With the advent of the Internet, we are living in a time
that some people have called “The Information Age,” but if you ever find
yourself feeling less informed than ever, you’re not alone. Who can possibly
keep up with all of the e-mails, all of the news sites, all of the Facebook
updates and the must-see videos? In the sea of information that surrounds us
today, how do we decide whose words are truly important to focus on?
Well, we
can find the answer in a book that went viral a long time ago—the Bible! In
this book, we have a record of the teachings of Jesus Christ, and within His
teachings, Jesus made a claim that whoever hears His words should consider them
to be of supreme importance. It is a bold claim, and to the people who heard
Him it was a shocking claim. I believe it would serve us well to look at Jesus’
claim this morning and consider what He has to say.
We find
this claim in Matthew 7:24-27. Please feel free to turn there in your own Bible
if you brought it this morning, or you can also find the text of these verses
in your bulletin. These verses are the conclusion of a message from Jesus that
we often call “The Sermon on the Mount” because Jesus spoke these words in the
hill country around the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. This sermon is the
longest segment of Jesus’ teaching that we have on record, and at the end of it
we find this claim [READ 7:24-27].
Please notice
with me first of all how…
1. Jesus makes an audacious
claim of authority for His teaching
In essence,
Jesus told His audience that His words are the dividing line between wisdom and
foolishness—hear them and obey, and you will be shown to be wise; hear them and
disobey, and you will be shown to be a fool. That’s a much stronger claim than
saying, “Well, here’s my two cents!” Jesus was claiming a right that the Old
Testament reserved for God alone. Proverbs 2:6 says,
“The Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.”
Jesus was claiming to have a divine authority for His teaching.
This claim
was shocking to the people who heard Jesus that day. Verses
28 and 29 of this chapter say, “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the
crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had
authority, and not as their scribes.” The
scribes of that time taught the same way that students write research papers
today. Students are not considered to be experts, so to support their
point they insert quotes from experts in their research papers. That’s how the
scribes taught—they quoted experts from the past and basically “piggy-backed”
on their authority.
There was
nothing wrong with that approach, but it’s a far cry from how Jesus taught.
Throughout this sermon He had said, “Here is what you have been taught, but I
say to you that this is the truth.” Jesus took His stand on nothing but His own
claim to have divine authority. If this true, then we cannot afford to give
Jesus’ words anything less than our full attention. We must take notice of what
Jesus’ said; to do anything less is to set out on the path of foolishness.
Please notice
next how…
2. Jesus stresses the need to
obey His teaching
Notice the
main difference between the two men in this parable. The difference did not lie
in hearing the words of Jesus.
According to the Lord, both of these men heard His words. The difference
between them is that one man acted upon them whereas the other man did not.
Thus, we
learn that the path of wisdom is paved with the stepping stones of obedience to
Jesus’ teachings. To hear them and not act upon them is—once again—to set out
on the path of foolishness. Now this distinction simply touches upon a basic
law of learning—you have to act upon what you learn to get any practical
benefit out of it. For example, you can listen to sound financial advice all
day long, but at the end of the day if you don’t follow the advice, you’ll
probably just be well-informed and broke!
If we think
we are on the road to wisdom by simply hearing Jesus’ words, we better check
the map again! Its time for the GPS to recalculate! James 1:22-25 warns us
about the danger of deceiving ourselves if we only hear the words of Jesus but
do not live them out [READ James 1:22-25].
Those words “he
will be blessed” in v. 25 are reminiscent of Jesus’ own words which attached a
substantial promise to His teachings.
3. Jesus attaches a substantial
promise to His teaching
In His
parable, Jesus stated that the man who obeys His words “will be like a wise
man,” and likewise the man who does not obey His words “will be like a foolish
man.” These statements are both in the future tense, and I think this little
point of grammar is extremely important for us to recognize. Jesus is saying
that when it comes time to harvest the fruit of our choices, there will be an
obvious difference between those who chose to obey Him and those who did not. Time
will tell whose choices were wise and whose were foolish, because you can’t
always see the difference in the moment of decision.
In many
cases, obeying the teachings of Jesus does not appear to be the wise choice to
make in that moment. Let’s just consider a few of the commands from the Sermon
on the Mount. It does not appear to be a wise choice to love your enemies.
After all, they are your enemies! It does not appear to be a wise choice to
resist laying up treasures for yourself in this world. It does not appear to be
wise to stay married to a difficult spouse. It does not appear to be wise to
endure persecution for Jesus’ sake.
But the
promise that Jesus makes is that the wisdom of obeying these commands will
become evident in due time. Thus, obeying Jesus requires foresight and faith.
The man who built his house on the sand demonstrated a devastating lack of
foresight. The location of his home may have seemed okay while he was building
it, but he forgot about the storms that would inevitably come. He was not
thinking ahead, and his foolishness became evident once the storms came.
The wise
man, however, exercised foresight, and he also acted in faith toward Jesus’
teaching. Faith is the settled conviction that a claim or an idea is true. The
wise man was not deceived by the way things appeared at the moment. He had a
settled conviction that the words of Jesus were true, and that conviction
proved true when the storms came.
So, we are
challenged to believe three lessons from this passage: 1) that Jesus’ words are
of the utmost importance and must not be ignored; 2) that we must obey Jesus’
words and not be content with merely hearing them; and 3), that when we choose
to obey Jesus, our choice will be proven to be the wise one in due time. I urge
all of us today to give Jesus’ words the attention and the obedience that they
deserve. We will not be disappointed with that choice!
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