The One Who Does

Well, this morning we come to the homestretch of the Sermon on the Mount. We're going to be wrapping this up within the next two weeks. The last sermon I plan to preach from Matthew 7 will be on the 28th, and so we really are in the homestretch.

And as we've said now for several weeks, in this homestretch, as Jesus is bringing the Sermon on the Mount to a close, He's demanding a response, a response to all that He has said from chapters 5 through 7.

Last week we drew from verses 22 and following that many will say at the end, Lord, Lord, but it will be shown that their profession of His Lordship was empty. It wasn't based on knowing Him, because it wasn't based on doing the things that He commanded.

As He Himself says, Why do you call Me Lord and not do the things that I command? And so the confession, Lord, Lord, belongs to those who not only hear, but do the words that Jesus is saying. And that brings us up here to verses 24 and 25 this morning.

Our big focus across this morning and next week, as it has been, is doing, doing what God has told us to do, doing the words of Jesus, doing the righteousness of the kingdom of God. If our righteousness doesn't exceed that of scribes and Pharisees, we won't be able to enter the kingdom of God.

And so this kingdom righteousness, this focus on the Sermon on the Mount, is something that's not only to be heard, but something that is to be put into practice. Do what God has said to you, not as hearers only, deceiving yourselves, but as doers of the Word.

Thomas Adams, an old Puritan, said, True obedience has no lead in its heels. In other words, this is not something that we'll do later. We don't do this three years from now. What a great series. When things work out a little better, I might even try to do it.

Although we haven't heard what Jesus is saying here. We're not to deceive ourselves in this way. Of course, true obedience in this way comes from the heart. That's been the whole point of this kingdom righteousness.

It's not something that hypocrites can do. It's not something external. It's not done to the eye or the praise of man. It's done from the heart unto God, to the degree that we separate even what our right hand and our left hand do in giving.

There's things that we even keep secret from ourselves, if you could put it that way. So intimate, so close, is this desire to know, draw near, and serve the Lord. Doing what God has said. And that's not easy.

And Jesus knows it's not easy. That's why in this homestretch, He's driving these great calls and warnings. He's talking, as we'll see even next week, about a building that will collapse upon itself and destroy us.

Not just destroy our efforts, but destroy us in that great collapse. Great will be its fall. He's charging His exhortation with these kinds of warnings. So we must not think that obedience is going to lead to an easier life.

It's not going to be easy. In fact, it requires denying ourselves, picking up a cross, and following Him. It desires a willingness to lose our lives that we might find it. This is the costly call of hearing and doing the Word of God.

We shouldn't assume that when things fall apart in our lives, it's always a sign of specific disobedience. It should give you pause. It should give you pause to examine. But we should not assume it is always a sign of specific disobedience.

When you're trudging along the narrow path that leads to life, things often fall apart. The way is difficult. You will not experience the cruise control version of Christianity. There is no cross-bearing light.

It's only heavy. It's bloody. It's a hard thing. God's ways with us are often very intricate and complex. And yet we also find grace and refreshment along the way. He gives blessing. He gives good gifts as our Father who knows the things we need before we even ask.

And so we have no reason to fear. In fact, in great confidence, we can look to His provision. We can know that He has begun a good work. We'll see it through all the way. Our lives may not be easy. In fact, it may be very difficult to be obedient and do the Word that we are taught.

And yet there is no other way. Nor, if we're thinking rightly, would we want there to be any other way. Lord, to whom else will we go? You alone have the words of life. Others can turn away, but we're not turning away from the things that You have shown us, You have taught us.

And so, the further you go in disobedience, the more you see of God's plan. In my life, I wish I could know the end from the beginning, but God hasn't in His wisdom disposed that to me. I don't think He has to you either.

He doesn't give us the whole thing all at once. He likes to give us information on a need-to-know basis. That means that our obedience is worked out in the wisdom of His Word, step-by-step, in dependence upon Him.

He reveals things in our lives. He reveals things from His Word. He reveals His holy will, in seasons, in ways, through blessings and trials, and step-by-step, we look to Him.

We follow Him.

It's not all at once. It's not a map, and He says, Good luck. I hope I see you in the end. He's shepherding us, leading us faithfully. Of course, this shepherding is for those who seek Him and know Him.

