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0:48And everyone hearing these words of mine and not doing them may be compared to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and slammed against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall. Notice Jesus' words in verse 24, in the second part of the sentence, may be compared to, we're looking at a parable, we're looking at an illustration, something within a story that Jesus has made up, to illustrate a reality to the audience. We're looking at two People, one who hears and does, and another who hears but does not do.

1:37The outline of this sermon is going to be pretty straightforward. We're going to be looking at two responses to hearing the words of Christ so that you will endure the coming storm. Two responses to the words of Christ so that you will endure the coming storm. So, which words was Jesus talking about here? I think certainly there's applicability to the entirety of his teaching throughout his ministry, but this was given in a context. And the context is the conclusion to his sermon on the mount.

2:15There's no need to turn there, but I'll read briefly at the beginning of chapter 5, chapter 5, verse 1. Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, And then he goes on to preach the sermon on the mount. And you'll notice, especially if you have a red-letter Bible, there's a continuous chunk of red text going all the way from there through our text today.

2:48There's been some debate among interpreters about the applicability of this text. Specifically, throughout the Sermon on the Mount, is he targeting people within the church? Is it really because of He's talking to the disciples there, it looks like. It says that he sees the crowd, but then goes up on the mountain, and then the disciples go and sit with him. So you might get the impression: well, maybe he was getting away from the crowds, as he does in other instances, just to be alone with his disciples.

3:16But if you look just one verse after our main text today, in verse 28, now it happened that when Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes. There's no indication anywhere in the Sermon on the Mount that there's any kind of break. There's no narrative inserted in. It's one continuous chunk. And this response by the audience, by the crowd, seems to indicate that they were present for this. The words were for them. They were listening in. Jesus was delivering this to everyone around him.

3:52And it really could have been a lot of people. Last year, I had the privilege of going to Israel and seeing where, very likely, Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. It's right off of the Sea of Galilee. And there's a very unique spot, acoustically, where it says mountain. We probably wouldn't use mountain. We would probably just call them hills. But there were surrounding hills where he could very easily be heard by thousands of people. No problem. So this could have been an enormous group of people that he was preaching to. And so this tells me that this is not just, well, the words just Apply to people who are within the church.

4:32This is a sermon to the crowds demanding a response. So these words of mine seem to be the entirety of the Sermon on the Mount, which was just preached. So if you have read Matthew chapters 5 through 7, you most certainly have heard, as Jesus calls them, these words of mine. And so the responses that we're looking at apply to you and to me. So with that context, let's dive into the text. Verse 24, therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them. Jesus puts a radical emphasis on them being his own words. He's not appealing to the authority of somebody else.

5:22And you can see that the crowds pick up on this in verse 28, which I just read, that they see a difference. Jesus does not need to appeal to someone else's authority as the scribes and the rabbis appropriately would, the authority of Scripture, or they might point to the words of Moses. No, Jesus is putting an emphasis on them being his own. I've prepared carefully for this sermon, prayerfully, that I would effectively deliver the word of God, that I would exegete this text correctly, that I would. Represent the message of the inspired message from the Holy Spirit and from the lips of Jesus. And insofar as I do that correctly, you are bound by these words to obey them. They're the words of Scripture. But that's despite them coming from me. There is no authority in me. The authority lies in them being the words of Christ. And that's the very point that he makes here with his own words. He doesn't need to offload the authority on anyone else. They are his words.

6:34Now, the point on which the two results in the parable will turn is whether one does Jesus' words or whether one does not do Jesus' words, having heard them. So I'd just like it to be in the back of all of our minds as we go through this. What does Jesus mean by doing his words in this passage? What is it that he's having in mind? Now, I don't want to overcomplicate this. It's transparent that he is talking about obedience, being obedient to his words. But I think there is something more, a little more specificity in mind as he's giving this parable, which I hope to unpack as we go along.

7:24So let's look at the first man in the parable that he's giving. So the first individual, sort of in the real world. That we're having a comparison to is the one who hears and does the words of Jesus. And he's compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. I found it interesting studying this text that he could have gone in the direction of quality of the house that he was building. Paul makes an illustration of that sort in 1 Corinthians 3. He encourages his audience to build with costly materials, good materials that will survive a fire, with the fire representing judgment of their works, and discouraging them from building with wood, hay, straw, things that will just go up in flames and be gone, as if it was never there. But Jesus isn't giving an illustration at all about the quality of the house. In fact, there's no description at all about any differences in how the houses were constructed. For all intents and purposes, they're the same. Jesus is concerned with the foundation, what lies beneath the house, where was the spot where the builder chose to build his house.

