Summer In The Parables

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Who here is a parent? A lot of parents here. The rest of you that are not parents,
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I want you to think back to when you were kids. I want you to think about how many of you have had issues with obedience.
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The hands are going back up. I just want you to think about that. Now, if you've had obedience issues with your children,
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I want you to think about those things that you should and should not do.
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Have you laid down the rules and said, these are the things that you should do, these are the things that you shouldn't do, if you obey, if you disobey, etc.
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We don't have our kids guess what's right, and if they guess wrong, then we discipline them.
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That's not what we do, although I'm getting some funny faces from someone I'm not going to look at for the rest of the morning.
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We've laid the groundwork We've laid the groundwork as parents for appropriate behavior.
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Sometimes our children obey us and they do what we ask, and I know I really prefer that a lot.
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For me, I'm not a big fan of the discipline process, I guess. I just prefer that my daughter obey.
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But all the time, they've heard our instruction. I'm sure as parents, or even as kids growing up, we're familiar with this concept of selective hearing.
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I didn't hear you say that, mom, but you know you said it.
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You know that they've heard the words that you've said, they just chose not to obey them. Now, with the
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Bible, we've been blessed to, especially in this day and age, we have so many different things that we can use to access the scriptures.
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We can use the internet. Just yesterday, I was playing around on the internet and Codex Sinaiticus, which is arguably one of the most important old manuscripts that we have, has now been digitized.
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And you can actually look at the whole thing. You can zoom in on it. I mean, it's the actual pictures of Codex Sinaiticus.
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Codexsinaiticus .org, I think. But it's really, really cool. I thought it was cool. Maybe it's just me. But we have iPads.
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We have iPads. You know, I don't think any of the iPad people are here right now, but there are people in our congregation that use iPads.
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There's people in our congregation that use iPhones to read the Bible. Laptops, you know,
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Bible on CD, you can listen to it, audio book kind of deal. Or you could open a book and read the
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Bible that way if you wanted to. So God in his infinite wisdom has seen fit to provide us with everything that we need in order to live our lives as Christians.
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We have this manual, I put mine back here, for everything that we need to know that we can study.
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I mean, it's rich text that's breathed from the mouth of God. And we can immerse ourselves in it.
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We can learn it. And we can learn our entire lives. And we will always be learning new things about the Scriptures and what they say.
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The Bible lays down the groundwork for what we should be as Christians. Now, when
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Christ was walking the earth, the Bible, at least in this form, didn't exist. You know, they had the
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Old Testament. But Revelation was still ongoing. So in Matthew and Luke, in the best sermon ever given,
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Christ laid down and explained a number of the ground rules of the Christian faith in the Sermon on the Mount. In the same way that we have the
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Word of God, the Bible, now, and we're called to obey it, so too, Jesus Christ called those in those multitudes to obey his
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Word. So today we're going to take a look at the parable of the wise and the foolish builders. But first, why don't we pray?
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Father in heaven, it is a tremendous joy and honor that you've given me personally today to come forward and explain your
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Word. I just praise you for that. I just pray that you would be with all of these people, that this would be a rich time of teaching and learning.
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I pray, Father, that you would bless the service this morning as Pastor Steve brings the Word forth.
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I would pray that you would make it an amazing time of worship for all of us this morning. In your name we pray. Amen.
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So, the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount, as many of you know, because Mike preached through the whole thing, is
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Matthew 5 .1 -7 .28. We see a similar, almost parallel sermon in the
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Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6 .20 -49. Today we're going to look at the last parable in the sermon and we're going to see
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Christ's call to action. He demands that not only do we listen to his words, but also, and this is important, to obey those words.
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That is very, very key. The Sermon on the Mount is Christ's masterpiece. It covers the vast majority of things in the
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Christian faith. And, you know, within the full corpus of Scripture, this is, you know, sort of one piece that we can look at and say, you know, this is almost like, in the same way that the end of Romans is, this is almost like a manual.
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These are things that we need to look at specifically and say, oh, these are, you know, things that can apply directly to our lives.
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So, okay. So, I think I stole this from Mike, but we've all heard
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WWJD, right? What would Jesus do? But the real thing that we should do is WWJTYTD, which is, what would
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Jesus tell you to do? There are things that Jesus did that we shouldn't be doing, but Jesus tells us many things that we should be doing.