My sheep know My voice. They hear Me. They enter by the gate. There's no such thing as a genuine knowledge of God that begins anywhere else. It comes from this genuine call of God. We established that last week.

It's all in response to God's call, God's initiation. We can know God because God has first decided covenantally to know us. We can respond to God because God first called us. We can love God because God first loved us.

And there is no such thing as this genuine knowledge of God that does not consist in obedience to His Word. This is just the implanted result of a new birth, this new desire, a new heart to be able to not only understand, but yes, to do His will.

Not perfectly, not always consistently, but genuinely, truly. The person who claims they know the Lord, but doesn't do the things He commands, as John says, is a liar. The truth's not in them. The person who wants to know God, but has no heart to obey Him, doesn't really want to know God.

Wants to have a former assemblance, wants the benefits of knowing God, but doesn't actually want to know God. God does not give divine knowledge of Himself to those who have no desire to know Him and to glorify Him.

And we know Him and glorify Him in keeping His commandments. So the whole focus is on doing. Now really, the last three weeks, which includes this morning, I'm framing it in this way. We're looking at verses 24 and 25, but I'm really not going to do justice to verses 24 and 25 this morning.

That's going to have to hold us through next week, because He gives us this beautiful contrast in this parable of the two builders. You have one who builds wisely because he's building on the rock, and clearly the implication is the one who's building wisely is the one who not only hears, but does the words of Jesus.

That's the one who builds wisely as if it were on a rock, a solid foundation. Storms come, winds beat, floods rise. It doesn't matter because he built wisely on the rock. Whether that's storms of life, as Augustine and earlier commentators held it to be, or the judgment at the end, as more recent commentators hold it to be, I think it's probably both.

I think it's the storms of life and the ultimate storm to come, eschatologically. The point is, it won't collapse. The soul will survive. The building, even if there's hay, rubble, and straw to be burnt, will endure.

In contrast to that is the one who builds foolishly. Hears the words, is willing to attend it for a year of sermons, but doesn't actually put it into practice. And that comes collapsing down in the storms of life, and if it endures through life, it will at least collapse at the end.

And some of those whose lives will collapse at the end will be saying, Lord, Lord, didn't we serve you in all of these mighty ways? So we're looking at verses 24 and 25, and we'll unpack more of the specific content of that imagery next week.

This morning I just want to give us a broad view of doing, because in these two parables, doing is building. And I want to focus on building this morning. So Matthew 7, 24 and 25. Therefore, let me just pause.

Therefore is not just immediately following from verse 23, but arguably all the way from 517. This is the great turn. This is now the conclusion of the whole sermon. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

And the rains descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. Notice the emphasis here. Whoever hears the sayings of Jesus and does them, that's the wise one.

Whoever hears and does not do is the foolish one. So the focus is on doing, and doing in terms of building. Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Here's what I hope to accomplish. We'll see how far we get. First, three aspects of what it means to build. What does it look like to be the one who does? Well, it looks like buildings. We're going to look at three aspects of building.

As we're building, what are the obstacles we run up against? Look at three aspects of obstacles. Or three obstacles, I should say, to building. And then if we have time, which is probably unlikely, we want to focus on the perseverance that we are to have in building.

That's what I hope to accomplish this morning. And then next week, so that's the one who does. Next week, we'll look at the one who does not, the one who builds foolishly, the one who assumes that because it's standing now, it must be able to stand at the end.

And then we'll close at the very end of this year with the one who did, and that is Jesus, the one that the whole crowd was astonished at. We'll consider that. So the one who does this week. Next week, the one who does not.

And lastly, as we close out the year, the one who did. Well, the one who does will not only build, but more specifically, they will repair and they will fortify. That's the first point. Three types of building.

Building proper, and then building as repair, and then building as fortification, as strengthening. And these three types of building are very important to understand if we would build like wise men and women.

The difference between these three types of work is very striking. And first, when it comes to building anything, what do you have to do before you can build anything? You have to survey what you want to build.

You have to take stock of it. Is the ground flat? Is there a place that I can actually labor? Is it meeting the codes that this state requires? And the code books always change, and they grow larger and larger and larger, and you need paralegal apparati just to be able to build a shed in your backyard.