8:42Second, I'd point out that this builder is building his house. It's his home. He has the ultimate stake in this house. He's not building a home for someone else. He's not a contractor. He's not building just a shed for him to put tools in or something. This is where he's going to lie down to sleep at night in safety. Or at least that's the goal. So he has every motivation to build in the best spot that he can. And by virtue of even building a house, you have to choose to build on something. You can't have a foundationless floating house. He has to pick a spot. He's going to assess the area, whatever the best practices were of the day, and determine this rock looks like a great spot. I will build here. You can't test it ahead of time. Do the best you can, but then you're going to build a house and trust that spot. There you are.

9:45I found this illustration of a foundation just to be so powerful. It shouldn't be surprising that Jesus chooses illustrations that resonate with the audience, that just make complete sense. And just the wide-ranging applicability of this, of the idea of a foundation. I was taken back to my time at Texas AM where I majored in engineering. And all the engineering majors at Texas AM are required to take an ethics course, an engineering ethics course. And what I found very surprising about the class, which I very much look forward to and enjoyed. All the other classes are lots of really in-depth calculations.

10:30Whew, you get enough of that. Let's have something a little easier, a little more lax just to read. And I expected a little more specificity about engineering, but we actually spent at least a third, maybe between a third and a half of the course, looking at ethical theories. We looked at these theories that people have come up with throughout history to try to, in a repeatable, good way, come up with right and wrong decisions. I apologize to any philosophy majors in the room if I am horribly oversimplifying this. This is an engineer speaking, so best attempt. But one of them that we looked at was a Greek philosophical idea of a telos, an end or completion of a thing. A chair has a telos. Its purpose is for people to sit on it, for it to hold people. If a chair collapses when someone sits on it, bad chair.

11:30Hammer is for pounding things. If you hit something and the head breaks off or just bounces right back, bad hammer. Well, they applied this to humans. We have an end. We have a purpose for our existing, which within the biblical framework, I don't disagree with. I think that's not a bad thing. Scripture has much to say about why we exist, what makes a good life. But this system didn't specify. any of that. It doesn't tell you what the end, the purpose of someone is. Maybe it's something about happiness, perhaps something about proficiency in your craft, maybe something about family. That's up to you. Every system we looked at was foundationless. It's fascinating. It kind of blew my mind that no one was really talking about it as we went through this material. So everybody inserted in a foundation. You still have to apply it. You still have some ethic that you're going to apply. These things just kind of helped you apply it in maybe a more consistent way. We also looked at utilitarianism. Basically, what determines whether something is right or wrong is the overall impact on the world, the country, whatever your scope is. But how does it affect everybody? Whatever is the best for the most people. Anybody who knows 20th century history, I'm thinking Pat has a lot to say on this. Many atrocities committed with that kind of mindset.

13:08The foundation is to be filled in by the person applying it. And horrors have followed. What I really took away from taking that class is none of this helped you determine a foundation. You just kind of put one in. And a lot of people in the class had a Christian view, to be sure, but all kinds of different views. A person without a foundation. And really, the ethics are downstream of the theology. We're talking about theological foundations here. What is it that lies beneath everything that you believe? What is it that lies beneath that you're building on for all of the important questions in life?

13:51So Jesus' illustration here is so powerful. And I would just ask: what is your foundation? Clearly, Jesus' message is that the only worthy foundation is Him and His Word, the words of Scripture. But the foundation can be bad. Maybe you have some words of Scripture in there, but then you have some other stuff sprinkled in, some of your own ideas, traditions from your upbringing, traditions from your favorite teacher, whatever it may be that are not true to the words of Scripture.

14:32So this foundation idea is so powerful. So in verse 25, we see what happens to this wise man's house. And the rain descended, and the rivers came, and the winds blew, and fell against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. So you can see that word founded there, so very much built on, and then foundation, affirmation, we're talking about a foundation. And the indication is that it should have fallen, and yet it did not fall. By all accounts, this weather was so devastating.

15:10The next parallel will have the word floods. So, rivers, floods, winds, rains, everything is hitting this house. It should have fallen down, but it didn't, for it was founded on the rock. And this really is the big takeaway from Jesus' parable: that the one doing the words of Christ will endure. But endure what? In the parable, it's a storm. A storm that comes, the house must survive. But this corresponds to something in these individuals who are hearing, either doing or not doing the words of Christ.

