Welcome to the Willow Ridge Sermons podcast. This is
where you can find audio from Sunday morning, messages and
more. Make sure you're subscribed so that you don't miss
future episodes. And thanks for listening.
Well, good morning. If you have your
bible, and I hope you do, I want to invite you to join me
in Matthew, chapter seven here in just a little
bit. We'll start with verse 24.
well, we are back from the beach. We had opportunity this past week
to get away on vacation. and
it was needed, and it was good, to be
gone, to be able to spend some time with Aaron and the kids
and celebrate Aaron's birthday was
wonderful. I'm going to say probably, like, for
me, and I know, like, this makes me sound,
older, old, older. Both of
those. But I got to listen to some good books, right?
Like, that was an exciting day. I got to eat a lot
of really good seafood. But here's the
realization. And I don't know that I even
admitted, this to my family, but they will
probably be able to say that they recognize
this about me. All right. I
have now turned into a
certain type of individual on the
beach. Maybe you're this
individual, maybe you're not this
individual. I used to notice
this individual on the beach
and would pass judgment on them,
maybe even laugh a little bit at them
as I walked by with my
bright red, sunburnt
shoulders. I am now
under the tent with a shirt on. Guy.
That's just a good spot to be. You
know, it's like I'm just here. I'm in the
shade. I want to take a nap. That's who I am. But
it was good to be at the beach. Good, to be.
Good to be back along with you guys as we continue on
with our summer series, this
morning, as we look at these stories
that Jesus told called
parables, that's what we see them in the Bible. They're called parables.
We think of them as these
stories that Jesus tells to prove a point, to teach
something in these moments. Now, normally, when Jesus tells these
stories, when he teaches these parables,
he does so because something that
someone said sparks a
thought or even. And there's some
occasions where someone thinks something,
and Jesus, knowing their thoughts,
addresses it and does so in
the form of a parable.
But this parable this morning that we're gonna look at,
it's, the parable of the wise and
the foolish builder, the parable of the
house built on the rock, it comes a little
bit differently then. Someone has
said something or someone has asked a question.
You see this parable? Jesus tells, and he tells
it at the end of the sermon on the mount. This
is important that we understand
this context in which Jesus tells this parable.
One of the things that is very important whenever we
read our Bible is to understand the,
context in which the passage that we are
reading, to understand where it's been set, what has
led to this moment, and then even times, what comes
after this, moment. So Jesus
tells this parable as
his last teaching point in the
sermon on the mount, his longest
sermon that we see recorded
in scripture. And when we
see this, most of the time when Jesus teaches,
Jesus teaches on, like, one topic or a couple
of topics, but this one, he's covered a
range of topics. And if you'll just look down, these
aren't on the screen, but if you just look down, you'll see the very
end of it. In Matthew 728
and 29, it says this. And when Jesus
finished these sayings, the
crowds were astonished at his
teaching, for he was teaching them
as one who had authority, not
as their scribes. So in
this teaching time that Jesus has
had with this group of people
outside of the city, many
have gathered to hear him. They
recognize that not
just what he is saying is
powerful, but they
recognize that the person
who is teaching that
with his very words, he
carries authority. And it's
authority that's different
than simple intellectual
authority, as what they would know with their
scribes, that this authority of
Jesus was different
than anything that they were accustomed to.
Now, the sermon on the mount starts in
Matthew five and goes all the way through here, the end
of chapter seven. And there's, like I said, there's lots of
topics that Jesus connects and threads
through as he's doing this teaching.
He begins by talking about the
beatitudes. If you don't know what the beatitudes are, those are
those blessed statements that Jesus gives as
he defines what it means, both in the context
where he finds himself and in our context of what it
truly means to be blessed and to be blessed by
God. Jesus covers topics such
as anger, lust, divorce,
oaths, in your word, retaliation.
Jesus talks about giving. Jesus
talks about praying. He talks about fasting. He talks about
anxiety. Lots of topics
that were very relevant then
and still very relevant today.
And there's other topics mixed in there.
And then at the very end, and the last
thing that Jesus is going to say to this
crowd, he closes with this
parable. And so let's look at it starting in verse
24, read through 27.
