Placed Upon the Rock (02/22/2004)

Matthew 7:24-27 and the Finished Work of Christ

Well, let's go into Matthew chapter 7 this morning and we're going to change topics. We're still talking about the overall topic of the finished work of Christ. And we're talking about everything that that has accomplished both for us and for the Father in Heaven.

And last time we talked about the fact that because of His finished work on the cross we have been delivered and translated. Delivered from the power of darkness, translated into the kingdom of light.

And today we're going to talk about this topic. That because of Jesus' death on the cross, you have been placed upon the rock. So let's go to the Lord in prayer and we'll begin. Father, we thank you for a time to meet together.

We do pray for those who are under the weather today. We pray for all the ones that Brother Russell mentioned already and each one who is home and ill and not able to be here. We pray that you would strengthen them.

And Lord, we pray for Sharon, that you would continue to strengthen her body and destroy any cancer cells that might have been left. We pray that you would take care of that, give her peace of mind about it, give her doctors great wisdom to know exactly what the next step should be.

And Lord, we take comfort in the fact that you're in complete control of our lives, complete control of our salvation. You have rescued us from the powers of darkness and you have brought us into your kingdom to be with you.

And we pray, Father, that you would help us to sense your presence today and also sense the fact that we're seated in Christ in the heavenlies right now and help us to understand that as well and to see the spiritual things we're supposed to see today.

We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Go to Matthew chapter 7 and verse 24 and we'll read the main verse and we're going to talk about some words, do a word study in this verse and then we'll go in and look at the whole section, the whole passage.

Matthew chapter 7, verse 24. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock.

Verse 25 says, and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock. Now there are some very interesting word studies to be done.

Even the grammar in this passage is very interesting. So let's look at a little bit of that before we get started. First look up at verse 24 and I want you to see the word heareth and the word doeth. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, that, let me tell you in the Greek language is the same as it sounds in the English, it's present tense, we can tell that, whosoever hears my sayings now, it's present tense, and does my sayings now, present tense, I will liken him to a wise man which built his house upon a rock.

The voice is active and what that means is that this is something you're doing yourself. Whosoever hears and does, that's a responsibility that you and I have. So it's the active voice and the mood is indicative, it means it's just flat a fact.

So whosoever hears now in the present tense and does the things, the sayings of Jesus Christ now in the present tense, Jesus would liken you to a wise man which built his house upon a rock. Now let's look at the word built because it's a little different.

The word built, the tense is aorist. The voice is still active and the mood is still indicative, but let's look at the difference between the aorist tense and the present tense. We see that hearing and doing is the present tense, but building, the house upon the rock is in the aorist tense.

Can you remember the difference? Do you remember what aorist is? Probably not because it's not one we have in English. We don't have an aorist tense in English. But the definition is this, and we may have to go back and define the definition, but let me read the definition first.

Punctiliar action, now how many of you have that? Punctiliar action without regard to past, present, or future. Can someone define punctiliar for me? It sounds like it has to do with something that's, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

The clue is without regard to past, present, or future. It is not with regard to time, and we don't have that in English, but in the Greek, it's there. What a coincidence. So God chose the Greek language to have his men pin the New Testament in, and it has built into it a very grammatical instrument called the aorist tense that allows a word to sort of gain more of an eternal meaning rather than an end-time meaning.

And so this idea of the house being built upon the rock is not in the present tense. It's in this outside-of-time tense. Now let's go on to read a little more because it gets even more interesting. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.

Now this word founded is extremely interesting because its tense is neither present tense nor aorist. It's called the pluperfect tense. How many of you have ever heard of that? Now, in my reading, I've discovered that English does have the pluperfect, but I can't remember it.

Marianne, have you seen it lately? Pluperfect mom? Now, I know past perfect, but apparently English has it, but you have to be at the doctoral level studying English to find it. That's the deal. So I don't know.

I can't remember it in English, but let me tell you what it is in the Greek. The pluperfect tense occurs rarely, which means you don't find this in the Bible very often. And here's what it means. It indicates an event viewed as having been once and for all accomplished in the past.