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So, as I said before, as a Master Speaker, Christ has taken all of the instruction of the Sermon on the
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Mount and brought it to bear. He does exactly what I talked about earlier. He calls us to, who are hearing his words, to obey them.
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He calls us into action. Jesus uses four contrasts at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and he uses them to sort of crystallize in the minds of the listeners this idea of this contrast, the importance of acting on his words appropriately.
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I was reading a book. You might recognize it. It's called Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers, and it had a nice quote in it on page 132.
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As Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount, he confronts his listeners with four warnings, each of which contains contrasts, two ways to heaven, the two trees, two professions, and two foundations.
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Such contrasts are common in Jewish literature and are indicative of Jesus' preaching style that obliges the listener to choose one or the other.
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I'm not going to go into them in great detail, but I do want to read those for you just because I'm going to touch on them quickly.
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So we're in Matthew chapter 7, verse 7. We're starting in verse 13.
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We'll start here. Enter through the narrow gate. I'm reading from the New American Standard. For the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
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For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
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You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
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A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
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So then you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my
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Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?
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And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.
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Okay, so like I said, I'm just going to touch on these quickly. Jesus talks about the two ways to heaven, about the narrow gate to heaven and the broad gate to destruction, and he calls the listeners to enter by the narrow gate.
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The depiction of the two trees in verses 15 to 20 cautions listeners to beware of false teachers and how we will know those teachers by their fruits.
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A good tree produces good fruit, a bad tree produces diseased fruit. The third image, the one of two professions of faith, is a chilling passage we all know, and that not everyone who says to Jesus, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Finally the last parable Jesus uses is the parable of the wise and the foolish builder in Matthew and the parable of the deep and shallow foundation in Luke.
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And in that he tells us what the consequences of action and inaction are, and that's what we're going to spend our time on today.
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So Matthew 7 verses 24 to 27. This and everything else is in the
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ESV. Everyone 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 wind blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.
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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, 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.
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Because I'm going to reference it a little bit, I'm going to focus on Matthew, but because I'm going to reference Luke, I'm also going to read the same parable out of Luke.
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It's Luke 6, 47 to 49. You don't have to turn there if you don't want to. Everyone who comes to me and hears my word and does them,
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I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.
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When a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on a ground without a foundation.
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When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. Okay, now
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I've mentioned it already, but I'm already going to ask, does anybody remember what the main point of the parable is? I've already mentioned it twice.
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What's that? Exactly right.
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I'm glad there's a pastor in the audience. Okay, we need to obey. We need to not only listen to his word, but also to obey them.
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So, within both of these parables, there are three main sort of key players, if you will.
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Does anybody know what those might be? Let's try to make sure. A little audience involvement.
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Anybody? Hands. The wise man, the foolish man.
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Good. I don't know that the Lord necessarily is present in this passage, but the wise man and the foolish man and their houses are definitely two of those.
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Anybody else? Anthropomorphism here. The weather, the beating on those houses, and we'll get into that a little bit later, but the rain, the floods, and the winds, that would be the third sort of main thing that is in this parable.
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Now, what do we know about these things? We have the two different builders, and we have the weather. What do we know?
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Does anybody want to wager a guess on something we might know about these guys? They both have spiritual houses.
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That is extremely important. Good. Anything else? That is a huge key point.
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They both heard the instruction. They both know what they are supposed to be doing. Anything else? Yep. That's exactly right.
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The storm, when it beats on those houses, it sort of shows what they're really made of.
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Anything else? Exactly right.
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It's not a question of if the storm is going to come and break on that house. It's a question of when that storm is going to come and break on that house.
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So, let me just run through these a little bit. The men are builders, right? They're not just like me.
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I go and work on my house, but really I don't know what I'm doing. I just kind of fake it, and hopefully it works out OK. These are definitely builders.
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The implication is that they know what they're doing. They know they need a foundation. They know that they need to build it in the right place, not on the sand, but on the rock, because they've been taught how to build.
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I'll get into this later. It's one of the things that Charlie mentioned. They both have faith that their buildings would stand, right?
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I mean, you wouldn't build a building and say, well, it might collapse on me, but I think I'll live in it anyway.
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I mean, they both looked at their house and they said, you know, my work is good. This is all right.
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Let's go. One of the things Charlie said, the wise and the foolish men both hear the
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Word of God. Verse 24 says, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them. Verse 26 says, everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them.