Jesus says, everyone then
who hears these words of
mine and does them
will be like a wise man who built his house
on the rock. 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. Verse 26.
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. And the rain fell, and
the floods came, and the wind blew and
beat against that house, and it
fell, and great was
the fall of it.
Jesus begins and lets these people
know the point of the story at the
very beginning. Everyone
who hears these words of mine
and does them, jesus
establishes from the very beginning that
there's some importance, there's value,
and to knowing his expectation, to
knowing his heart, to knowing these things that
Jesus has just taught them and then
put them into place.
And the people have sat there
probably for hours, and they've
listened. They've been
intrigued. Their minds
have been captured. But
what Jesus makes very clear for
them is that, they're going to
have to make a decision
when Jesus concludes.
And they go back to their homes, they go back to their jobs, they go back
to their families, they go back to their day
to day, their routine of life.
What are they going to do
with that which they've just heard?
Jesus says, everyone who
hears these words of
mine and does them,
these people have to make a decision
of what their mind has heard
and wrestled with.
Is it going to change who they
are? Is it going to change what they
do? You and I, right? We make this decision
all the time. We cut on the news one
morning. They say a new study
found about whatever food you really,
really like. And, you know,
like, you're hoping, like, they find. They are
going to tell us that, like, eating a candy
bar every day is going to make me skinny. You know,
like. And then we hear the news report,
and that food that we love, they tell us it's not good
for us. They show us the science. They show us
the evidence. They show us with people with
abbreviations before and after their name that
we know are smarter than we are. But yet you and
I have to make a decision of what are we going
to do with this. Maybe it's
not that complex. You're riding
down the road. We were driving back from. From Beaufort
yesterday. We like to stay off of the
interstate. We like the small towns and the small
roads. And there are those signs that come up every
so often, often that say speed limit.
And you got to make a choice. What
are you going to do when you pass
that sign? What are you going to do when you see
the yellow sign with a curve that has the
recommended speed at the bottom?
Are you going to make the choice to obey, or are you going
to do something different?
You go to the doctor.
You sit down with a doctor, and maybe your
story is a lot like my story.
You know, bo, you need to start doing
1234 XYZ.
Right? And I
believe them that I need
to, but I've got to make the
choice. Am I going to?
Jesus sits down with this group of people,
and he lays out a
scenario before them
that would have been common to them.
A scenario that they would have been aware
of, a, scenario that they would have
thought through, a, scenario that
many of them probably have
faced. And he
lays that out as the example of
what you should do with the words
that you've just heard from Jesus.
He says, there's two builders. There's
not contracting companies. There's two
builders. One builder is
wise, one builder is
foolish. I think it's interesting to
note that when you read this and you understand the
context in which it is read, that these
individuals, the definition of who they
are, and this is going to be important later, the definition
of who they are is not solely based on what
they've done, but what they've brought to the table as they've faced the
situation. You see, what they will do will
reveal who they truly are and who
they've truly been. But you've got two builders,
a wise builder and a foolish builder.
The wise builder is going to build himself a house.
The foolish builder is going to build himself, a
house. We're not giving the details of the
house. We're not giving the specifics of the house.
But for the most part, during the time of Christ,
there was a lot of similarity between the
houses that were built.
The difference that they do point out, we don't know how
many rooms or the square footage, but the difference that we
know is the foundation.
You see, the wise builder built his house on the foundation
of the rock, and the foolish builder
built their house on the foundation
of, sand. The wise on the
rock, the foolish on the sand.
So what would it have meant to work and to build
your house on the rock? Well, it was a lot of hard
work. See, when we think of desert and we think
of sand, at least in my mind,
oftentimes, I think to places
like I was at the beach, we think of
that deep, fluffy,
white sand where you've got to dig and dig
and dig and dig and dig. And the ground doesn't ever really get hard, and
you just keep digging. But that's not what we're dealing
with here. When we look at this part of the
world and what the desert would be like,
you see, their sand was not big
mounds of sand dunes.
Their sand would have been so hard, it would have
been very similar to the tile floor that we
have here in the auditorium. But
to dig down, to get to the
rock that was there, the
limestone that would have been there, would have taken a lot of
time, a lot of effort, and a lot of
energy, a lot of
expenses to dig down
deep enough to get to the point to where
your house could have this firm
foundation that obviously would
be needed in order for your house
to stand. But it's a
commitment. It's
hard work. It's going to
cost in order to
build on that type of foundation.
