Latest / Reformed Thinking / Built on the Rock: Hearing and Doing the Words of Christ (Matthew 7:24-25)

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Built on the Rock: Hearing and Doing the Words of Christ (Matthew 7:24-25) · Reformed Thinking

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Reformed thinking. You know, usually when we talk
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about a medical diagnosis, there is this comforting expectation
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of precision. Oh yeah, absolutely.
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It feels almost like engineering in a way.
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Right. I mean, you fall off a ladder,
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break your arm, and the Doctor puts the X-ray up on that
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glaring white light board and they just point a pen at that
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jagged line and say, well, there it is.
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That is the fracture. It is very binary, broken or not
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broken. Yeah, and we love that kind of
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clarity. You know, we like things to be
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visible, categorized, and solvable.
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Right. We want to see the problem
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sitting right there on the surface.
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So we can put a cast on it, sign it with a marker, and just move
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on with our lives. Yeah, but well, then you step
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out of the physical realm and into the unseen world of human
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motives and hidden affections. And eternal destinies.
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Yeah, yes. And suddenly that X-ray machine
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is just totally useless. We're looking at a diagnostic
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landscape that is incredibly murky.
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It really is. It is so easy to assume
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everything is fine just because the outside looks presentable.
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Which brings us to our topic. Today we are taking a magnifying
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glass to the famous words of Jesus in Matthew 7, specifically
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verses 24 and 25. The parable of the wise and
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foolish builders, Yeah. Our mission for this deep dive
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is to look past the superficial, visible architecture of our
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lives and uncover the absolute bedrock of true discipleship.
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That is a critical mission because you know right now you
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might be sitting in a car commuting down a busy highway.
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Or maybe you're staring at a spreadsheet at your desk with a
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cup of coffee. Or taking a walk around your
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neighborhood. We can safely assume your life
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feels relatively stable at this precise moment.
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Right. The sky is clear, the ground
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feels firm. But the central question
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screaming out from this historical text is this.
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When the sudden violent storms of life hit, or when the final
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terrifying reality divine scrutiny arrives, what is
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actually holding up the floor beneath your feet?
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I mean, that is the terrifying and necessary question to ask
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because it is incredibly easy for human beings to assume we
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are standing on solid ground simply because the sun happens
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to be shining today. Oh for sure, we do that all the
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time. We constantly evaluate our
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structural integrity based on the current weather rather than
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the actual dirt beneath us. Yeah, and this text refuses to
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let anyone get away with that kind of self deception.
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It forces a person to look past the comfortable and interrogate
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the unseen reality of their existence.
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Because Jesus, in this historical moment, is not
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handing out quaint moral advice for a happier, more productive
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Tuesday, is he? No, not at all.
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He is delivering A definitive, searching and pastoral
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ultimatum. He is drawing a sharp,
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unyielding line between a life that will stand and a life that
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will experience a catastrophic collapse.
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Right, because every single person breathing oxygen right
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now is a builder. You're building something today.
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No one lives without a structure to their life.
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The question is never whether we are building, but what we are
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building upon. I mean, some people use their
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professional reputation or their family pedigree.
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Or religious familiarity. Or emotional highs.
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Yeah, exactly. Others build on cynicism,
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personal achievement or just the shifting approval of their peer
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group. But the text strips all the
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paint and drywall away and demands we examine the dirt
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itself. O, let's talk about that dirt.
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Because if we're going to understand what Jesus is
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actually saying here, we logically have to look at the
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physical geography of 1st century Palestine.
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We do? Yeah.
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He was speaking to a specific crowd sitting on a specific
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hillside, and understanding the literal ground they walked on
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gives this metaphor its teeth. Oh, absolutely.
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We are talking about a region with severe, almost violent
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weather patterns. Right.
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So I want to look at these geological features called
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waddies. What is a Wadi, physically
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speaking, and why does understanding it change the way
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we hear this parable? Well, the Sair Palestinian
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landscape is very rugged, it is unforgiving and it is defined by
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extremes. During the blistering summer
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months, the region experiences a massive dry season, and in this
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terrain you have these features called wadis, which are
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essentially dry riverbeds, ravines or gullies.
