Build Your House on the Rock

Matthew 7:24-27

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Thank you, pastor Mike. Um, my name is pastor Jay. Uh, I was going to dress up as pastor mark this morning because it is October 31st, but they ran out of white hair dyes. So just, I just cut it. Um, we’re going to be in Matthew chapter seven this morning verses 24, starting in verses 24, finishing off, um, our series on the sermon on the Mount, looking at the last words that Jesus recorded here, um, on the sermon on the Mount.

So it’s Matthew. Chapter 7 24, the 20 sevens on the screen. If you don’t have it says this, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not.

We’ll be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it this morning. We need to build our lives on the foundation of God’s word so that we can be ready to face the storms of life.

Because if we don’t it be like the house built on the sand and we’ll fall. Let’s pray together this morning.

Learn. We come before you this morning, God looking for your wisdom, asking for your spirit to move and be alive. God, we know you’re in this room. God, we pray that you would show up in tangible ways this morning. God, I pray that you would shut my mouth, God, and speak through me that your word would be the loudest thing in this room.

God. And that you would. Just transform our lives. Even this morning, we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Um, I love going to the beach. I’ve always gone to the beach growing up. My family is huge beach people, ocean city favorites in my adulthood. I’m leaning towards like LBI now, but ocean city as so many memories for me and a particular day, I was about 10 or 12 years old, probably.

Um, we went to the beach and you know how, when you go to the beach, sometimes the shore will like randomly come up. Like it’s not the dunes quite yet, but somehow like the tie took out a bunch of seeds. So there’s like a sand pile here along the whole beach and then like goes down like this. So it was one of the particular days and it was very, very hot.

Summer day was like 90 degrees. And I’m looking everywhere. Like, man, like there’s no shade on the beach. Like the water’s like even warm. Like I have nowhere to cool off. Oh, I’ll make a tunnel. This is a beautiful, beautiful idea. So I start digging into this mound of sand and where my family’s camped up on top of it here.

So I started digging into this Mount of sand and I make this giant tunnel. So like, if you picture this would be the sand and like, this is where I started tunneling. I’m so deep in where my knee. Are like the only thing sticking out and I’m like fully submerged in this tunnel. And I’m just like the sands.

Cool. Like I’m out of the sun. I’m like living life right now, but I’m like, hold on, hold on. Something could go wrong here. So I go out as a youngest of five brothers have learned to do is send out the warning. Right. I go out and I’m like, listen, no one step right here. Like, whatever you do, don’t step here.

Because there’s a tunnel here and I don’t have a super strong infrastructure. I’m not an engineer. I’m 12 years old with a shovel. So like no one step here. Of course, I, I go back into my tunnel. Um, I’m enjoying my time. I’m enjoying getting cooled off by the cool sand in the shade. And my brother decides to come right up and just, and I mean, it absolutely caved in on.

And I, I thought this through my head, I was like, surely there’s not enough sand where like, okay, I’ll get Sandy. And then I’ll be able to go off. Sand is really heavy, like really heavy. It caved in on me. And I tried to move and I couldn’t move. And I tried to like, I just started fully panicking. I’m opening my mouth, Sans, filling in my mouth.

At this point. I can’t move. My legs are flailing out. My brothers are watching my legs flail and having a ball outside. Meanwhile, I’m suffocating under the neath the same. And I’m losing my mind. Luckily, my brother comes to his senses, grabs my ankles, rips me out of the sand. I run to the ocean. I’m like walk off.

I was like done for the rest of day. I was just on the blanket. I’m like, I’ll get a sunburn. I will sweat. I don’t care anymore. No more tunnels after that. No more tunnels. My foundation, I thought was good. My foundation, I thought was, was comfortable and stable, but it was not stable. As I thought it might be.

We would come to a similar illustration that Jesus uses here on the sermon of the Mount, right. A house built on a rock and a house built on the sand. And that house bit on the sand is not always as stable as we think. To look at some context here, we’ve been going through this series the past couple of weeks and even months we’ve seen pastors highlight different sections of the sermon of the Mount.

