Brothers and sisters, I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the Book of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew. If you've been unable to join us for Sunday evenings, we have been moving our way slowly through the Sermon on the Mount, and today we will bring our study of the Sermon on the Mount to a close. We will be in Matthew chapter 7, beginning at verse 21. to the end of the chapter. We will read Matthew Chapter seven, beginning at verse 21. I invite you to stand for the reading of God's word here. Now the words of Jesus. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. 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 many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you. Apart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and who 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. 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. The rain fell, floods came, winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell and great was the fall of it. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray and ask God to bless preaching of it. Lord, as we have heard this word, we know that in your infinite wisdom you have given it to us. You have ordained it for us not only as a church as a whole, but individually. We ask the Lord that, according to our need, you would minister to us individually in and through this great word. Pray, Lord, that you would enable your preacher enable me faithfully explain it. It might go forth not with the power of men, but with the power of the Holy Spirit illuminating it. We need you, Lord. In this hour, we ask this in your name. Amen. Please be seated. Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to be there, to be there, to have been alive in that day in the promised lands when the news of this Jesus Christ began to spread, when his fame began to spread and people began to gather from far off places to sit at his feet and hear him teach them, hear him preach. what it must have been like to be there. We know from way back in Matthew chapter four, that this was quite the event. This sermon was one that was attended by great crowds. Matthew chapter four tells us that as Jesus began to preach in the region of Galilee, he had become the hot ticket in town. And there were men who came from the north, which would have been Syria. There were men who came from the east, across the Jordan, and there were men as far south as Jerusalem, all gathering there on that hillside, that mountain in Galilee, to hear Jesus preach. What it must have been like to be there. We have, of course, many made-up contemporary depictions of the events here in Matthew chapter 7. Hollywood, with its big budgets, has worked very hard to give you impressions of what it would have been like to be in the presence of Jesus. And of course, they always depict Jesus as this rather long-haired hippie who looks exactly like them, in order to give you some impression of what it must have been like to be there. But as we turn to the end of Matthew chapter 7, Matthew actually gives us this little glimpse into the experience of the crowds. He offers this little note as to what their response was. What it was the newspapers would have walked away reporting about this event, this sermon as Jesus preached it. What it was like to be there. how they responded. Matthew says the crowds were astonished. They were astonished, not at his oratorical skill, not at his winsomeness. not at his sense of humor or his fun illustrations, not at his authenticity or his passion, not at his relevance to the particular questions that they had. All of those may or may not have been true about Jesus' sermon, by the way, but they're not the things that the crowds walked away with a great sense of what they've experienced. Now, the thing that Matthew says the crowds walked away with was the sense that they had been in the presence of a king. one who had authority, unnerving authority, authority unlike anything they had ever experienced. There was no scribe, no Pharisee, no teacher, no PhD, no expert ever experienced like this one, this Jesus who wielded immense authority as he preached. What was it they experienced that caused them to walk away saying, that man has authority, that man is a king? Well, we weren't there for the oratorical delivery of this sermon. We don't get to experience that, but we do get the content. We get what Jesus said. And I think the content actually gives us enough to know why it was that the crowds marveled at the authority of this man that they came to hear preach. Jesus says several things actually in our passage in verse 21 to the end of the chapter that indicate his authority. Things that I want to meditate on with you this morning and used to structure our time. I have two things that Jesus says that I want to meditate on with you first. Jesus says that he is the final judge. And secondly, Jesus says that his word alone secures our future. He says he is the final judge. His word alone secures our future. We picked up our reading of the text this morning in verse 21, and the first part of our text is actually something we looked at last Sunday evening, and just by way of review, last week in the evening, we looked at how, in verse 21, Jesus begins to describe what we would call fake Christians, those who believe themselves to be in Christ, those who come before Christ there in the judgment day, claiming many, many works. They claim a life of service to him. They claim that they've prophesied in his name, and they've cast