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Empty ditches, basically. Essentially, yes, but because
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they have been baked by the relentless sun for months, and
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because they were smoothed out by previous water flow, they
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look like these incredibly flat, smoothly compacted, absolutely
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flawless plots of land. Wow.
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OK, so if you are a builder looking for a site to construct
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a home in the middle of July, a Wadi looks like an absolute
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gift. It looks perfect, it is
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perfectly level. It requires very little sweat to
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start laying your stones. You do not have to spend weeks
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clearing away massive or fighting with uneven rocky
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terrain. Right.
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It is visually appealing, highly convenient, and incredibly fast
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to build upon. But and there's a mass but here,
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the climate in that region experiences a violent shift in
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the winter a. Huge shift When the winter rains
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arrive, they do not come as a gentle afternoon drizzle,
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torrential rain hits the surrounding mountains and all
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that is placed water has to go somewhere.
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Oh wow, it channels directly into these ravines.
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Yes, within moments those dry, peaceful, perfect looking
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gullies are turned into raging, violent flash floods.
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The water annihilates everything in its path.
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That is terrifying. So a builder who chooses the
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easy flat waddy in July is going to see his entire life's work
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eradicated in December. I mean, that just paints A
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staggering picture, doesn't it? To put it in modern terms, it
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makes me think about housing developments built on
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floodplains. Well, that is a great
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comparison. You see this all the time.
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Yeah, developers buy up this cheap, flat, gorgeous land right
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near a river. It is quick to develop, the
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framing goes up fast and the houses look beautiful in the
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spring. And people buy the homes because
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it is convenient, it is affordable and the view is
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great. Right.
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But the locals, the people who actually know the history of the
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land and the weather patterns, look at those shiny new houses
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and just shake their heads. Because they know 100 year flood
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is eventually going to come and wash the entire subdivision
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away. Exactly.
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The builder took the easy, fast route without considering the
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inevitable shift in the climate. But taking this back to the 1st
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century, did the original Jewish audience sitting on that
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hillside hear this with a specific political filter?
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They absolutely did. Because they were living under a
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military occupation. Yes, their historical reality
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colors everything. The original audience lived
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under the crushing weight of Roman occupation.
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They were a subjugated people dealing with high taxation and
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political frustration. And a desperate, burning desire
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for national deliverance. Right.
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They were longing for a Messiah, but their expectation was
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heavily political and militaristic.
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They wanted a conqueror who would ride in slaughter.
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The Romans re establish the physical throne of David in
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Jerusalem and build an earthly Kingdom.
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So they were looking for a political foundation to fix
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their problems. Yes, and Jesus steps onto the
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scene and completely bypasses that expectation.
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He redirects their focus entirely.
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Oh, so he shows them that the real terminal issue threatening
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them was not the Roman boot outside the land.
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The fatal issue was the sin inside the human heart.
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Oh wow, and the religious leaders of the day, specifically
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the scribes and Pharisees, were missing this entirely.
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Completely missing it. Those leaders had built an
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elaborate, towering, highly visible religious system.
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They've manufactured thousands of microscopic rules, oral
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traditions and outward legalistic practices.
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And to the general public, they looked incredibly pious.
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They were the religious elite. But Jesus is declaring that this
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entire impressive, towering religious structure is built
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right in the middle of Awadi. It is constructed on the dry
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sand of human merit and external performance.
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It looks phenomenal in the dry season of cultural approval, but
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it possesses 0 structural integrity to survive divine
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scrutiny. That is spot on.
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I want to pause and address you, the listener directly for a
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second because this force is a very uncomfortable self
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examination. You have to ask yourself, are
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you building your life, your career, your family structure,
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your religious habits in a dry season?
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That is a tough question. It is.
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Is your current sense of stability just a byproduct of
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favorable cultural weather? Are you relying on the fact that
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things are relatively peaceful right now, completely unprepared
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for a sudden violent change in the climate of your life?
