The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Cornerstone - Matthew 7:24-27 Everyone the 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 winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like the foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. (ESV) Few parables in the Bible have been celebrated than this passage. And this concludes a trilogy of metaphors that we have been looking at the past three weeks. The tree and its fruit. The wolves and the sheep. And now the choice of foundation, the solid rock or sandy soil. The well known children s song comes to mind - and the house on the sand went splat! But what does this parable really suggest? What does it really mean to build your life on the rock? What does it really mean to build your life on the sand? Orthodoxy versus Orthopraxy? (James 2:14-26) In construction of a house, the foundation being laid properly is key. This makes sense to all of us. The irony did not escape me this week as I prepared, the similarity between this passage and the one from Isaiah 28:16 where our church takes its name. Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, for a sure foundation.
Recently I watched a Ted talk on the formative nature of language, which lead me to a 12 podcast, then to another Ted-talk and in summary here is what I learned. In this talk it talked about language how the power to shape how we think of time, savings, health, and relationships. Simple principles like whether a language has a future tense or not, appears to have an affect on that populations tendency to save for retirement, etc. Now, why in the world are we talking about the power of language? Here is the connection. Last year we celebrated the 400th anniversary of the Reformation, where guys like Martin Luther said, among other things, that we are saved by faith alone, Sola fide. But, as one author puts is: While the impossibility of earning salvation and the need for radical grace are true from a whole-bible perspective, this misses the genre, point, and goal of the sermon (on the mount). The sermon is not, to use Luther s overly reductionist categories, law that makes us see our need for gospel. Rather, it s wisdom from God, inviting us through faith to re-orient our values, vision, and habits from the ways of external righteousness to wholeheartedness toward God. This isn t law but gospel. Jesus is inviting us into life in God s kingdom both 3 now and in the future age. This is grace. The fancy words for this is Orthodoxy versus Orthopraxy; correct doctrine (belief) versus correct conduct. Christianity is considered a religion of orthodoxy, although there is clearly an element of correct conduct as part of practicing correct doctrine. When things start to get messy is when orthopraxy, correct conduct, is elevated above correct doctrine or faith, BECAUSE this tends to be what Jesus was preaching against in the Sermon on the Mount, Pharisees finding the loopholes for how you divorce an unwanted wife and still be seen as having correct conduct. But Jesus comes along and says, I m not interested in changing the law, I ve come to fulfill the law, and I ve come to show that you don t even have the tools to properly conduct a divorce because you 1 https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money/discussi on#t-681372 2 https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think 3 https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/3-things-didnt-know-sermon-mount/
have not begun by understanding the purpose of marriage. Your orthodoxy of marriage, your belief about marriage, your faith in marriage is the problem. I would suggest that we have all adopted beliefs about what is appropriate conduct to everyday occurances; how we ought to respond to a the beggar, a thief, the Californian driver, our darling but stubborn two-year old. Most recently, we have seen a powerful and moving response surrounding the illegal immigrant. And here, Jesus says, Everyone then who hears these words of mine (the orthodoxy that is informing our response) and does them (orthopraxy - the correct conduct in light of truth). These are the last red letters in the longest teaching by Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus is summing up what he has said from Matthew 5-7. Both aspects are present, the hearing then the doing, the faith followed by the conduct, the orthodoxy and the orthopraxy. What does it mean to build your life on the rock versus the sand? (1 Peter 2:6, Is 28:16, Ps 118:22, Mt 21:42) Blessed means, Anything that God gives that makes us fully satisfied in Him. And who is blessed again? The poor are blessed. Those who mourn are blessed. The meek are blessed. The merciful are blessed. The pure in heart are blessed. The peacemakers are blessed. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of Jesus. The begin by building our lives on the rock by adopting a position that our satisfaction is found in sacrificial humility. What does building your life on sand look like? You know this is tough, because there are lots of good things that we simply can t place our trust in. We talked in one of the first sermons about the idea of #Blessed misconceptions. A vacation, a fulfilling job, a healthy family are false perceptions of what it means to be blessed. Not because these things are evil, or things we should not desire, but when we suggest that these are the signs of a blessed life, we fall into the exact problem Job runs into with his friends trying to comfort him. Bildad, in Job 8 says this, Such are the paths of all who forget God...he leans against his house, but it does not stand; he lays hold if it, but it does not endure... Behold, God will not reject a blameless man, nor take the hand of evildoers. He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting. (verse 13, 15, 20-21)
