Building On The Rock. Abridged.

BUILDING ON THE ROCK.

Matthew 7:21, Matthew 7:24-27.

Mere profession of Jesus’ deity: “Lord, Lord” (Matthew 7:21) will not fit us for entry into “the kingdom of heaven.” The person who will “enter the kingdom of heaven,” says Jesus, is the one who “does the will of my Father which in heaven”; i.e. the one who, “HEARS these sayings of mine, and DOES THEM” (Matthew 7:24).

What we are looking at in the account of the wise builder who built his house upon a rock (Matthew 7:24-25) is one man’s relationship with Jesus. This man is not a hearer only, but a doer also (cf. James 1:25). That is what it is to build our house upon the Rock (cf. Joshua 24:15). We are not spared the rain, the floods, the winds: but when our lives are built upon Jesus, we are on solid ground (cf. Psalm 18:2).

It is also true to say that the edifice could be the church: for Jesus later said, ‘Upon this Rock will I build My Church’ (Matthew 16:18). On what Rock? Peter? - No, but upon what Peter had said: ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God’ (Matthew 16:16). The Rock upon which the Church is founded IS our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:11; 1 Corinthians 10:4).

Conversely, we have the man who was only a hearer of Jesus’ words, but not a doer of them (cf. James 1:22). Jesus likened this man to a foolish builder, who built his house upon the sand (Matthew 7:26-27). Faced with the same rain, floods and winds his work did not endure, but at last came tumbling to the ground: “and great was the fall of it,” Jesus punctuates!

To build our lives on anything less than a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is the very height of madness.