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They both hear the Word. I mean, that's the common thing between them. They've both heard the Word of God, the
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Word of Jesus spoken from the mouth of Jesus. Like I basically had already said, the wise man acts on and obeys the
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Word of God. The foolish man does not act on and obey the Word of God. And again, the rain, the floods, and the winds came upon the wise and foolish men equally.
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I mean, we could look at the scripture again. I'll even read it, because why not? The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house.
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That's verse 25. And then we look, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house.
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That's verse 27. It's almost the exact same words that are used to describe the storms that come up on that house.
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And yet the result of that is completely different between those two houses. A commentator,
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Brown, noted something interesting here I thought I'd share with you. The rain comes from above, the floods come from below, and the wind blows all around the house.
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The severe weather that Jesus talks about is an example of this weather, this trial or whatever that is.
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It will buffet us from every direction, from above, from below, from all around. It's everywhere.
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So, of course, the big question is, what does it all mean? What does this all mean? Remember I said that it was implied that both men knew that they needed a firm foundation.
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But that's really where the similarities between these two men end. In the same way they both heard the word, both doers and the two who did not obey, both of them knew the right way to build.
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But the difference was that one of them followed their guidelines and built his house on the firm foundation.
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Even though they both had faith in their buildings to stand, and we saw that because they lived in their buildings, only one of them built their building on that sure foundation, and consequently only one of them had a house that proved out over the weather.
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To the outside world, once these houses were built, there was no difference. If you were a traveler coming through that area and you saw the two houses, one on either side, they would look the same as you're just passing through.
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There's nothing for you to say, oh, that house is in trouble. I mean, it's the exact same description of the houses.
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There's really no description there. Why? Because it's not important. Now, they both look fine on the outside, but on the inside and underneath there was a big problem.
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Can anybody think about maybe some people in the biblical time period that this might apply to, where they looked fine on the outside, but inside there were maybe some issues?
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That's kind of the obvious one. Every question, who are the people that have problems that Jesus is railing against?
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The Pharisees? Definitely Judas. I mean, he would be, he was an apostle, right?
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But obviously there was a problem there. So, thank you very much, that was good. So, in order for us to know that our lives are built on a firm foundation, we should examine ourselves and make sure that not only do we know the truth,
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I'm sure that just about everybody that sits in these seats every Sunday morning, we know the truth. But the question is whether or not we regularly exercise that truth in our lives.
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I mean, the Bible says that even the demons know, and they shudder, because they do not exercise that. So, of course, the question is, how do these players correlate to today?
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And this is something that, as I began to study, it really changed my perspective of this parable. What do the players in this, the wise man, the foolish man, and the weather, what do they represent now?
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Does anybody want to wager a guess before I keep going? Judgment?
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Definitely, I mean, there's no question that the weather is judgment of some kind. We'll get into a little bit more detail about that, sure.
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Right, and that's the big thing that I didn't really think about when I first read this. Even the foolish man, they are professors of Christianity.
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They're not Joe Schmo, who's out riding his bike right now. I actually will talk about that.
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Yep, definitely. As you look into this and study this a little bit, it's almost like it's split between the commentators.
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Some of them, I don't know if they disagree with each other, but some of them choose to focus on different points. Some of them say this is trials.
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Some of them say this is the final judgment of God. I think it's probably both, and I'll talk about that a little bit later.
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Unbelievers who don't attend church, they don't hear the word of God. The foolish man here is not a worldly unbeliever.
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This isn't the guy who lives next door to you who's out playing golf today. Well, maybe playing golf today.
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We know this because the passage says that the foolish man did hear the word of God. Instead, that foolish man is much like a
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Sunday -only Christian, and we have a lot of those in the Northeast, I think, the CEO Christians. There's people in every church building, probably even ours, who act like Christians on Sunday and live like hell the rest of the week.
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This is the person that Christ is talking about, one who hears on Sunday morning, maybe Sunday night, maybe they go to a home group, who knows, but they don't obey the word of God.
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The wise man is a Christian, a man who not only hears but also acts on that word. To your point,
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I think we can gain some more insight into this. I think we can gain insight on this if we look at the words of Jesus elsewhere in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, and then the explanation later on in the same passage.
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Jesus gives us a perfect example of the different types of believers. I'm just going to talk about the one that is referenced here, but I will read the whole parable.
