BUILDERS MT 7:24-27
TEXT
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. 25 The 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. 26 But 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. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
The parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders is part of the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount that begins at 7:13. In verses 13-14 Jesus teaches about the way to Heaven, saying that there are two gates and they carry there own destiny i.e. - life or destruction. In verses 15-23 we are told by Jesus not to be deceived by false prophets or by the way things appear or even what we hear. He tells us to concentrate and in verse 21b we read “ but only he who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven Those who say, "One religion is as good as another” and "We’re all trying to get to the same place” are wrong!
THE PARABLE
In this passage (24-27), He teaches that God’s will is performed by; “Therfore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practise is like a wise man who built his house on the rock". He illustrates this truth with "a wise man" and "a foolish man."
The key word in this parable has to be "THEREFORE". When Jesus says THERFORE it is because there are only two ways for us to go, we can listen to those who will deceive and inevitably destroy (the broad road) or we can listen to Jesus and be one of the few to gain life (the narrow road). The word THEREFORE in this context then, equals BECAUSE~ because if we don’t listen to Jesus and accept what he tells us, then we know what the alternatives will be.
The simple issue then is this: Are you listening to Jesus or someone else? Mt I:l-8
THE PARABLE EXPLAINED
In this parable we are told of two men, each with identical elements who are builders and there intention is to build a house, each chooses a different area to construct his own house. We should remember that Jesus is not talking about building literal houses on literal rock and sand, but about lives - establishing values and determining priorities on different philosophies or lifestyles.
Another set of identical elements in the story is the life situations of the two builders. Each of them has to go through a storm, which neither of them can avoid. The storm is one, which they cannot escape or avoid. They both feel the down-pouring rain that increases to flood level and the sting of the wind that hits with horrendous velocity.
Jesus is not telling us how to find a safe, comfortable setting or an ideal atmosphere where life remains non-threatening and where the climate is wonderfully calm and supportive. What he is fact doing is telling us that we must face reality, that life is difficult, we will have to face the storms and accept the pain and discomfort and the heartaches. BUT HE IS ALWAYS NEAR! The two builders are totally different kinds of people. - They build their houses in totally different manners. One chooses to build on rock; the other, on sand. The first builder is the type who does more than hear what Christ has to say; he acts upon the truth, the second builder hears the same thing, but he stops. He deliberately does not act upon what he hears. The first build is called "WISE" the second is called "FOOLISH" (James 1:22-25 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.
And now we consider the outcome of the two houses, one did not fall and the other came crashing down.
The wise builder constructed his life in that no amount of testing, no extent of difficulty, is enough to bring him down. - Because he was founded upon a rock! And on NOTHING LESS! If you are only hearing and reading the truth and are not acting upon it, you are not prepared for life’s storms. Both the foolish and the wise builders heard, but the foolish builder did nothing about it. ( Verse 24a “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practise”
Jesus said: “ He who has ears to hear, let him hear”.
The difference between the two builders is that one had no plan to act and had no intention to respond to the call of Christ.
When we have been given Divine truth, it has not been given just to satisfy idle curiosity or to lull us to sleep in church. It has been given in order that lives can be changed, that we are better equipped for this life today and that we are prepared for life eternal.
CONCLUSION
If your foundation is sure, no storm will cause your life to collapse, even when the rains of adversity fall and make no mistake they will fall. That’s life!
The floods of misery and heartache will rise, for sure, and the winds of pressure will howl, threatening both security and your sanity.
THE GOOD NEWS: YOUR LIFE WILL NOT COLLAPSE! CHRIST CAME TO BE BELIEVED IN, NOT SIMPLY STUDIED AND ADMIRED!
This then leaves us with just two questions to answer. (1) Is the foundation beneath your life absolutely solid? If it is on Christ, the Rock, it is. If not, it isn’t. (2) Is the life you are building eternally reliable? If your life is solidly resting on Christ, you will ride out the storm, not fearing the flood. If not, the sand will ultimately give way, your life will collapse, and you will sink.
ONLY A LIFE BUILT ON JESUS CHRIST WILL ENDURE.
