Daily Devotional For Saturday, November 30, 2024
Good morning and it is Super Saturday and the last day of November. Can you believe that? We are finishing up the last part of the most famous and best sermon ever – Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount. Currently we are at the last part of it in Matthew 7:21-29:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. (22) 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?’ (23) And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ (24) Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. (25) And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. (26) Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. (27) The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.” (28) When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; (29) for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (NASB).
The last few of these devotionals have been heavy, thought provoking and fearful, considering Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:23. All these people thought they were saved but in the end, they went to hell. We saw that the first reason people choose the broad gate rather than the narrow gate is due to false prophets/teachers/preachers. The second reason is they choose not to build the foundation of their lives on Jesus Christ and the truth of God’s Word – the Bible. So many people hear the Word of God and recognize the Word of God and believe that is enough to save them. They think as above, simply saying, “Lord, Lord . . . “ and doing very impressive religious acts is enough. It is not. To illustrate this, Jesus uses construction or builder’s terms.
First, in the verses above both builders heard the Word of God and responded or acted differently accordingly. The wise man built his house on the rock and when the storms and floods of life came, it stood. The foolish man built his house on sand and when the storms and floods of life came, his house fell. Both have the same opportunity for salvation but choose a different approach to it. Both builders think their houses will stand, but only one does in the end.
Based on context, both builders built their houses in the same general area since both are hit by the same flood. What is Jesus’ point here? The outward circumstances of their lives were essentially the same. One had no advantage over the other. They lived in the same town and possibly attended the same church, heard the same preaching, went to the same Bible study, and fellowshipped with the same friends.
Also, it seems they essentially build the same kind of house. It is not about the house, but its foundation upon which it is built that determined its survivability. One built his house (life, salvation) on the Word of God and obedience to it. The other man, the foolish man, built his house (life, salvation) on his own specification of salvation, not God’s. The foundations determine this. The word Jesus uses here for “rock” is [πέτρα, petra]. This does not refer to a stone nor a bounder. Instead, it refers to an expanse of bedrock. Sand is shifting, unstable, and movable as we have seen this fall in the damage hurricanes did to the sands on beaches. Beach houses literally fell into the ocean as the sand around the pilings gave way to the storms.
It is to the religious teacher of the religious leaders of His day that Jesus is also challenging. They had all these rules and traditions that superseded and trumped God’s Word that opinions, speculations, and standards of men. Those who created and followed them took no account of obedience to God’s Word, purity of the heart, spirituality of the soul, or integrity of behavior. Their only concern was for appearance, the compelling desire to be seen and “honored by men” (Matt. 6:2). They chose appearance over obedience.
New Testament scholar Arthur Pink writes this:
“They bring their bodies to the house of prayer but not their souls; they worship with their mouths, but not “in spirit and in truth.” They are sticklers for immersion or early morning communion, yet take no thought about keeping their hearts with all diligence. They boast of their orthodoxy; but disregard the precepts of Christ. Multitudes of professing Christians abstain from external acts of violence, yet hesitate not to rob their neighbors of a good name by spreading evil reports against them. They contribute regularly to the “pastor’s salary,” but shrink not from misrepresenting their goods and cheating their customers, persuading themselves that “business is business.” They have more regard for the laws of man than those of God, for His fear is not before their eyes” (Source: Arthur Pink, An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, “Matthew,’ p. 423).
Here, the genuinely saved person builds their house and salvation on the bedrock of Word of God. The proof of true discipleship is not just hearing the Word of God, but doing it, obeying it. They live out James 1:22-24:
“But be careful to do what God says in his message. Do not only listen to it. Do not make that mistake! (23) You must obey God's message. Do not be like a man who quickly looks at his face in a mirror. (24) That man looks at himself, but then he goes away. He immediately forgets what he is really like” (ESY).
In other words, a person who professes to know Christ but does not obey Christ, has no lasting image of what the new life is all about. He glimpses Christ, and glimpses what Christ can do for him, but his image of Christ and of the new life in Christ soon fades. His experience with the gospel is shallow, superficial, and short-lived. God reminds us of this in 1 John 2:3-6:
“And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. (4) If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. (5) But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. (6) Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did” (NLT).
The Apostle Paul warns us also about this in Titus 1:15-16:
“Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted. (16) Such people claim they know God, but they deny Him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good” (NLT).