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It is so easy to construct a life that looks completely
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functional when there's absolutely no pressure testing
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it. Because human nature craves the
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easy plot of land, We want the quick results, the visible
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success without the agonizing, unseen labor of digging down to
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something solid. We prefer checklists because
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checklists are easy to measure. And that is the precise
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psychological trap. We deceive ourselves into
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thinking that because the house is currently standing, the
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foundation must be secure. Yeah.
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The Pharisees were absolute masters of this specific self
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deception, weren't they? Oh, the best at it.
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They equated their biological descent from Abraham, along with
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their meticulous adherence to man made traditions, with
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guaranteed spiritual security. They thought their ethnic
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heritage and their very public rituals were the bedrock.
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And Jesus looks at all that religious resume and calls it
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sand. He demands that the audience
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look past the visible architecture of their lives and
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examine the unseen reality beneath the floorboards.
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Because a life that seems remarkably stable and fair
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weather will be exposed as ruinously unstable when the
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actual testing comes. Right.
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And this was a radical, highly offensive message to the
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religious establishment of the 1st century.
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And frankly, it remains a highly offensive message to our modern
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sensibilities today because it strips away our illusions of
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control. And Jesus did not just drop this
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building metaphor out of nowhere like some random proverb he
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decided to share on a Tuesday afternoon.
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This parable is the grand, sweeping climax to the greatest
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sermon ever preached. The Sermon on the Mount found in
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Matthew chapters 5 through 7. Yeah.
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He is wrapping up a massive systematic theological argument.
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What was Jesus doing in those chapters leading up to this
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final, devastating metaphor? Well, we have to look at that
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context because isolating these verses distorts their meaning
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entirely. Throughout the Sermon on the
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Mount, Jesus systematically dismantles the false,
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superficial righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
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OK, so he takes the law of God, which religious leaders had
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conveniently reduced to manageable external physical
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rules. And he elevates it to its
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terrifying spiritual reality. He tells the crowd that murder
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is not just the physical act of taking a life.
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Murder is the unseen anger burning inside the chest.
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Wow. And he says adultery is not just
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the physical act, it is the lustful intent of the mind.
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He demands absolute perfection, not just outward conformity.
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Yes, he addresses hidden motives, secret piety, the
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nature of prayer, fasting and the idolatrous love of money.
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He is painting a picture of Kingdom citizenship that is
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completely impossible to achieve through human effort.
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Right. He demands A righteousness that
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far exceeds the most rigorous religious professionals of his
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day. And that leads right into the
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verses that come immediately before our passage about the
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builders, which are truly chilling.
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I am talking about Matthew 7.2123.
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Jesus describes a scene at the final judgement where people are
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standing before him and they are completely confident.
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They are not cowering, they are boasting.
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Yeah, they say, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name and
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cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your
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name? They are rattling off a
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spectacular spiritual resume. And Jesus responds with arguably
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the most devastating sentence in all of Scripture.
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He says. I never knew you.
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Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
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Let me ask the obvious question here.
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These people were doing literal miracles.
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They were casting out demons. They had spectacular spiritual
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experiences, and Jesus still rejects them as lawless.
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How does a person casting out demons end up building on the
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sand? This is a critical, terrifying
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connection. These false converts had built
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their entire assurance of salvation on subjective
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charismatic experiences and outward, pragmatic success.
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OK, they looked at their ability to prophecy, or to perform
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mighty works, or to gather a crowd, and they concluded that
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their standing with God must be secure.
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They equated spiritual excitement and visible ministry
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success with genuine faith. Yes, but Jesus calls them
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workers of lawlessness. Why?
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Because mystical phenomena, ecstatic experiences, and even
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impressive ministry results, when divorced from actual
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submission to the revealed Will of the Father, are nothing but
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sand. Well, the transition word right
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there in verse 24 is there for Jesus, says everyone there for
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who hears these words of mine. He is directly linking the
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eternal doom of those charismatic false converts to
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the necessity of true structural obedience.