So it's already accomplished by the time we observe it. Now, it's a little bit different than the past perfect tense in English. And if you were going to try to say this in English, what you would have to do is translate it this way.

Look at that little phrase, for it was founded upon a rock. If you want to try to put that in pluperfect in English, you would read it this way. It had been founded upon a rock. It had been founded upon a rock.

So you would use the helping verb to be, and use that in the past tense, and you would add to it the perfect. So read it that way. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it had been founded upon a rock.

Now that gets sort of exciting as you start to think about that the building is without regard to time, but the foundation upon the rock is something that happened a long time before you were even born.

So if you find yourself being a person who has the rain descending, and the floods coming, and the wind blowing, and beating upon your house, which is a picture of your life, and yet you don't fall, it's because you were founded upon the rock a long time before you were even born, and before you knew about it.

Otherwise you would fall. Now let's go on with those, with just the grammar in mind, let's go on and read verse 26. And everyone that heareth these things of mine, Jesus says, now we're going to have a contrast, and doeth them not.

Now doeth them not is in the present active indicative tense. The responsibility is on the person who is not doing these things, right now, in the now, he is not doing the sayings of Jesus. Everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand.

Now look at this, the rain, same thing, the rain, it's the same rain, descends, the floods came, the same floods, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, just like they beat upon the other man's house, but there's a different result.

It falls, and great was the fall of it. And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings that the people were astonished at his doctrine. He told that story, and it astonished the people, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the other teachers of the day, the scribes.

Now the scribes thought they had the authority, but the people discerned the difference. When Jesus taught, his teaching had power, when they taught, it was just academic. That's the difference. Now let's look at these few little verses, and then as we have time, we're going to look at the context that these verses are found in.

But I want you to notice the phrases here in two places where it says, the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house. That is nothing more than life after the curse.

After man left the Garden of Eden, this is how it is. Now I want to read to you a verse from 1 Peter, chapter 4, verse 12, you don't have to turn to it if you don't want to, you'll remember it, but it's what, I mean you'll remember having read it, but it's the type of verse that we tend to forget every day when we find ourselves in the midst of wind beating against our house.

Now remember the house pictures our life, so when we see the rain coming down, and the floods coming up around us, it brings fear that the house is going to be washed away, and then on top of that, the wind blows, and it just beats against your house, and that's life.

The same things are happening to the lost man that are happening to the saved man. The same rain, the same flood, the same winds beating, and both houses are being beat upon by this weather, which pictures nature as it is after the curse.

We're not in the Garden anymore, we all know that, but we tend to forget this verse, 1 Peter 4, 12, Beloved, so that's written only to Christians, it's written only to those who are born again, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though some strange thing had happened unto you.

Now we forget that verse, because when the storms come, and the floods rise, and the wind beats on our life, and there is a fiery trial that happens to us, we ask, how could God let this happen? This is not fair.

And yet Jesus Christ, who was God manifest in the flesh, who was God with us, who came to this world and walked with us to teach us about God, Jesus said that the rain comes down, the floods come up, and the wind beats against everybody's house.

That is a truth of being alive. Now the only thing we have a right to complain about is to say, Lord, I wish you had never given me life and existence and consciousness. I wish you had just forgotten that I was supposed to exist and never brought me to be, like Job said.

Now if you want to say that, you know, you're on dangerous ground, like Job was, because you may be confronted by God himself, who may ask you some questions. But that is more fair for us to think than to think this, well, Lord, I know you gave me life and you brought me into this world, but I don't understand why you're letting the wind blow and the rain come up and the floods rise against my life like it does everyone else's and every other Christian that ever lived, including Paul, including Jesus.

But it's not fair for you to let that happen to me. You see how foolish that is to think that way? And yet it's because we forget this truth. And we forget the truth of the little parable that Jesus was telling this day, that that rain and those floods and that wind that beats against the house, that is universal to every human being, both saved and lost, because we're in the world and we're after the curse.