We know that this is one of the largest collections of Jesus’s teachings. He was on the mountain, right? Crowd start the foul. He brought his disciples up and these crowds started to form and he started to preach. And we see now at the end of this. At the end of this sermon after he’s given very, very challenging things, challenging how we should deal with the poor, how should we deal with lust, anger, all these challenging things and challenging what people thought of the law and challenging how, how good of a Christian they thought they were, how, how it was checking off all the right boxes and just, just turns everyone’s head upside down.

And we come to these last words and Jesus says, everyone. Who hears these words? Yes. He’s talking to his disciples. Yes. He’s talking to the crowds that have now gathered, but now we know that these words are now directed at us, everyone. Then who hears these words? Listen up. We see a parallel account to this in Luke’s gospel.

And Luke chapter six verses 46 through 49. It says this. Why do you call me Lord? And do not do what I tell you, everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it hadn’t been well built.

We need to build our lives on God’s word by listening and doing what it says, because if. Our foundations will be easily washed away. Like the great theologically sound band Weezer says a castle built in the sand will only last one day. So we come to this, this passage, this, this imagery that Jesus has given to us, this.

And we’re, we’re saying why, right. Why, why is this important? Why does Jesus? And with this, he just gave a beautiful sermon. He challenged so many different topics and subjects, and here he is. And he leaves us with this picture, this application of a picture of everyone who hears these words of mine will be like this or this.

So why is this important one? I think, why do we need to build our house on the rock of God’s word? Because God’s word is essential to our lives. First, second, Timothy three 16 through 17 says this all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete.

Uh, equipped it for every good work. All scripture is breathed out by God. Why do we need to build our house on this rock, this rock of God’s word, because it’s essential to our lives for all these different things, for training and righteousness that we may be equipped, right? That me, that we may be complete ready for anything that life throws at us.

This is why this is important because God’s word is essential in our life. Secondly, storms of life are ahead of us. This has promised right? In both scenarios, the storms and strong winds come and beat against that house. And the house built on the rock stays up and the house built on the sand gets flooded away right here.

The storms are coming. We know that Jesus promised that the one thing I love about Jesus’ teaching, he never butters anything up, right. He just gave us, gives it to you. He never promises you things you can’t, you know, hold on to or can’t, or can’t really grab on to now, he’s saying the storms are coming right.

The storms of life throwing at us are, are, are, are going to be coming. Whether it’s losing a job, whether it’s a family member getting sick, whether it’s it’s losing someone, maybe it’s, uh, a broken relationship. Maybe it’s conflict within your family, but the storms are coming, but Jesus tells us exactly what we can do to prepare for this.

Don’t be, don’t be like the foolish man who builds his house on the sand that when the storms come, it easily gets washed away. The be like the man that the man on the rock that builds his life on God’s word. So when the storms come, when the winds start to beat. He can stand on something. He can stand on solid ground because when we find ourselves, when we build our lives on something else, maybe for you, it’s your job.

Maybe that’s your firm foundation. And you’re like, I’m really good at my job. I work all the time. I work overtime. I don’t even get paid for the overtime. I work. I work so much like I’m so good at it. My boss compliments me. I’m ready for the I’m ready for the raise. I’m ready for the promotion. Maybe it’s your family.

Maybe you’re like found it in your identity as a father or a mother. And you’re like, I am the best at, out there. Grilling. Got it. Down. Sports games. Got it down. Right? Maybe it’s if you’re a student, maybe you are a, a plus plus student, it’s the type of students. We all hate to be in our class and they’re like, oh, and you’re like, whoa, what’s wrong.

I got. And I’m like, are you kidding me? I’m celebrating in a 70 over here. Like this is algebra two. I didn’t know. You could get higher than this, right? Maybe that’s, that’s your thing. You’re, you’re finding your life on your, your intelligence, your academics, maybe it’s your giftings, right? Maybe it’s even your giftings from God that you are so proud of.