But right here in the Sermon on the Mount we are being told that those who build on a solid foundation are those who are persecuted? When God wants to sort out the world, as the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount make clear, he doesn t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken, the justice hungry, the peacemakers, 4 the pure-hearted and so on. - N.T. Wright We build our lives on the solid rock, when we stop justifying insults under the guise that somehow because it's true (that jerk, that loser, or for the especially middle-schooled at heart, insert a body shaming joke here) it s appropriate to treat another person badly. We build our lives on the solid rock when we stop calling others fools for their political positions, whether they be tax collectors, zealots, Republican, or Democrat. We build our lives on the solid rock when we seek to restore those we have wronged, regardless of the cost to ourselves, whether that is our reputation or our finances. (Mt 5:21-26) We build our lives on the cornerstone when we have the humility to recognize our own sin as a log in our own eye, rather than spending all our time in other people s business looking for dirt or trying to solve their sins (Mt 7:1-6). The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different 5 from the world, she invariably attracts it. - John Stott We build on the solid rock when we let our yes be yes and our no be no. When we are motivated by truth and not contracts that can be parsed and manipulated to our own advantages. When we don t try to find loopholes by which we can work the system to our advantage. When we are the very best citizens, because we are the most trustworthy citizens. We build our lives on the solid rock when we give to the needy and not expecting anything in return. And when we don t advertise our good deeds with a write-up on our social media site. The words, don t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing aren t just words, they are how we ought to do generosity. We build our lives on the cornerstone when we invest in people, where moth and rust cannot destroy. 4 https://www.keylife.org/articles/the-challenge-of-jesus-n.t.-wright 5 https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/195640-the-message-of-the-sermon-on-the-mount-matthew-5-7- christian-counter-
As to caring for the Sermon on the Mount, if caring for here means liking or enjoying, I suppose no one cares for it. Who can like being knocked flat on his face by a sledgehammer? I can hardly imagine a more deadly spiritual condition than that of a man who can read that passage with tranquil pleasure. - C.S. Lewis We build our lives on the cornerstone when we trust His might and not MIGHT IS RIGHT! We build our lives on the cornerstone when we bomb our enemies back to the stone-age...err, I mean when we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We build our lives on the cornerstone when we turn our anxiety over to Christ because we see that he feeds the birds of the air and clothes the wild-flowers. We build our lives on the cornerstone when we pray Our Father and expecting our heavenly father to give us good things to his children. We build our lives on the cornerstone when we practice the Golden Rule, not the rule of reciprocity (expecting something in return). Christians when they see something falling apart, they get in there. You see someone emotionally falling apart, you go in, like salt. When you see a neighborhood falling apart, socially or economically, you go in. Christians are attracted, deeds of love and mercy, they are salt. Religious people on the other hand are hidden under a bowl...they really want to stick together, they don t like people out there who are different. There not at all attracted to neighborhoods that are falling apart. They are not at all attracted to people who are falling apart. They look around and they pull their skirts in. That s the difference between people who are religious and Christianity. - Tim Keller, The Inside Out Kingdom (12:30-13:00). How to set a New Foundation in Your Life?
The first thing is to meditate on this sermon. Matthew has 5 sections that are called the discourses. The Sermon on the Mount is the longest of these, the others are found throughout the Gospel and between the each is stories of Jesus work and miracles. The average American who reads the Bible at least once a month owns 3.6 bibles. Not so for much of the past 2000 years. In fact, individual Bible ownership is really only a recent phenomenon. And the authors of the Gospels understood that to truly know the 6 teachings of Jesus, one would have to memorize and meditate on them. Secondly, I believe the Sermon on the Mount forces us to face an uncomfortable reality about Christianity that we are actually called to believe and do the things laid out this teaching. I ll close, by turning to the summary of the teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer on this topic Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Bonhoeffer contrasts cheap grace with costly grace: Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ye were bought at a price, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God. For Bonhoeffer, those that have interpreted the Sermon as an ideal to strive for, but cannot be attained are guilty leaning toward a cheap understanding of grace. To obey the words of Jesus in this sermon requires God s grace and our willingness to live in a radically sacrificial way. And, Jesus expects us to obey his words. Bonhoeffer writes, The Sermon on the Mount is not a statement to be treated in cavalier fashion by saying that this or that isn t right or that here we find an inconsistency. Its validity depends on it being 6 https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/3-things-didnt-know-sermon-mount/
obeyed. This is not a statement we freely choose to take or leave. It is a compelling, lordly statement. Dietrich will have no (excuse) with dismissing the demands of Jesus Sermon as a private ethic only (Carl Henry), an impossible ideal (Martin Luther) or as first century teaching that can only be obeyed by a community without power on the margins of influence (Reinhold Niebuhr). The Sermon is to be obeyed by individuals who follow Jesus and the church community that claims to be the Body of Christ. In his commentary on the Sermon, Bonhoeffer obliterates the sharp line drawn between justification and sanctification. Bonhoeffer states in clear fashion, The one 7 who believes obeys. the one who does not obey cannot believe. 7 http://methoblog.com/2017/03/instruction-and-indictment-the-sermon-on-the-mount-and-discipleship-dietri ch-bonhoeffer/