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He is saying because false assurance based on subjective
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experience leads to eternal ruin.
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Therefore, you must build on the objective truth of my words.
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Think about what that means for the average person sitting in
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the Pew today. We live in a modern church
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culture filled with people who have walked an aisle, repeated a
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prayer, felt a massive emotional high during a worship song, and
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now consider themselves absolutely secure for eternity.
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But their daily lives, their private habits, their business
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practices, the way they speak to their spouse are utterly
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indistinguishable from the rest of the secular world.
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Right. They are relying on a past
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emotional experience while living in active current
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rebellion. The reality is that is the exact
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same Sandy foundation as the false converts in Matthew 7.
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Subjective feelings, goosebumps and tearful altar calls are not
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bedrock. If you separate hearing the Word
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from doing the word, you are constructing A spectacular house
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right in the middle of Awadi. A large segment of the modern
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evangelical movement often promotes A Christianity without
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a cross, a salvation without repentance, and and a profession
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of faith without any corresponding obedience.
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It measures success by the size of the crowds, the intensity of
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the emotional responses and cultural relevance.
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But Christ measures success by a life actively submitted to his
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authority. The individuals crying Lord,
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Lord had the correct vocabulary. They had massive enthusiasm.
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They even had visible spiritual power.
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But they lacked the one single thing that proved their faith
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was genuine, which is a life characterized by obedience to
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the Father's will. They treated Jesus as a useful
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tool to facilitate their own religious experiences, rather
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than bowing to him as an absolute sovereign king.
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So let's look closely at the specific prescription Jesus
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gives next, because the original Greek text reveals something
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fascinating about how this building actually happens.
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The text says everyone then who hears these words of mine and
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does them right? The verbs for hears and does are
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not describing A1 time event, are they?
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What are the mechanics of these words?
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The grammatical structure reveals A continuous reality.
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The word for hears is akuwe and does is poya.
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Both of these action words are in a tense that conveys
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continuous, ongoing, habitual action.
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OK, so it is not a one and done deal.
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Precisely. Jesus is not describing a person
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who heard the Gospel once at a youth camp 20 years ago and made
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a one time emotional decision. He is not describing a person
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who occasionally performs a random good deed when they feel
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particularly inspired. The grammar describes A
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relentless, habitual, continuous trajectory of life.
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It is like breathing. You do not take one breath and
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say, well, I breathed, I am good for the decade.
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Yeah, that would not end well. You breathe continuously because
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it is the necessary function of life.
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The Wisebuilder is characterized by an ongoing lifestyle of
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receiving the master's commands and executing them.
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It is a persistent posture of listening and obeying.
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And the word Jesus uses for the wise man is highly specific.
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He doesn't use a word that means a philosopher or an intellectual
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giant with a massive IQ. No, he doesn't.
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He doesn't describe someone who just sits around a university
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thinking deep abstract thoughts. The word is fronimos.
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What does that actually convey about the builder?
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Well, in the classical world there is a sharp distinction
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between abstract intellectual knowledge, which was often
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called Sophia, and practical moral St. level wisdom, which is
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related to fronimos. The New Testament uses fronimos
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to denote a shrewd, far seeing individual who has intense
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spiritual common sense. This is a person who looks at
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reality, accurately assesses the true nature of things, and acts
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deliberately to secure their future based on that stark
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reality. So it is a highly practical
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execution oriented word, yes. To hear the absolute truth of
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the gospel, to know that a definitive storm of divine
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judgment is coming, and to simply ignore it and build your
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life on the sand is not just a moral failure, it is cosmic
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stupidity. It is a fundamental failure to
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accurately assess reality. The Feronimos is wise because
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they align their physical daily actions with the truth their
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ears have heard. I love the idea of spiritual
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comic sense. It makes me think about a
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survival scenario. Imagine you were about to fly
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over the Alaskan wilderness, and right before takeoff you
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download a highly detailed, erfectly accurate survival
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manual onto your phone. A lane crashes, you survive the
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impact, but you are stranded. You have the manual.
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You know it contains the exact instructions for filtering
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water, building a thermal shelter, and signaling for a
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rescue team, right? The download is the hearing.
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It is absolutely necessary. You cannot survive without the
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information. But if you just sit in the
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freezing wreckage, holding the device, acknowledging that the
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manual is brilliantly written, maybe even memorizing a few
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chapters to quote yourself. But you refuse to actually open
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it and execute the physical instructions.
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Exactly the doing the result is fatal.
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The download was useless because he never translated into
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physical action. Hearing the word Christ is a non
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negotiable prerequisite, but doing it is the actual mechanism
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of survival. That is a great way to put it.
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The Protestant tradition has always maintained that truth
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must be apprehended by the mind before it can be embraced by the
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affections and obeyed by the will.
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Hearing is the absolute starting point.
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Faith comes by hearing. But Jesus is confronting a
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religious culture that equated the mere act of hearing with
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genuine piety. The Pharisees were professional
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hears. They study the scrolls
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endlessly. They debated the nuances of the
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text for hours. And today we have people who
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consume endless theological content, read massive volumes of
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systematic theology, and attend four different Bible studies a
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week, accumulating vast amounts of data.
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But without execution, that stockpiled knowledge just
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condemns them further. The act of doing of the Word is
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the dividing line between wisdom and folly.
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Let's talk about the bedrock itself.
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Jesus gets very specific about the Greek word used for rock.
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He uses the word Petra. Yes, Petra.
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He doesn't use the words for gravel like chalix or loose
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rubble, and he doesn't use the common word for a detached stone
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or a boulder you could roll away, which is lithos.
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Why does the distinction of Petra matter so much when we
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picture this wise man building? The lexical choice is deliberate
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and vital. Petra refers to massive, solid
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native bedrock. It is an immovable, unyielding
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shelf of rock embedded deep within the Earth's crust.
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It denotes absolute permanence. And Luke's parallel account of
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this exact sermon as a fascinating detail.
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Luke says the wise man dug deep. He had to excavate.
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And we have to remember, digging in the ancient world was not a
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matter of renting A backhoe. This was agonizing, back
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breaking, blister inducing physical labor.
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Oh yeah, In the context of the Wadi we discussed earlier, you
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have to dig through all that loose, easy topsoil.
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You have to shovel past the gravel, the dirt and the sand.
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Theologically speaking, that topsoil represents our inherent
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pride, our reliance on human tradition, our self
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righteousness, and our resume of good deeds.
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It is incredibly hard, humiliating work to push all of
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that aside and admit that absolutely none of it can hold
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your weight. You have to keep digging until
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your shovel hits something that cannot be moved.
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That is the Petra. While the foolish builder just
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avoids the labor altogether, he wants the visible result, the
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impressive house, as quickly and painlessly as possible so people
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can admire it. But the wise builder is willing
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to delay the visible construction.
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They're willing to look foolish while staring into a hole in the
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ground to ensure the unseen foundation is anchored to
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reality. And that native bedrock of Petra
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represents the absolute unyielding authority of Christ
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and His spoken word. Now we need to stop right here
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and ask a vital theological question because I know someone
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listening is feeling attention. Oh, absolutely.
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The tension is very real. They were thinking, hold on a
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second, if I have to work this hard, if I have to do all this
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agonizing digging and continuous doing and relentless obeying to
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survive the final storm, aren't we just earning our salvation
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through our own works? Which would contradict the rest
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of the New Testament. Right.
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Isn't it just a workspace religion?
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How do we resolve this tension between God's free grace and
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this intense demand for obedience?
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This is perhaps the most critical theological distinction
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to make when reading this text. This passage is absolutely not
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teaching salvation by works. The framework of justification
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and sanctification clarifies this perfectly.
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Let's break that down. Sinners are justified, meaning
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they are declared legally righteous before God by grace
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alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.
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We do not earn our standing. We bring nothing to the table
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but our sin. However, the faith that
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justifies is never, ever alone. Right.
