Parables, Promises & Prophecies
The Foundation
Matthew 7:21-29
So, this morning, I have a couple of direct questions for you.
What is the basis for all you think, believe and do in life?
Now, there are a number of options here. Is it “what I want?” Is it all about you? Is it what makes you happy? Is it your conscience? Is it your parents’ teaching? Is it what’s cool or fashionable? Is it what your friends think? Is it what your mate thinks or wants? Is it what’s fashionable or acceptable in society? Or is it what makes you happy?
Now I know we’re in church. And you want to give the right answer. But be honest with yourself—what really is the basis for how you live life.?
Now some of those aren’t bad answers. I think we could all commend whose lives are based on their consciences, or their sense of right and wrong.
But you know what, according to Jesus, none of those answers are good enough. None of them will stand the tests of life and the tests of time and eternity.
According to what Jesus had to say, there’s only one basis for how we live a life that will stand for eternity—that will be an ultimate success—and that is His Word.
He tells us in the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders this morning that we need to be wise builders— you need to Build your life on the Rock of Jesus Word—because all other word is sinking sand.
Now without realizing it, I bit off more than I could choose this week when I decided to do this short, but impressive parable. Because the key to interpreting any parable is understanding it within its context. And the context of the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders is the entire Sermon on the Mount—the greatest sermon that was ever preached that fills three chapters of the Book of Matthew. The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builder begins with the word, “Therefore” in Matthew 7:24-27, thus indicating that it is the fitting conclusion to all Jesus had to say in that sermon—it was a vivid and powerful word picture of how we could be certain the kind of life that would stand for eternity, rather than end in spiritual disaster. Because those are the two very possible outcomes for the lives we live—a life that stands for eternity or a life that results in spiritual disaster.
And that is exactly how the Sermon on the Mount reads. It’s a sermon full of comforting thoughts, and then absolutely startling thoughts, and very sobering admonitions.
And it clearly tells us what kind of life pleases God, and what kind of life does not.
Jesus told it near the beginning of his ministry, as he sat on the mountain above the Sea of Galilee one day. I’ve been to the spot, and it is indeed picturesque, with the Sea of Galilee in the background—a great place to give a great message.
According to Matthew 4, Jesus had just begun his ministry. He had made Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee his ministry headquarters for his greater Galilean Ministry. His message, according to Matthew 4:17 was “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand.” The Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, or near, in that the King of the Kingdom of Heaven had come, namely, Jesus the Messiah and King of the Jews. He was also healing everyone who came to Him of every kind of illness and disease, and as a result, he was fast becoming an international sensation. Crowds of people were coming to see and hear him from Syria to the north and from the other side of the Jordan to the east. And Jesus, seeing the crowds, then at this crucial point in His ministry, sat down to teach. I’m convinced he sat down to explain what he meant when he said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” In other words, he was describing for all who would hear exactly what repentance involved, exactly what it looked like, and what it did not look like. What repentance was not. And the result it would have when the Kingdom of Heaven came to Earth.
And what we’re going to find is the repentance and the Word of Christ, or the Word of God go hand-in-hand—they are inseparable. Repentance in this context, means turning from your way or the world’s way and deciding to do life God’s Way, according to His Will and Jesus’ Word.
So, in the first 19 verses of Matthew 5, Jesus began explaining and describing what repentance looks like. He tells is that if you’re truly repentant, then you’ll be controlled by righteous attitudes resulting in righteous actions.
Now you’ll notice the emphasis on attitudes in the beatitudes. So, indeed the term beatitudes is fitting—these are attitudes to have, the be-attitudes of Jesus. They are inward attitudes that will result in outward actions.
So, as we all know, the Sermon begins with blessing, promises of eternal reward and eternal fulfillment for the person possessing these attitudes:
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, blessed are the humble, because humility is a characteristic of those who will possess the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. The trials and disappointments of this life are what cause us to look for something better, something eternally better, by seeking God.
Blessed are the gentle; Blessed are those who hunger and third for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers, and those who persevere despite persecution. And so Jesus is saying it’s these kinds of inward attitudes, resulting in outward actions—righteous attitudes and righteous actions that will be rewarded in heaven.
