Well, this morning we come to the last portion of our Lord's Sermon on the Mount and in some ways probably the most familiar as that Sunday school song reminds us about the wise man and the foolish man building their houses respectively upon the rock and upon the sand. Matthew 7, verses 24 to 27. I would like to read in connection with that Psalm 62. Psalm 62. Before we do so, let's bow together asking for our God's blessing upon the reading and the consideration of His Word this morning. Let's pray together. Father, we know that You have a most important Word for Your people. A most important Word every time we open the Scriptures and peer into it. We also acknowledge, Father, that in and of ourselves, we cannot understand it. And we depend upon the power of Your Holy Spirit to work in our hearts and lives to illumine us, to show us the riches that You have in store for Your people. May it be too, Father, that we come to Your Word this morning, today, this morning and this evening with an expectation that indeed, as You have promised, You will bless Your people. Help us to hear, to understand. Enable us by Your Holy Spirit and equip us to put Your Word into practice in our daily lives to show forth the glory of our God and King and the comfort that we have in Christ Jesus. So hear our prayer. We ask these things for Jesus' sake. Amen. Psalm 62. Hear now the Word of God. Through the psalmist David, My soul finds rest in God alone. My salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress. I will never be shaken. How long will you assault a man? Would all of you throw him down? This leaning wall? This tottering fence? They fully intend to topple him from his lofty place. They take delight in lies. With their mouths they bless, but in their hearts they curse. Find rest, O my soul, in God alone. My hope comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress. I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God. He is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in Him at all times, O peoples. Pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge. Low-born men are but a breath. The high-born are but a lie. If weighed on a balance, they are nothing. Together, they are only a breath. Do not trust in extortion or take pride in stolen goods. Though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them. One thing God has spoken. Two things have I heard. That you, O God, are strong. And that you, O Lord, are loving. Surely, you will reward each person according to what he has done. Matthew 7, and back up to verse 21 again. Our Lord says, Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only He who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew You. Away from Me, you evildoers. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house. Yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. May God add His blessing to the reading and consideration of His Word this morning. Well, having considered that text, beloved, many of us here probably have that Sunday school song going through our minds. The wise man built his house upon the rock, The rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the rock stood firm. But the foolish man, he built his house upon the sand. The rains came down, the floods came up, and the house on the sand went smash as we used to love to do at the end of that song. And of course, the moral of the story, as the song says, is so build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ. And indeed, that's what parents promise to teach their children in baptism. That's what Glenn and Jennifer have promised to teach now, along with their other four children, little Harrison as well. What we have promised to teach our children. To build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ. Throughout this sermon, we have noticed somewhat that Jesus really is drawing attention to Himself. And He is drawing attention to His authority. For example, in chapter 5, verse 11, He speaks of those who will be persecuted because of Me. because of Him, He says. In chapter 5, verse 17, He says, I have come to fulfill the law and the prophets. In a number of places, He says, you have heard that it was said, but I say to you. Jesus, as we have seen, is the narrow gate. He is one with God the Father as He has taught. He is the one who will admit or refuse admittance to heaven as He says that He will say to some, Depart from Me, for I never knew you. And as if, just in case all of that was not yet clear, now at the very end, He drives home the point that He is the only One to be believed. He is the One upon whom one is to build their life as Jesus establishes Himself as one's only sure foundation. He says, therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine, My words. I am the one to be listened to. I am the one to be followed. Not the false prophets, not the Pharisees who are teaching you their traditions. But I am the one in whom you will find eternal security, which is so very important. Why? Because as He has been teaching in these last few portions, judgment is coming. And only those who are built on Jesus Christ by faith have hope. Because there is no other foundation for building a life house. All people are building a life house of some sort. And every ambition that a man cherishes, every thought that he conceives, every word that he speaks, every action that he performs is a building block in this life house. And the question is, what are you building on? what are you building on? And it's an important question because there can only be, in truth, there can only be one