Build Your House Upon the Rock
Sunday November 26,2000
This morning we want to speak on building our salvation our faith and our life.
I want you all to think this morning about attitude!
I want to take our text this morning from,
Matthew 7:24-27
24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
Our subject today is Building Your House Upon The Rock.
As we study together you should be able to see that you are building your house either on the Rock, Christ Jesus, or upon the Sand, Fleshly Lusts.
Consider with us this message of our Lord and be a wise man by building your house upon the Rock.
Don’t let the devil deceive you into thinking that your life can be safe and secure when you build it upon the sand.
Your house will be tested by the storms of life and only the house built on the Rock will stand.
Our text begins with the word, therefore, which implies that for some specific reason the Lord was telling us this element of His truth.
Let us back up and read a little to get the context of what the Lord is teaching.
Matthew 7:15-23
15 “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep, but are really wolves that will tear you apart.
16 You can detect them by the way they act, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit. You don’t pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles.
17 A healthy tree produces good fruit, and an unhealthy tree produces bad fruit.
18 A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.
19 So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire.
20 Yes, the way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that is produced.
We see here that,
Israel was warned against false prophets, and the church is warned against false teachers, but both classes come in sheep’s clothing.
Let’s read just a few verses from 2 Peter to get a little better idea what Jesus is talking about in these previous verses.
2 Peter 2:1-6
1 But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach their destructive heresies about God and even turn against their Master who bought them. Theirs will be a swift and terrible end.
2 Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of them, Christ and his true way will be slandered.
3 In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction is on the way.
4 For God did not spare even the angels when they sinned; he threw them into hell, in gloomy caves and darkness until the judgment day.
5 And God did not spare the ancient world—except for Noah and his family of seven. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. Then God destroyed the whole world of ungodly people with a vast flood.
6 Later, he turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into heaps of ashes and swept them off the face of the earth. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people.
We are to recognize them by their fruits.
That is what we are to watch for in their lives.
21 “Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’ but they still won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven.
You can run around and mouth about living by the Golden Rule, but the point is:
Are you doing the will of the Father in heaven?
If you are doing His will, you’ll come to Christ, recognizing that you need a Savior.
22 On judgment day many will tell me, ‘Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’
23 But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Go away; the things you did were unauthorized.’
And so we see that in this part of this great sermon on the mount, Jesus, was telling us that there would be false prophets that would attempt to miss lead us.
They would come to us in Sheep’s clothing attempting to hide their real self.
Now because there will be false prophets like this, you need to know how to conduct your life so that you will be safe.
It is one of Satan’s most effective deceptive means to have ministers of the gospel working for him.
It is so effective because you do not suspect them to be workers of evil.
They are ministers of the gospel and therefore they are expected to promote righteousness and not evil.
However, Jesus tells us that there would be such people and that we should be on guard that they do not deceive us.
That is the trouble with a lot of preachers today they preach only about a legal repentance for your sins!
That will not take care of the problem my friends, having sorrow for what is going to happen to you if you do not give your heart to God is not what God is looking for!
It all has to do with attitude!
How is your attitude this morning?
Are you truly sorry, from the bottom of your heart for your sins, or you just sorry that you got caught?
A lot of the preachers out there today tell you that you need to feel sorry for your sins so that you will not die and go to hell!
When what you need to do is to be truly sorry for your sins, totally from the bottom of your heart.
There are too many people out there today that just want to go to heaven, and they think that they are going to go to heaven simply by saying that they are sorry and then going right on with their life just like always.
They have no desire to walk the straight and narrow.
Jesus is warning against this kind of repentance!
Now Jesus did not tell us to become private investigators and spend our time and energy running around with a magnifying glass on all the minister that we know to see if any of them are false prophets or not.
No! Jesus simply tells us how we are to build our lives and that in so doing we will be safe.
Just because many will be saying that we do not have to live a righteousness life to enjoy the kingdom of heaven does not make it so.
Jesus said that many would be deceived.
In order to receive the kingdom of heaven, you must build on the Rock.
And to build on the rock you must hear the sayings of Jesus and do them.
You spend your time and energy hearing and doing the sayings of Jesus and you will be safe.
What others do is their choice and they will be accountable for what they do.
You do not have to be worried that they are getting away with something or enjoying something that you cannot.
Actually no one gets by with anything for God sees all and knows all.
And, no one enjoys sin for long for the wages of sin is death.
Let us then concentrate on building on the Rock.
Just who is this rock and how do we build upon it?
Psalm 95:1-7
1 Come, let us sing to the LORD!
Let us give a joyous shout to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving.
Let us sing him psalms of praise.
3 For the LORD is a great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 He owns the depths of the earth,
and even the mightiest mountains are his.
5 The sea belongs to him, for he made it.
His hands formed the dry land, too.
6 Come, let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before the LORD our maker,
7 for he is our God.
We are the people he watches over,
the sheep under his care.
Oh, that you would listen to his voice today!
Yes, the Lord is our Rock and we build upon it by worshipping Him with all of our heart.
Come before His presence with thanksgiving, believing that He is a great God and a great King above all gods.
It is our Lord that has provided the opportunity to be saved.
The plan of salvation was completed by Him and salvation is offered to us today because of Him.
We therefore are very thankful and make joyful noise in our praising and singing to Him.
We are the people of God when we hear His voice.
By hearing His voice the Bible means we hear with the intent of obedience.
Now when you hear as many do the words of God and they roll off you as water off a duck’s back, you are not hearing as our lesson is talking about hearing.
As Jesus teaches us, the wise man is the one that heareth His sayings and doeth them.
There are a lot of people in this world today that can tell you what things Jesus taught.
They know the concepts. They know the words.
But, buy the way they live you can see that they are not doing the sayings of Jesus.
You cannot build on the Rock in such a fashion.
To build on the Rock, you must hear and do the sayings of Jesus.
To fail to do is to fail to hear.
James teaches us
James 1:19-27
19 My dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.
20 Your anger can never make things right in God’s sight.
21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the message God has planted in your hearts, for it is strong enough to save your souls.
22 And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. If you don’t obey, you are only fooling yourself.
23 For if you just listen and don’t obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance.
24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.
25 But if you keep looking steadily into God’s perfect law—the law that sets you free—and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
26 If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are just fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.
27 Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.
Be a doer of the word.
Lay it to heart.
Love it.
Obey it.
Learn it and keep it.
Remember the context that Jesus is teaching this lesson.
It is that there are false prophets that will deceive many.
Indeed there are many today that are teaching things contrary to the teachings of Jesus.
For example there are many that are teaching that we all have to commit sin every day and that we cannot help it.
In order to teach such doctrine with some convincing authority, they twist the scripture and take it out of context to try to tell you that you have to commit sin.
Now I will tell you that you do not have to commit sin and that you don’t have to be a theologian to figure that out.
All you have to do is listen to the Lord and let the grace of God teach you the right way.
Your Lord has so worked out this plan of salvation that you don’t have to err in carrying it out.
Listen carefully to what Jesus is telling you.
Nowhere is He telling you to commit sin.
Instead He is telling you to Love God, to love your neighbor, to be honest, to give, to serve, and to follow His example.
His example is one of no sin.
God has given you a conscience that is sparked by His grace to lead you in the right way.
Let’s read what the scripture says in,
Titus 2:8-15
8 Let your teaching be so correct that it can’t be criticized. Then those who want to argue will be ashamed because they won’t have anything bad to say about us.
9 Slaves must obey their masters and do their best to please them. They must not talk back
10 or steal, but they must show themselves to be entirely trustworthy and good. Then they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive in every way.
11 For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people.
12 And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with self-control, right conduct, and devotion to God,
13 while we look forward to that wonderful event when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.
14 He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing what is right.
15 You must teach these things and encourage your people to do them, correcting them when necessary. You have the authority to do this, so don’t let anyone ignore you or disregard what you say.
The grace of God hath appeared to all men.
Thank God this does not depend on your social standing.
It does not depend on your intelligence or lace of it.
It does not depend on your economic position.
No!
The grace of God hath appeared to all men.
And, it teaches us something.
It teaches us that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.
Praise the Lord for His Word that is so easy to understand.
You may do evil and have a thousand counselors advise you to do so, but that will not stop the grace of God from convicting your heart of your evil doing.
God knows what you are doing and He will teach you the right way.
In order to commit sin, you will have to reject the Lord and His teachings.
And if you do so then why would you expect that The Lord will accept you?
Let us now consider for a little the thought of building upon the sand.
What our Lord has reference to in this text is that to build a life on false assumptions is like building a house without first making sure that you have a good foundation under it.
This would be a very foolish thing to do as the house will inevitably collapse.
So it is that when you live your life according to false teachings and beliefs that you will not have a secure life.
Too often children are prone to just pick up their parents beliefs without ever checking them out for themselves of to follow the beliefs of the crowd just because many are living that way.
Remember that our Lord reminds us that many will be lost because of their failing to build on the Rock.
In our text the foolish man heard the sayings of Jesus but instead of doing them, he rejected them to do according to the sayings of others.
There are an infinite number of reasons that people are so foolish as to reject the sayings of Jesus and one of the big reasons is because so many others are doing it that there must not be any thing wrong with it.
That argument sounds almost reasonable were it not for the fact that Jesus warned us that such would be the case.
No matter how hard you work and try to justify yourself, the grace of God will continue to convict you of sin.
No matter how smooth the sand that you build upon, it is still sand and not the Rock.
Your house will be tested and only the house built on the Rock will stand safe and secure.
The house built on the sand will fall.
Our lesson says that the rain descended, and the floods came and beat upon the houses.
Yes, both houses suffer the storms of life.
Just because you build on the Rock does not mean that you will have a smooth sailing life.
No!
Every house will be tested by the storms of life.
You build on the rock so that you will have the faith and endurance to withstand the storms.
Let’s read what the scripture says in,
1 Peter 4:12-19
12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you.
13 Instead, be very glad—because these trials will make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and afterward you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his glory when it is displayed to all the world.
14 Be happy if you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God will come upon you.
15 If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people’s affairs.
16 But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his wonderful name!
17 For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin first among God’s own children. And if even we Christians must be judged, what terrible fate awaits those who have never believed God’s Good News?
18 And
“If the righteous are barely saved,
what chance will the godless and sinners have?”
19 So if you are suffering according to God’s will, keep on doing what is right, and trust yourself to the God who made you, for he will never fail you.
Yes, Peter is telling us that our house will be tested and that we should not be surprised when it happens.
But we should be built firmly on the rock so that our house will stand.
In fact Peter teaches us to rejoice because we are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.
This is not an easy thing for the human to do for the human sees only the things that the physical eye sees.
It is the eye of faith that reaches out and grasps the unseen hand of God and holds on through the storm.
To understand that our house will suffer the storms of life and to be prepared for it is a great blessing from God.
Don’t think it strange.
It will happen.
Prepare for it by building on the rock.
Take in the teachings of Jesus, your Lord.
Let his words sink into your being.
Put them to work in the way that you live.
Listen, hear and do the saying of our Lord.
The faith of one that builds on the sand is easily shaken.
There is no foundation to false teachings.
They will not help you through the storms of life.
Instead of rejoicing that you have opportunity to be a partaker with Christ’s sufferings, you will be crying, Why Me?
Why is this happening to me?
You will be devastated by the flood.
Isaiah tells us in,
Isaiah 59:19
19 Then at last they will respect and glorify the name of the LORD throughout the world. For he will come like a flood tide driven by the breath of the LORD.
Yes, the enemy will come in like a flood and only those that build on the rock will have the help of the Spirit of the Lord.
Listen to the instructions of Jesus in,
John 14:15-31
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you.
17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you do, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
18 No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you.
19 In just a little while the world will not see me again, but you will. For I will live again, and you will, too.
20 When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
21 Those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them, and I will love them. And I will reveal myself to each one of them.”
22 Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but the other disciple with that name) said to him, “Lord, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at large?”
23 Jesus replied, “All those who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and live with them.
24 Anyone who doesn’t love me will not do what I say. And remember, my words are not my own. This message is from the Father who sent me.
25 I am telling you these things now while I am still with you.
26 But when the Father sends the Counselor as my representative—and by the Counselor I mean the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I myself have told you.
27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn’t like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid.
28 Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love me, you will be very happy for me, because now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am.
29 I have told you these things before they happen so that you will believe when they do happen.
30 “I don’t have much more time to talk to you, because the prince of this world approaches. He has no power over me,
31 but I will do what the Father requires of me, so that the world will know that I love the Father. Come, let’s be going.
If you will truly love Jesus, and keep his words, He will send the Holy Spirit to help you to lift up a standard against Satan.
The Holy Spirit is the spirit that teaches you how to live a holy life.
He teaches you to establish standards or safeguards for your soul.
He teaches you how to conduct yourself so that you will be able to live honest, moral, and godly in this present world.
Are you that are listening to my voice today building on the Rock or are you building on the sand?
Only the house built on the Rock will stand the storms of life.
All houses built on the sand will be destroyed by the storms of life.
Will you let this be the day that you take the Lord’s words to heart and begin to do them.
He that heareth and doeth the sayings of Jesus is the wise man that build his house upon the Rock.
He that rejects the sayings of Jesus is the foolish man that builds his house upon the sand.