Before anyone can build anything, they must survey. They must investigate. They must take out the leveler and whatever those weird tripod things are. I don't even know what those do, but they seem to be very important, although I've never seen one actually occupy.

Whenever I drive by on highways and building sites, I always see the tripod. I've never actually seen a worker look through it. They're always just drinking coffee and talking to the stadium. I don't know what that is there for, who actually uses them.

But the point is you have to survey. If we go back to the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, when they returned from exile to build up the walls that had been torn down, it all began with surveying. Whenever you build anything, you must count the cost.

You need to consider what's required. Is the endeavor, is the effort going to be worth the outcome? Have I planned for all of the kind of curveballs that I ought to expect? It's not going to be easy just because it looks okay.

As we start building, we're going to run into all sorts of problems. Big dig, anyone. Well, when these people returned, they were a couple generations removed from what the walls had even been like. They come and they see the walls all broken down.

They don't even remember what the walls looked like in their former glory. As human beings, we can resonate with that. We don't even know how our lives are to be built because we're born broken. As we've said, we don't know what the good tree is that bears good fruit because we're born thorns and thistles.

We're born as bad trees. We need to be reborn, replanted in order to bear good fruit. We need to be built up spiritually by the Lord who shows us what the building is supposed to look like. So you cannot survey anything properly if you don't know the Lord, if you haven't understood the gospel, its fullest presentation in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the one who did, the one who was built glorious, the only good tree there ever was in this wasteland post-fall.

And so part of it is an understanding, we don't even know what the walls would be like or are supposed to be like unless the Lord reveals that to us. So surveying requires not just a look in the mirror by our own efforts or some worldly counselor telling us, here's some things that I've noticed.

It requires nothing less than the mirror of God's Word and His illumination of it. Otherwise, you don't even know what to build toward. You can't properly survey at all. You need to look in that surveying, what is broken in my life?

What is falling short of the glory of God? Where am I, as it were, turning away from my Savior rather than being built up into Him? That's what's broken down and needs to be addressed. That's what has to be surveyed.

So this means, just like in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, when you come back, you can't candy coat things. You're looking at the rubble and you just have to own it for what it is. This is what we're going to have to build on.

This is what we're going to have to deal with. This is what we're surveying and addressing. A lot of people want to come and be built up in the Lord without ever looking at the rubble, without ever looking at the broken walls.

It can't be done. It can't be done. This is no duct tape repair job to be built up spiritually. We go through rolls of duct tape like nobody's business. I'm a duct tape artist when it comes to patching things up.

I thank the Lord that He's not a duct tape artist when it comes to my life. He likes to build up solid work that will endure. This means that I have to actually address what's broken in my life. Is it the frailty of my prayer life?

My Lord was not that way. I cannot settle for that. That is something broken that needs to be built. Is it how I communicate with my Lord in prayer? But what about how I communicate with others? Maybe how I communicate in my marriage or communicate with my children.

Am I spending the kind of time that God has desired and shown that I should spend with them? Am I with them in the ways that I ought to be? Maybe these walls have been broken down. Maybe these walls have never been built up.

The point is you don't even know what to build unless you survey it in this way. So you survey with a careful eye according to God's Word. And particularly this, you survey with a careful eye to what surrounds God's worship.

Those will be the walls that tend to be the most broken in your life. The things that attend to God's worship. The things that near God's worship. Why? Because that's the focus of Satan's attacks. The three-headed enemy of the Christian is the world, the flesh, and the devil.

And what that repels in our life is the things that are closest to God's worship. And so you don't have at the farthest fringes, yeah, you know, I could be a little more dutiful than I am, or I could have a better attitude than I've had.

That's great and that's probably true, but you need to survey a lot more close to the things that are actually at the heart of knowing and worshiping the Lord. Those are the things that are so broken that everything else is just the effects or the overflow of that.

And those are the things that in repairing, all those lesser cracks get filled in. All those lesser damages get repaired. What I've noticed in my own life is that the enemy will often leave those cracks and creaks and places in my walls unassaulted as long as the central things are broken down.

