The Last Word
Matthew 7:24-29
“The World’s Greatest Talk” sermon series
Rev. Brian North – Westminster Presbyterian Chehalis, WA
June 27th, 2010
Today is the last sermon in this series on the World’s Greatest Talk, the Sermon on the Mount. If you missed any of the earlier messages and you’d like to catch up on them, they’re available in text and audio at the church website, www.chehaliswpc.org.
In this morning’s passage, Jesus closes his Sermon on the Mount with these final words. And in them, he gives some practical advice on facing the storms of life, because we all face them. No one is immune to challenges and difficulties and hardship. And so he gives this famous teaching about houses and foundations and storms and the relationship between them all. And in this story, there is only one variable that changes and therefore alters the outcome of the story, and that’s the foundation. Everything else is constant: There’s a guy, there’s a house, and there’s a storm. Those all remain the same. But the foundation changes. And the guy who builds his house on the sand is foolish, while the guy who builds his house on the rock, is wise.
Now, clearly, this story is intended as a parable. Jesus gives it to us to illustrate a truth about life. But Jesus doesn’t give this story simply out of thin air. How many of you recall what Jesus’ trade was when he was growing up in the home of Mary and Joseph? And what was the trade that he learned? Carpentry! So while this is a story Jesus creates, he doesn’t give it from a place of ignorance or even just casual knowledge. Jesus was a carpenter; he built stuff. So this was right up his alley. And so he tells this story out of his own experience to illustrate truth and to draw people to faith in him.
Now, just to make sure we’re all on the same page with Jesus here, let’s name what the parts of the story symbolize: the man represents you and me and anyone else who walks the face of the earth; the house is our life, it’s what we build our lives to be – might be a shack, might be a mansion, it doesn’t matter as far as the story is concerned; the storm is the hardships, the struggles – even the struggle with death – that we face in life; the foundation is what is anchoring the house – our lives – in the midst of the storms of life – one foundation is no good and the house is swept away, while the other is a rock solid foundation that keeps the house standing tall in the midst of the storm. And don’t we all want to be able to weather the storms in life? No one wants to get knocked off their foundation so that they can’t handle the storms. So what is this foundation that prevents the house in the story from getting swept away, that we can have in our lives? The foundation is hearing and doing the words of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “…everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise person who built his house on the rock….but everyone who hears and does not put them into practice is like a foolish person who built his house on the sand.” So hearing and doing what Jesus says leads to a secure and strong foundation.
And this story about the foundation flows right out of everything Jesus just said in the sermon on the mount. “Hearing and doing” flows out of being a true prophet in the world, as we looked at last week; when we hear and do we will have wisdom, we’ll walk the narrow road, we’ll judge rightly, we won’t worry, we’ll store our treasure in heaven, we’ll pray the way he teaches, we’ll give to the needy, we’ll love our enemies, we’ll turn the other cheek, our “Yes” will be “yes” and our “no” will be “no”, we won’t look lustfully at others, we’ll seek reconciliation, we’ll be salt and light in the world, and the beatitudes will be our way of living and being here on earth.
And Jesus said a lot of startling things throughout the sermon on the mount, as you may recall through that brief re-cap I just gave. But this teaching on hearing and doing his word takes the cake. No one in the history of the Jewish faith (remember Christianity comes out of Judaism, Jesus was Jewish)…no one had ever made a claim like this. Jewish rabbis had talked about the need to know and do for many years. But what they urged people to know and do was never the words of a person who walked the face of the earth, and certainly not their own. It was always the words of Scripture – especially the first 5 books, what they call the Torah – that people were called to know and do. For instance around Jesus’ time there was a rabbi named Nathaniel, and one of his sayings is, “Whoever studies [the] Torah and does good works, may be likened to one who lays a foundation of stone and bricks that rising water cannot overturn.” Obviously, the theme here is very close to what Jesus said. But there’s one huge, critical difference: Nathaniel – along with rabbis before him for centuries – called people to listen and know the Torah and obey it. Jesus is saying to listen to him and do what he says. No rabbi would ever say that. In doing this, Jesus is equating his word with the word of God, with Scripture, and therefore equating himself with God. “My word is the same as God’s word” is what he’s saying, because they are one and the same. This is a big reason why the crowds were so amazed at his teaching and why the authority of his teaching was so unlike anything they had heard before. Jesus points people to himself, and says, “I am the foundation you’re looking for.”