But the foolish built on the sand.
Again, don't think of sand the way that we think of
sand around here. Think of
the tile floor that's beneath your feet.
Oh, I mean, that's pretty
hard. It's
solid. It seems like you
can set a post on it.
You can place a rock on it and then lift up,
and it's not going anywhere.
And you've watched someone else
dig and dig and dig for
days, for weeks,
or for months in order to have
one spot where they can set their foundation.
And yet you're looking at where you're at,
and you say, well, I don't have to spend that time. I
don't have to spend that effort. I don't have to spend that money.
It's not going to cost me. It's going to be
easier for me if I
just build my house here on this
nice, good,
hard sand.
So one man digs down. One
man doesn't. The man who digs is the
wise man. The man who doesn't is the
foolish. And then a storm
comes. A storm comes.
I think it's significant that
there's two builders, there's two houses, there's one storm.
Two individuals have built
structures and will face the
same circumstances now
in their life. The Bible says that
the rain fell. You know, we
have the beauty of having our phones, or,
like, our meteorologists for us,
right? Like, we can come on a radar, on an app on our
phone and see where the storm's coming. We can. We can get
on Facebook, and follow, like, the
South Carolina weatherman, like, he's a big deal. Right? Like,
I don't know him. I want to know him. like, we can follow this. Like we
can know. We got a pretty good idea. We were at
the beach this past week and Aaron would constantly check
back us or her garden back here and say, oh, good,
it rained today, but it's not going to rain here, right?
Like, we're good on the beach and nice and dry,
but it is pouring down rain in Lexington, so it's exactly what the
bradberries need. Right? So we can see
these things, but. But when the rain would come
here, these storms would come over
the mountains and very
quickly. So in a moment's
notice, you go from
blue clear skies to
rain falling in bucket
loads on you. But
then it says that the floods came. And
this is why it's important for us to understand
the ground also that we're
dealing with here. It says that the floods came.
And if you go to the beach and you take a
bucket of water and you pour it
onto the sand, like it compacts the
sand a little bit, right? But for the most
part, that sand absorbs the
water that's there. And if you come back in a few
moments, you can barely tell what you poured
out right there in that moment. But that's not what we're
dealing with here. You see the consistency
of this sand, of this, of this floor,
of the desert of which Jesus would have been when
the water would have fallen, it would have mixed with
this fine powder. My father, in
law was deployed in this part of the world with
the military, and he said, you gotta think
of this sand not as sand, like we know,
but almost like the consistency of a
flower. So you
take that flower, you add some water to it, you keep
adding more and more water to it. And what
used to be sand in that field, what we would think
of now turns more into like,
wet pottery clay. It's
thick. Once you get on it,
it's difficult to work with.
And within there, it's now not absorbing,
but it's literally creating a
sludge around you and the ground itself
will feel like it moves.
And as the floods came, the
dried riverbeds that would have been around
had the big cracks that run through them
would have turned into raging
rivers. Not just something
that has water that's built up in
it, but literally where you can see
almost the effects of rapids have
torn down through a little bit
different than just a regular Sunday
afternoon rainstorm in the
south. And then it says,
and the winds blew. And
the winds blew. So you've
had the attack from the
top, you've had attack
from underneath. And we don't know
how hard the winds blew.
We don't know if it was the straw that
broke or the mighty force,
the m momentum that pushed against that
house. But the end
results were the house
on the rock stood,
and the house on the
sand collapsed.
We can come to the end of this parable
and ask ourselves a question,
a question that I've asked myself
many times. Bo,
are we doing the right
things? We can
look back at Jesus Sermon on the mount of
what we've just seen and look through all the topics that are
there. We can have great moments
of heart examination.
Do I reflect as a person
the standard that Jesus is communicating?
Does my life mirror
the standard that he has laid out
before us? Do I think? Do I
believe? Do I respond? Do I react? Do
I speak? Do I give? Do I live in
all of these ways?