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Matthew 13, 3 -9, and he told them many things in parables, saying, A sower went out to sow, and as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.
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Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil.
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But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.
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Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.
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Like I had said further down in chapter 3, Jesus describes what this parable means.
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As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet has no root in himself, but endures for a while.
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And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
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That should sound very similar to what it says in Luke, where it says, When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.
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So that's what that is. The houses these men build are their lives.
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Mud by mud, mud brick by mud brick, these men build their homes, just like we build our lives one dollar at a time, one ministry opportunity at a time, one relationship at a time.
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As we build our lives, we have to be mindful of what our lives are built on. We don't have a lot of details about the quality of the workmanship of the houses themselves, because it's not important to the parable.
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It's not focusing on the central point. Now Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, I don't know if any of you heard the news this past week, but Bill Gates and Warren Buffett got together and they founded some organization.
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I don't remember the name of it, but they've had 38 billionaires commit to donating half of their net worth to charities over the next 15 years.
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I mean, those guys are like the most amazing philanthropic people that are probably alive right now.
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I mean, you think about the kind of money that that represents pouring into all of these things, and that's certainly a good thing, but it doesn't matter how many amazing things they do.
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If they don't know Christ, if they don't have that foundation, their house is going to crumble.
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Commentator Johnson says this, someone might say, well, I know so -and -so who was never truly committed to Christ and lived quite a successful and affluent life and died in peace.
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What are we to say about that? What we're to say is this, the flood that came with its winds and rain did not come until after his death.
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His storm came only on Judgment Day. With a troubled psalmist in Psalm 73, we must perceive their end.
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His house will utterly collapse when faced with the storm of God's judgment. So, I mean,
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I don't want to be one of, you know, that guy who stands outside Fenway with the world is ending, you know, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.
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And, you know, that may be true, but he's got this very 2012 kind of attitude about him.
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And I certainly don't want to, you know, go up to these people that do these great things and say, you're getting it. It's coming.
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You know, that's not what the focus is. But they will receive their judgment. I mean, at the same time, you look at these
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Bill Gates and Warren Buffett types that everybody looks at and says, wow, you know, they're doing all these amazing things. There might be, you know, a poor prison inmate who maybe, you know, was gangbanging or something and, you know, got thrown in prison for life.
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And they were, the gospel was preached to them and they were saved in jail. I mean, the house of his deeds compared to the house of the deeds of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, there's no comparison, right?
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I mean, certainly worldly people would say, well, these guys are far more important than this person in jail.
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But the reality is that that man's house is built on a sure foundation. And when the stream breaks against his house, his house will not fall.
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Yep, definitely. Well, it certainly is.
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And, you know, we look at that and we say, first of all, there's judgment for everyone. It's just that for some of us, our penalty is taken away by Christ, right?
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So that judgment day happens. But it's whether or not we're paying the penalty. And if your foundation is not
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Christ, then when that judgment day occurs, guess what? Christ isn't taking the penalty for your sin.
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It could be. I mean, there's not a lot, you know, talked about with the trials in this passage. So I'm a little bit unwilling to conjecture on what specifically that is when it pertains to the foolish man versus the wise man.
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But, I mean, we do see that it is trials. So, I mean, those trials could come from anywhere, like I mentioned about the weather.
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So what is the foundation in this parable? I mean, I think we sort of know. The word that's used for rock here is the same word that's used in Matthew 16 when, well,
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I'll just read it, 16 through 18. Simon Peter replied after Christ asked the apostles, you know, who do they say that he is?
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You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my
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Father who is in heaven. I shall tell you, and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock
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I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It's the same Greek word, Petra.
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We've heard the word Petra before. And it basically means like a large, unmovable boulder. When I think about this,
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I think about our parking lot. We have all these little tiny, little rocks that always get caught in our shoes and they annoy all of us. And this isn't that.
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This is like purgatory chasm. You're squeezing through those rocks. And everybody has the picture of them in between the two rocks.
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I don't remember the name of it. I'm Those are the kinds of rocks that this
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Greek word Petra is referring to. The wise man's foundation can be compared to, as Christ says, these words of mine, the doctrine that's presented by Jesus in the
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Sermon on the Mount. This is the foundation Jesus is talking about. Now the Bible is filled with references to the faith and trust in Christ and his work as a foundation.