I can have other things farther from God's worship that will be relatively calm and at ease so long as the things at the very heart are broken down. So just because some aspects of your life seem to be going well and you seem to be able to cascade along merrily, that doesn't mean that you're actually understanding what Jesus is saying.

What I've also seen in my life is years can go by with this being the case. You might despair. My broken walls are so broken, they've been broken, they'll be broken forever. But again, there's great encouragement here.

We are, as those who hear and do the Word, being built up even as we seek to build. There's something about the way that God is growing us, and as Ephesians 2 says, we also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

So the sense in which we are building, we all have our role to play, but there's another greater sense that upholds that. We are being built by God. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.

And so as we attend to these things, we realize we're only able to do, again, because of what God has done. We're only in response to God even as we build. So the first thing is just to build, and building requires a careful eye to survey.

Secondly, repair. In seeing what's broken, we're not just building something new. We're not just clearing the property and building something, oh, this will be a nice little bonus to my square footage of Christianity.

No, a lot of Christianity is repairing the things that you surveyed. So it's not new construction, it's more a repair job. Salvage work, we could put it that way. In order to repair, you actually have to take stock of those things.

What hasn't been built up that needs to be newly constructed in my life? Something that hasn't been there, but as I've been walking in the Lord along these years, I now have to build this in. Maybe I've come to this church now, and I'm aware there's all sorts of things that I've never been confronted with.

I've never really thought through, I've never had to deal with.

Maybe that's something the Lord wants me to build. I've never built it before. I need to survey, I need to build wisely, I need to be thoughtful and careful to hear and glean all that I can from those who are seeking to build that, or have built that.

This is part of the progression of Christianity. But more often than not, you won't have a lot of new things to build. More than anything, you'll have a lot to repair. And again, just like with building, sometimes we don't want to do the repair work because we're not honest about the damage.

We're not honest about the damage. Let me give two different angles on this. First, sometimes we mask what really needs to be repaired because we just don't want to do the work. It's too costly. We know it's damaged.

We know that it has to be repaired. We think of how consuming and difficult that work would be. We would rather assume or pretend we don't know the damage. No, no, it's fine. It's okay like this. I'd say that's true, but for the earnest Christian, that's relatively uncommon.

What's far more common is this. We don't even know what needs to be repaired. We just don't realize it. Others may be able to see it, but we can't. The problem is, we often think we do know the things that really need to be repaired.

Scripture tells us not to be wise in our own opinion. It's not something we often take to heart.

Are you alone wise?

We generally, if not by our mouths, in our hearts go, Yeah, I'm actually pretty wise. I actually kind of know all my weaknesses. I see all my strengths. I know all my blind spots. If you know your blind spot, it wouldn't be a blind spot.

That's why it's called a blind spot. As I often found when I was, the Lord protected me as I was going up the bowling alley called Route 128 to the North Shore. It was 6 a .m. and I was just trying to stay up, finishing a term paper, and I'm trying to make it to the class.

And I'd veer toward a lane and have three cars, kind of alert and shake. I'm amazed that I've survived all those years. It's a blind spot for a reason. It just seems like the lane's wide open. You don't even notice it.

So we're not to be wise in our opinion. The problem is we generally think we are. The danger is then we look for worldly solutions or carnal solutions to the things we think we need. That's one problem.

I definitely can say the damage. I don't want to have to do what the Bible says I need to do. Is there some lesser solution, some easier path, some better way of dealing with this? It won't be as costly.

It won't be as dramatic. Maybe that's the way we need to go. Or we look for books and blogs and sermons to meet us where we think we need to be met. Yes, yes, I know all that I need and I'm going to go find it.

The problem is, again, you don't actually know the things you need. It's very, very hard to survey the things that are broken in your life. It's very, very hard to do that on your own. You actually need someone to come alongside you and to help you see these things.

We all do.

And the most dangerous outflow of this is not only turning away from the Word to the world to imitate or mimic their way of handling damage, their way of handling difficulty. Or we look for books and blogs and sermons to meet us in the things that we want to be met with rather than the things that we need to be met with.

And the outflow of that is we take the Word but we filter out whatever we feel doesn't fit the bill for us. I don't want to hear that. I don't need to hear that. That doesn't apply to me. What is Jesus saying here?