That you’ve staked your, your whole life on, but when these things fall, when you lose your job, when you get the 97, when you fail as a parent or a child, or a brother or a sister, where is your foundation? Because if it’s found there, if that’s where your identity is, If that’s where you’re grounded, but it’s all going to become Washington away.

But he says here, the wise man built his house on the rock. He builds this house on the word of God. The storms are coming. They’re promised here. We took a, a trip for the youth. We always do it. Um, most, most summers it’s called wilderness camp. I happen to be a part of wilderness camp, um, growing up, and this was my first year.

And senior wilderness camp. So I was, I was very excited. I was very pumped up. Um, I was there with my older brother. I was like, I was like, man, like, not only am I in, but like my older brother’s here. And like I know his friends. So like I know the old guys and I got to stay in their tent, which is like, Real good kudos.

They got the best snacks they’ve been here before. Like they all know the things I’m like, all right, this is one of my first time camping. Like, this is perfect. I’m with the big boys. So we go and we come into camp and the first thing you need to come to the campus, pick your campsite. Right. You know, girls are over here, guys over here.

So you’re looking like, all right, where’s the best spot for our tent. And like, the boys are already planning like, oh, we’re going to be up late. Like we got a bunch of snacks. We’ve got candy. We got mountain Dew. W w we got to like separate ourselves from the pack, because like, we’re not sleeping tonight.

I’m like, yeah, this is awesome. Like now thinking about that, I’m like really, that’s a horrible idea. So we’re, we’re looking for a spot and we find this spot about, you know, 50 or so yards away from everyone else. And it’s perfect. Like, it’s like, man, this is separated from that. We got some tree coverage.

It’s beautiful, beautiful little scenic. It’s peaceful. So we make our tent and we set it up. It takes us forever. Cause it’s like a six to eight person tent built in 1985. And like, they didn’t have like metal poles yet. So, you know, you’re, you’re trying to do it. And we go to sleep that night. Actually, we actually did go to sleep and I woke up.

In a river, like I woke up and my whole sleeping bag was soaked. First off, that goes to your head. Did I just pee the bed? Then you start looking over and you feel the puddles over everyone else. I’m like, did we all pee the bed here? Then you start thinking, okay, something’s very, very wrong. We built our tent.

We camped our tent and a beautiful Sandy area that was lower than everywhere else. So rain came. And absolutely just flooded right. Under our tent. We had no other foundation. We didn’t have one of those nice tarps or anything. So the rain came and absolutely flooded us. And I mean, it was the worst night of my life.

Like, you’re just like, what do I do for. It’s dark. My sleeping bag is soaking wet. The area where I was just laying is wet. It’s literally a puddle there. I mean, the rest of the week, our sleeping bags are drying out like that. We’re trying to dry the 10 out. We realized the next morning after we moved tent, like, wow, we camped in a hole.

Like this was like basically a glorified hole here. And I’m like, geez, these guys let me down. Like, they’re supposed to be, they’re supposed to figure out how to do this already. Like, I’m just trusting. But this is what happens when we camp our lives on things that, that can’t stand, the storms that can’t bear, the storms, we camp our lives on these things.

That, that don’t last, but don’t matter. So when the rain comes, it all is good. Right? All is good until something bad had. All is good with your job. All is good with your, your education. All is good with your skill set and your intelligence or your, your role here, there until something fails until someone gets sick.

And if our lives are, are built on that, on built on that sand foundation, it’ll easily be washed away. The storms of life are ahead of us. This is important. Why? Because God’s word is essential. So our lives essential for correcting teaching training up in righteousness that may, we may be equipped it for every good work and two, the storms are coming, so we have to be ready.

We have to be ready. We can all agree that this is important to build our house on the rock. This is important to build our house on God’s word and be dependent on him and his. But how do we do this? Right. Jesus never is like, so you build your house on the rock this way. Right? We must spend time in God’s word.

