Building on the Rock

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Transcript:

Well, if you would, turn with me to Matthew chapter 7. We started looking at Matthew chapter 7 a little bit last week, or at least we looked at the portion of the passage that talks about those who would say to Jesus, Lord, Lord, but never knew him, and shared with you some thoughts about what I think is probably the most chilling or one of the most chilling passages in all of Scripture where Jesus says in verse 23, and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

And just the idea of hearing those words from Jesus is just about the worst nightmare that I can imagine. To go through all of life, to go through all of life thinking you’re in good standing with God, as these people certainly did, saying, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not cast out devils?

Have we not done many wonderful works in your name? And still, Jesus says, I never knew you. And we talked about what it means to do the will of the Father and be able to enter into the kingdom.

I want to go just a few verses further this morning and look at the next little part of Matthew chapter 7 and what he says about the foundation that we build on. You know, there’s a place not too far from my house that leads down into a creek, and it sort of gradually slopes down to this creek, low-lying, probably prone to flooding, and it really was not good for much use at all. That’s probably why for years and years they never built anything there.

But I remember them putting up a sign a few years ago. The sign puzzled me. It said, clean dirt wanted.

And I don’t know about y’all, but that kind of struck me wrong. What is clean dirt? Dirt by its very definition is not clean.

Anyway, but it turns out that means they don’t want a bunch of stuff in it. They don’t want rocks and limbs and old tires. They just want the dirt.

but I thought surely there’s a better way to say that. Dirt only wanted or something like that rather than clean dirt. But anyway, over the years, they got their clean dirt, and they packed it in, and they packed it in.

And for years, I drove down one of the main roads in town looking at this, thinking, what are they doing there? Why are they collecting all this dirt? And time came after they had collected enough to sort of level it out where it dropped steep off into the creek that they started packing it down a little bit.

evidently didn’t pack it down well enough, and they started building a housing addition on it. Well, that’s great, and from the outside, it looks great. I know people, though, who have gone to look at those houses with an eye toward buying, you know, after the houses have been there for two or three years, and when they’ve gone in to look at these houses, they’ve said, we’re not going to buy because we’re not too sure about this house.

I mean, there’s a crack here in the wall. The wall kind of moved over here. The houses settled on this foundation of just that loose dirt.

The house was not built on probably as good a foundation as it should have been. I’m not sure how they let them get by with building. I told some of you last week we were having to have a new water heater installed, and with code upgrades and everything, it was going to be $1,400.

Well, sure enough, it was, and $900 of the bill was for the code upgrades. With that strict of building codes, I don’t know how they let them get by with building houses on dirt that was going to shift in just a few years and settle instead of building the house on a firm foundation. And what we see as we read through this passage, Jesus draws a distinction between firm foundations.

My house in Moore was built in the 60s and has barely settled because it was built on a good foundation. These houses that were built in the early 2000s have major problems because they were not built on a good foundation. And Jesus draws here a distinction between a good foundation and a bad foundation that we build our lives on.

And so we go in verse 24 of Matthew chapter 7. He says, Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which buildeth his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And there’s, some of you may have heard it, there’s actually a children’s song that goes along with this, doing the motions. I was singing this song to my kids the other day, and trying to remember the words, but even they sort of understand this, sort of get the concept.

I remember the song, and I thought about having you stand up this morning, and those who don’t know it, teaching it to you, and we would sing it together, but I won’t embarrass you that way. Emotions and everything. If you really want to, maybe we can sing it outside later as we’re leaving, and generate some interest from the townspeople about what’s going on here.

But anyway, even small children can understand this concept. The wise man built his house upon the rock. The wise man built his house house upon the rock.

The rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the rock stood firm. I’m leaving out a few lyrics there. And in contrast, the foolish man built his house upon the sand.

The rain came down, the floods came up. And my favorite part of the song when I was a kid, the house on the sand went splat. That’s straight out of the Bible, as we’ve just seen.

And Jesus says that those who would hear his words and do them, those who would hear the sayings of his and do them he would liken to a wise man which buildeth his house on a rock. Okay? We need to make very clear, though, what he’s talking about and what he’s not talking about when he says, those who would hear these words of mine, these sayings of mine, and do them.

He is not. He is not. He is not.

