I will read the scripture in your hearing, it is from the gospel of Matthew chapter 7. According to Matthew's account, this is the very last of the teaching of Christ that we know as the sermon on the Mount. We'll be looking at the discourses of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew over the next few months and so we begin this morning kind of at the end so we can get some perspective. Hear the word of the Lord. 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 do them will 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 the house that it fell and great was the fall of it. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. The word of the Lord. Anyone who teaches or preaches or coaches or mentors or instructs or tries to influence other people's behavior, what they do by what they say is usually frustrating because it is difficult to get to anybody to pay attention. And then when they do pay attention, it's hard to get them to really hear what you're saying and to listen to what's being said. Football coaches, I think, probably express this more vividly than most of us. I was amused Monday night. It's good to have football back, isn't it? It may be a hundred and seven degrees out, but it's great to have a little football now. I was watching the Monday night game. I think it was the Monday night game with the New York Jets and at the end, the game was desperate. The Houston team had gone ahead and had a young quarterback in there and he's scrambling around trying to move the ball and very little time and trying to get down and score. And on the very last play of the game, the clock was running out and there was no other opportunity. He runs way over the line of scrimmage. Runs almost out of bounds. In fact, he may have been out of bounds and then throws the pass. Even if it had been completed, it wouldn't have counted because he was over the line out of bounds, whatever. And the coach of the Jets, you all know who that is, don't you, Rex Ryan. He'll be here and more and more about those Ryan voices. The season goes back. I have never seen anything like it. He came completely unblooded. I mean, he slammed the headphones down, ran out there, yelling and screaming at his poor quarterback. And it's a good thing we didn't have audio because I heard that Rex doesn't, you send his school language all the time. And it was remarkable. Don't watch that fit that he threw. What was his frustration? His frustration was you know he had coached. You know his quarterback coach's offensive coordinator had spent countless hours with this young man. This man knew, this young man knew the NFL rules have been watching it all of his life. And yet in desperation, in the situation, he does one of the most stupid things that could possibly be done. And the coach was just absolutely beside himself. And that's the way it is with anyone who teaches and coaches and mentors and tries to get others to behave, to do something that they're trying to convince that they need to do. And the first great frustration is people won't listen at all. They just won't hear at all. The second great frustration is if they do, they won't really comprehend it. They won't really understand it. And the third great frustration, maybe the worst, is even if they hear it and understand it and comprehend what needs to be done, they're really, for some reason, won't execute it. They won't do it. In Jesus' nose, that in discipleship, that's exactly the way it is. And this is severe warnings. It's interesting that the terminal amount starts with be attitudes, blessings. But it concludes with two very stern admonitions from Christ about the import of his word. In fact, the previous paragraph, which we didn't read, maybe we'll get to it later, he says not everyone who says to the Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, and then in this text that we looked at today, he says everyone who hears these words of mine and does them, he starts with the positive. The one who hears and listens, understands, and does it, will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Now the analogy that Jesus gives here is real simple, and we have that little Sunday school song that we sing with the kid, you know, the wise man built his house upon the rock. You know, that just sort of is a tattooed into our souls. There's the wise man, and there's the foolish man. But you notice there's only two things in the little parable there that's different. And that is the foundation and whether or not the person's wise or foolish. They both build a house. And doubtedly it's a good structure. Jesus used from time to time construction analogies because he himself was a contractor. Jesus was in the construction trades, he understood it. They each built a house, presumably a pretty good house, each man knew what he was doing. The structure was the same. The test was the same. The great deluge, down comes the rain, up comes the floods, the wind blows, two houses, the difference is the foundation. Jesus describes in a little more detail, I like the way Luke gives us the parallel passage. He says, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not what I tell you? Someone 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 the house