out demons in his name, and they've done mighty works in his name. And yet, Jesus says, I never knew you. It's a great and terrifying statement on Jesus part as they learn in that context that their profession is false and We talked about last week how it was that the reason this has come about is because, well, their religiosity was all external. They had no real relationship with Jesus Christ. All they had were a lot of external deeds, the sort of religion that's practiced before men. But they had no trust in Christ. They had no union with Christ by his Holy Spirit. And thus Jesus says, knew you. But there's a detail that I neglected to point out a detail that would have landed on his audience like a load of bricks when Jesus included it. That detail is this. Who is it on the judgment day sitting on the throne of the judge? It's Jesus. It's Jesus sitting there. It's his word that says, get away from me, as he banishes men to hell. It's Jesus who says, whether or not I know you is the distinguishing mark of whether you will go to heaven. It's Jesus who's the judge. That would have been, brothers and sisters, astonishing. Because the teaching of the last judgment wasn't something that Jesus, you know, came and began to teach. It wasn't a new idea that he came up with. They would have been familiar with who it was that the Bible taught sits on the throne of the judge. All throughout the Old Testament, the day of judgment is depicted, especially in the ministry of the prophets. What do we know about the day of judgment from the ministry of the prophets in the Old Testament? Well, we have famous prophecies. We have prophecies like Malachi chapter four, where Malachi had prophesied a day of judgment in which the wicked would be set ablaze and the righteous would be vindicated. And the one who would do it was the Lord Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He would come and he would judge. That's how Malachi depicts the final judgment. It's Yahweh who is the judge. Daniel chapter 7, another famous prophecy that depicts the final judgment. Daniel, the prophet has a vision in Daniel 7. Daniel 7 verse 9, I'll read it for you. It's a wonderful vision. As I looked, thrones were placed, Daniel says. And the ancient of days took his seat. His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was fiery flames. Its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him. A thousand thousands served him, and 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him. The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. Daniel sees the Ancient of Days sitting on the throne, and the books of judgment opened. But you know what no prophet had ever done when depicting the final judgment? No prophet from the beginning of, well, the world, until Jesus. No prophet, not even Moses, not Daniel. Not David, not Malachi, not Solomon. No prophet had done this. They had not said, and I looked and the thrones were placed and I took my seat. Do you understand how the crowds would have heard that when Jesus says they will appear before me? And I will say, I never knew you. the only possible implication of his statements, which is that the one who stood before them in flesh and blood was God. He was God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who made the world from nothing by the word of his power, the God who had revealed himself time and time again through the prophets. now sat before them, claiming to be their final judge. That's what Jesus does. Pathway to heaven is through him. Condemnation to hell. He's the one who determines it. You know, it's a great irony. than men in Hollywood and actually many Christians today. They actually like the Sermon on the Mount. Many non-believing people who are interested in the teachings of Jesus, not because of who he was, but because they think, well, you know, he was a good moral teacher. And the Sermon on the Mount contains all his good moral teaching, where he showed himself just to be like any other good moral teacher You know, teaches you to do things like love your neighbor, even love your enemy, to turn the other cheek. There's so many in the world who would turn, they would otherwise not give any kind of authority to Jesus, but they would turn to his teaching here and say, you know what? I think that's all we need. We could cast aside the rest of the Bible. All we could have is the Jesus who just teaches us good stuff about how to behave ourselves. That's the contemporary vision of the Sermon on the Mount. And the ironic thing is that that was not the impression of the people who were there. That wasn't what they walked away with. You know, here's a good moral teacher. We're glad we have another one of these teachers, like the many rabbis that we have, many scribes explaining the law. None of them walked away with that impression. They walked away with the impression, this is a king. This is one who claims authority to himself that no one has but for God and God alone. You know, those who want to come to Jesus as just another good moral teacher, want to look at places like the Sermon on the Mount to come to that position, they really find themselves in a bind, in a dilemma. And it's a dilemma that C.S. Lewis commented on very famously in his little book, Mere Christianity, in which he's making his case for who Christ is. And he comments on this very phenomenon about Jesus Christ. Here's what Lewis says. I want to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him, that is Jesus. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is, Lewis writes, the one thing we must not say. A man who is 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 a 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, and he did not intend to. You see what Lewis is saying? Either he's a madman and a liar, or he is who he claimed to be when he stood before them and said, I am your final judge. Those are the options. Those are the options to you. Whether you're Christian or not, that is the way one of those two things must be true. But there is no third way through the middle of that. So you consider those alternatives and perhaps are inclined to say, well, then he's a madman. If there are any here who want to think that way. We have a problem on your hands. That's the conclusion you want to draw. This Jesus was just a madman claiming to himself a status that no man should have a problem. Mad men don't raise from the dead. You see, Mad men don't have an empty tomb. Mad men do not raise from the dead on the third day and then fellowship with their disciples and 500 others over 40 days before those same disciples watch him as he's carried up into heaven and angels appear to them and say he will return in exactly the way he left. There are many madmen you see. There are men who have come and who have claimed to be God. But you know what happened to them? They died. And you know what else happened? They stayed dead. They stayed dead. Madmen don't rise from the dead. You have a problem if you believe that. And the problem is that he is who he says he is, which means he is your final judge. He will judge the living and the dead, as the creed and Christians for many thousands of years have confessed. It brings us to a question, it brings you to a question, if that's who you are, What is your relationship to this Jesus? What is your relationship to him? Or even more importantly, what should your relationship be to this Jesus? I think the answer begins to reveal itself in the second way that this text shows Christ's authority. Let's move on to our second point. Second point is this, Jesus says that his word alone secures our future. Verse 24, Jesus reveals to us another aspect of his authority, and that is the authority of his word. The authority of his word. And he does this by telling us this parable. Two houses, and there's no real difference between these houses externally to the eye of those who are beholding on the outside, there's no difference. between the houses, except for one. One has a foundation of sand, and the other has a foundation on a rock, on the rock, Jesus says. And while the weather's good, while the sun's shining, and spring is in the air, everything's fine between these two houses. It's only when weather gets bad, when the winds start blowing and the rain starts falling, that the true nature of these houses and their foundation is revealed. And Jesus says, the one that's built on the foundation of sand collapses. Now, what does this image give us? How does it give us insight into Jesus' authority? Well, it's very simple. And Jesus actually says it. The difference between the house that stands in the time of difficulty and the house that falls is whether or not it has its foundation in His Word. His Word. Now that's, again, a very amazing claim that Jesus Christ has just made. His Word. carries that sort of truth and power and authority to it, that whether or not your life ends in disaster, or stands firm, rests in his word. And notice how he says it, notice how he, his phrasing is, because he says it twice. Everyone who hears these words of mine, everyone who hears these words of mine, you know, again, were exposed to a difference between Jesus and the prophets who came before him. There were many men who claimed to speak God's word. But the thing about those men is the basic fact that when they proclaimed God's word, they were very clear about the fact that it wasn't their word. And they would open up by saying God's word with that statement, thus says the Lord. they were just a mouthpiece. There was actually one behind them who had real authority and real power, one whom they merely represented, who was speaking out of his office as God. Notice Jesus doesn't do that. He doesn't say, you know, I'm here to give you a message from the Lord and you should hear that word and you should obey because it's from him. You know, don't kill the messenger. No, he doesn't claim to be there on behalf of anyone. He says, you can stake your life on my word. Why is it that he can do that? Well, again, the answer is very obvious. There is no one behind Jesus. There is not one greater than him. There is not one who has spoken before him or behind him on whose behalf he comes. He is the one who is God. He speaks for God because he is God. You hear these words of mine. The other thing to notice is the great weight of importance that Jesus places on his words. They are to be the foundation of our lives. What does that mean? What does it look like to have God's word as a foundation? Well, he explains it. He says everyone who hears these words and does them is the one who has a strong foundation. This has implications for us. It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or not. If you're a Christian, it doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian. It doesn't matter if you've been a Christian for 50 years. It doesn't matter if you came to Christ yesterday. The implication is this. You need Christ's word. You need Christ's word. You will never outgrow your dependency on Christ's word any more than a house can outgrow