To profess knowledge of God but not obedience to God is to have entered the broad gate, not the narrow gate. It is to have built your “house” or life on sand, the ever constant changing and shifting opinions of others and yourself, and not the bedrock of God’s Word. The only real proof of salvation is obedience. That’s it. Through the whole Sermon On The Mount, Jesus has taught and stressed this. Pastor and author John MacArthur writes this:
“It is the life that has a scriptural view of itself, as described in the Beatitudes. It is the life that has a scriptural view of the world, and sees itself as God’s means for preserving and enlightening the world while not being a part of it. It is the life that has the divine view of Scripture and that determines not to alter God’s Word in the slightest degree. It is a life that is concerned about internal righteousness rather than external form. It is a life that has a godly attitude toward what is said and what is done, toward motives, things, money, and other people. It is a life of genuineness rather than hypocrisy, and of God’s righteousness rather than self-righteousness.”
The house built on the rock is the life that empties itself of self-righteousness and pride, that is overwhelmed by and mourns over its own sin, that makes the maximum effort to enter the narrow gate and be faithful in the narrow way of Christ and His Word. Such a builder does not build his life or place his hope on ceremony, ritual, visions, experiences, feelings, or miracles but on the Word of God and that alone.
The sand is composed of human opinions, attitudes, and wills, which are always shifting and always unstable. To build on sand is to build on self-will, self-fulfillment, self-purpose, self-sufficiency, self-satisfaction, and self-righteousness. To build on sand is to be unteachable, to be “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7) – (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Matthew,’ p. 484).
To build your life on “sand” is to follow the way of the devil and be deceived into thinking you are saved when you are not. Because they are deluded and deceived, they have no reason to resist the devil nor seek the Lord. To build your life and salvation on bedrock is the narrow gate, which is hard. To build your life on sand is the easy, broad path. Meaning one searches for the bedrock to build upon while the other simply finds what agrees with his own opinion and builds his life on it. The easy way is attractive because it is quick. The goal is to please God and this person takes the easiest, quickest path to do that, which in the end does not.
They do not want to be hassled by the discipline of applying God’s Word and obediently living it out. They want quick fixes that on the outside by all appearances makes others think they are a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ, when according to Jesus, they are not. In other words, let me sign a card, walk an aisle, or pray a prayer as being sufficient enough instead of “working out their salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).
Keep in mind that in both cases, the storm was the same. It was the foundations that were different. Sadly, in the end, what is tragic is the eternal destinies of each one. In this story, the storm is Judgment Day and whatever a person built their life on will either sustain them for heaven or wash them away to hell. These words also remind us how spiritually unstable people get washed away by all kinds of storms in life. Ever known someone who came to Christ, and then something happened, and you never see them again at church? Why? Faulty foundation. Only lives built on the bedrock of Scripture can survive and be sustained through the storms of life.
New Testament scholar Douglas Sean O’Donnel writes this:
“But what about you? Where are your feet today? Are they sifting through sand or are they solidly placed upon the Rock? Our loving Lord is warning you today. Beware of false prophets. Beware of the wide gate and easy path. Beware of building your house on the wrong foundation. Beware of the coming judgment. Beware lest your house crumble and fall to the ground (v. 27), and your seemingly carefree walk through this world ends in destruction (v. 13), and your very body and soul are banished from Christ’s presence (v. 23) and are thrown into the fire (v. 19). “Beware,” Jesus warns” (Source: Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Preach The Word Bible Commentary, “Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth, p. 201).
Questions To Consider
- Jesus’ warning should put the fear of God in all of us. Does His words do that to you? Why or why not?
- There is an eternal difference between “being in the church,” “being in doing religious activities’ and “being in Christ.” What is that difference to you?
- What are you building your life on today? The bedrock of Scripture” or the “shifting sand of opinions?” What is the proof?
- When you sin, are you heartbroken over it or do you just take the broad gate and keep on going? Why or why not?
- Jesus says that genuine conversion is proved by obedience. How does your life prove that in you?
Scripture To Meditate On: John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (NASB).
Prayer To Pray: “Lord, help me to always take the narrow gate, to be heartbroken over my sin and repentant of it. Help me choose the narrow gate of obedience, not the broad gate of ease and opinions. Help me to be in you, not just in the church. I love You Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly