What Are You Standing On?

Standing On The Rock

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Matthew 7:24-27 ESV

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ 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. ²⁶ 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. ²⁷ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

These words of Jesus are spoken at the close of His matchless Sermon on the Mount.

He touches on a multitude of relevant issues to all of us:

• how to respond to enemies,
• letting your light shine,
• keeping a clean heart,
• forgiveness,
• how not to worry,
• how not to lust,
• Not to retaliate to wrongs against us,
• having the right motives for giving, fasting, and praying,
• The model prayer,
• putting God first,
• having the right kind of treasures,
• trusting God to provide,
• warnings about false prophets, and much, much more.

And He closes with our text—an illustration of two men building a house. One man builds on a foundation of rock, the other on a foundation of sand.

Jesus says what every builder knows—The most important thing of all when building a house is not…

• the architectural plan,
• the size of the house,
• the inner furnishings,
• the interior design,
• the color of bricks you choose,
• or which side of the tracks you build it on.

Notes

Now, the house in Jesus’ teaching represents your life. We’re all builders of a life. Our life consists of the sum product of hundreds of thousands of decisions made each and every day. And the decisions we make are the byproduct of the values, world view, morality, and beliefs we have decided are true for us.

Now, here’s the deal:

Most people in our society focus, not on the foundation, but on the exterior—what others see.

Rarely do we stop to think about the beliefs we build our house on … Yet our beliefs are what make up the foundation. Our foundation is comprised of the morality we choose to live by, what we believe about God, eternity, the Bible, and most importantly what we do with Jesus.

Because you see, practicing His teachings on:

• forgiveness,
• sexual purity,
• what holds first place in your life,
• the things you treasure,
• what you worship,
• what you give your strength and effort to achieve—all make up your foundation.

Notes

No, the Bible is our roadmap, our unfailing GPS to guide us through our journey on earth till we reach heaven’s gates.

What it teaches about:

• finances,
• morals,
• marriage,
• forgiveness,
• friendships,
• how to respond to enemies, trials, setbacks, and persecution we’re to embrace and obey!

Jesus emphasizes not just hearing what He said, but doing it, living it, practicing it, making it part of your lifestyle …

Notes

We live in a day where something called syncretism is gaining ground in God’s house. Syncretism is a fancy word that simply means “the combining of different beliefs” into a sort of religious stew.

Syncretism is where you cherry-pick the things you like from several different belief systems and sort of create your own personalized religion.

For instance, a good syncretist might choose:

• The “love and salvation” part of Christianity,
• Sprinkled with some eastern religious mysticism,
• Maybe a spattering of Islam (after all, we all worship the same God, right?)
• Salted with “I choose my own truth” relativism,
• Finished off with a healthy dash of Oprah’s New Age beliefs and Dr. Phil’s counsel and advice.

Rather than allowing God’s word and the Lord Jesus to be our counselors in all things, we build our houses on a mix—which is the sand Jesus mentioned.

Notes

Yet we find in the Bible that God has always told His people to avoid syncretism:

Exodus 20:3 NLT

“You must not have any other god but me.”

Joshua 24:14 NRSV

“Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served … and serve the LORD.”

Matthew 6:24 ERV

“You cannot serve two masters at the same time. You will hate one and love the other, or you will be loyal to one and not care about the other. …”

Notes

Now, the good thing about a storm like the one we’ve all been walking through is that—Storms reveal the sand in your life.

Storms expose where we’ve accepted:

• worldly values over kingdom values,
• misunderstandings about what the Bible teaches,
• misplaced trust in other things,
• wrong ideas about God,
• relationships we’ve accepted that are not centered around Christ, and so on.

In other words, storms reveal where we’ve built on rock and where we’ve built on sand.

Illustration

When gold is purified it is placed into an oven where it melts. Any impurities come to the top where they are skimmed off by the goldsmith. Your faith (including your foundation) works the same way. Peter wrote:

1 Peter 1:6-7 TLB

“So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though the going is rough for a while down here.

⁷ These trials are only to test your faith, to see whether or not it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests gold and purifies it—and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold; so if your faith remains strong after being tried in the test tube of fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day of his return.”

Notes

So today I encourage you to:

• Build your life only on the foundation of Jesus Christ and God’s Word.
• Allow the Lord to expose any sand you may have been building on.
• Know that you’re going to emerge from this trying time purified, stronger, and more fruitful than ever!

Notes