its dependency on a foundation. Doesn't happen in the case of houses, doesn't happen for Christians. You have to have a vital dependency on the word of God in your life. A relationship with the Bible. Now, of course, we don't just have a relationship with the Bible to have a relationship with the Bible. We have a relationship with the Bible to have a relationship with God. And yet Christ would have us know that we need to root ourselves on his word in our life. Needs to be the foundation. Implication is this. You cannot be a strong, mature, stable believer in the Lord Jesus Christ If you are indifferent towards the scriptures, it's impossible. It doesn't work. This is why Christians read their Bible. This is why things like reading plans exist. It's not just because Christians like to do a lot of rote activity and we like to check boxes. That's because this is vitally important. Jesus says, if you want to stand in the day of judgment, in the day of difficulty, Whether or not you stand will be as firmly as you were planted on my word. It's determined whether or not you stand on my word. This is why brothers and sisters, Christians get together as families to read the word of God. This is why Christians get together to study the Bible, to have Bible studies. This is why when you come into this place week after week, you know what we don't open up? We don't open up the editorial section of the New York Times. We don't open up some edifying devotional that someone wrote. We don't open up, well, the thoughts of the pastor for the day so that he can pontificate and give his opinions on politics and culture. All of those things to others might seem much more relevant than opening up a word that's 2000 years old or more. Why is it, though, that we come into this place and open up God's word and hear his word preached? Because no other word carries the status of being a foundation to the Christian life. One that secures your stability, the day of difficulty. It's only Christ's word that can do that. It's only his word. We need to hear God's word. Jesus says it's why we come to hear it read out loud, to hear it preached. Jesus says there's another thing we need to do to his word, though, and that is we need to do it. We need to do his word. Whoever hears these words of mine and does them is the one who has foundation. We've had many opportunities to reflect on this point throughout the Sermon on the Mount, but Jesus keeps emphasizing this point, so I will too. Jesus Christ desires your obedience. You cannot avoid this conclusion. If you've been reading through and studying the Sermon on the Mount as we've been going through it, Jesus Christ desires your obedience. He does not speak merely so that you have new facts to fill your mind that you can believe in a merely intellectual way. He wants you to do. Hear and do. I think it's worth emphasizing, emphasizing again, Because this is a point of great confusion. It's a point of great confusion in the church at large. It's a point of great confusion in all sorts of ways. There is a false idea, brothers and sisters, that being a Christian, well, it's about faith, and it's not about works. It's about faith, it's not about works. Now, of course, there's one very small shred of truth, actually a very big shred of truth, That is that you are not saved by your works. You're saved by faith. You cannot do anything to claim standing before God. You must trust in Jesus Christ. You are not saved by works. But the Bible and Jesus are very clear that you are saved for good works. Paul says that in Ephesians chapter two, verse 10. And Jesus says it here. that a healthy relationship to God's word is not merely one in which you read it, and walk away, and forget it, and get on with your day. No, you must read it, and then you must do, you must obey. Jesus' brother, James, in his New Testament epistle, talks about the one who approaches God's word, sees himself in it, sees what he must do, and walks away, and he forgets it immediately. We're not to have that relationship to God's word. We're to hear and to obey. Which means, brothers and sisters, that Jesus both accepts and expects and rewards good works in your life. People will cover all the truth of what Jesus is saying here in all kinds of pious sounding talk and false humility. They'll try to say, you know what works don't matter because you can't even really do them. You know, you could try. They're all filthy rags and you'll just end up failing. So just go back to faith and just believe this shows up in all sorts of ways. It shows up very prominently in the preaching ministry of the church today. You know, there are men who believe that the only good sermon is one that lacks all application. This is taught. You should not preach application from God's word. You should not preach what Christians should do. You need to only preach what they should believe, what they need to trust. And so the only appropriate application of every text of the Bible is you must trust in Christ. That's taught. Men hold to that view of preaching. Brothers and sisters, let me just point out the irony that if that's the standard of preaching, Jesus fails the contemporary standard of what it means to preach a good sermon. Because he tells us to do, to obey. In fact, he says he rewards it. Did you catch that in the text? Who is it that will stand in the day of difficulty when Well, life gets tough. Who is it that will remain and not fall apart? Well, it's not only the one who hears God's word, it's the one who does it. If you wanna