and could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great. This is so simple and so profound that it just doesn't need a lot of explanation. The expositors task is to not cloud it, not muddy it because it's clear. The Lord is saying to His people, you must not only hear my words, but you must listen. And you must not only hear and listen, but you must do. It is the doers of the Word that have the blessing. Paul even says it's the doers of the Word that are justified. Those that do what God commands, what God's will is, what Jesus says for us to do. Even the storm was the same in the Matthew account. In almost direct parallel, the rains fell, the wind blew, and the floods came. The welding flood, what you had was the stress, the distress, the disease, the disaster. You had all of that stuff blow upon the man's house. And it was the same for the house that was built foundationally sound and the house that wasn't. Just because we hear the words of the Lord, do them, obey them, live them out, does not mean we will avoid the storm. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. There is just as much calamity, disaster, difficulty, distress, stress in the Christian life as there is without Christ. There is no immunity to life's sorrows and life's tests and trials and difficulties because we are believers. The storms come, the rains fall, the winds blow. This is the description of a real good storm, hurricane, good old fashioned West Texas flash flood thunderstorm. It's interesting to me that the reaction is, if you think about it from a kind of a physics standpoint, the reaction is in the fluid, the wind and the rain, the waters, the floods, the fluid come, the fluids are applied, the waters of testing are applied. The difference is the way the foundation stands against them. The foundation of sand, or as Luke says, built upon the ground, become caught up in the fluids. The fluid, the water, the floods, the wind, turns the sand into a slurry, it becomes immeshed and connected to them and it wipes out the house. But the house on the shore foundation, the house on the rock, is impervious to the fluids. It doesn't matter how much the wind blows, it doesn't matter how much rain falls, it doesn't matter how much of a surging stream of flood there is, the rock is impervious to it. It does not become a part of it, it does not participate in it, like the sand that becomes the slurry, the rock sheds the waters, sheds the flood, that's where we need to be. We need to be on the rock where whatever comes, we don't participate, we don't become part of it, we're able to stand against it. And the only place that we can find that surety is in Jesus Christ. The interesting thing here as the sermon concludes is said that the people noticed that Jesus taught with authority and not as their scribes. People in the synagogues and in the assemblies of ancient Israel were used to good sound Bible teaching. I mean, there was sound doctrine, good law taught, Bible reading, exposition, nobody had worked over the scriptures and understood them and illustrated them more and had all of the expository material mastered more than these rabbis and scribes and doctors of Jesus day. But Jesus taught with authority because that's what it is, the authority comes from the author. And he is the author of life. He is the author of our salvation, the finisher of our salvation. And that was Jesus' authority. Here was one talking to them who wasn't just exhorting them to make the play or to do the deed. He was Himself their source, their authority, their foundation, like the way the Luke account adds a little something to the account of Matthew. He says, why will you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my word and does them, I will show you what He is like. He is like a man building a house upon a rock. Do you hear that? Everyone who comes to me, that's really what it's all about. It's coming to Christ, the author, the sure foundation. Back in the days when our Westminster Confession was being crafted in the 1640s, in England, there were several theological controversies that were alive in the land, especially in the established church at that time. One of those theological errors or issues was titled or called anti-nomeanism, and it literally means against the law. And the teaching was this, and often it's theological preaching and teaching the pendulum kind of swings. There's a lot of law, and then people get to thinking about law and the oppression of law, and then you hear the sweet words of grace. Grace comes in and tells us the great gospel truths. But then, grace is preached, grace is preached, grace becomes cheaper. More and more we realize as we begin to hear it, that it shallow, because it's not against the background of the great price that Christ paid for our salvation. We hear about how salvation is free. We don't hear how it is actually costly. It cost Christ. And then the pendulum swings back again, and we get people that begin to lay down the commandments and we get more of the severity, and so we have the law and grace swing. We have the faith and works back and forth controversy. But in that day, anti-nomeanism was kind of one of those extremes. A truth had been proclaimed during the