Whoever does my words, these sayings of mine is building on the rock. So don't filter out my sayings. Don't cherry pick what's convenient for you. Take the whole world and apply it to your life in this way.

Otherwise, we're like toddlers who, they're hungry, but they only want to eat ice cream and candy and sweets. And if you let a child go in that way, their life doesn't turn out all that well. Sin makes us look at things in this way as well.

You can only have the sweets and the pleasantries. You don't have to take it as it comes. You don't have to do the hard work. There's always an easier path. There's always an easier way. And so sin and the delusions of our sinful thoughts when it comes to difficulty, it makes things at our level look crooked.

And it makes things that look crooked level. That's the problem. All we need is God's tripod, which is the Word of God. And we even need others to help us look through it. We need to not be conformed to this world by being transformed according to the renewal of our minds.

So this is something that Scripture does. We renew our minds, the Spirit illuminates. A lot of that comes through means of grace that are not solitary but communal. Very, very important we grasp this.

Very, very important we grasp this. You go off to Vermont and stay in a cabin for two weeks to look in the mirror. You'll probably come back worse, not better. I finally have understood myself. I see all of my weaknesses and my strengths.

It's like you should have never gone. You've come back worse than ever. You're more deluded and blind than you ever were. You see, the means of grace functioning corporately is one of the ways that we actually can hear and do the words of Jesus.

Sometimes I don't even see a blind spot or weakness in my life until I see it as a strength in another brother or sister. It's the contrast that's revealed something to me.

Oh, I'm not like that.

Oh, I don't do that. Oh, I didn't react that way, do you see? Really, really important we understand this. So you have to see the damage, and to see the damage you need others. That will help you not to ignore it, not to excuse it, but to actually address it, to repair it.

And I mean really repair it. As we said, no duct tape jobs. I can't remember if I ever shared this story. I think sometimes my mom listens to these recordings, so I'm always like, I don't have much to share.

We were roughhousing upstairs in the second story of the house I grew up in. I was probably a sophomore in high school, and I think I grabbed something from my buddy, and he charged after me and kind of tackled me at the top of the stairs, and I put my elbow through the drywall at the top of the stairs.

I was like, whoa. Uh-oh, what do we do?

This big hole right at the top of the stairs. So I called and very elaborately said, I fell into the wall. That was about as much as I was willing to share. And my solution to that at the time was to find a wedding picture of my parents and just put it in the middle of the wall.

It's just like no pictures anywhere, and then in the most awkward place, there's this random picture. And it's like, let's just add more pictures, and it won't seem out of place, right? And then you go to the house, and there's picture frames on the ceilings and all over the place.

You can't do that for long. You actually have to do the repair job. That's the idea. And it's not enough to repair. You need to fortify. The third point within this, the third aspect of building is to strengthen.

Walls that are broken, walls that are in need of repair are often in need of being strengthened. When you have something that's broken, that becomes a point of weakness. I found this a few weeks ago after hitting a curb in Boston coming out of a parking garage.

Didn't think anything of it. And then I noticed a few days later that I had this bulge on the sidewall of my tire. I was like, oh, that doesn't look right. Now, the point is, in that structure, because damage was done, where the damage was done is now the weakest point in that structure.

And so if I hit a pothole hard enough, all that pressure that's been regulated or normalized across the surface of the sidewall now finds the weakest place, and that's where it's going to burst. It's going to burst at the weakest place.

So what do I have to do? I can't drive around forever with this rubber hematoma on my tire. I had to go to Walmart and say, please fortify my tire. Which, unfortunately, meant a new tire. Maybe the analogy ends there, but you see the point.

When something is damaged, that's a vulnerable thing. The place that was broken, even the most recent repair, is still this place that's so tender and vulnerable that you have to strengthen it. You have to not say, yeah, that's been dealt with, it's patched up, let's move on.

No, wait. The enemy knows that's fresh paint. That's a picture hiding a hole. That's something weak. That's the place to attack. That's the place to put effort toward.

You see?

So you have to strengthen. You have to fortify. Just because you've built up, just because you've repaired, doesn't mean you're done. Things break at the repair site.

Where you weld will be the weakest point.