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Genuine saving faith always inevitably produces the fruit of
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obedience. The passage is a ferocious
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defense of sanctification as the necessary proof of
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justification. So to put it simply, doing the
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words of Christ does not merit our salvation.
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That would be legalism. We are not laying bricks to
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build a staircase up to Evan. No, not at all.
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But. Doing the words of Christ proves
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that we actually possess the salvation that was freely given
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to us. It is the visible evidence of an
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invisible reality. We have to reject both legalism,
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which says work so that you can be saved, an antinomianism or
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easy believism which says believe and how you live doesn't
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matter at all. Right obedience is the
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unavoidable proof of saving faith.
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The legalists trust their own doing without ever resting in
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Christ. The antinomian claims to hear
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the word while outright refusing to do it.
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The wise builder hears and does, because they have been brought
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under the gracious lordship of a king.
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Their obedience is the visible architecture of a life that has
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already been sovereignly anchored to the bedrock.
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I think about it like an adopted child.
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If a child is rescued from a terrible, abusive situation and
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adopted into a loving, secure, wealthy family, the child
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doesn't start aggressively doing chores to earn their last name.
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They already have the name. Exactly.
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The judge hit the gavel. They are already a legally
22:49
binding member of the family. The adoption is complete and
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fully paid for by the parents. But because they are now part of
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this new family, they slowly begin to take on the
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characteristics of the family. Yes, they follow the rules of
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the house, not out of a terrified fear of being kicked
23:05
out onto the street, but it's a grateful, loving response to the
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parents who saved them. The commands of Christ are not a
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ladder we climb to reach God. The commands are the floor plan
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of the house we get to live in because we are already saved.
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The law of God is no longer a covenant of works that condemns
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the believer to death. Instead, it becomes a guide, a
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rule of life that the believer actually delights in.
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Because the believer has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit,
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they possess a new nature that genuinely desires to please God.
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The continuous doing of the Word is the joyful striving of a new
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creation. It is imperfect in this life.
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Yes, we still stumble, but the definitive trajectory of the
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life is set toward obedience. So the foundation is settled.
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We are building on the rock through the obedience that flows
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from genuine faith. Let's shift the conversation to
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the reality of the assault itself, the storm, because the
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text points out something that shatters a lot of modern
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assumptions. The storm hits both houses
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equally. Yes, the wise man has not spared
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the terrible weather. The text says the rain fell, the
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floods came, the winds blew. There is a massive shift in the
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action here. What happens to the language
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when the storm arrives? The shift in syntax is jarring
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and intentional. We discussed earlier how the
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builders obedience is described as an ongoing, continuous
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lifestyle, but when the text describes the storm, the verbs
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suddenly shift to depict an action as a whole, a definitive
24:30
bounded event. These are aerist active
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indicatives, right? Yes, the rain fell, the floods
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came, the winds blew and beat upon that house.
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It paints a picture of a specific violent and devastating
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crisis. While the builders preparation
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is a long, slow, continuous process, the testing of that
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preparation is a sudden, furious, concentrated assault.
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And you know there is this literary device used here, a
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polysyndotin, which is the repeated use of the conjunction.
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And the rain and the floods in the winds.
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It creates this compounding, accelerating sense of
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inescapable pressure. It is not just a bad afternoon
25:04
thunderstorm where you lose power for an hour.
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It is a multi front assault. The water is falling from the
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sky above. The rivers are rising from
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below. The wind is tearing at the walls
25:13
from every side. There is absolutely nowhere to
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hide the. Accumulation of forces creates
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an intense, suffocating environment.
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There are two distinct aspects of this guaranteed storm.
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Where are they? First, there are the
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providential trials of this life.
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These are the sudden squalls that hit us in a fallen, broken
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world, receiving a devastating stage 4 medical diagnosis,
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experiencing sudden financial ruin, the betrayal of a spouse,
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the unimaginable death of a child, or severe persecution for
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holding to the faith. These trials violently test the
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structural integrity of what we claim to believe.