As emphatically as I can make the point, he is not saying. He is not talking here about doing good things in order to be saved, in order to bring yourself salvation. We talked about that some last week.

where he said that, I’m looking for the verse we talked about, where he talked about those who would do the will, I’m sorry, verse 21. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Well, God has made it clear throughout his word, I believe, that what his will is for us, as far as that’s concerned, is our salvation, is our salvation through Jesus Christ. Jesus makes it clear through this entire, you’ll see here a few chapters.

Matthew chapter 5, Matthew chapter 6, and Matthew chapter 7 are mostly written in red. It’s part of one discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. And that’s where we get the things like the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, all of those things.

That’s where we get where Jesus says, you’ve heard an eye for an eye, but I say unto you, and he tells them to turn the other cheek. He says, you’ve heard it said, don’t commit adultery. I tell you to not even look upon a woman with lust or you’ve committed adultery.

Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. And that’s where we get this list of things that Jesus taught that the world is more enamored of than some of the other things, especially, don’t even get me started on Matthew 7.

1. I’m convinced the most misinterpreted verse in the entire Bible. Judge not that you be not judged.

I could preach another message on that sometime. So many of these things out of the Sermon on the Mount have become famous sayings. And the world likes to look at them and say, well, see, Jesus just taught us to love one another and be nice to each other.

And that’s certainly part of it. That is certainly part of it. But part of this same message, this is all one message, remember.

And he says in the three verses we looked at yesterday, that all of these people who’ve done wonderful things in my name that never knew me are still not entering into the kingdom of heaven. Just doing good, just doing good things, even just doing all of these things, will not get us to heaven. There’s a verse I was looking at again this morning where he says, I’m trying to find where I looked at it.

In Matthew chapter 5, when he’s talking about the law, he says in verse 17, Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, until heaven and earth pass one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled.

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Okay, that sounds like it’s all about keeping the law and keeping the commandments and meeting up to God’s standard of righteousness.

But then he says to them in verse 20, For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Well, we look at that and we say, well, these Pharisees and scribes, they were bad men. Obviously, you know, we can do better than that because we love other people.

But they would have looked at this in their day and said, well, then it’s hopeless. At hearing Jesus say, unless you are more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees, you will not get into heaven. You will not enter into the kingdom.

The people would have heard that and thrown up their hands and said, well, it’s hopeless then because the Pharisees and scribes, outwardly at least, were the most righteous in their society. they were the ones who were the most scrupulous about fulfilling the demands of the law. And I’ve given the example several times, not necessarily here, but they would build their hedges around the law because at first, I think maybe hundreds of years before Jesus, they started out with good intention of saying, we want to make so certain we don’t transgress God’s law that we’re going to build a hedge around it here so we don’t even get close to it.

And the problem became not when they just said, we’re not even going to get close to breaking the law, but we’re going to say this is the law now, we’re going to move the hedge back here, and we’re going to expect everybody to follow it. It would be as though God said, don’t step on the floor. And I said, okay, I won’t step on the floor, but so that I don’t accidentally step on the floor, I’m not even going to step on this step right here.

I don’t want to even get close to breaking, you know, because I might accidentally don’t want to do that, so I’m not even going to go on that step. That’s fine. I’m going to make sure that I’m doing the right thing.

But wait a minute, okay, now this becomes the standard. If you step on that step right there, You’re a bad person, so you want to be back up here. Well, then let’s move the hedge further and say there’s a step up here.

Now, you don’t want to go on that one. And it kept moving back and back and back and back all this time. The line kept getting moved further and further back.

And the Pharisees had become a law unto themselves and had imposed these strict regulations that were beyond what God had ever put on the people. And so outwardly, they looked like they were the most righteous, like they were the most scrupulous people at keeping God’s law. And even at that, Jesus says to the people, unless your righteousness exceeds, not just equal with, but exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you’re not getting into the kingdom.

What was the reason for that? Because God’s standard is not the same as man’s standard. He said, we’re taught in the Bible, you’ve got to reach God’s standard of righteousness in order to have that fellowship with Him, in order to have that relationship with Him, that home in heaven.

In order to be saved, we’ve got to attain God’s righteousness and the book of Romans tells us that there’s not one of us who lives up to it, that we’ve all fallen short. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And what that verse means is we’ve fallen short of His standards.

See, if we judge ourselves by other people, we might be doing all right. But God’s standard is absolute sinless perfection. And guys, if we’ve sinned even one time, we’ve fallen short of God’s standard.