of two kinds of houses. And that is because there are only two kinds of people. The psalmist David made that clear. He talks about the highborn and the lowborn. They're nothing. Those two kinds of people, of course, are not the rich or the poor. They're not the good and the bad. They are not even those who are in the visible church versus those who are not in the visible church. But the two kinds of people are those who hear the Word of Christ and put it into practice versus those who don't put it into practice. The two kinds of people are believers or unbelievers. Whatever other distinctions there may be among men, there are only two kinds of people. And of course, it would be easy for us this morning to say that Jesus here in this text is making a distinction between open, blatant rejecters and haters of Him on the one side and those who profess faith in Him on the other side. Open rejecters versus those who profess faith in Him. But He's not. He's not making that distinction. He continues a warning that we have considered in the previous few portions. Again, there are only two kinds of people, believers and unbelievers, Yet, His warning, as we have seen, is that both kinds can be found in the visible church. There are wolves in sheep's clothing. There are those who say and do outwardly the right things when it comes to Jesus. There are many who hear His words, but very few doers of His word, as James says. So in the one sense, he continues his warning here against deceiving oneself. And he does so, as with his example, he places before his audience the deceptive appearance. Now you may say, well, what are you talking about? What's the deceptive appearance? Notice, the contrast here is not between successful and unsuccessful earthly lives in the eyes of the world. The contrast is not even between expensive houses or broken down ghetto shacks. and we know that because of the similarities that we find in these few easy-to-understand words. The similarities of the builders. Notice. Both have a desire and work to build a house for their families to live in. Simply that. We can say that both chose the same location on which to build because both houses face the very same difficulties, These are the very same tests and stresses. The rain, the floodwaters, and the wind. And we might even say that these men could be next-door neighbors because of the deceptive appearance of the buildings, of the houses. The houses are the same. There's no difference. They're track homes. Because Jesus only points out one difference. A difference that is not clear by looking at the houses, by looking at them externally. That one difference is the hidden foundation. That which cannot be seen. On the surface, the buildings, the houses, look identical. On this side of glory, beloved, not all unbelievers look like unbelievers. Maybe we've never heard it that way before. We talk about sometimes not all believers look like believers. But not all unbelievers look like unbelievers. Many appear to be sincere Christians, or at least they look like really good people that we think could be Christians. Sometimes we wonder that, don't we, when we see someone, how they speak and how they act. We say, well, I wonder if they're a Christian. Remember, there was no difference, no evident difference between Judas Iscariot and the other eleven. Boys and girls, you remember Judas Iscariot? He's the one who turned against Jesus. There was no evident difference between him and the other eleven for a time. Even though he was called the son of perdition, he even enjoyed the benefits of the other eleven for a time. And remember, Jesus' audience at this time included those who claimed to be true followers of His, but later on they rejected Him. True and false Christians can be members of the same church. can hear the same word preached, with a mouth confess the same Lord, desire to live the same morally good lives and even understand the need for forgiveness and desire it and understand the truth of heaven and hell and desire heaven. To so many people, Christianity is attractive and it ought to be. Of course, we know that there are many who hate the church of Jesus Christ and those who want nothing to do with God's people and want to shut the mouths of God's people and shut off the Word of God. But on the other side, too many, Christianity is attractive and they find something comforting and secure about the Christian church. We know that with the benevolent cases that come here and whether their attitude is right or not, and sometimes it's not right, but yet they understand something about the church, that here's a place that one ought to be able to find love and comfort and help and communion, community. If you had the opportunity to use the preparatory meditations from Dr. P.Y. DeYoung the other week, you may remember in the one certain meditation, he talked about a particular point in history and he says, when the pagans noticed that the sick were lovingly cared for, the fallen were being restored, and the orphans and babes that had been thrown out were taken in, and he says that one pagan wrote, Behold those Christians, how they love each other. Many do find Christianity somewhat attractive. At least, they want the outward benefits of it. Now, the intent of our Lord here, beloved, is not that we should begin to examine each other and to examine others and try to judge who is true and who is false. Not at all. But the intent of our Lord is that we should examine and oneself, ourselves, and ask as the twelve did when Jesus said that there was going to be one who would