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Can anybody think of any references in the Bible where Christ is referred to, or their faith is referred to as a foundation?
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Throw this one out there. A couple of really easy ones, a couple of less easy ones.
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First Peter. I have that one here, probably, somewhere. Oh, that's further down in my list where I stopped putting all the passages in here.
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Anything else? All right.
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Oh, go ahead. Yep, has become the cornerstone, right?
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Isaiah 28 .16, Behold, I am the one who has laid a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation.
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Ephesians 2, do I have that one in here? Yep, 19 -21. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets,
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Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple of the
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Lord. Good, thank you. All right.
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Yep, that's definitely true. So in the New Testament, there are two words that translate into foundation.
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There is thamelion and katabolos. Thamelion is the word that applies to the foundation primarily as it pertains to Christ, to Jesus.
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It sort of means the beginnings or the first principles of an institution or system. One could say that, for example, like the
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Bill of Rights and the Constitution is sort of like the foundation of our system of law.
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It's that same kind of idea. Katabolos has a connotation of a seed or base by which something grows.
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So all the scripture references say things like, you know, I knew you from the foundation of the world.
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That's this sort of, it's more of a building idea and less of like a growing.
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So with that in mind, it becomes a little bit more interesting when you look at all the examples of the word foundation in the
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New Testament to see which ones really have that kind of relationship, that kind of representation.
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Luke 14, 25 to 30. Now great crowds accompanied him and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
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Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it.
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Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish.
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I thought this was interesting because this was Thumelion. This was not Katabolos. They're talking about building a building and they're not talking about this word that's used when you're talking about putting bricks or whatever you use for a foundation.
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But when Christ makes this allusion to himself, when he talks about himself as a foundation in the original language, it's even a stronger relationship there that we see because of the words that he's using.
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So we know that Greek is a very specific language. And when Christ said those words, there is a much stronger allusion to himself being that foundation than we see because of all the different ways the foundation is used in the
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English. So I thought that was interesting. I want to share that with you. Romans 15, 20 -21.
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First Corinthians 3, 10 -13. Ephesians 2, we talked about. First Timothy 6, 17 -19.
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Second Timothy 2, 19. Hebrews 1, 10. You might want to write that verse down.
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There's a lot of really interesting stuff going on with it. Well, not going on, but there's a lot of discussions about Hebrews 1, 10.
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Hebrews 6, 1 is another one. So I'm just going to move on for time purposes.
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So compare this foundation used by the wise men with the foundation or lack thereof that the foolish man had when he built his house on the sand.
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Much like the morality and the socially acceptable things of this present age, they're always changing.
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Fifty years ago, gay marriage, nobody would have been okay with it. Now, it's kind of creeping into our culture.
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Everything that's socially acceptable is always changing, but our foundation is based on a permanent truth.
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So it's not always shifting and changing. We don't have a foundation that causes a building to crumble because we have a sure footing.
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Now, moving on past the foundation, which is obviously important, let's talk about the weather a little bit.
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The weather in this parable is, as many of you have said, the trials in our lives and the final judgment by God.
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We know that there's trials. I mean, just from an experiential standpoint,
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I don't think anybody in this room would say, oh, as a Christian, I've never encountered trials. I think that would be along the lines of, oh,
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I've never sinned before. It's just like crazy talk, right? So, let's just take a couple of looks into scripture.
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James 1 .2, count it all joy, brethren, it's brethren in the new American standards, my brothers, when, not if, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
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We also see it in 1 Peter 1, verse 5, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.
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Again, in 1 Peter 4, verse 12, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening.
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Don't be shocked. It's going to happen. Don't be like, what is this? I didn't expect this. It's going to happen.
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The other perspective that we had kind of talked about earlier, the rough weather is the final judgment of God. I skipped the verse, so I'm going to read it this time, but we saw, well, we will see an example of this in 1
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Corinthians 3, 10 -15. I'm just going to read 10 -13 for you. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder,
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I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it, for no man can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is
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Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds upon a foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day.
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We'll disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
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So, this is interesting. Regarding the weather, the only contrast that we see when the weather comes and buffets those houses is between the two builders and their houses, builders and their foundations.
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Everything else is the same. They probably built it in the same area. They could be across the street from each other. We don't know.
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They basically functionally built the same house. We know this because there were no differentiations made in the parable.
