Matthew 7.24-29

Before you go on reading today, take a moment to check out this video of something that happened in Manila, Philippines a few years back:

How unsettling would it be to be in your apartment one morning when you begin to feel the entire building shift? Watching this video makes me thankful that my apartment building is only two stories high (and that I live on the bottom floor!). It’s important for a building to be built well, right? Shoddy workmanship results in buildings collapsing. Of especial significance is the foundation of a building. This is what the whole building rests on—it gives the building is shape, support, and strength. If the foundation is weak, the whole building is going to be weak. The guy in the video even says that the foundation of this building gives way. It collapses because of a poor foundation.

We’ve been looking at the Sermon on the Mount bit by bit for an entire month! I hope that you have learned a lot in these weeks of study and that you have a clearer understanding of this upside-down life that Jesus calls us to as members of his kingdom. But if all that happens is that we read Jesus’ words and study and check out a blog post every morning, but then nothing changes after that, then we have really missed the point. And that’s what Jesus makes clear as he concludes the sermon in Matthew 7:24-29:

²⁴”Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

²⁸When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, ²⁹because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

In these verses, Jesus describes a pretty stark contrast. There are two builders: one builds his house with rock as its foundation, and the other builds a house with sand as the foundation. A storm hits the area, and the house on the rock remains standing strong, but the house on sand collapses.

It’s one thing to listen to Jesus’ words. It’s quite another thing to listen to them and then to put them into practice. Just listening does nothing except set us up for collapse. Listening and doing, on the other hand, gives our characters strength. Jesus’ call to us is that we be like the wise builder, and we build our lives on the “rock” of his teaching—on everything he has been saying through this whole sermon. Then, when the storms of life hit, we’ll still be standing on the other side.

It seems silly for a person to build a house on sand. Why would he do this? Well, it would certainly be easier. In Palestine, sand is all over the place! It takes a lot of work to dig down beneath the sand to get to bedrock. So a sandy foundation is quick and easy. It’s the drive-thru takeout of construction.

In the same way, it often seems easier to build our lives on something other than Jesus, doesn’t it? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says some tough things! It’s hard not to get angry with an irritating coworker. It’s hard to remain both physically and mentally faithful to your spouse. It’s hard to not give the stink eye to someone who cuts you off while driving. It’s hard not to worry when bills come in the mail and you’re not sure how you’re going to be able to pay them. So the much easier thing is to look at the Sermon on the Mount and say, “Well, that all sounds pretty good. It’s good food for thought,” and then never to apply it to your daily decisions and relationships.

But if all we do is listen to Jesus and never practice it, then we’re building our lives on sand. Every other code of living eventually lets us down, usually when the storms come and life gets hard and we realize that we can’t make it through on our own.

In a pretty similar vein of thought, James 1:22-25 says that when you hear God’s word and don’t put it into practice, it’s like looking at yourself in a mirror and then walking away, forgetting what you look like. That’s a ridiculous picture. Imagine that you have a date one night. (In my case, I need a pretty good imagination.) You wake up from a nap a little before your date and then walk into the bathroom and look at yourself in the mirror, and it’s a pretty bad image. Your hair is all matted down on one side, you have some drool seeping from the corner of your mouth, and you still have some of those eye-crusties in your eyes. So you see yourself in the mirror and then say, “Alright, sweet” and walk out the door for your date without doing anything about your appearance.

James says that’s what it’s like when we hear God’s word but don’t do what it says. What a ridiculous image. It might even be as ridiculous as building a house on a foundation of sand. Who would do such things? The fool.

So don’t just read the Bible, check out these blog posts, or listen to sermons and then leave it at that. Ask God to show you how you need to change in light of his word, and ask him for his Spirit in making it happen.

Build on the rock.

David Heffren