And I'm not saying that if we do this as a
self examination, that that's
incorrect or wrong,
but what I would argue with us this
morning is that it's
incomplete. If I
get to the end of the sermon
on the mount and I, look at this
parable between the
rich, I'm sorry, the wise
builder and the foolish
builder, and my only
conclusion is, am
I doing all of the right
things? Then my
conclusion is incomplete.
And here's why. When
Jesus is teaching through the sermon on the mount, I
want you to jump back to verse 21,
chapter seven.
Jesus is given a warning of
false prophets
who come in sheep's clothing in verse
15, but inwardly
are wolves. He
says, you can see these people by their
fruit, by who they
are. We're not just looking at
their actions. We're looking at the core of
the individual. And then look at verse
21.
Jesus says, 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 on that
day, many will say to
me, Lord, Lord,
did we not prophesy in
your name and cast
out demons in your name
and do mighty works in
your name?
And then I will declare
to them, I
never knew you
depart from me, you
workers lawlessness.
Then Jesus tells the parable,
that last verse,
verse 23,
you've got individuals standing before
Jesus saying, but
look at all that we
have done.
But Jesus, on that
day in judgment,
will look at them and declare
to them, but I
never knew you.
I told you that I listened to a couple of books,
actually, in the process of finishing one while you're at the
beach. Right now, the book that I'm listening to right now
is a book called Atomic Habits. and I know there's
probably a lot of you, that have read
the book that I'm listening to. or maybe you've listened to
it as well. and you probably got lots of thoughts on
them, and I would love to talk about those. It's written by a guy named James
clear, and I do want to say this.
Disclaimer number one, I just said, I haven't finished the book yet,
so, don't ruin the ending for me.
second, I don't know if this guy is a follower of
Jesus or not. but something that he said
at, the very beginning of the book, I think, is
extremely important because it speaks to
the condition of humanity who's
made in the image of their creator.
It speaks to our condition,
of who we are and being
made in the image of our creator that connects us, to
Matthew seven. and he said this, and I'm
paraphrasing, he says, when
creating positive habits, and that's how he describes
it, when creating positive
habits, what you do comes from who
you are. What you do comes
from who you are. And he said,
oftentimes we think that who you are comes
from what you do, and that keeps us in a
cycle of unproductive behavior. So here's this
example that he gives. He, says, there's two people,
and they both smoke, and
so they're going to quit smoking.
They roughly smoke about the same amount
of cigarettes a day. They roughly have been
smoking, the same amount of time. And they've
decided, this isn't good for my body and this is something I want
to quit doing. And so one day
at work, someone comes up to
one of them and offers them a
cigarette, and that person
gives what I thought would have been a great
response. They say, no, thank
you, I'm trying to quit
smoking. What he says here
is that in that moment, what that person
does is they still
identify themselves and
identify with being a
smoker. And he says, as long as that's
the mindset, it will be harder for
that person to break that habit
that they desire. But the
other person, remember, same amount of time they've
stopped smoking, the same amount of time, like, they've got. They've got the
same struggle that they're carrying. With this,
someone walks up to them and says,
would you like a cigarette? And their
response is, no, thank you. I don't smoke.
What they've now done in that
moment is they've attached their
identity to who they
are, who they would like to be. And he
said, scientifically speaking, if you track
through that person, because of what they
identify as, will be
more likely to quit
smoking. And here's what stood out to
me.
How you view
yourself or
where you find your identity
or in whom you find
your identity matters.
The foolish builder
says, this house is the
most important thing.
This house is what I'm going
to invest everything into.
I want to make sure it's got the rooms. I want to make sure
that it's got the walls. I'm going to make sure that it's got
everything that it needs to do.
And they pour all of their time, their
energy, and their effort into the
house. But
the wise builder, the
wise builder says, you know
what, man? That house,
it's important. It's important
for my wife, it's important for my
kids. If this house is
built well, it will provide
generationally of what it needs to provide and
take care of. There's great
value in doing all of the
things that needs to be done
for this house. But
the wise builder says, but the
foundation that I put it on
is the most important
thing that, I could do.
The wise builder says, the
rock of what's here,
the foundation that all of this
will be built on is the most
important. Let's connect this with
Jesus in judgment.