And we're not in the kingdom period yet. So don't think it's strange when bad things happen. I just got a phone call this weekend, actually I made the phone call, called an old friend named Doug Neville.

You know him, I believe Russell and some of the rest of you may have heard me tell stories about Doug, but he was in our youth group when we first started back in 1980, when this church started. He was one of the first youth, he and two other young people started our youth group and he went on to become a theologian and he's a brilliant mind and he's also a businessman slash preacher.

But I called him about a business matter this weekend and he said, you know, I feel really badly about this, but I didn't, that I didn't call you and tell you what I was going through. But he said on November the third, I was almost killed.

And he said, I was walking to work for the last time because I was moved, we had moved to a house that was right next to where I work, he owns his own business, and I can just walk out my door and walk in the office now, but he said, it was the last day we were moving our things out of the old house into the new house and it was a beautiful day so I decided to walk to work for the last time down this route that I had done so many times.

And it was early in the morning and the highway runs east-west and he pushed the little button that makes the light change for the pedestrian and the little flashing walking green light looking man came on and said, walk.

And so he looked both ways and stepped across into the street and a car was coming into that east sun and couldn't see the light and didn't see Doug and hit him going 40 miles an hour. And he died three times and they had to revive him when they air flighted him to the hospital.

His left leg was totally crushed from the knee down. His left shoulder was driven into his chest cavity and bruised his heart. And he gained 40 pounds of fluid weight because of the injuries and it took him weeks to get through this and survive it and the doctors told him, you will hurt for two years at least just from your body trying to heal from the damage.

And you know what, the first thing Doug told me, he said, brother Dave, he said, I was laying there on the street and the bystander said when the car hit me I flew 40 feet through the air and rolled about 10 or 12 times, rolled over like a ball, just rolling down the pavement.

And then I laid there looking up and the lady that hit me came over and just was apologetic saying I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. And he said, I looked up at her and I didn't know her, didn't know her state and I didn't want her to, I didn't want to say the wrong thing, but the first thing I told her was if I die, don't be angry with yourself because I'm going to be with Jesus and I'll be in the best place I've ever been.

And he said, if I live, I'm not going to be angry with you, it's not your fault. And he said, what I was thinking that I did not tell her is that God is sovereign and God intended this for me. And just as he had angels and he said, I discerned it as if I could see them, that they held my head in their hands and protected me from brain damage.

And he said, I know it as well as I'm alive. He said, I don't know how to tell you this because I'm not Pentecostal or charismatic, but I know it happened. And he said, he was joking when he said that, but he said, and I laid there for a few minutes thinking well maybe this is my time because he said some people came and looked over me and said, we think he's got brain damage.

He could hear everybody whispering and talking and he had superficial cuts on his head and you know how that bleeds. So they thought he had really had some major brain, I mean, head damage and he thought well maybe I have.

He said, because when I wanted to scratch my nose, I reached up with my left arm and tried to scratch my nose and realized my arm wasn't there. He said, it felt like I had reached up to scratch it, but no hand and no arm was there.

And he said, I found out it was bent behind me and all contorted around behind my head. And he said, people wouldn't even come near me, I looked so bad, they didn't want to help me. He said, I look terrible.

He said, my left leg was bent in the 90 degree angle and my shoulder and left arm was all contorted around me. And so I thought, well maybe they're right. Maybe my brains are coming out the back of my head because I didn't know my arm was not in the right place.

He said, so maybe I'm about to go home and see the Lord. And he was thinking all these things. And he said, there came a time though, and he said, I don't know how to explain this, but he said, it's as if the Lord spoke to me and said, I'm not going to take your life, you're going to live.

And he said, from that moment I didn't have a concern about that at all. But he went through an awful lot of pain. But the first thing that Doug attributed that to was the sovereign will of God, that God had intended that for his life.

And he said, you know what? He said, my family's closer than it's ever been. And I'll tell you this about Doug, he's a workaholic. He's one of those kind, he loves his work. He's not home with his wife as much as he should be, not home with the kids.