And I submit to you that for most of us, it’s one time an hour at the minimum, probably. We sin on a regular basis. We are born sinners and we spend the rest of our natural lives exercising that job description very, very well.

And he says, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no wise enter in. He tells them in Matthew 5. 48, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

The entire point, or I should say one of the points of the Old Testament law, as we’re taught in Galatians, Not that we’re taught the Old Testament law in Galatians, but according to Galatians, one of the major points of the Old Testament law is that it could not be kept. It could not be kept. It was there because we were already sinners because in our hearts we’ve rebelled against God since the days of Adam and Eve, but it was there to put in a recognizable form, in a clear form, okay, you’ve got to meet this, this, this, this, here’s the check-off list, you’ve got to do all of these things, and by the way, you can’t.

And we would see it right there in black and white that we fall short of God’s standard. I heard there are some 613 laws in the Old Testament. We can’t even keep the Ten Commandments according to what Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount.

So when he comes and says in verse 24, I promise I was not chasing the rabbit there. There was a point to all that. When he comes and says in verse 24, that I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon the rock, that the one who would be likened to the wise man is the one who hears his sayings and does them.

He is not talking about someone who hears all of the good things that we’re supposed to do, all of those commandments, and then keeps them perfectly, because such a man does not exist. What he’s talking about is attaining to the standard of God’s righteousness, and the way we do that is by the righteousness of Christ. The rock here that we build our life on is not a rock, a foundation, a slab of good works, but is the righteousness of Christ. It’s the gospel of Christ. So many times throughout the New Testament, Jesus himself is called the rock. One of the examples that we’re probably most familiar with is in Matthew also, in Matthew chapter 16, when Jesus, and I think we’ve talked about this just recently, Jesus asking, who do men say that I am? And they said, some say you’re John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

And then he narrows the question and says, but who do you say that I am? It’s easy to say, what do other people say about Jesus? who is Jesus to you?

And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus said in verse 17, blessed art thou Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father, which is in heaven. And I say unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And there’s been a lot said regarding Peter being the rock on which the church is built. And that’s absolutely incorrect. Absolutely incorrect.

If you go back and look at it in the Greek, the word there for Peter is Petros, a little rock, a pebble. But when he says, and on this rock, I will build my church, the word there is Petra, which means the big rock. Now, some people have said, well, then the big rock is the confession.

I say the big rock is Jesus. And Peter was just a chip off the old block, if we can use that expression. In other places, Peter calls Jesus the rock of offense.

Numerous times throughout the New Testament, Jesus calls himself the chief cornerstone. The rock on which we build our lives, the rock on which the wise man builds his life, is not just a list of good things that he’s done according to what Jesus has taught in the previous three chapters, but the wise man is the one who builds his rock on the foundation that is Jesus Christ. And I submit to you as well, the wise man is the one who builds his eternity, not just his life here, but his eternal life on the foundation that is the rock, Jesus Christ. He says, the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand.

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And as I was reading this passage again, I remembered as a child going to the beach with my family in Florida and standing there on the shore where the waves. I’m too young to be having those moments where I can’t remember what things were called.

Where the waves just come crashing in and then go back out and come crashing in and go back out, and you stand there, and I used to do this, just sort of dig my feet into the sand, And then the waves would come and crash over your feet. And as they’re going back out, the receding waters would pull some of the extraneous sand with it. And you would start to sink down just a little bit.

Not like quicksand. But as a layer of sand was being removed, that foundation was coming out from under you. And you’d go down just a little bit.

Now, I never stood there long enough to burrow to the other side of the world or anything like that. But the foundation was easily swept away because it was just sand. And when he says that those who hear his sayings and do them not would be like those who built on a sandy foundation, an uncertain foundation.

He is not merely talking about those who hear these good things we’re supposed to do and don’t do them. He’s talking about the stuff the world, from the Sermon on the Mount, the world doesn’t like to talk about as well like the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom.

Those things. The strong foundation that we have is Jesus Christ. And the foundation we are supposed to build our lives on is Jesus Christ, and we do that by hearkening to the words that he’s taught, including the message of salvation that comes only through him. As he said in John, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes unto the Father but by me.

We can’t read from just the words in red and white what the inflection was exactly when he said it, but I like to put that emphasis on that verse because I think that’s where it goes. I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes unto the Father but by me. We need to be reminded of that.