Now one might get the impression that salvation is earned by good works. And of course, if you know our church, you know that we believe Jesus and the New Testament emphatically tell us that good works do not save, but a repentant faith in Jesus is what saves—that salvation, or heaven, comes by faith alone.
So what then, do we make of what Jesus is saying here. Well, what I make of it is that repentance is an essential part of the faith that saves. That true faith in Jesus always results in good works. For as James 2 puts it faith without works is dead being by itself. And just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.
Thus the faith that saves is always the faith that works. And if there are no good works, then neither is their saving or repentant faith.
What each and every one of us ought to get from this passage is that God cares about our life-styles. He cares intensely that we live righteous lifestyles based on righteous attitudes. And that we also ought to know if we make a profession of faith and then go on to live like hell, that’s actually where we’re headed.
Rather, the Bible tells us that we demonstrate our repentant faith by how we live. And our good works demonstrate that we are saved. II Peter 1:10 says: “Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; 11 for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”
So, repentance absolutely means righteous living. It’s the repentant righteous believer who is promised heaven by Jesus.
More than that, He tells us that’s what He’s all about—fulfilling the Law of God—the Law of righteousness, even the Old Testament Law in Matthew 5:17-19. And He tells us just how serious He is about it and how serious we need to be about it by saying that anyone who nullifies even the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven.
And then Jesus tells the crowd something that is absolutely shocking to the Jews who make up a large part of the crowd. He tells them, as a result, that their spiritual leaders, the religious leaders whom they all respect aren’t going to make it to heaven! This is an incredibly bold and shocking revelation! The statement is made in Matthew 5:20: “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven”
I imagine the folks who are listening are shocked, taken aback and some even angered by such a bold and condemning statement. These were the people who were their spiritual leaders, whom they respected, who knew and as far as they knew practiced the Law of God like no one else. I’m sure some of them must have been asking themselves, “Well, who then can be saved? If Rabbi Nicodemus or whomever isn’t going to heaven, then what hope is there for me?”
Jesus has now entered the second section of the Sermon on the Mount, by my accounting, now describing what repentant righteous is not. It’s not the so-called righteousness of the great religious hypocrites, the scribes and Pharisees and spiritual leaders of the Jews.
What will come to light during Jesus’ ministry is just how terribly corrupt the religious leadership of the Jewish nation had become by this time in history. By the end of Jesus’ ministry, 68 out of the 70 spiritual leaders who made up the Jewish Sanhedrin, or council of 70 in Jerusalem, would vote to condemn and murder the most innocent man in history—Jesus Christ—and largely because he had committed the crime of reverse murder—he had raised a man named Lazarus from the dead—an undeniable miracle that would then result in the very real possibility that the whole nation would begin following Jesus, rather than these corrupt Jewish leaders. So much for following the Law, the anger and the hatred of these Jewish religious leaders would reveal that they were not at all those who would inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, but that as Jesus put it, they were children of their Father the devil who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning.
So what was the problem with these religious hypocrites—the spiritual leaders of the Jews. Well, in a word, it was sin. They were not at all concerned about their sin; they were concerned about the appearance of it. So they were the original perpetrators of the “Keeping up Appearances” them of British comedy that shows up on our TV on Saturday nights. It was all about pretending to be righteous or pretending to be spiritual.
And so they had two main ways of pulling off this charade. First, they changed the rules. That is they twisted or changed or replaced the Word of God. They either misinterpreted the Word of God to fit their sinful tendencies, or they completely altered it or replaced it by adding the teaching of the rabbis to it, sometimes completely nullifying its original intent. And the second is that they focused only on external righteousness, looking good before men, despite the fact they were motivated by the same evil intentions of sinful men—the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life.