And his family had suffered. Charlotte and I had observed it. He had observed it. And he was praising God that his body was all contorted and hurting and damaged because he said, my family's closer than it's ever been.

So we can never complain about the floods and the wind beating against this life. Jesus said, this is simply the way it's going to be. Now the thing to observe, though, that's probably more important than that lesson, is to look at this pluperfect word.

We have here one person, two people contrasted, one person at some point in the past having already been completed, never to be done again, completed once and for all, this person was founded upon a rock.

This is not something that the person himself did because it is in the pluperfect, which means it's accomplished once and for all in the past, it's already finished. You see, it's part of the finished work of Christ.

And the fact that this man is founded upon the rock before he was even born is the reason that when you come into the present active indicative time, he is hearing and doing Jesus' words. It is not the hearing and doing of the words that makes him become founded upon the rock, like most people think when they read this because they don't read it in the Greek and they don't see the grammar.

If you just read it in English, it sounds like, okay, if I listen to what Jesus says and I'll do all this stuff, he will found me upon himself and I'll be saved. That would be salvation by works, by the way, if it worked that way.

If you read the scriptures as God wrote them and you do a grammatical study and a word study, you will find that the founding upon the rock occurred before this man was born. He was already founded upon the rock when he came into this life.

Now, I'm not saying he was saved and born again like we think of it in time. I'm saying from God's viewpoint, in God's mind, this man was a sheep, not a goat. In God's mind, he had loved this man from eternity past with a deep love as if for a child.

This man was founded upon the rock in that sense before time even began. If you're saved this morning, the same is true for you. You were founded upon the rock, which is Jesus Christ, by the way. The house pictures your life.

The foundation is Jesus Christ. You were founded upon that rock before you were even born. Now, there came a time in your life when you received Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and you then knew for the first time that you were his.

You would say, I am saved at that point. The founding upon the rock occurred a long time before your life began. Then your life began and you found yourself born on this side of the Garden of Eden. It didn't take you long after you came forth from the womb to begin to cry when that doctor spanked you on the rear end.

Then you realized this is not the garden. That hurt. I'm hungry, by the way. You were born into the world on this side of the Garden of Eden where the curse is. Your life began, but you know what? You were already founded.

Then there came a point when the Lord called you to himself. You looked up and said, Lord, what would you have me to do for the first time? You knew you were saved. Because you were founded upon that rock, you then have ears that can hear the sayings of Jesus and therefore you can do them.

We've been studying several verses in Sunday school and in different sermons lately that have the word if in the verse. It bothers some people because it's as if the Lord says, well, I'm going to keep you secure if you hold out until the end.

If you endure until the end. And many verses like that are in the Bible, actually. And the fact is, the verse is absolutely true like every other verse in the Bible. That you will be secure in the Lord if you hold out to the end.

But you have to understand the if has already been determined and it wasn't determined by you or me. It was determined by the one who placed you on that rock eons before we even were thought of in this earth.

Even before the angels were created, before the stars were here, you were founded. So that foundation is something that was not built by you, nor was it built by me. It was laid by the Father and your life was placed on that rock.

Now, when you look at the other man, the other man has a house, he has a life in this world and the same rain comes down that hits you. The same floods rise up around his house that are rising up around your house.

And the same wind beats against his life that beats against yours. But the result is completely different. His house is swept away into utter annihilation and it is destroyed. And that life is destroyed by the same elements that make your life stronger.

Isn't that amazing? It's all happening at the same time. Now let's go back and look at some of the context of this. Go back all the way to verse one, chapter seven, verse one. There are several elements, seven to be exact, that are discussed in this passage in the context.

And these are the very things that Jesus said, if you are founded on the rock, you will hear my sayings and you will do them. These are the sayings. These are the sayings he referred to. Let's look and see what they are.

Judge Not and Remove the Beam from Your Own Eye

The first one is judge not. Judge not that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye?