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I'm sure they're both happy with their houses when they were finished. Otherwise, they would have started over or something along those lines.
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But when the weather comes, it's the exact same words in the passage. There's no difference in the weather.
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It's not like the weather hit this house stronger than that house, and that's why it fell down. I mean, this isn't like a tornado situation where you see the camera, and it's surveying the area, and all these houses are fine, and this one is destroyed.
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I mean, this is universal. This is the same weather on both of these houses. One remains standing, and one collapses under the same punishment.
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In the same way, those professing Christians who have built up their lives on the foundation of Christ will stand against trials that buffet them, and they'll be leaning on the
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Eternal One for their support. They'll persevere. Those who profess the name of Christ but do not obey His Word and do not put
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Him in the center of their life, when they go to lean on their foundation, it's going to crumble.
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It's going to fall. Much like the house in the sand, as the parable says, great will be their fall.
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This isn't like, oh, they'll fall down, but they'll get back up. This is immediate.
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We saw that in Luke, and great. This is a big fall. You think of, I mean, for us,
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I guess it's not quite as shocking, but from a cultural standpoint, some of these TV preachers or whatever, and the thing with Joel Osteen and his wife flipping out on the airplane,
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I mean, these are, in the eyes of culture, these people, their fall is great. The perspective of these people is a tremendous change.
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You think of somebody with a very poor foundation, Tiger Woods. That's a great fall.
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I don't think Tiger Woods was a professing Christian, but that's an example of a great fall, Brian. I don't want to get into a discussion about Tiger Woods, but I don't think he'll ever be what he was.
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Certainly not the same way. There's always going to be something there. So, the central purpose and point of the parable, which
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I hope we all have by now, is, anyone? Follow the word, obey the word, listen to, hear the word, and obey it.
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Right, that's a good point. Right, right, yeah, that's definitely true.
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Yeah, I mean, some of the commentators even said, you know, this isn't to say that we're a works -based religion.
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That's certainly not, obviously, that's not what Jesus is talking about here, but, all right.
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So, this point that Jesus is making here, that we need to hear and obey the word of God, is all over the
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Bible. That shouldn't be a surprise, right? James, again, chapter 1, verses 22 to 25, "...but
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be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
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For he looks at himself and goes away at once, and forgets what he is like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing."
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About this, John MacArthur says, a more literal translation of the present middle imperative tense of Jenomai, which is, which is, prove yourselves.
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So, the prove yourselves, doers, is to be continually proving, or to always be striving for.
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So, this isn't like a kind of thing where somebody says, oh, you know, you are, you know, you think that you have this
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Ansel Adams print, you know, going back to current events, you know, prove it, and then some people come in, and they prove it, and then everything is done.
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This is an ongoing, continual thing. You are always proving yourselves to be doers of the word. We can continue in James and look over to chapter 2, verses 14 to 17.
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What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
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If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warm, be filled, without giving him the things needed for the body, what good is that?
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Also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. And, you know, I mean, we know, again, we know, doctrinally speaking, that we do not have a works -based religion.
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So, when we look at this parable, the fact that the house stands is a testament to the foundation of the house, not a testament to the house itself.
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Right? Okay? So, Kistemacher talks about this passage. James is specific. He says, if a man claims to have faith.
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He does not write, if a man has faith. James intimates that the faith of this particular person is not a genuine trust in Jesus Christ.
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In fact, the man's claim to faith is hollow. If he only nods his head in assent to the words of a doctrinal statement, his faith is intellectual, barren, and worthless.
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Faith in God through Jesus Christ is a certainty that flows from our hearts, emanates from our minds, and translates into deeds.
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Vibrant faith of word and deed, spoken and performed out of love for God and our neighbor, saves us.
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We are not only to do the things, this goes almost a step further, we are not only here and to do, but we are not only to do the things that Christ speaks about, but we are to be characterized by those things.
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That's what MacArthur is talking about when he says that we should always be continually or keep on striving to be doers.
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John says something very similar in 1 John, and by this, knowing that Christ is our advocate, we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
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Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his words in him, truly the love of God is perfected.
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By this we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
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Looking into Romans, this is a little bit probably more well known. Romans 2, 12 -13,
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For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.
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For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
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Christ himself plainly laid down these expectations. Matthew 12, verse 5, Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
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Luke 11, 27 -28, And as he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him,
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Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nourished. But he said, Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it, or observe it.