Now this doesn’t mean the Old Testament is invalid; the rabbis weren’t totally wrong – they just didn’t have the whole picture. Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus himself said, “I’ve come not to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them.” So, in other words, it’s through Jesus Christ, through his life his words and faith in him, that we can more fully understand and live out the OT. We need the OT just as we need Jesus’ words and the rest of the New Testament. After all, it’s all God’s word…it’s all Jesus’ word to us. But it’s this claim of Jesus’ that it’s his word and in him that we find our true foundation that causes the crowd to say that he taught with such authority.
So, Jesus calls us to two things to have this sure foundation: to hear and to do his words. Now there are many people who hear the words of Jesus. Every Sunday in churches around the world, in homes throughout the week, in classes, and so forth, people hear and read the words of Jesus. And many know his words. There are, however, many who do not. There are people who encounter the words of Jesus, they read them, they hear sermons, but they aren’t really listening. Many people don’t know God’s word. We live in a Biblically illiterate society. I once heard a long-time Christian say the words of John 3:16, where Jesus says – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life” – and attributed it to the apostle Paul. I’ve know people who have been Christians for years and years who don’t know whether certain books of the Bible are in the OT or the NT. We could definitely listen to and know God’s word, including the words of Jesus, much better than we do – and that includes me. I’ve got a long ways to go to knowing God’s word really well, and I acknowledge that. And so Jesus is telling us that listening to his word, knowing his word, is the first step toward having a rock-solid foundation.
Now, hearing the word is an important and necessary first step. But it isn’t enough. The guy who built his house on the sand heard the words of Jesus too. His problem was that what he heard stayed inside his head as knowledge. It didn’t impact the way he lived. It didn’t make it from his head to his heart and his hands and his feet. Jesus is saying to hear his word and then allow it to impact the way we live because that’s how we have a solid foundation in life.
I’m reminded of a story I heard in seminary. I don’t recall the exact details, but it was a true story of a prisoner who studied the Bible while he was in some sort of prison for many, many years. He knew the Bible forwards and backwards. Knew how many books, chapters, and verses there were…knew the words, knew what the middle verse and middle word of the Bible was…knew the history it taught, knew the lessons it taught, knew about the life and death and resurrection of Jesus…but he never knew Jesus in his heart and in his life. He died without doing the words of Jesus. He had heard the word. He knew the word. But it stayed up here, in his head, and never got to his heart to have a relationship with Jesus.
Jesus wants us not just to hear and know his word, but to do it also. That’s the challenge that Jesus puts out there for us. You see, we all build our life on something. We all have some kind of a foundation that we rest upon. There is something that gives us reason to get out of bed each day, face the day, and motivates us. So we all have a foundation of some kind. The question is: Can this foundation withstand storms? Is this a strong enough foundation? That’s the criteria Jesus gives us for determining if a potential foundation is sufficient. And if the answer to that question is “no” then the foundation we’re building our life on isn’t solid enough.
Let’s take a took at a couple examples so you can see what I’m talking about. You might resonate with these, or you might have something else in your life that’s a foundation, but hopefully this will help. So, for instance, some people build their foundation on their career. Men are especially susceptible to doing this, but more and more, women are too. We identify ourselves with what we do. It’s one of the first questions we ask people when we meet them for the first time, “What do you do?” “Where do you work?” That’s how wired we are to our work – it’s a cultural thing and we might not even recognize it’s trying to be a foundation for us.
Now, having a career is a wonderful thing. It gives us purpose, it pays the bills, and it keeps us out of trouble. People need jobs, we need careers. They make for a great part of your house (roof, wall, door, etc.), but they make a lousy foundation. For instance, let’s say your career is flying. You’re a pilot for an airline. Now, I have a close friend who’s a pilot, so I’ve learned something about this, and let me tell you: It’s a fabulous career. I mean, he flies about 8 days month, he’s on call about 7 days month – sometimes he has to fly on those days, sometimes he doesn’t – and that’s all he works…and they call that his full-time job and pay him quite well to do it! What a great career, what a great job! So, let’s say you’re really successful, as a pilot. You fly a 747…not some rinky-dink plane like a 737 that my friend flies! You fly a 747 jumbo jet…or the new Dreamliner when your airline gets one of those…and you fly for a top-flight airline, like United Airlines. And you’re not a first officer on this plane, you’re the captain. You’re at the top of your profession, and people call you “captain Jones.”