But consider it's not the beam that is in your eye. The moat in his eyes like a splinter, he has a little splinter in his eye and you're trying to get that splinter out of his eye and you don't realize it, but you got a telephone pole in your eye.

That's what Jesus is saying. And it's it's hilarious when you consider there are Pharisees sitting around listening to this and he says, so you're trying to get the little speck out of your brother's eye because it bothers you.

You're not doing it to help him. It bothers you. So you're trying to get out of his eye and you don't realize there's a telephone pole sticking out of your head. Or how well thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of your eye and behold, a beam is in your own eye.

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of your brother's eye. Now I got to ask you a question. Starts out, judge not that you be judged.

Is this teaching that you should not judge your brothers and sisters? Be careful before you answer. Don't shake your head. Just look at me. Rick's going like this. Like those little things on the dashboard.

That's why Debbie liked him so much. He's cute. He's cute. Well, look at the last phrase in verse five and it'll give you the answer. Let's just look at the whole verse. First cast out the beam out of your own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of the brother's eye.

So does Jesus say that there are times when you should be able to see clearly to judge a brother? Yes. So is it teaching that you don't ever judge anyone? No, it's not. It sounds like it, but it's not.

What it is teaching is you don't ever judge someone when you had the same problem they've got. Well, that pretty much makes it hard for us to judge anyone, doesn't it? Because we have got a myriad of problems and it all relates to the flesh.

And when we're in the flesh, we can do any evil thing that a lost person can do. And yet each of us has peculiar weaknesses and strengths in the flesh, even some of our flesh goes towards one sin more than the other.

Some goes towards the other. So we have certain strengths and weaknesses. And two things that Jesus is saying, number one, when you're in the flesh, you should never judge another brother that's in the flesh because you're in the flesh too.

Secondly, he's saying if you're walking in the spirit and you still have a sin habit in your flesh that appears from time to time, you don't have any business judging your brother that has that same weakness.

So it's not saying don't ever judge, but what it is saying is very difficult to live because it's saying we have to be so honest with ourselves on the inner man that we recognize where we are not qualified to correct the other brother or to judge him.

You know what? That's almost humanly impossible. It is impossible in the flesh because in the flesh we think we're better than everybody and everybody needs to be like us. That's just the flesh because that is a state of selfishness is we think everybody should be more like me.

You think they should be more like you. The flesh believes that. And so it takes a person who is founded on the rock, who has been founded on the rock, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be able to obey what Jesus just taught there.

This particular saying, he's talking about if you hear it and you do it, then it proves you were founded upon the rock. So when you find hypercritical people who are just pointing out everything wrong with everybody, they're not hearing and doing this particular saying of Jesus.

Now doesn't mean necessarily they're not saved. It may mean that's an area the Lord's working on in their life. But what Jesus does teach is if you have been founded on the rock, you at least have ears to hear and the Lord can speak to you about that matter of being overjudgmental and overcritical and he can deal with you if you're founded on the rock.

If you're not founded on the rock, do you know what will happen? The same circumstances that come where you have all these opportunities to criticize other people will cause you to be so critical that the wind will eventually blow your house away.

No one will respect you anymore. No one will even care what you do say when you say it. You know what they'll say about you when you say something? They'll say, well, consider them swords. Your house is just destroyed by the wind and the things going on in the world because you weren't founded on the rock.

But if you're founded on the rock, you have the ability to hear and to do the Lord's words and part of his words are saying, don't be judgmental of people in the areas where you have the same weakness.

So that leaves very few areas where I can judge you and you can judge me. Very few. And we have to be very careful in discerning about those areas in life. So it strikes against the carnal human nature, doesn't it?

And that's what proves that only a person who has been founded on Jesus can even can even have an opportunity to obey those particular words. Those are difficult words. You start out, you start out, he says, judge not.

That's hard in itself. It is hard not to judge other people. But in Christ, we can be like Christ in that area. Now, let's go to the set point. Number two, the second saying, it's found in verse six. And this is surprisingly difficult.

Do Not Cast Pearls Before Swine

Give not that which is holy to the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and rend you. Well, now that's an interesting verse. What do you think the pearls are?