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And finally John 14, 15, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
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In Luke, in the Sermon on the Plain, in that parable, Jesus specifically notes in verse 48 that the wise builder dug deep to lay the foundation on the rock.
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We think about this, and this is 2 ,000 years ago. The caterpillar wasn't around yet. They didn't have backhoes.
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This is the Middle East. The sun is beating down on this clay soil. This is not easy.
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It's pretty likely that the foolish man looked and said, The clay is hard.
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I'm not going to spend three weeks and pay all these day laborers to come in and dig this thing out.
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It's way too much work. I'm not even going to bother. So I'll just build the house the way it is. It's hard.
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Building a foundation is hard. It was time consuming, but it was absolutely essential for a sturdy house.
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In the same way, building our lives on the sure foundation of Christ is hard to do. I know I have.
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I don't know if you've had a situation where you had the opportunity to get something or to achieve something or avoid something bad by doing something dishonest.
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You could have done it. People probably wouldn't have known about it. You would have maybe gotten some expensive gadget for free or you know something fell off the back of a truck, that kind of thing.
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There's all these different things that these opportunities are just presented to us, but it's a testament to our character to make the correct decisions based on the foundation on which we are building.
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Remembering prayers by rote and just, you know, every week I just write the check to the church. I pay off the church.
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I buy some indulgences. Whatever it might be, there's all these things that we can sort of say, you know, these are the things that we're going to do and then we'll be okay.
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You know, those are easy. Having that structure might be a pain sometimes, but it's a lot easier than properly building on a foundation.
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Pounding the pavement and visiting orphans and widows, again like James says. Can you tell I taught on James last year? That's true faith.
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That's true faith and it's a lot harder to do. So remember this. The foundation is not something that is necessarily seen, right?
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You know, I thought about this in this way. When you go to buy a house, you look at the house and you're like, oh, it's a nice house.
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Then you pay somebody to come in and do an in -depth analysis of that house to check the foundation.
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You know, they do the screwdriver thing for the termites. They check all of these things. The house is there. The house looks great, but we need to know that that foundation is sure before we go in and we invest that money in that house, right?
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That foundation is not something that is seen at the surface level. A lot of time and commitment goes into it, right?
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It's not immediately obvious. We've heard it from this pulpit. If you say you're a Christian, that's great. Prove it.
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You know, it's not a cruel thing to say that, but the world doesn't know the difference between a true saving faith and the faith that manifests itself in outward appearance.
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God does, right? God is infinite. God is all -knowing. He knows. So you need to make sure that that foundation is in the right place.
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R .T. France said it best, the result of a spurious or superficial discipleship will be total collapse.
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So you need to be sure that your life is built on a firm foundation. Or as the parable says, great, your fall will be.
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We live in a culture that's convinced that God is interested in who we are and what our feelings are and not our actions.
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I hope that this parable is a pretty good example as well as many other things in scripture that this isn't the case.
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God does care about what we do. Is He interested in who we are? Definitely. There's no doubt about that.
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But to say He doesn't care about what we do is completely wrong. We're to build up our lives in a way that befits the sure foundation of faith that Jesus Christ and His works represent.
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We do this by obeying His commandments and acting out that faith. I just want to close with this. This might sound a little familiar.
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My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
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On Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. Does anybody have any questions?
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You think about all the people that were there.
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There were learned people certainly. There were common people. Jesus steps up in front of all of them and says, basically,
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I know that you've learned all these things. You've heard it said. You know all these things. But I'll tell you what the real truth is, what you really need to know.
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It's amazing that He says that. And it's almost amazing that they don't immediately turn around and try to kill
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Him, which they do in many other places. Anything else? Nobody's sleeping, so that's good.
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All right, why don't I just close in prayer and then you're dismissed. Father in Heaven, thank you again so much for giving us the opportunity to sit under your
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Word. Thank you for giving me personally the opportunity to study your Word and share it with these men and women.
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I pray, Father, that you would just keep us mindful always that we are not only to sit under your Word and hear it, but also to obey it.
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I pray, Father, that you would be with all of us as we worship this morning, that you would, again, be with Steve as he brings the
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Word to us, that you would be with the worship team as they lead us in musical worship and singing worship.
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I just thank you so much for the amazing blessings that you've given us that we don't even see. In your name we pray. Amen.