15:51Jesus doesn't elaborate. He leaves it up to the reader to interpret his words. I believe Jesus has judgment in mind, divine judgment. So to expand on what was just said, the one doing the words of Christ will endure judgment, will survive judgment. So the first reason I have for landing on this is the parable is really talking about final outcomes. I don't see any indication of prosperity or well-being or how well you enjoy living in that house.

16:30Result. Either the house is destroyed or the house survives. That seems to be the focus for the people that he's applying it to as well, where we're talking about final outcomes. Second would be that this is coming right off of a passage about judgment. Just a few verses prior, starting in verse 21 of Matthew chapter 7. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, in your name did we not prophesy, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many miracles? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

17:24Notice the phrase in there on that day, clearly talking about a future day of judgment, of Jesus dividing people as to whether they really are in a relationship with him or is someone that he does not even know. So I think it fits in very well that the application, the corollary in the real world to this destruction or the storm that comes on these houses is judgment. So let's look. At the second response to hearing the words of Jesus. Verse 26, and everyone hearing these words of mine and not doing them may be compared to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The descriptions here in the first portion clearly meant to be in parallel. A subtle grammatical difference, hears versus hearing, does versus doing.

18:26But clearly they convey the same idea: one who hears and does or does not do. And I'm not a civil engineer, but I'm going to just put it out there. I think building on sand is a bad idea, which is supposed to resonate with the audience. Jesus, he's not trying to confuse people with the parables. In fact, often the confusion is that they're so simple. It's obvious. What is your point? I mean, we all knew this. Building on sand is an awful idea unless you like a moving building.

19:01So this would have resonated very well with the audience. I'm not sure his house would have done well in the long-term storm or no storm. The book of James gives a lot of basically commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, and he gives also, I think, a very, very good description of what it's like to hear but not do Jesus' words, the foolishness of it. In James chapter 1, 1, starting in verse 21. Therefore, laying aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in gentleness receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. So he also starts with this: receiving the word, but become doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. For once he looked at it himself and has gone away, he immediately forgot what kind of person he was.

20:06I think we can agree that this is also foolish. Why even bother to look in the mirror, whatever the scenario might be? You get up in the morning, brushing the teeth. Oh, look, toothpaste on my shirt. You know, and you don't do anything about it. Why did you even bother to look in the first place? It is something that demands action, something that demands response. And if you just forget about it, what is the point? These two illustrations really highlight how foolish Jesus views it to hear his words and not do them. It is as foolish as a man building his house on sand, and it's as foolish as looking at a mirror and just ignoring what you see in it and not acting on it.

20:57Well, we've already read the text, but What happens to this man's house? We'll look at verse 27. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and slammed against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall. No inspection needed, no wondering about what happened. It is gone. I mean, he says it twice: it fell, and it fell big. The endeavor of the man, and this is the same as the wise man, the foolish man is also building his house. It's his home. He intended to live in this place, and it's gone. Complete disaster, failure.

21:44This is what he's comparing the one who disregards Jesus' words to. So I kind of threw out there at the beginning of the sermon: what does Jesus have in mind with doing his words? Obedience. But this is a very dire circumstance that we're talking about. Extreme consequences. Seems clear that the one who disregards his words will be destroyed, will not survive judgment. But Scripture makes it clear that Jesus is. Is not lax in his standards of righteousness. Matthew 5:48, right there in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declared, therefore you are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. In the very words that He's saying that you must do, He's demanding perfection.

22:56James also addresses this. He says, For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. Now, if you do not commit adultery, but murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So the logic makes complete sense. Violation of any portion is violation of God's law. You violated the law completely. To echo the words of the disciples in Matthew chapter 19, after Jesus had his interaction with the rich young ruler and he tells them it's more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, they respond in astonishment, then who can be saved?

23:58It's the question that comes to me. My mind when reading this passage, this seems extreme. Who can fall in this category of being saved that will survive the judgment? I'd like to shift the question that we're asking that I think will help us clarify Jesus' intended application of this parable. Who did he have in mind, or rather, what did he have in mind with this foundation of sand? He had a specific audience when he delivered this sermon. Yes, it applies to us. Yes, I wholeheartedly believe that this foundation idea applies to everything other than the words of Christ. But what was it that was the competing option?

24:48I think we see the answer to this, or a hint at the answer to this, in chapter 5, starting in verse 19. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

25:20It says that the crowds were astonished in chapter 7, verse 28, right after this parable, after the entirety of the Lord. Of the Sermon on the Mount, I think they would have been astonished here as well. They probably would have gasped. Now, it's not exactly a shock to anyone what the Pharisees were like, given how it's used in our modern vocabulary. Don't call someone a Pharisee, just flippantly. That's quite an accusation. But imagine, just try to put yourself in their shoes of what a Pharisee was to a Galilean Jew of the time.

26:02I mean, they were the standard. These were the folks running the synagogues. They were the ones who were ordering their lives to be obedient in the most minute details of, it's often said, 613 commandments of the Old Testament law. But what is Jesus' point with this? Your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Did he view the Pharisees positively or negatively? I think we know the answer to that, but I'm just going to go through some texts just to hammer it in.

26:45In chapter 6, verse 1, beware of doing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them, otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. Therefore, when you give to the poor, Poor, do not sound a trumpet before them, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be glorified by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full. Just a little further on in verse 5, and when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners, so that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward in full.

27:31So, who might these self-righteous, braggadocious hypocrites be? Read between the lines: it's the Pharisees. He's referring to the synagogues. That's their domain. They're the big dogs there. And in Luke 18, verse 9, I think it gives an excellent summary of what their big problem was. And he also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. And in the parable that follows, he describes a Pharisee who is deriding a tax collector and puffing himself up. Meanwhile, it's the repentant, humble tax collector who will ultimately have salvation, who will have forgiveness that day.

28:21So we've established the Pharisees are hypocrites, and they were the standard of the day. I will contend that what Jesus had in mind, the issue, the decision that he was giving them, was my words or the words of the Pharisees. You've got to choose. Jesus' words were certainly, especially given all the condemnation of the Pharisees, in conflict with them. You couldn't sustain both. To obey Jesus was to reject the Pharisees, and to obey the Pharisees was to reject Jesus. This is a binary, cosmic decision. This is what is determining in the parable whether the house will stand or fall. And for the individual hearing Jesus' words, whether he will survive judgment or not.

29:21Jesus makes it clear that no one of their own righteous works will enter into the kingdom. He demands perfection. None of us are perfect. Jesus offers forgiveness, clearly. So Jesus is not giving a legalistic gospel. He's giving a gospel that is perfectly in line with the rest of Scripture. He's giving this pivotal decision to people who will ultimately crucify him. Not all those present, but that decision is made. Later, Pharisees or Christ. In Matthew chapter 23, just days before he would be crucified, and in 23, verse 13, he says, But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people, for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

30:34So I encourage everyone here to read the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters 5 through 7. Just read it anew. Read it with this light. He is certainly giving wonderful commands that we're bound to follow and we should study carefully. He has teachings on personal relationships, prayer, money, anxiety, worship, the priority of what comes out of the heart over simply the physical actions that we perform. Adultery is not just a physical action. It comes from a lustful heart. The murder is a heart issue first that then manifests in murdering.

31:18But he is demanding obedience. Faith in Christ demands obedience. And is there anyone else who you are looking to, anything you are looking to? As your foundation that you're building on, because that's not something that will survive a storm. John 3:36, I believe, gives such an excellent summary of this idea. He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Belief is contrasted with obedience. You don't have belief without obedience. It doesn't exist.

32:05I believe this is what Jesus is demanding. To trust him, to trust that his words, clinging to him, like that house clinging to that rock as the storm comes, is what will cause you to endure and ultimately have eternal life. Total, complete, dependent trust in Christ. But to build on any other foundation, whatever it may be, is like building a house on sand. It's foolish. And we've all, I think everybody here in this room, at least enough from my preaching from the Sermon on the Mount, but I highly encourage you to read it yourselves, has heard the words of Jesus. We are all bound by these words. So I hope this is an encouragement to believers in the room. I believe that this parable is not just one of warning. But also one of promise and encouragement that you really will survive, that you really are secure in Christ, that you will survive for it was founded on the rock.

33:16And for anyone who is not doing the words of Christ, striving to obey the words of Christ, I call you today, please. He is the only foundation to which you can cling and survive. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for this text. I thank you for this sermon that Jesus our Lord so masterfully delivered. I thank you for your forgiveness, for your goodness to us. I thank you that despite our unworthiness, our sinfulness, our inability to stand by your holy standard, that we can cling to the forgiveness and salvation offered by your Son. I pray that we would each strive to obey him as Lord, as our king, trusting in him not in our own self-righteous works, but that we would obey him from a grateful heart that strives to please him.

34:30Father, I thank you for this time. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.