SERMON--THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK--MATT 7:24-27
In 1174 the Italian architect Bonnano Pisano began work on what would become his most famous project: A separately standing bell tower for the Cathedral of the city of Pisa. The tower was to be eight-stories and 185-foot-tall tall. There was just one "little" problem: builders quickly discovered that the soil was much softer than they had anticipated, and the foundation was far too shallow to adequately hold the structure! And sure enough, before long the whole structure had begun to tilt... and it continued to tilt... until finally the architect and the builders realized that nothing could be done to make the Leaning Tower of Pisa straight again. It took 176 years to build the Tower of Pisa and during that time many things were done to try and compensate for the "tilt.99 Foundation was shored up; the upper levels were even built at an angle to try to make the top of the tower look straight. Nothing worked. The tower has stood for over 800 years, but it leans 18 feet away from where it should be. One day, experts say, it will fall and all because it wasn’t built on the right foundation.
I was born in 1946 and have lived through the decades of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s and now we are in 2001. Just in my lifetime I’ve seen a lot of changes in this world. I’ve seen humans go to the moon, I’ve seen room sized computers shrunk down to the size of a Bible. I’ve seen Television come from a tiny black and white tube to huge colour screens - and reception from just barely able to get a signal to digital cable and vast satellite networks. I’ve seen VCR’s introduced. When I first began to use the telephone it was a great big black thing almost to heavy to lift. Now we have cordless phones, beepers and cellular phones. Today we can communicate anywhere, anytime, from any place, without a cord. It’s amazing! Times have really changed.
Some of you have seen a lot of change in your life. Some of you remember before electricity and plumbing and telephones were in every home. Some of you remember when cars were very scarce and no one travelled by airplane.
Well the world has changed a lot, hasn’t it? And as the world changes, there have been a growing number of churches in recent years willing to make changes in order to try to connect truth from God’s word with the culture.
These churches are drawing a flock of previously un-churched or unhappily churched individuals by being relentlessly creative about developing forms of worship that are contemporary, acceptable, and authentic. Overhead projectors allow the preacher to sketch his point the way a teacher would on a chalkboard - or to illustrate his message with a cartoon, an apt quotation, or a video clip.
A personal testimony or brief dramatic sketch, an illustration with true life photographs to aid the pastor in his message.
I believe every church should be consistently willing to change in order to reach people with the greatest story ever told in contemporary languages and styles and music that they can understand.
But of course the big question that gets raised in some peoples’ mind is: "Can a church be contemporary and Biblical? I believe that not only is it possible, but it has become critical to be both. But how do we do that? How do we pull that off? How do we remain contemporary without sacrificing Biblical integrity?
We always have to remember two important truths. Firstly some things never change, ever change. In a world that is constantly changing isn’t it good to know that there are just some things that are Rock solid, immovable, unshakable and will never, ever change? Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
He never changes. We sometimes sing, "Great is Thy Faithfulness." God is a faithful God who never changes. And in a world that is constantly changing, that is good news. Jesus is closing out the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chapter 7, and He says: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine , and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock.” Matt 7:24
The words of Jesus are the Rock like, immovable, unshakable, sure foundation. Jesus said: Luke 21:33 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away”. There are just some things that never change and our message must never change. We must preach the message that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, died as a substitute for our sins, and rose from the dead. John 12:32 “But I when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself”.
Our chief aims are to live by the bible and to honour it and the God and Saviour that the bible points to. It is the measuring stick by which we must always measure our lives, and measure our families, and measure our churches.
Because of our so-called sophisticated society some churches have watered down the truths of the bible. They think the Biblical message of a miracle working God who was born of a virgin and crucified on a cross for sinners and raised from the dead in three days has to be altered to make it a little more believable and palatable. They think a call to a morally pure life and a call to full devotion to Jesus Christ is unrealistic in an undisciplined culture like ours and I suppose that shouldn’t surprise us. Paul wrote: 2 Tim 4:3-4For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
The time has come when people are not putting up with sound doctrine, and they have itching ears, to hear what they want to hear. Yet Jesus said: John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.