reject Him, betray Him. The Bible says each one of them asked, is it I? And Jesus makes it clear here that you can and you will know as He calls for the inspection of the distinguishing feature for building a life house. And that distinguishing feature is that proper foundation. And each one of us ought to ask ourselves, how is my life house? Do I have the proper foundation? Am I building? Where am I building? Notice the distinguishing feature of the wise man. Wise means to be understanding, to be prudent or sensible when it comes to one's well-being, to look ahead and to plan ahead. The wise man, Jesus says, built his house on the rock. Luke is even more specific in his Gospel account when he says, The wise man dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock, but the foolish man built a house on the ground without a foundation. Now at that time, in the desert region, of course, everybody built on the sand. That was normal. These people would have understood what Jesus was saying. They would have understood about digging down. Only they would have called the wise man foolish and the foolish man wise. Building on the sand was normal. We use sand. We use it for backfill. We use it for drainage. Yet, we know enough that now when we build a building, we dig down and we pour a concrete footing because that building needs something firm to stand on. But in that day, as they listened, for those, they would say, well, to go through all the extra work to dig down to the bedrock, to dig down to the hard pan, is crazy. It's a waste of time. It's foolish. it was to overdo it because who needs a house in the desert that needs to hold up against an ocean? But the wise man knew the possibility of that ocean in a sense. He knew of the periodic rains that would come fast and furious and for days on end. He knew all about flash floods and therefore to dig down deep was to build more safety, more security into the house. The wise builder was careful. He was considerate. He consulted the experts, the architects, and the structural engineers. He was insightful and he planned for the what-ifs. And then there's the foolish man. The foolish man was careless. He built in a hurry. He doesn't consider the experts because he figured he knew it all. And he saved money. Man, save money. Who's the foolish one? Who's the wise one? He was long in his house before the wise man barely started building. He didn't plan for the outside chance of hurricane winds in combination with a flood. He forgot that sand doesn't stand still. He forgot that sand shifts constantly in the wind. Boys and girls, if you build a sandcastle on the beach and that water comes flowing up, that water doesn't hit the top of the sandcastle. It hits the bottom. It begins to wipe out the sand underneath and pretty soon the whole thing falls over. The foolish man's house without a firm foundation, without a foundation at all, Jesus says, was a recipe for disaster. Beloved, as we consider this story of Jesus, it's very understandable, isn't it? And hopefully, the direct application is clear. The foundation is Jesus Christ. The foundation is hearing the words of Jesus. is indeed the words of the sermon pointing to the entire Word of God and putting those words into practice. To not do so is to have no foundation at all. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And therefore, as we'll sing tonight, the Lord willing, all other ground is sinking sand. We understand that picture. It makes sense to us. The only sure foundation is Jesus Christ. Hearing His words. Putting them into practice, which means first of all, believing that He is the only Savior for sin. A Savior that we desperately need. And trusting in His blood and righteousness alone for the forgiveness of our sins and reconciliation with God that we might be made acceptable to God. And therefore, believing that He knows best. Believing that He governs by His Word through His Holy Spirit. those for whom He is the foundation, they recognize by the grace of God, they recognize they're desperate, they're hopeless, they're condemned conditioned because of sin, and they recognize their need for Jesus Christ alone. And empowered and enabled by the Holy Spirit, they give evidence of their faith by their works, their lives, devoted to living for Him in obedience to His Word, seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness. That's what it means to build that house. For the foolish man, again, talking specifically about the unbeliever and the visible church, that he wants the benefits of Christianity. He wants the benefits of the church, but not the responsibilities, not the obligations. He hears the Word of God, but he does not treat it as absolutely necessary or as the instruction manual for life. He does not see Jesus as the expert. The only one to go to. He does not truly study the Word of God. He does not ask, as Paul did, Lord, what would You have me to do? Instead, he takes what makes him feel good. He takes what he can easily agree with. He takes that which doesn't step on his toes. He wants to hear about the love of God, but he doesn't want to hear anything about a man who is dead in sin. He does not see God's commands as absolutely non-negotiable, but merely as suggestions to be taken or left according to one's own decision. That's the foolish man. The foolish man does not truly trust in the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but instead believes that he is good enough or that all he has to do is try a little bit harder and he will be okay. He is living with a false, self-deceptive sense