Now, about once a year every pilot has what’s called a “check-ride” which is done in a flight simulator, and you get all kinds of situations thrown at you (weather problems, mechanical stuff like loss of power to an engine or landing gear that won’t come down, etc.) that could occur while flying a plane, and you have to adjust to those situations without error. And so what happens when you show up to the airport one day, go to the gate to get on the plane you’re about to fly, and someone from your airline’s management team greets you and says, “I’m sorry Mr. (or Mrs.) Jones, but you can no longer fly planes for us because you failed your last checkride.” If that job your foundation…if that’s where you gain your sense of self-worth and purpose…if that’s the reason you get up out of bed every morning and what you’ve built your life on…your house just came crashing down!
It’s the same thing in a marriage and in families. Many people make their marriage or their kids or grandkids the foundation of their life. Family is a great house – it can even be a really big house like my family is with four kids…but it’s a horrible foundation. My marriage with Gwen is really good. We have a great relationship…but it’s a horrible foundation – especially for her. It would be a little more solid for me, but not for her. But no matter how good the marriage is or how great your family is, what many people don’t realize that is that it’s still a crummy foundation. And this is implanted in our culture: For instance, there’s this sappy, sentimental idea out there that when we get married, the other person “completes” us. Have you heard that? It sounds romantic, but it’s Biblically indefensible. What happens when that person passes away? Or what happens if – heaven forbid – you should get divorced? Are you no longer “complete?” Or what happens when your relationship is simply in a slump because of a difficult time? Or if your kids are your foundation: when your kids move out of the house then what? How many husbands and wives look at each other after 25 years of raising kids, and now they’re empty nesters and say, “Who are you?” or “Now what?” Where’s the foundation now? So marriages and families are a poor foundation. God is our foundation, not some other person. This is Good News for married couples because it takes pressure off of the spouses to be more in their marriage than they can possibly sustain or that God calls them to be. This is good news for children because it means they aren’t the foundation of their family. And it’s Good News for people who aren’t married, because it reminds us that we’re complete just as God has made us. God made each and every one of us a whole person, and we’re complete just as we are in our relationship with him, and with Him as our foundation.
Those are just a couple examples of foundations that don’t withstand storms very well. There are others. But Jesus says that his word is a foundation we can build our lives on. And we can trust him because it withstands storms. And we know this is true – which is a key question for us to ask: Is what Jesus says true? And we know it’s true because of the resurrection. Jesus Christ was true to his word, and he overcame death, which is the ultimate storm. You aren’t going to find another foundation like that.
So, we have a choice. What is going to be our foundation? Every person on the face of the planet has a foundation in their life. And Jesus Christ is the only foundation that can withstand all the storms that come at us. And we can choose not to listen to the words of Jesus, in which case we can’t do them either. Or, we can choose to listen, but not do what he says. Or we can listen and do, and therefore have a strong foundation, a rock upon which to stand. That’s what Jesus is telling us in this parable. The decision, then, is up to us, individually and corporately.
So, in your life, as you reflect on the things in your life that are vying to be your foundation: which of them actually is the foundation of your life? Who or what do you really listen to, and then whose words do you then act upon? If it’s anyone’s or anything’s other than the words of Jesus Christ that we listen to and act upon, then we’re building our lives on a false foundation.
And so as Jesus closed this sermon, and as we close this sermon series, I invite you to build your foundation on Jesus Christ, the rock, by listening to and doing his word. It’s what we do here at WPC as we seek to grow his kingdom deeper (that’s listening and knowing) and wider (that’s doing, as we seek to reach out with the Good News). And it’s what we do individually as we are obedient to the one who gave his life and conquered death so that we would have him as our sure and steadfast foundation now and always. Let’s pray…Amen.