That to hear his words and to do them is to hear all of his words and do them. Like it was mentioned by somebody in Sunday school this morning, except ye repent, ye shall likewise perish. Jesus looked at a disaster that had occurred in a neighboring city where a tower had fallen on some people, And he told the people he was preaching to, unless you repent, you shall likewise perish.

Guys, that’s not a Jesus you’re going to hear about on MSNBC. That’s not the Jesus the world likes to hear from. To build our lives on him and his sayings and his words is to take all of his sayings, including the exclusivity of salvation through him, that we can get it through him and no one else, and build the foundation there, and then continue to build the foundation on the sayings that he’s taught us after that salvation, that we continue to live as he expects us to live.

As I mentioned last week, I tell my kids all the time, I tell my sister all the time, your burns, act like it. Much more important than that. If you are a child of God, act like it.

We build our lives on the foundation of the rock by trusting in him and no other for our salvation and then living like it. The rock is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s the first point of the message and probably no need to belabor that one anymore, but the rock is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the firm foundation. The second point of the message this morning is that the rock is a solid foundation that wise men build upon.

I mentioned last week also that there really are only two religions in the entire world. That should be a comforting thought to the religion department at OU that they’ll be out of business. If there are really only two that you need to know.

There’s the religion of Jesus Christ that says he has done everything that’s necessary. And then there’s the religion of works. I don’t care what you call it.

I don’t care what the sign is over the door. I don’t care if it’s the Catholic church. I don’t care if it’s the Mormon church.

I don’t care if it’s the Muslim mosque in Oklahoma City. I don’t care what the name is over the door. It’s the religion of works.

There are only two religions in the entire world. And at first, it sounds harsh to people. It can sound harsh to people when we tell them, your good works have nothing to do with it.

I can imagine if I was told in just these words that I’m a low-down scoundrel who sinned against God and there’s nothing I can do to earn my forgiveness, that would sound harsh to me. And yet that’s the truth of it. But when we get past realizing that, oh, these awful Christians say that, you know, I’m not good enough for God.

Well, you know what? The truth is the awful Christians are not good enough for God either. But if we get past the point of saying, oh, how awful the Christians are, saying that we’re not good enough for God and Jesus is the only way and all of that stuff, and realize there’s something liberating, there’s something of a relief in realizing that our eternity, our salvation, our eternal destination has nothing to do with the good that we do.

I do not, the more and more I understand this, I do not want to one day stand before God and have nothing to offer him but a handful of filthy rags. I do not want to stand before God and have him ask, if indeed he does ask this, why should I let you into heaven and say I was a good person? Because I know me.

I know myself. And as scary as that is, God knows me even better than I know myself. And even when I think I’m doing things right and think I’m doing things for the right motive, he knows even when I don’t know.

In the background there, there’s a little bit of selfishness. God knows my heart better than I do. God knows my mind better than I do.

And it would be a terrifying thing. It would be a fearful thing for us to stand before God on this shifting, shaky foundation, this sandy foundation of works and self-based religion and have nothing but that to offer to God. Because we may in this life think, well, I’ve done a lot of good things.

God’s going to have to let me in. God doesn’t have to do anything but honor His Word. God is under no obligation to bend His rules because we’re so good or we’re so nice.

And if I think I’m going to go to God and stand before Him in judgment someday, without Christ, and think He’s going to make an exception for me just because I’m so wonderful, it’s going to be a bad realization on that day. The only solid foundation we have to build our lives on is the rock of Jesus Christ. It is the only solid foundation. Because I’ve known people, and I think we’ve probably all known people at some time or another, who didn’t necessarily get Christ, but at some point in their lives got religion, and thought, okay, I’m going to do better.

I’m going to straighten my life out now. I’m going to do good, not just do well. I said that on purpose.

I’m going to do good. I’m going to do good things. I’m going to try to make God happy and do what He wants.

And think, okay, I’m going to store up enough of those good works to earn my way in. And there’s no way to sustain that. There’s no way to keep it going because the only good we have in us is what Christ puts there.

So ultimately that goes away. We find ourselves right back where we started. The rock of Jesus Christ is a solid foundation.

It’s the only solid foundation. And it’s where wise men build their house. The third of all this morning, we are almost finished.

