A Sobering Way to End a Sermon
Speaker: Nick Carruthers Series: The Gospel According to Matthew Passage: Matthew 7:24–29
A Sobering Way to End a Sermon
Matthew 7:24-29
The tie between information and action has been severed. Information is now a commodity that
can be bought and sold, or used as a form of entertainment, or worn like a garment to enhance
one’s status. It comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected from
usefulness; we are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it,
don’t know what to do with it. -Neil Postman
Two Types of Houses
Jesus is not contrasting professing Christians with non-christians who make no profession. On
the contrary, what is common to both spiritual builders is that they ‘hear these words of mine.’
So both are members of the visible Christian community. Both read the Bible, go to church,
listen to sermons and buy Christian literature. The reason you often cannot tell the difference
between them is that the deep foundations of their lives are hidden from view. The real question
is not whether they hear Christ’s teaching (nor even whether they respect or believe it), but
whether they do what they hear.
James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (ESV) Do not
merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (NIV)
James 2:14-19 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has
no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and
daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does
nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not
accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”Show
me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there
is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
Knowledge must become action; theory must become practice; theology must become life.
There is little point in consulting a doctor about our health unless we are prepared to act upon
the things we are told. There is little point in consulting an expert unless we are prepared to act
upon the advice given to us. And yet there are thousands of people who listen to the teachings
of Jesus Christ every Sunday, and who have a very good knowledge of what Jesus taught, and
who yet make little or no deliberate attempt to put it into practice. If we are to be in any sense
followers of Jesus, we must hear and do. Is there any word in which hearing and doing are
summed up? There is such a word, and that word is obedience. Jesus demands our implicit
obedience. To learn to obey is the most important thing in life. -William Barclay
Two Different Outcomes
Proverbs 10:25 When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand fi
forever.
In this last Warning, Jesus first compliments and encourages those who are listening to a
doing his words. He compares them to thoughtful persons. People who make it their lifework to
do the words of Jesus are thoughtful, self-critical people who have made the decision to build
the house of their lives on solid foundations. When life’s inevitable troubles hit a house built on
rock, the house will stand. Jesus does not say that a house built on his words will, for example,
glow in the dark or miraculously expand into a mansion, or in some other way become more
impressive. The only impressive fact about this house is that it will still be standing when the
storm is over... Matthew’s Jesus almost always describes Christian life in terms of survival
rather than sensation. Nor are we told that life built on the foundation of Jesus’ words will be
spared rains, floods, or winds, as though Jesus’ teaching were a talisman against troubl
Realistically, Jesus says the same storms hit thoughtful disciples as hit thoughtless ones (cf.
7:25, 27). Obedience to Jesus’ words is not so much protection from troubles as protection in
them, just as rock under a house does not shield from storms but supports during them. -Dale
Bruner
Two Kinds of Teachers
It is fascinating to work through the last two Warnings of the sermon and to note the heaping up
of first-person pronouns (“I, me, my, mine”). They uncover the sermon’s most astonishi
dimension: that Jesus believes himself to be, as we say in our vernacular, ‘something
else.’...Jesus assumes for himself the place that hitherto the Torah occupied; indeed, Jesus
comes very close to assuming for himself the place that the Torah assigns to God. But until this
impressive conclusion and most of the way after this conclusion, Jesus is blazingly
God-centered, resolutely Father-referring. So, a little of the mystery of the person of Jesus—what
is his relation to God?—has slipped through the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’
teaching is 'not like their Bible teachers were teaching' in that he does not enlist for himself any
outside authorities—not even OT scripture, not the theological tradition, not even any
apocalyptic revelations specially given to him. Jesus talks as if he already has ‘all [!] authority in
heaven and on earth’ (28:18). Who but God should talk like this? Who is this man? -Dale Bruner
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about
Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’
That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things
Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with
the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make
your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his
feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his
being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. -C.S. Lewis
Change is possible, but it takes more than just information. It takes practice.
Matthew 5:19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and
teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices
and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (NIV)
Matthew 7:24 Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is
like a wise man who built his house on the rock. (NIV)
Discipleship is usually not a grand calling or a spectacular act of martyrdom. Rather, it is a set of
Christlike instincts and reflexive responses of love that gradually take shape in our lives over
period of years. We immerse ourselves in Scripture and in awareness of his presence. Then,
when we have to respond quickly to a life situation, we are more likely to act in a way that is a
credit to our Lord. -Donald Kraybill
These are essentially activities we undertake as disciples of Jesus that re-habituate the
automatic responses of sin in our bodies and replace them with the intuitions of the Spirit. They
are attempts to copy the example of Jesus’ lifestyle, in the hope of experiencing his life—the life
we crave in the marrow of our bones. -John Mark Comer
Let’s say you want to obey Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount to “not worry.” How do
you do it? Do you listen to a good sermon on Matthew 6 and then just go out and...not worry?
How’s that working for you? I’m guessing it’s not. For most of us being told to live without
anxiety is like being told to run a marathon. We can’t do it. Not yet. So, how do we live without
worry? Well. We have to become the kinds of people who have learned to trust God so deeply
that we are free of fear. To do that, we must train (or retrain) our minds and bodies. So, yes, we
listen to a good sermon on Matthew 6, and we practice Sabbath; we set aside an entire day to
practice trusting God. And...we spend time in the secret place, where we lay all our fears at
God’s feet. And..we live in community, where others encourage us to trust in God. And..we
practice generosity to free our hearts from empty loves. And..etc., etc. And over a long period of
time, our anxiety is gradually replaced by a peace and unshakable trust in God. -John Mark
Comer
other sermons in this series
Jan 26
2025
The Broad and Narrow Roads
Speaker: Mike Faler Passage: Matthew 7:13–23 Series: The Gospel According to Matthew
Jan 19
2025
Generous Judgments
Speaker: Chris Martin Passage: Matthew 7:1–12 Series: The Gospel According to Matthew
Jan 12
2025
Jesus on Worry and Anxiety
Passage: Matthew 6:24–34 Series: The Gospel According to Matthew