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Absolutely. And 2nd and vastly more
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terrifying is the eschatological storm.
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This refers to the final, unavoidable cosmic judgment of
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God, where every hidden foundation will be exposed
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before His holy burning scrutiny.
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Death and judgment will beat upon every single house without
26:06
exception. I mean, this totally shatters
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the modern prosperity gospel, doesn't it?
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There is this pervasive toxic idea in our culture that if you
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just have enough faith, if you decree and declare the right
26:18
positive words, God will put a protective plastic bubble over
26:22
your life and you will never experience true hardship.
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But Jesus guarantees the storm. The wise man's house is
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violently beaten. Christianity does not promise
26:31
immunity from hardship. It promises absolute security in
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the midst of it. The prosperity gospel offers a
26:37
fragile false shelter that will instantly evaporate the moment
26:40
real suffering arrives. Notice that the wise builder is
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beaten by the wind and rain. The text assumes the house takes
26:47
a severe hit. Believers are not exempt from
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the miseries and tragedies of this life.
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We grieve, we bleed, we suffer. But the distinction lies in the
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outcome. The storm does not create the
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foundation it reveals. It yes, affliction demonstrates
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whether a person's religion is anchored to the immovable
27:04
character of Christ or just resting on the loose sand of
27:06
their own optimism. When the storm hits the
27:08
prosperity gospel adherent, their faith often collapses
27:11
entirely because their faith was never in the rock.
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Their faith was in the expectation of good weather.
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That is so true. The storm doesn't create the
27:18
foundation, it reveals it. That is a massive truth.
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Let's look at the aftermath. The text says.
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The storm hits, it beats violently on the House, and then
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we get the result. But it did not fall.
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Why? Because it had been founded on
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the rock. The grammar here is the most
27:35
comforting piece of reality in the entire passage.
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It describes a completed action in the past, right?
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Yes, the Greek verb tethamiloto is a PLU perfect passive
27:45
indicative. The tense used here is
27:47
relatively rare in the New Testament.
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It is used to describe a completed action in the past
27:52
that has permanent results carrying forward into the
27:54
present time of the narrative. And even more significantly, it
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is in the passive voice. The passive voice indicates that
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the subject, the house, was acted upon by an outside force.
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It was secured to the rock by someone else.
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So, using a modern analogy, you aren't frantically running
28:09
outside with a hammer, nailing plywood over your windows and
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trying to pour quick dry concrete around your foundation
28:15
while a Category 25 hurricane is already tearing your roof off.
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That is way too late. The structural integrity of the
28:21
house was established long before the first drop of rain
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ever fell. The heavy lifting was finished
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in the past and you are currently surviving the crisis
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based entirely on that past completed work.
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The theological weight of the passive voice is staggering
28:35
here. The preservation of the believer
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is not dependent on the believers frantic adrenaline
28:40
fueled efforts during the crisis.
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We do not keep ourselves saved by our own raw strength when the
28:45
severe trials come. Right.
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The house stood firm because by the sovereign grace of God, it
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had already been anchored to the rock the foundation held.
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This doctrine comforts the true believer with the reality of
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perseverance. If God has given you the grace
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to dig down and build upon Christ, all the furies of hell
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and the storms of life cannot sweep you away.
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This leads us directly to the core of the matter, Who is the
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rock? Because if we just read this as
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build your life on good moral principles and try to be a nice
29:13
person, we miss the entire point of the text.
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Jesus makes an astonishing universe altering claim here, He
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says everyone who hear these words of mine.
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He isn't quoting another famous rabbi.
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He isn't pointing to an abstract philosophical framework.
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He is placing his own words, his own authority, at the very
29:33
center of ultimate human security.
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The audacity of that claim cannot be overstated.
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In the Old Testament Scriptures, the title of rock is exclusively
29:42
reserved for Yahweh. God alone is the rock of Israel,
29:45
the fortress, the Deliverer. By identifying his own teaching
29:49
as the bedrock upon which human beings mistake their eternal
29:53
destinies, Jesus is unequivocally asserting his own
29:56
divine authority. He is claiming to be God in the
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flesh. Furthermore, the rest of the New
30:01
Testament explicitly identifies Christ as the cornerstone, the
30:04
sure foundation laid by God. To build on the rock is not just
30:08
to adopt A Christian ethical framework.
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It is to rest your entire existence, your very soul, on
30:13
the Incarnate Son of God. We can draw a massive connection
30:15
here straight to the cross. Jesus as our great High Priest
30:18
did not just stand on a hill and hand us a heavy building manual.
30:21
He actually became the foundation by absorbing the
30:23
ultimate storm himself. If you look at Calvary on the
30:26
cross, the reign of divine justice fell, the floods of
30:29
God's holy terrifying, A wrath against sin rose, and the winds
30:33
of absolute fury beat against him.
30:36
He stood in our place. He took the catastrophic storm
30:39
that are foolish Sandy building deserved.
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That is the very heart of the gospel, where we have heard the
30:45
Word and flagrantly disobeyed Christ, heard the Word and
30:48
obeyed it perfectly. Where we have foolishly built
30:51
our lives on sand, He lived every single moment in perfect,
30:54
unbroken submission to the will of His Father.
30:57
He fulfilled all righteousness at the.
30:59
Cross. He endured the eschatological
31:01
storm of wrath and the Foundation held.
31:03
He did not fall in defeat. He rose again on the third day,
31:06
proving that the foundation God laid cannot be shaken by death
31:09
itself. We build our lives not on our
31:12
own flimsy merit, but on His perfect act of obedience, His
31:15
righteous life, and His passive obedience, His suffering on the
31:19
cross, which is imputed or credited directly to us by
31:22
faith. So let's synthesize all this.
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What does this mean for us today, right now?
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True discipleship is not about striving for cultural relevance.
31:29
It is not about an external, showy religion that looks good
31:33
to the neighbors. It is not about chasing
31:35
mystical, charismatic experiences that give you
31:38
goosebumps but don't actually change how you treat your
31:41
family. True discipleship is validated
31:43
by one thing, building your life on the absolute, unyielding
31:47
authority of Christ through a relentless pattern of obedient
31:50
faith. And that ongoing, ongoing
31:52
obedience is the visible evidence that Grace has actually
31:55
done its internal work. This text calls the Church away
31:58
from pragmatic, entertainment driven models that seek to
32:01
attract massive crowds with easy sandy messages.
32:06
It demands a return to the serious, joyful work of
32:08
discipleship where people are taught to actually observe and
32:11
execute all that Christ commanded, regardless of the
32:14
cultural cost. So to you, the listener, we
32:17
address you directly as we wrap up this conversation.
32:19
The text makes it undeniably clear that a storm is coming.
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Neutrality is a physical impossibility.
32:25
You are actively building right now, today, and the weather will
32:29
inevitably change. The rain will fall, the floods
32:32
will rise, the wind will beat against the house.
32:35
The only question that matters is what lies beneath your
32:37
floorboards. Foundations must be laid long
32:40
before the storm arrives. It is supreme folly to wait
32:43
until the crisis hits to examine what you are actually trusting
32:46
in the world. Constantly tells you that
32:48
appearance is enough, that as long as the house looks good
32:51
today, as long as the bank account is full and everyone is
32:54
healthy, you are fine. Christ says the storm will
32:57
reveal the hidden reality. We want to leave you with this
33:00
final thought to Mull over as you go about your day.
33:03
If the final massive storm doesn't create your foundation
33:07
but only reviews it, well, what might the small daily squalls in
33:10
your life right now be exposing? Think about the minor
33:13
frustrations. A cancelled flight.
33:15
A harsh word from a friend. A sudden, unexpected bill in the
33:19
mail. When those minor winds blow, do
33:21
you immediately collapse into intense anxiety, explosive
33:24
anger, or bitter despair? What are your reactions to the
33:27
small trials right now reveal about the actual bedrock beneath
33:30
your own feet?