Jesus begins this section by talking about how they distorted the commands of God. For instance, he begins talking about “You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit murder” in verse 21, and then tells them that murder begins with inward attitudes such as unresolved and sinful anger and hatred, that must be dealt with first, or it’s ultimate end will be murder. In other places, he says, you have heard that it was said “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemies.” of course, there is no place in the Old Testament where they were told to hate their enemies—this was a sinful addition to the command that nullified the command for anyone the Pharisee or the scribe didn’t like. And thus, there were many of these instances, enumerated through the next several chapters in which the Pharisees and the scribes, rationalized, spiritualized and justified their sin and thus were corrupt and unfit candidates for heaven. The lesson we learn is the final lesson of the message. Pay attention the word of God—don’t alter it, don’t change the rules, don’t rationalize or spiritualize it away, because when you do so all you’re doing is deceiving yourself, not God. The lesson is don’t fake it spiritually. It won’t work Don’t fake it you won’t make it. If you’re a believer here, and there’s unrepentant sin and you’re spiritualizing or rationalizing continuing in it—don’t fake it, you won’t make it. Your sin will find you out. And it will have a devastating eternal consequence For unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now we’re running out of time here. So we must be brief. But in the next session, as I count it, beginning in about Matthew 6:9, Jesus begins talking about spiritual practices, giving, fasting, praying. And the over-all theme of this section is how you actually ought to practice those things that are distinctively spiritual, how do you fast, how do you pray, and how do you treat your brother. Well, two verses stick out in this section. From the heart, you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and you treat others as you would like to be treated.
So, is this your righteousness? Are you really all about the kingdom, or all about yourself? AR you all about the Kingdom of God or all about this life. Do you love your neighbor as yourself? None of these things characterized the Pharisees and scribes. These were the things that would characterize those who would be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven because these are the things that characterize its King, King Jesus.
When you pray, do you really pray for eternal matters, when you give, do you give generously with the Kingdom in View, when you fast, is it all about connecting with God, or looking good. Or do you fast? Do you love others as yourself? Or is it all an act?
And then we come to one of the most disturbing sections of the Sermon on the Mount. The discussion of the narrow way, and that few there be who find it, chapter 7:13-23.
Jesus is telling us that there’s another danger, in addition to religious hypocrisy, it’s not just bad practice, but it’s bad belief—false beliefs propagated by false prophets, whom, as we learn later in the New Testament, preach false concepts of Jesus and false Gospels.
He tells us don’t be led astray by false prophets, false beliefs and false practices. Why, because it’s only those who do the will of God who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Sounds a lot like works, but when you take Jesus’ sayings and the New Testament as a whole, it is the life outcome for the person who exercises true repentant faith in Jesus. What he or she believes determines what he or she does.
And there’s that most chilling statement, most nightmarish outcome any of us can imagine, that will be the result for many who don’t heed Jesus’ warning here to watch out for false prophets: Matthew 7:21-23: Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”
At this point we might be asking, how in the world can I navigate all these potential pitfalls in the Christian life—the hypocritical practices that might stem from giving in to my sinful nature, and then the deceptions of false prophets that could lead me so far astray I wouldn’t know it until it’s too late.
And that’s precisely what Jesus ends his immensely powerful message with. The panacea for all spiritual ills, the protection against deception, the plumbline for all Biblical and Christlike behavior—the guide to righteousness, infallible and eternal, the word of God, specifically, in this context, these words of Jesus Christ.
The story speaks for itself—it’s a parable you should never forget. There’s a huge choice that each of us is going to make in life—whether we build our life on the rock of Jesus’s Words or on the shifting sand of other philosophies and values in life.
And those of us who build our house on the rock of Jesus’ words, or we might also say God’s Word, when the storm comes of God’s Judgment, our life, our house will stand. But if you’ve built your house on the shifting sands of your happiness, your conscience, the world’s values, what your friends think, or some other philosophy or world view, the consequence will absolutely be eternal spiritual disaster. The storm will come, and it will beat against your house, and your life, and great will be its fall.
So, my question, Jesus’ question this morning, is where are you building your house, what is the foundation of your life? Your happiness, your idea of what makes a good life, or on Jesus’ Word.
Will you stand or fall when the Day of Judgment comes?
Build your house on the Rock of God’s word, Jesus’ Word, because all other ground is shifting sand and will result in a great fall.