of security. But not so the wise man. The wise man is the one that the writer of Proverbs describes when he says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The wise man is the one Jesus was speaking about, is speaking about, at the very beginning of the sermon. The one who is poor in spirit. That's how Jesus begins the sermon. We said that way back a year ago when we started this series. He's preaching to believers, especially here. Those who are poor in spirit. The wise man is the one who by the grace of God has been brought to see his utter bankruptcy before God. To see that he has nothing to offer to God. Nothing with which to redeem himself. He has been brought to understand the sovereignty and the justice of God and that sin must and it will be dealt with. And therefore, he has been given the wisdom to look ahead. He has been brought to see that his only hope is in Jesus Christ. He believes the Word of Jesus, that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And even though he is considered foolish by the world, he is building by the grace of God with eternity in mind. And the wise man also embraces Jesus Christ not only as Savior, but also as the Lord of his life. To live as Christ calls. To live in a way that is pleasing to God, which is evidence of the saving grace of God. His confidence is in Christ alone. And therefore, the wise man indeed hates his sin. If we are to go back and look over this entire sermon, He hates his sin, and therefore he fights against it. He knows he sins, but he fights against it in the strength of the Holy Spirit. He is meek and humble, striving to not draw attention to himself in his giving, in his praying, in his fasting, but instead only to glorify God. He hungers and thirsts for righteousness and we might say for purity in heart, and therefore he strives to keep from murder and adultery in the heart. By the grace of God, the wise man travels the narrow way that is outlined and governed by the Word of God. Building his life house. A life house that does not draw attention to himself, but a life house that points to Jesus Christ. The wise man understands that this life is not the end, but it is preparation for the life to come. And therefore, he does not become a slave to the treasures of this world, but he is content with God's provision and he is not, therefore, overcome with worry and anxiety. In fact, beloved, the one who builds his life house on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ by faith has no need to worry. Not that the child of God never experiences tests and trials or that when we do, that we will never suffer. We do suffer. We do hurt. Not that the child of God will never fall into sin. we still struggle with sin as we are reminded each and every Lord's Day. But our struggle is in such a way that we have hope. It's not a hopeless struggle thinking that God might cast us off again. He will not. But it's confidence upon that solid rock of Jesus Christ. Plain and simple, apart from Jesus Christ, one's life will crash and burn sooner or later. And that crashing and burning is guaranteed on Judgment Day. But for those who are founded by His grace on the One who is our rock and our salvation, as Psalm 62 says, He is the guarantee that we will stand in the judgment because we have been cleansed by His blood. That's the promise of baptism, isn't it? That's that wonderful promise that as parents we get to teach to our children. We get to teach them about that most wonderful promise, the promise to us. And as a people of God, as we observe each and every time we have the privilege to observe that sacrament of baptism, we are reminded, we are called to remember the promise that God has given to us. And it's a reminder to us as well to constantly embrace that promise that our God has given to us. Jesus establishes Himself as the only sure foundation for building a life house. He says, I am it. And beloved, His Word is sufficient because His Word is true. Yet knowing the judgment of God to come on the unbeliever and knowing our weakness as well knowing the dangerous effects of sin in the world, our Lord goes on to give a further guarantee for withstanding destruction in the face of certain rain and floods and winds. That's our second point. But that will have to be continued until tonight. as we consider the amazing truth of what Jesus Christ, the Solid Rock Foundation, does and what He will do for His people. Beloved, Christ's call is to believe in Him. His call is to build on Him. That is property that will never lose its value. But it is appraised according to eternal values. So many do whatever it takes to invest in the American dream on this earth. But only those whose lives are invested with and belong to Jesus Christ, they already own that home called heaven. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we praise You for bringing us as Your people to build upon Jesus Christ. We thank You for the rock of our salvation. The one upon whom we will stand and endure forever and ever. And Father, we thank You too that not only is that promise for eternity, but that promise is for today as we look forward to considering together tonight. For we know that even in this life we face all kinds of challenges and difficulties and hardships. And You teach us that indeed it is that firm foundation that makes all the difference. Father, we pray that You would continue to work in our hearts and lives to build us up strong and secure and help us as you build to give you the praise and the glory that you deserve. In Jesus' name we pray all these things. Amen.