Wisdom. Good answer. What else? I heard one back here, what was it? The word of God, the principles of the word of God. Two good answers. I think we can stop there. You're not supposed to take the principles of the word of God and the wisdom that God has given you and cast that before a swine or a dog.

Who does the swine and the dog picture? A lost person. And really, it probably pictures a non-elect person. You can't, you and I can't always tell who those are because lost elect people can look pretty bad.

Even saved elect people can look pretty bad. So it's hard to discern these things. However, the whole point of these sayings as we study them is that every one of them are virtually impossible to do. They are impossible to do in the flesh.

And the only hope we have of hearing and doing these particular things in this little passage is if we're founded on Jesus Christ and upon His words, remember where I said, His sayings. So we have got to be in the word of God more than just at sermon time.

We've got to be studying on our own. We've got to be loving the word of God and be reading and studying it as we go. Are you not going to ever have the kind of discernment that's mentioned in verse 6 and you're just going to go out there one day and just thinking you're doing God a favor and you're going to witness to this person and he's going to walk right up and slap you down.

He might even kill you. And so you have to be walking in Christ even to know who to witness to. This verse proves you don't witness to everybody. Now the legalist would tell you every Tuesday night and every Saturday morning we're going to go out on a visitation and we're going to witness to everybody we see just during those two hours that you've been there and done that.

Everybody you see, you're going to knock on doors, they open the door, you're going to witness to them. Now those are types of rules that are made to try to force us to do Christian things. The problem is it leaves the Holy Spirit totally out because the Holy Spirit may have said, you know what, this particular Tuesday night I want you to stay home and just be with your family.

I don't want you to witness to anybody. But you did not give him that opportunity if you made a rule to try to accomplish the witnessing. It doesn't work. You have to be founded on the Lord Jesus Christ and be in Christ and in his words, his saying so that you can do what he wants you to do.

And the only way you can do that is to be walking in Christ and be studying his word all the time and not be bound by rules. You have to walk sensitive to the Holy Spirit's little voice. And when he says, I really want you, you know, I want you to have compassion on that person right there sitting across from me right over there and say a word to him.

And when you get there, I'll even let you know what word to say. Maybe he may say something that'll let you know something else I want you to say. That's how sensitive we have to be. And so it's impossible unless founded upon the rock.

You go out and you look at the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and bless their hearts. They do witness. They will walk down streets for years and witness and knock on doors and carry those heavy satchels of literature.

And yet they are not founded on the rock. And so everything they do is to the wrong person and the wrong thing from their viewpoint, from a human viewpoint. And why is it they're not founded on the rock?

They're not in Christ. They don't have the wisdom to hear his words, so they can't possibly know what they're supposed to do. And it's sad because they have no discernment. Now let's go to the third saying of Jesus.

Ask, Seek, and Knock in Prayer

It starts with verse 7 and goes through verse 11. Now let me ask you a question. In the light of that passage, is prayer important? Can we study the sovereignty of God so much that we say, well, whatever will be, will be?

Que sera, sera. I don't have to pray for anything because God knows my needs before I even ask, therefore I will be lazy and not pray. Can we say that? This verse, now this verse is written in the human viewpoint, but remember Jesus is teaching it to living people.

He says, these good things will be given to them that ask for them. What does that imply? Somebody be bold enough to tell me. What does that imply? These good things that the father, just as a human parent wants to give his child what he asks for, he asks for food and he doesn't give him a scorpion, he gives him food.

And that's an evil person, a human being that is so limited, and yet we have the father who has the desire to give you good things if you ask. What does that imply? It implies you've got to ask to get it, doesn't it?

Now, does that teach us that by asking we can move God around into positions and get him where we want him and get the stuff we want? It does imply that to people that don't know the Bible and don't know the Lord very well, but it doesn't mean that.

So what does it mean? It makes it a very hard saying. All of these sayings, my whole point in going through this context is he said anybody that hears these things and does them in the present tense, I was watching his head go around.