In judgment, we will
all stand before
Jesus. And
in judgment, there's m going to
be people who are in
lines that
stretch and stretch
and stretch, and
they're going to stand
before Jesus,
and they're going to say, look at it,
Jesus. Look at the
house that I've built.
Look at the work that I've done.
Look at the rules that I have
followed. Look at what all
I've accomplished. And Jesus,
I did all of
this for you.
And his response
will be, depart from
me. I never knew
you.
How do you see yourself?
Jesus is bringing
these individuals on a
journey of what a
life surrendered
to Christ looks like.
I'm not saying that what Jesus
says doesn't matter. It doesn't count that
the standards of God's word aren't important.
I'm saying the exact opposite of
that. But the
foundation of where
it comes from is
important. You see, the
foolish builder who was his
foundation himself.
Himself. M
how do you see yourself? Do
you see yourself as a person
that says, jesus, look
at all I do for you.
Or do you see
yourself as someone who
says, Jesus,
look at all that you've
done for me.
And so all that I
do for you
comes from who I am
in you.
You see, we can fall into
patterns of
religious good enoughs.
And Jesus says, but it's
about this. Do
you know
me?
This is a message that I think rings
truest.
Not in the world that
we find ourselves, but
in the congregations in which
we gather on a Sunday morning.
You see, we can wake up every day
and figure out our
religious punch list of works
that we do.
And this. Is it
founded on the
rock? Is it
founded on Christ?
Do I know him? And does
he know me? Would you pray with me,
God, I thank you for your word,
Jesus.
My prayer for us
today is the
examination of who we are.
Not just an examination
of what we do,
but, Lord, in the examination of who we
are in Christ.
And, Lord, through the power of
your spirit, would you convict
us? Lord, are we the foolish
man building our house on the
sand, setting up for ourselves the
kingdom in which we determine the works which
we choose to do? Lord, are we the
wise man who built his house on
the rock and in that time, in
judgment? Lord, when we stand, it's not
looking around and saying, but it had this type of walls and
these type of doors and this type of beams,
Lord, but it is looking and saying, no, no, no. It's
built on Christ. It's who he is.
It's in the wonderful work of the
cross. It's in the power of the
resurrection. It's in the filling of the Holy
spirit. It's walking in obedience with
you as you work in us, as you
change us, as you challenge us, Lord, to
be more and more who we are. Yes, it is
about not just not committing sin, but it's
about hating the sin that's in our lives,
because we know that that sin cost you
your life, Jesus, and it's God is not what
you desire for us,
God. So for so
long, so many of
us,
I've walked that line.
When Jesus, look at the
boxes that I check,
Jesus, I do this for you. I do this for you. I do this
for you. I do this for you,
Lord, your words
in this sermon,
when our identity is found
in the things that we do,
your words to us will be depart.
I never knew
you so, God, I
pray. I pray that our
identity would be found in you and in you
alone. I pray that our identity would
be found and that we were sinners who not
needed to do better, but we were sinners who needed to
be saved by the grace of God, by the work
of the cross, that at the cross is found
forgiveness at the cross is found hope.
The cross has found grace, Lord, that through the work
of the cross, Lord, we are brought into a
relationship with our creator, Lord, our
sin is paid for and we're joined with
you, God. We are made sons and
daughters of the living
God. And Lord, in the power
of the resurrection. We will
live here on this earth. We will live for all of
eternity because of who Christ
is, as he overcome death in the
grave and we can walk in the new
life, which is Christ. And that
God, you give us your holy spirit.
And so that God, when we are obedient to
you because of our relationship with
you, Lord, it is evidence of the Holy
Spirit at work within us,
which is why we come here
and sing about your goodness
and sing about your greatness.
We don't come in here and
sing about how good and how great we are.
So, God, I thank you that
everything good, everything
perfect is from
above. It's from you
and God. If there's anyone here today
and they're standing on anything other than
Christ, Lord, I
pray that today would be the
day that they're taken off of their feet
and they're brought to their knees.
And then on their knees they see their
savior, Jesus.
In your name we pray. Amen.
Thanks again for listening, and be sure to check back
next week for another episode. In the meantime,
you can visit us@willowridgechurch.org or
by searching for Willow Ridge Church on Facebook,
Instagram and Twitter.