been
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justified. That makes complete sense.
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The obedience Christ demands in verse 24 is the sanctifying work
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of the Holy Spirit. It is the evidence of living
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faith, not the meritorious ground of salvation.
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It's like the fruit on the tree does not make the tree alive.
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The fruit is the visible proof that the tree is already alive.
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The spot on an apple doesn't force an apple tree to exist.
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It proves an apple tree exists. Exactly.
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We need to bring this historical and theological text straight
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into the modern era. We have to look at our own
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landscape and ask what does the sand look like today?
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Because sand is highly deceptive.
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It really is. It often looks like a perfect,
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respectable place to build a life.
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Sand is incredibly deceptive precisely because it looks
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respectable. Sand can take many forms in the
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modern visible church. Give us some examples.
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It could be cultural conservatism or someone aligns
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with Christian morality, votes the right way and complaints
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about the culture but has no regenerate heart.
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Wow, that hits close to home for a lot of people.
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It does. It could be family heritage, you
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know, relying on the faith of your parents.
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My grandfather was an elder, therefore I am safe.
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It can be a childhood decision card signed into summer camp
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with no subsequent lifestyle change.
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It can be relying on the sacrament of Baptism while
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living in active, unrepentant rebellion against Christ's
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commands. All of that is sand.
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Yes, it is whatever a Sinner trusts while refusing the rule
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of Christ. And it is not just individual
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sand. There is massive institutional
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sand out there. We have built entire
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ecclesiastical empires on sand. Oh, we certainly have.
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We must critique the pragmatic, seeker sensitive mega church
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model through the lens of this text.
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OK, unpack that critique. Building enormous structures
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based on worldly entertainment, marketing strategies and watered
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down theology is building a colossal house on the sand.
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When churches tailor their messages to avoid the hard
27:39
truths of sin, repentance and divine wrath, all in the name of
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relevance and attendance numbers, they are manufacturing
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sand. They substitute the rigorous
27:48
exposition of Scripture for emotional manipulation, fog
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machines, and Ted Talk sermons. Right, they remove the offense
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of the gospel to keep the seats full.
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And that is precisely what the Pharisees were doing, right?
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It is the exact same spirit. Building a system that looked
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successful to the crowds but had 0 footing in reality.
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Yes, Charles Spurgeon had a great quote about this.
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He noted that a good base is not easily laid, and the hypocrite
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is entirely too proud to dig. That is a brilliant quote.
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Digging is hard, unglamorous work.
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It happens in the dark and secret prayer and quiet
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repentance, in the daily mortification of sin.
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The world says live your truth, but Christ demands complete
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submission to his truth. The world builds on autonomy.
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Liberal religion builds on human reason.
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The prosperity preacher builds on earthly success, right.
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The Seeker sensitive movement builds on consumer approval.
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But Christ says all of that sand will fall.
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Yes, He directs us beneath the surface.
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We must ask ourselves, have we received His teaching as the
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authority over our anger, our purity, our speech, our money,
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our secret motives? Are we being mastered by the
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King who preached the sermon? That is the test.
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Looking at it that way, there is an incredible mercy woven into
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the severe warning. There really is.
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By preaching this, Christ is exposing the false footing
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before the final aura storm arrives.
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He is warning the crowd while the sun is still shining.
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Yes, while there is still time to grab a shovel and start
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digging, he wounds in order to heal.
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He exposes false foundations so sinners can flee to the true
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one. That is the pastoral comfort of
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this text. The warning is severe because
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the mercy is available. No one needs to remain on sand,
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right? The same Lord who exposes our
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false foundations also receives sinners who come to Him.
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The wise builder's house is beaten, but it does not fall.
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No, the Christian life is not an imaginary triumph over all
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earthly pain. No, the rain really falls.
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The floods really come. The winds really blow.
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Yeah, but the foundation holds. Christ's word holds because
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Christ himself holds his people, Yes.
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The believers obedience is imperfect yet real, tested yet
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preserved, opposed yet sustained.
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So we have this stark binary reality. 2 builders, 2 grounds,
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1 unavoidable storm, 2 eternal destinies.
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Jesus strips away all the comforting middle ground.
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There is no third house for the moderately religious or the
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culturally Christian. You were either founded on the
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rock of Christ's imputed righteousness bearing the food
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of obedience, or you are resting on the shifting sand of your own
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self deception. That is the unyielding truth of
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Matthew 7. Yes, it is.
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I urge everyone listening to examine your own life today.
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Having Orthodox theology in your head is entirely insufficient if
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you harbor bitterness, lust, or self righteousness in your
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heart. We have to look inside.
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Do not comfort yourself with past hearing.
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Confess specific disobedience. Forsake it.
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Seek mercy from Christ. Begin where His word has been
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resisted. Build on the Rock.
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The sermon on the mound has ended, but the building of your
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life continues. The sky is currently clear, and
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the delay of the final storm is an act of pure mercy.
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You have time to pick up the shovel.
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Are you digging down to the bedrock today?