In an ever-changing world isn’t it refreshing that we have a truth that is unchanging, unshakable and immovable? And no matter how unpopular it might be, and no matter how many enemies it might make. The second truth is that everything else always changes When Paul the apostle prepared his message it was probably done with a quill and papyrus. I prepared this message with a computer and a laser printer. [Different culture, different times, different methods]. There is an old saying. Methods are many, principles are few; Principles never change, methods always do!"
And that’s why I believe the church ought to be constantly evaluating its methods: to tell the old, old story in a compelling way that will touch the hearts of the world in which we live. I like to think that the unchanging Biblical words of God’s truth are a picture. The methods that we use to present them are the frame. And the picture never changes, but the way we
~ frame it in different cultures, in different societies, at different times -- that always changes. Now change can be exciting. But change can also be threatening. All change produces stress. Every change, even positive change, produces stress. But change is a part of following Jesus Christ, we should expect it and welcome it and love each other through it.
What’s the very first thing we learn in the Bible about God? That He is creative. The first verse in the Bible says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" Gen 1:1. And I think it’s safe to assume God didn’t run out of creative ideas after Genesis chapter One. And if we’re in tune with Him, and if we’re open to the leading of His Holy Spirit, He will keep unfolding new possibilities in our lives. I think God is frustrated with us sometimes, saying, "Hey, I want to blow the freshness of My Spirit into your lives, I want to blow the renewal winds of change, but you won’t let me."
Remember the call of Matthew, when the freshness of God’s grace blew into the tax collector’s life, the one to whom Jesus had said, "Come, follow me?" It changed his life. And we read about him throwing a party for all his old friends, all of his old tax collector cronies, all of his old beer-drinking buddies.
He gets them together and says, "We’re going to have a party." And he invites Jesus and His disciples to start rubbing shoulders with all of his old friends so that they can have significant spiritual conversations, so they can experience life change too. And it’s a wonderful party, until those old, rigid self-righteous Pharisees, the ones who always complained about Jesus’ approach to reaching these outcasts, these "sinners," as they called them. And Jesus turned to them to try to explain why He is at this party with these people, and He said: Don’t you understand? It is the sick who need a doctor." And then He told them a very pointed parable. He said, you may not understand this, but you don’t sew a new patch on an old garment. Because when you wash it the new patch will shrink, and it will make the hole worse than it was before." And they’re going, "What are you talking about?" He says, 9’I’m talking about YOU."
And then He says, "No one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No -- new wine must be poured into new wineskins." I think they got the message. (Matt 9:9-17) You know there are two things that jumped out at me from Jesus’ words there in Matthew. The first is that God is a God of freshness and change. God wants to put His fresh new wine into our lives. And, you see, the Pharisees had put God in a box. They had said, "God likes this, and God doesn’t like this, and God really likes this, but He just hates this.... And God only likes things the way we like things."
How they had neglected God’s creative nature is beyond me. How they had missed His astounding innovative abilities is beyond me.
Now God is into newness. Just think about all the phrases in the Bible that talk about new: a new song, a new creation, a new heaven, a new earth, a new birth, a new covenant, and a new command. Jesus says in Revelation 21:5, "Behold I am making all things".... What?... "NEW" You know, if we don’t like change or newness, we’re probably not going to like heaven because it is going to be unlike anything we have ever experienced in our lives. The second thing that jumped off the page at me from Jesus’ words is that new wineskins are not optional, but essential. If you take fresh wine and pour it into old brittle wine bags where there is no longer any flexibility, any softness, you’re in for a leaky surprise. It won’t be long before that wine begins to ferment and bulge and stretch and - finally, it’s going to rip like a balloon. Jesus looked at those Pharisees and said: "You’re just a bunch of old wine bags."
And in Matt 15:6, Jesus said: “he is not to `honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
You see they actually preferred their traditions to God’s instructions. They actually preferred their ideas to God’s -- and they were offended by the fact that Jesus cared more about the souls of people than He cared about their religious traditions. They became inflexible, and as a result they had never captured the heartbeat of God toward people. Please don’t misunderstand; tradition can be a very good thing. Traditions like knowing and loving God, the authority of the Word of God, the observance of the Lord’s Supper, serving others, traditions handed down to us by the Apostles are a part of the Rock on which we stand. They give us security in a world of uncertainty. But there is a major difference between tradition and traditionalism.
"Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." By traditionalism we mean an attitude that resists change and adaptation, the "we’ve always done it like this" mentality. It is holding tightly to a custom or behaviour that is being blindly followed or forcefully maintained. It is being suspicious of new ideas, the up-to-date, and the different. It’s finding one’s security in the familiar and therefore opposing anything that threatens that. It’s being more concerned about keeping man-made rules and opinions than being open to the creativity and freshness of God’s Spirit.
Through the ages, churches are famous for holding to a custom, to an opinion, and then making it a matter of contention. Over the years, churches have had to change in order to reach every new generation, to be culturally relevant.
It is a well-known fact that the introduction of "new" instruments also created turmoil in the church. Such was the situation in a late eighteenth century church that had been offered an organ, but turned it down. The general opinion was that "if organs were pemitted, other instruments would soon follow, and then before long there would be dancing."
Finally the Church surrendered to the inevitable and decided to have an organ, but even after they had agreed, the congregation was torn with bitter strife. One wealthy member besought with tears that the house of God is not desecrated, promising to refund the entire cost of the organ if the evil thing might be thrown to the bottom of the sea. But gradually opposition subsided.
Jesus was the Master at presenting God’s truth in the language of the culture. He used objects, scenes, coins, camels, fig trees, situational parables -- many of the things we are attempting to do are simply adaptations of Jesus’ methods to reach the culture in which we live. Where He told stories, we might use a drama; where He illustrated truth with easily recognized objects from the culture and common knowledge of His day, we might capitalize on current events with illustrations or video clips. Where He communicated from a boat to large crowds across the water so that all could see and hear, we have a big screen so that you can see and sound systems so that you can hear.
In an attempt to lead the spiritually seeking people of his culture to faith in Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul also took his cues from the culture that he was trying to reach. Remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:22-23? I want to quote it from the Living Bible: “Whatever a person is like I try to find common ground with him so that he will let me tell him about Christ and let Christ save him”.
I do this to get the Gospel to them, and also for the blessing I receive when I see them come to Christ."
You see the truth is, there are thousands of people all around us who are facing a Godless existence for eternity. And their lives are hanging in the balance. And I just pray that we never get used to seeing men and women go to hell.
I believe that an outwardly focused church that is committed to reaching the culture is a dangerous church. And Satan knows it - and he’ll fight against a church like that. Because a church like that will connect people to God and a church like that will revitalize lives. That is why the enemy tries to get us to redirect our focus inwardly. He likes to get us arguing over style and methods to divide the Body of Christ so that we won’t be successful in getting people into heaven. And he gets us discussing questions like: "Is it OK to use the new songs, or do you have to use the old songs?"
"Can you have flutes and trumpets, and guitars and cellos and basses and drums and cymbals? Listen to Psalm 150.3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, 4 praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, 5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. 6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Satan loves to get us debating: And Satan wants to get us sidetracked and focused inwardly on our wants and our needs and our desires while there are people who are waiting for someone to throw them a rope of hope. A lost generation lives all around us and lost people matter to God. God has called us to make a difference in the lives of lost, broken disconnected people. The message of the gospel cannot and does not change but the method we use in our ministry must be flexible. We must adapt those things that are not Biblical to the needs of people and our culture if we want to be relevant and effective in today’s society. I Cor. 9:22 to the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings.
CONCLUSION
If you follow the communication methods of Jesus and the Apostle Paul, I’m not sure you can be truly Biblical without being up to date.
I believe that we must be a church that has the courage and the heartbeat of God to reach people of every culture and situation, people who are lost and broken, people who are tattooed and pierced and in baggy clothes, people who are different from us in dress, in style, in preferences. Lost people matter to God - enough that He sent His Son to die for them. How much do they matter to us?
Jn 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. What are we willing to sacrifice to see our children and grandchildren saved?
We need to present a fresh, compelling and relevant way that people can understand the never, ever changing message, the Rock solid message, of the only hope -- that Jesus Christ can bring life for eternity. Let’s make a difference in the lives of lost men and women! MATT 7:25 The 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.