Jesus said here, everyone. Then who hears my word and does them is like a man who built his house on the rock. We must spend time in God’s word. And I don’t mean. Checking the verse of the day, every day, I’d be like, well, check that box off. Cool. All right. Zeke you’ll eight, 12, whatever that means. All right.

Let’s move on for the day, right? It needs to be more than that. We need to spend quality time in God’s word. Psalms one, one to three describes a man. Who delights in the law of the Lord. It says this, bless it. As the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields. And its season and its leaf does not wither and all that he does. He prospers. We must be like this man described here as a man who delights in the law of the Lord.

It says all in all he does. He prospers why? Because he delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. We he’s planted by the stream. He’s planted by this, the word of God. And it doesn’t matter what comes against them. Right? If the winds beat against this tree, if there’s a dry season, if something starts picking off this tree, no, because it’s planted in its source.

It’s planted by its life source. It’s like the man who delights in the law of the Lord meditating on a day and night, we need to spend time in God’s word. And I promise you, this will be the first thing to go in your schedule. It’s kind of like working out, like we’re all too busy to work out until the people that aren’t like the CrossFit people like Mike are just weird.

Um, right. But w it’s like the first thing to go, like as soon as something happens of life, it’s like, well, there goes my divorce. I stayed up too late. So I, I can’t wake up and read and, you know, I, I got caught up doing this, so, you know, I guess I’ll, I got to go do this and I can’t, I can’t read God’s word because this came up and well, I got a phone call or, you know, someone like my Instagram post or someone’s arguing with me on Facebook.

So I got to go deal with that. Right. But we have to make time for this spending quality time in God’s word, because this is the thing that stands up in the store. Not our way, not, not what we want to be founded in, not our strength, but in God’s word and all he does. He prospers because he meditates on it day.

I like to think about this as a equation of, we live in a broken sinful world and we’re fed lies every day. I mean, we all are really good at scrolling and, and w our intake is more now than it ever has. And we love this. And we hear from a lot of sinful people and a lot of broken people, and we’re just fed with all these things about, we gotta be doing this, we gotta have this, you got to have this.

You’re not cool. If you have this, you’re not worthy. You’re not making enough money. If you don’t have this car or this or this brand, or, and the list goes on and on and on. But we’re fed these things because we live in this broken fallen world. So if we do not have truth, right, the greater than sign is always going to be on the.

But if we don’t have truth to plug in, to plug into our lives, that to rest in on to build our, our firm foundation on God’s word, then we’re going to start believing the lies. We’re going to start believing we’re not good enough. We’re going to start believing the lies of the devil that say, no, you’re actually, you’re just average.

You’re not, you’re not better than anyone else. God doesn’t have something special for you. God doesn’t have a plan for you. You’re not a, you’re not a good father and mother, because you’re not doing this for your kids. You’re not a good son or daughter because you’re not doing this right. We’re going to start believing these lies.

If we don’t have truth to go to we, if we don’t have truth to fight against these lies, we will start believing them. We must spend time in God’s word. Secondly, we must be doers of God’s words, not just hears. Right. This is, this would be really easy if we could just be like, all right, everyone who hears the word of God.

Okay, cool. Check. We’re good check, please. We’re out of here, but Jesus knew this was going to happen. Right? He knew, he knew we were going to decide to like cut and run, like, oh, we heard the words of God. We heard, we read God’s word. Let’s just go now. But he said everyone then who hears my words? And does that.

We must be doers of God’s word, not just here as James 1 22 through 25 says it pretty simply here, but be doers of the word, not hearers, only deceiving yourself. So if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror for you, looks at himself and goes away and.

Forgets what he was like, but the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of Liberty, sorry, cut off there. The law of Liberty and perseveres being no here who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. Don’t be like the man who looks in the mirror and forgets instantly who he is as he goes, but hear God’s word and do.

Here, his word, his perfect law, the law of Liberty and perseveres being no here who forgets, but a doer who acts this takes work. We can’t just read God’s word. We have to digest it. We have to spend time in it. And we have to actively be thinking, am I doing God’s word? Am I following God’s word? And we can’t be following God’s word.