Where the crack was glued will be the place that it will break. You see the point. Satan prowls around like a lion looking to whom he may devour. He's looking for weakness in what you're building. The things that you have most recently repaired are like blood in the water to him.

Now, if you refuse to survey, if you refuse to be honest to the rubble, if you refuse to see it, and you don't want others to see it, so rather than going earnestly to say, is there something within me that you see that you can attest to?

Are you willing to be that faithful friend that's so rare? You're willing to wound me? Can you address me in this way? Well, if you refuse to do that, that's one thing. I can tell you who for sure doesn't refuse to do that.

Satan. You might not want to see the damage. He does. You might not want to see the weakness. He knows it. He exploits it. He'll manipulate with it. He looks for what's flimsy and weak, what's neglected,.

What's aloof,.

What's hidden.

Do you see? Well, the problem is,.

Sometimes we're seeking to build, and we're so weak, we don't even know what to address or where to start. It's overwhelming to us. What we need is wisdom from above. Show us these things. Enlighten the path.

Give us that endurance, that strength, step to step. James 2 says, who's wise in understanding among you? And then he castigates. If you have bitter envy, self-seeking in your hearts, don't boast. Don't lie against the truth.

This wisdom doesn't descend from above,.

But it's earthly.

It comes from beneath. It's sensual, demonic. Where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. Well, don't you remember Babel? All the builders became so confused, they couldn't understand each other.

They couldn't build. If you're being fueled by that which is earthly, that which is sensual, in other words, if you lack wisdom that is from above,.

First pure,.

Then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruit. If you deny that which comes from above, you're going to be so confused, you won't be able to build. All there is is confusion. James says, this is not wisdom from above.

Wisdom from above causes there to be a building, causes there to be something that is edifying in the process of the Christian's life. Sometimes it's not even the building so much, it's just where it's begun.

I can see all these things clearly now. That's a day of small beginnings I would never despise. To walk away this morning having seen something clearly that needs to be addressed is a wonderful beginning.

If you hear and do all that the God will ask you to do with it. Confusion about what to build, confusion about where to build, confusion about how to build does not come from the pure light of God's Word.

We might be confused. God's Word is not confused. We might be holding the blueprint sideways and upside down, but God's blueprint is written in the way it's written. So confusion doesn't come from above.

It comes from beneath. Confusion doesn't have its source in God's Word.

It's just too difficult.

It's too out of reach. There's just so much to contend. I just can't do it. Well, you're not confused because of God's Word. You're confused because of your flesh, because of what's sensual, what's carnal within you.

That's what James 2 is saying. What's pure, what's peaceable, what has light comes from above. And if you're so confused that you don't know what to build, where to build, or how to build, you'll ultimately come to this question, why should I build it all?

I don't know where to start. I don't know how I could do it. I don't even know what it's supposed to look like, so why would I even try? But the thing is, you're going to go build something. Everyone's building something.

You're going to repair the damage in your life one way or another. You're going to try to address it. You're going to try to cope with it. You're going to try to deal with it one way or another. The world has no shortage of all sorts of remedies to offer, solutions, paths, crutches, all sorts of things you can do to address it.

You're going to fortify something. You're going to strengthen and reinforce something in your life. Maybe it's your ego. Maybe it's your ambition. Maybe it's your success. Maybe it's your influence. You're going to fortify something in your life.

You're going to build up something in your life. Building wisely is building on the words and teachings of Jesus, following in His footsteps, living out His example. That's building wisely. That's building the right thing.

And that comes from the wisdom He provides, wisdom from above, and it has certain effects. Building wisely will never be a pop-up skyscraper. It'll never be something you can do all at once. It is hard work.

It is beam by beam, post by post, panel by panel. That's building wisely. It's one brick at a time. One day, live to the glory of God. When it comes to building, we're asking, what is broken and needs to be built?

When it comes to repairing, we're asking, what is damaged and needs to be repaired? When it comes to fortifying, we're saying, what's weak and needs to be strengthened? And when we're building and we're repairing and we're fortifying, as I'm sure you've experienced, you're also met with obstacles.

And that's the second point here, three obstacles. I have never seen a home improvement show, and these things are almost always scripted. I've never seen a home improvement show where in the first 10 minutes, they're going, oh, here's this side, and Nancy wants us to build this.