A Rock-Solid Foundation—Matthew 7:21-29

This passage teaches us that Jesus is a king who rejects his flatterers, a king who upholds his followers, and a king whose word is law. He is a king who saves, a rock-solid foundation for everyone who does what he tells them to do.

A King Who Rejects His Flatterers

It begins, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Some leaders like to surround themselves with yes-men, hypocrites and flatterers. And you should say yes to Jesus, and praise him, and call him "Lord." But flattery will get you no-where with Jesus if you don't care to obey his Father, God. He is not satisfied with mere words, and he cannot be deceived. The book of Revelation tells about John's vision of Jesus with eyes like a flame of fire. Jesus needs no lie-detector. He made the human heart. Those eyes pierce through all deception.

This is not to say that Jesus is unforgiving. Jesus came for sinners, and he will forgive everyone who repents and believes in him. He will never turn away a single sinner who puts his trust in him. But he came to bring true and full salvation, which is not less than forgiveness, but more: he came to change people's hearts and lives. Anyone who refuses to obey God refuses Christ himself. True repentance is like coming to Jesus with open hands, ready to be filled with Christ himself: with forgiveness in Christ and with new obedience in Christ. The people Jesus describes here are coming to him with flattering words but with clenched hands, unwilling to receive the gift of salvation, or, you might say, with clenched hearts, unwilling to let Christ enter in.

So don't be a flatterer. Don't be someone who says all the right words but doesn't do God's will. It's possible to deceive others, and even to deceive yourself, but you can never deceive Christ. Don't be a flatterer: Instead, be a true follower. Jesus upholds his followers

A King Who Upholds His Followers

I have two neighbors named Bob and Rob. Bob and Rob are good neighbors, and they give me good advice. The only problem is that they give me different advice. When I was building my fence, I told Bob that I was going to dig my post holes two and a half feet deep. "You don't have to do that," he said. "Just cut the posts shorter and dig the hole a foot and half deep."

I told Rob I was planning to dig my holes two and a half feet deep, and he shook his head. "The frost line's three feet deep," he said. "If you don't get past three feet, they'll shift when it freezes."

So who was right? I guess time will tell. I split the difference and stuck to my original plan. Time may prove that two and a half feet wasn't enough, but if the posts shift, it's only a fence. It's not too big a deal.

But if I had been building my house and not a fence, I would have dug as deep as I had to dig. I don't want my house to fall down. And you don't want your house to fall down.

Jesus says, if you hear his words and don't do them, you are like a man who builds his house on the sand. A man like that will lose his house. But if you hear his words and do not do them, you won't lose your fence, and you won't lose your house. You will lose your soul.

But if you hear his words and do them, you will be like a man who digs down below the sand and founds his house on the rock. That digging may be hard, but it will be worth it. In the end, your house will be able to face any storm. Jesus is the rock who is strong enough to uphold you in every storm: illness, poverty, loneliness, disappointment, and even the last storm, what Jesus calls "that day," the day of judgment.

Some people think that the rock that Jesus talks about is our own obedience, because he's contrasting people who do his word with people who don't do his word. But Jesus doesn't say that the rock is our obedience, only that people who obey his words are founded on the rock. It is more accurate, I would argue, to think of the rock as Christ himself. As David says in Psalm 18, "The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies." I am saved from my storms.

A King Whose Word is Law

This is the end of the Sermon on the Mount. The thing that stuck out to the crowds who first heard this sermon was that Jesus was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. Why was he teaching as one who had authority? It's simple. His message was about the kingdom of heaven, and, though no one around him fully appreciated the fact, he was the king. He was no mere lawyer arguing a case. He was laying down the law himself. His word is law.

Now, Jesus clearly teaches that you need to obey his law. If you agree that you need to obey this king's law, I want to ask you something more: Do you need the king himself?

The Bible says you do. Before you can ever keep the King's law, you need the King to save. That's what Jesus came to do. It's in his name. "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Yes, he calls you to obey, but you cannot get to obedience except by coming to Christ himself. It's not enough to be a diligent digger. You need a rock to found your house on. If you work very hard to obey, but you have no Savior, it is like you are trying to dig a foundation in a thousand feet of sand. No amount of what you think is obedience will get you anywhere. You will only dig yourself deeper in the sand. No, you need a rock. You need a Savior.

A King Who Saves

Jesus Christ always did the will of his Father in heaven. But he came for sinners, and to save us he had to suffer for us. He went to the cross to die for us. We face a lot of storms in our lives, but the cross was the storm of storms. It was the storm that we could not face, and he faced it for us. As he hung on the cross, people mocked him. They probably thought that he was a man who had built his house on sand -- the unstable, sandy delusion that he was the Son of God.

But God proved that Jesus was his Son by doing what God alone can do. People can rebuild houses, but only God can raise the dead. And he raised Jesus. And he has made him the Rock, the foundation of his church. There is no other. Build on him. If you don't, your house will fall. You will lose your soul.

But build on Jesus -- trust in him -- repent of your sin -- do what he says -- and you will be built on the rock. A lot of storms may come your way. I don't know how many or how big. But he will see you through them all. He has already faced the worst for you, and now that you are his, he will not let you fall.

Pastor Nate Jeffries