We can’t be doers of God’s word. If we’re not first reading God’s word. If we’re first not listening to God’s word, we have to be doers of God, not people that. Not people that, that forget when they walk away or once they set their Bible in the morning, they say, all right, I’m going to go on my day and they don’t apply it to anyone else.

This speaks pretty clearly to the people that Jesus was speaking to that day on the sermon on the Mount, they thought they had it all figured it out. Couple months ago, we looked at, um, some of the beginning passage. Of the sermon of the Mount or did you just says you have heard it was this way, but I say it was this way, right?

He says, you have heard that do not commit adultery. And everyone’s like, all right, I can check that one off, but Jesus says, but I tell you, whoever looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery. He says you have heard it this way, that don’t commit murder. And everyone’s like, okay, check. We got that box.

Good. I didn’t kill anyone today. But Jesus says the one who hates his brother has committed murder in his heart. We need to not just be reading God’s word and saying, yeah, I’m doing the bare minimum of this, but letting it transform our lives, letting it be the guide of our lives, letting it be the foundation.

The rock of our lives so that whatever we do, when the storms come, when the winds come, we’re grounded on the rock of God’s firm, foundation of his word is true. His perfect law, the law of Liberty that’s useful for all things

or challenge this morning by Jesus’ words to hold fastest command. And to build our life, not on anything else, but his word, as we close, I want to encourage you. Who are like me sitting out there and you’re feeling, how am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to be a doer of God’s word all the time? I already messed up this morning coming into church.

I screamed at my kids on the way over here. How am I supposed to do this? Or, or what do I do when I. What I do when I fall short of this at three o’clock this afternoon, what do I do when I, when I fall into sin and temptation, I want to leave you with this encouragement. Jesus is the ultimate example of what it looks like to follow.

God’s word. Jesus is the only one who could ever do this perfectly. And.

He came on earth and lived a perfect life following every one of God’s commands and then took the place that was meant for us on the cross defeating death and accomplishing something. We could never accomplish all of us fall short of this, all of us fall short over and over again. But when we remember.

That crisis already accomplished this. God sees us not as the struggling Christian that can’t get this right, but as the complete it work of Christ. So when we build our house on the sand and fail to stay grounded on the rock, we will fix our eyes on Jesus, the author, and perfecter of our faith, embracing his love and mercy and grace.

That is new. Morning, because we all need it. So if you’re here this morning and you’re like, I haven’t gotten this right. I haven’t gotten this right this week or the next week or a couple months from now. I’m right there with you. But this is why we have a savior who perfected this. This is why we have a savior that we can look to them.

When we were wondering, what is, what does God’s word really looked like? Lived out. It is him. It is Jesus. And don’t believe the lies of the devil to say, you’re not good enough. You’re not a good enough, Christian. You haven’t checked off your boxes. You haven’t followed his commands. Like you shouldn’t be.

Because when God sees us, he doesn’t see you as the struggling Christian. He doesn’t see you as the guy or girl who just screwed up beforehand. He sees you as the complete it work of Christ. When Jesus said it was finished on the cross, he meant it. He did it for us so that we could live this life that we could build our lives on the.

Of his word. Let’s pray.

Got we come before you this morning

with a million other things. God trying to keep our attention and promising to be a firm foundation to us. We come to you this morning, Lord. With doubts with fears, God, with a whole lot of sin,

I pray Lord that you would teach us that you would transform us by your word God, that we would be people described here, like the wise man who built his house on the word storms are coming. God. The winds feel so loud to some of us right now, but God, I pray that your word would be the loudest thing here that your word would speak true to our lives.

Lord, that your word would transform us, that it would give us power God in your spirit, that you would empower us Lord to live out your word, that we would be examples.

To the world that seems like they’re fading away on their sandcastles. They’re building God that we would be people of lifeboats with, from foundations, pulling them up, teaching them of you and your wonder. Thank you Lord, for being here with us this morning, we pray this in Jesus’s name. Amen. You’re dismissed.