This rock, this solid foundation that we have, the whole purpose of it is that it will remain firm through life’s storms. He says in verse 23, And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. I have seen utter and complete devastation. Not only do I, you know, I mention this from time to time.

If you didn’t know, not only am I from Boer, the tornado capital of the world, but I was in Joplin just a few weeks after the massive tornado hit there. I was on the Gulf Coast not long after one of the hurricanes hit there. I’ve been in other places where there’s been devastation.

Houses have burned down. Places have exploded. I hope not to get a complex where I think this stuff is following me.

But you know, I’ve noticed over the years, seeing these things happen, a lot of times buildings will be absolutely gone. Not only collapsed, but just gone. No trace of the building except the foundation.

If there is a solid foundation, not only does the building stand a better chance of withstanding whatever it is up to a certain point, But the foundation is still going to be there. I have friends who before they could start rebuilding, there was nothing left on their lot, but they had to go and break up the foundation and haul it out in wheelbarrow’s. Because that foundation was so sturdy, it remained there.

That’s the kind of foundation we need to build our lives on in Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ, the rock we build our lives on, the rock on which our eternity needs to rest, will remain firm through all of the storms of life. It is a rock, it is a foundation. He is a rock and a foundation that cannot be moved.

I may have mentioned to some of you that I wrote a book back in March and got it published. It was on the subject of Islam, not in favor of it, by the way. Just to give you a little sneak peek.

I’m in the process of writing another one, not on Islam, but on something else. and one of the chapters that I’ve not gotten to yet, but I’ve got outlined, is on how everything else really, in comparison, I should say, is irrelevant in comparison and contrast to the gospel. I won’t say that the things we go through in life don’t matter because they do.

But in light of the gospel, everything else is secondary. And specifically what I’m talking about and what I’m writing is we look at some of the places around the world where we see the government tries to step in and oppress the church and tries to shut it down. They ban Bibles.

They shut down the churches. They bulldoze people’s homes when they’re having house churches, places like China, places like North Korea, where you can be sent to a death camp just for owning a page of the Bible. And it would seem, from our human wisdom, like people in those circumstances would just give up.

that Christianity, you know, with enough force behind whoever’s wanting to stamp it out, Christianity could be stamped out. But what we see is the complete opposite. What we see is even though people are deprived of their homes, we see that people are deprived of all of their belongings.

Sometimes they’re deprived of their families, deprived of their freedom, many of them deprived of their lives. The gospel still goes forward. Because I think these people in these other countries understand something that we don’t, that everything else is secondary.

And everything can be taken from us. You could wake up to, I hope you don’t, I don’t think you will, but you could wake up tomorrow, no home, no family, no possessions, no job, no health. You could wake up in prison, we could, it’s very, very unlikely I think, but we could wake up tomorrow in a communist dictatorship and have no more freedom.

But you know what? There’s something that they cannot take away from us. And that is the relationship we have with Jesus Christ. That’s the promise of eternal life that we have in Jesus Christ. Praise God, that’s the promise of a clean slate of our sins being wiped away and forgiven in Jesus Christ. And when we get right down to the heart of it, they can do everything to us.

The world can do everything to us. The circumstances of our life can do everything to us. and yet they’ve done nothing at all because the foundation is still there and cannot be moved.

Hear me on this. If you’re building your life on the foundation of Jesus Christ, there’s only so much they can do to you. There’s only so much that the storm can beat down.

There’s only so much that the water can rise. That foundation will not be moved. They can take our homes.

They can take our families. Guys, I’m not just talking about the government. If this sounds It’s like a tirade.

I’m talking about the circumstances of life. Our families can be taken, our homes, our jobs, everything we own can be taken. Our very life can be taken.

But the promise we have in Jesus Christ cannot be taken. Last Sunday night, you all went to the nursing home to sing, and I went to Southgate. And there was a gentleman there named Bill Zachary who has just in the last few months surrendered to preach, and he was preaching his first message.

And I thought, I’m excited I get to be here and hear that. And I was struggling with some questions and trusting God in some things. And I went into church that night just not in the greatest mood.

And he preached a message, and I would remember the passage if I hadn’t been trying to come up with it. It was three verses out of Luke, and now I’ve lost what it was. Three verses out of Luke that he talked on, though.

And it occurred to me, and I told you several weeks ago, if you remember, speaking to the graduation banquet at the private school there in town

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