Reformation for almost 100 years at that point, and it was the great truth that Christ is our substitute. That we are what we are based on him and his work, not us and our work. Great gospel truth was the bright light of the Reformation in the 1500s, as it's swept across Europe and into England. And part of that teaching was the teaching in substitutionary work of Christ, is that Christ paid the penalty for our sins. He bore the curse for our sins. But also another doctrine that went alongside that was he also gave perfect obedience in our place, that he obeyed the law of God. He did the works of the Father. He kept the commandments perfectly, and he did that in our place. So he kept the commandments and brought the blessing of obedience. But he also bore the curse by suffering and dying its penalty. The penalty that the law had prescribed and stipulated when it said, cursed is everyone that hangs upon a tree. And so Jesus has done it all. In his passive obedience to the Father, he has laid down his life. In his active obedience, he has kept the law for us. It's left for us to do. And the wrong answer was, nothing, nothing Christ has done it all. You don't need to do anything. I said, that was the wrong answer. That was the wrong answer, because here's the order. Christ has done what we could never do in keeping the law of God perfectly and in paying its penalty for us in his active obedience during his life and his passive obedience in his death. And that is our standing before God. That is our righteousness. We are justified upon that basis. Everything that he did, he did for us and on our behalf. And we now have the curse removed and the blessings brought. His resurrection was the certification and the ratification that he had received the blessing. The blessing of the Old Testament covenant was eternal life. The commandments of God were said to be by Moses, your life and the length of your days. If you will obey, my commandments, the Lord said, you will live in the land forever, eternal life. He brought all of that to us. And it comes to us as a free gift, faith, faith without works, faith alone, nothing. But empty hands reaching out and receiving that which Christ has given us in himself, he is own life of perfect obedience, his own death of sacrifice, and we receive it. But there is the response of the regenerated, changed life. The one who has been thus created and is a new creature in Christ has been created unto good works. Jesus called us to follow him. He himself worked the works of his father, and he calls upon us to obey. He calls upon us for obedience. And this obedience that we offer to him is feeble, failing, alloyed with sin, mixed with motives. In some cases it is vastly inferior and even sinful within itself, but thank God that's not the basis of our salvation. The basis of our salvation is his finished work, his perfect obedience, his sacrificial death. Our salvation is not in question, our salvation is not up for consideration, it is done, it is accomplished, it is ours, it has been bestowed upon us by God's grace. But what other thing can we do than to follow in his steps, to imitate him, to follow him, to seek to do his will? That's the Christian life. Don't get one of these in the room of the other one. When you do, you start moving into sad and discouraging heresy's and false teachings. Always understand Christ, he and he alone is the basis of your salvation. The foundation that you're built on, that's the rock, he's the rock. But he calls us over and over and over, you can't get away from it. The New Testament is filled with nothing other than the admonitions, the rebukes, the encouragement, the commandments, the prohibitions of God's eternal royal law. Nothing is urged upon us in the new covenant that the old covenant had not set forth. We are to follow him, we are to do his word, we are to obey him, we're to listen to his voice, we are to respond to his will, we are to keep his commandments, we are to strive in every way to live. Salvation is my grace alone. But living the life that God has called us to live, because we've been saved, because we've been brought from death to life, because we've been called and adopted into his family, because we've been justified before the law, because we are not guilty, because of all of the bestowal of grace, the life that God calls us to live is a life of not just grace but gumption. Don't forget that, don't forget that, God expects us to be doers, actors, performers, he wants us in compliance, he wants us in duty, it's not a heavy yoke, it'd be a heavy yoke if our salvation depended on that, or it'd be an oppressing yoke, we could not bury it, it would wait us all the way down if we were depending on that for our salvation, but no, no, no, that's in Christ, oh dear people, a Christ who's done all of that for you, don't you want to do everything you can for him, with him, by him, sure you do, sure you do, you just need constant encouragement, constant instruction, constant admonition, and that's what hearing the word of the Lord does. Listen to the sermons from this pulpit, listen to the lessons of your Sunday school classes, pay attention to the word in your own daily Bible study, be a hearer, really listen and do it, just do it.