know, brothers and sisters, how to walk in difficulty, how you will walk in difficulty, how you will walk when life presents you, as it does at various junctures, with real suffering, real hardship, real trial, It could be any variety of things in your life. It could be, well, it could be financial. It could be health. It could be your marriage and your family. All of the ways that the winds can pick up and life begins to just buff at you. And you want to know how can you walk faithfully in that day and stand and endure Jesus says, begin hearing and obeying God's Word today. That's how you do that. You hear and obey God's Word, His Word. So Jesus rewards it, brothers and sisters. You should take from His Word that if you do as He has called you to, that you will stand, that you will be able to endure. Jesus calls us to do. That's the word for you. If you're a Christian, what about if you're not a Christian? What if you're someone who doesn't know Jesus has no relationship with him? That's you. This question, I think, ask question of you. I'll put the question to you. What is your shelter? You know, when Jesus starts talking about a house, the reason he uses that image is because a house is, well, it's a shelter from bad things. If you don't have a house, you're in a bad way in life. You're a very vulnerable person. Things like weather become real problems for you. Things like evil men can take advantage of you if you don't have a house with doors that lock. House is shelter. And Jesus is raising the question, how is it that you have shelter in this life. You know, friends, if you're not a believer, you do have shelter. Everyone has shelter from bad things happening to them. Problem is that some of your shelter doesn't have a foundation. It's not good. It's not actually made to endure. False shelter looks like any number of things. False shelter might be your charisma, your good looks that have helped you thus far navigate life without any real hardship. You've been able to get the job you want, been able to achieve whatever you need in order to prevent yourself from falling into any real disaster. False shelter could be your resume, it could be your training that you've accumulated over the years so that you are a really qualified person at what you do. so that you're secure. You know, the bank account is looking fine and it's, well, that's false shelter. False shelter could look like your health. You know, thus far you've been able to avoid any real crisis and you watch what you eat and you watch what you diet and it's working for you. There are all sorts of ways that we develop false shelter. We pull out insurance policies. that if a health crisis does fall, well, our assets are protected. We make sure that nothing befalls the things that would really prevent us from living the life we want to lead. We prop up all kinds of ways that we buffer ourselves, preserve ourselves from hardship in this life, from ever falling. Here's the thing. It's not enough. It's not enough. You know, there's no amount of money in the world that will help you in the day when a doctor tells you you have six months to live. There's no insurance policy big enough to keep you from dying. There's no job. that will prevent your marriage from falling apart and hardship landing upon your kids. And you see, it's those moments that the wind is beating. Floods are rising. Hurricanes landed. And those things are not enough on the house begins to shake. begins to crumble, and it's shown for what it is. It's false shelter. Friends, I haven't even mentioned the worst of it. The worst of it is that there's another problem, and that problem is that we are sinners in the hands of a holy God. And even if you are able to live a relatively cushioned and safe life that comes to its end in a very peaceful way on the other side of it, you will meet the one who's introduced himself to you here in this text. You will meet Jesus and in his hands will rest your eternal destiny. that of hell, that of heaven. You don't have a bank account big enough to deal with that problem. You don't have a house with a gate strong enough to preserve you from your date fixed where you will meet him. You see, that's what he's describing here when he talks about the winds and the waves howling. He's talking about the judgment of God. Throughout the Bible, throughout the Psalms, God's judgment is depicted as what we would describe now as a hurricane. Waves of water breaking over us. Jesus has in mind The question of whether or not you will stand or you will fall that day. And he says the answer is found in your relationship to him and his word. You need to hear and obey Jesus. That is the only way you will stand. How do you hear and obey Jesus? Well, he's told you. He said it throughout his ministry. He says in John chapter 11, whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. here and obey Jesus. What's your trust in him? Your experience of that day will be very different. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, We confess to you that we are so often not fully praised of who it is that you are. The fact that you are not merely a man like us, but you are God in holiness and might. We praise you, O Lord, that you have offered a way of salvation. That way is found in your word. We pray, O Lord, that you would help us, those of us who know you to root our lives more deeply on your word. I pray that you would help those who do not know you to put their trust in you today. Give them your Holy Spirit. Pray this in your strong name. Amen.