Sermon Transcript

(Matthew 7:24–27)

May 3, 2026

Everyone, we are in Matthew 7 today. We are finishing Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. I got to tell you, I looked up this week all the things that are necessary for us to build a house. I mean, it’s complicated, right? I’m trying to get my mom and dad to move up here, and my mom’s like, “Well, we can just build a house right there in your backyard.” And I’m like, “But Mom, you got that septic field that snakes through the property.”

And then I started just doing some research, and it’s not just a septic tank. You’ve got to look for permeability, right? You’ve got to see how permeable the soil is. You’ve got to look for water tables. And then there’s this special word called geotechnical engineering. Don’t ask me what it is, but it’s there. And there are so many factors and elements that come into building a house; it’s complicated. But you see, every house that is worth building is difficult, it’s hard, and it’s expensive.

And it’s with that that we read this passage today. So rise with me as we read Matthew 7:24–27:

“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.” (CSB)

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

Father, I come to You right now and I ask that You would please fill me and Your people with an extra measure of Your Holy Spirit today so that we can, Lord, so that we can glorify You, so that we can taste You, so that we can leave here being better, obedient disciples of Christ to make disciples. Lord, this world is dark and it’s only getting darker. The road is getting narrower and narrower that leads to life (Matt 7:14). And so many of us are just not awake to see what’s going on. So many people who call themselves Christians are not taking seriously Your commands here.

And my hope, Lord, is that all those who say “Lord, Lord” to You at Judgment Day, that they truly will be welcomed into Your kingdom because they heed the words that You have today (Matt 7:21). But it cannot be done unless You break through and they truly taste and see Your glory—that their eyes would be open and their ears would hear. But that is only if You do it. So I pray that You would do mighty things today, that You would have me take a back seat, that You would own this service, and that Your people here would see Jesus, not Josh. Please, I pray that my words today would comfort the hurting, that they would wake up the sleeping, and that they would encourage the fighting. In Jesus’ name, amen.

All right, we have arrived at the last verses in the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon started in chapter 5 of Matthew, and now the sermon has reached its ultimate conclusion. He ends the sermon with this call: everything that He has taught us in the Sermon on the Mount must be applied to your lives. Jesus ends this sermon with this hearkening call that you must realize you don’t just build your lives on Jesus as your teacher. You don’t just build your lives on Jesus as a moral philosopher. You do not build your lives on Jesus as your therapist, your social worker, or your statue to which you bend a knee. You build your life on the teachings of Jesus as your Lord and your King. There is no other way. He is looking for obedience from those who live in His kingdom. Therefore the main point of today’s sermon is that we will only be saved by faith through obedience to Jesus.

Main Point: We will only be saved by faith through obedience to Jesus.

Now, many of you are going to hear that, and you’re going to say to yourselves, “What in the world do you mean, saved by faith only through obedience?” Many of us have been told that we are only saved through faith and that works are not important. It’s the exact opposite, actually, of growing up Catholic, where it’s not saved by faith alone—you need your works. But here I’m telling you today that faith is important. You cannot be saved without faith. But what I want you to know is that your faith in Jesus as Lord is proven by your obedience. You want to prove to the world that Jesus is your King? Then bend the knee and obey every command that He gives you. We will only be saved through obedience.

But before we address salvation, let us address the imagery of building the house. Jesus says everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them—or does them—is building on the rock (v 24). If you’ve read this many times before, you might be thinking to yourself, “The rock is Jesus.” And it is true that Jesus is referred to in the Scriptures as the rock, no doubt (1 Cor 10:4). But that is not what Jesus means in this passage. The rock is obedience to Jesus. Because He says the wise man is the one who hears these words of Mine and does them. That’s the man that’s building on the rock. The rock in this image is obedience to Christ as King.

The fool is the one who hears the words of Jesus and doesn’t obey them (v 26). The fool is the one who hears that uncle that’s always pestering you; you know, when you come into Church, “I told you, you better believe in Jesus.” “Okay, Grandpa.” We shrug that off. But they don’t realize they’re holding a gun to their head. That’s the fool. The fool is the one who has heard that Jesus loves them, He has paid the price for them, and He wants to save them, but they shrug it off and they build their lives on something else instead.

Every single person obeys a master (v 24)

If we are not obeying Jesus, I want you to recognize right now that you are obeying someone else. There is no one in this room who is capable of living completely free. The American dream and the American experiment do not apply to spiritual masters. We may not have a national king, but every single person in this room has a spiritual king. Who is yours?

If you disobey Jesus, you’re not just obeying nothing; you’re obeying His enemy. Because the enemy of God, Satan, has only one command: disobey the one true God. Reject the King of kings. That’s his message. So every time you do not obey the commands and the teachings of Jesus, it is a time when you are saying to the world, “Satan is supreme.” We must reject that. Therefore, we are all obeying someone. This is the imagery of Jesus here: when He says you are building a life somewhere, your building is the act of obedience. And if it’s on a rock, your life is obedience to Jesus.

Everyone is either a slave to sin or righteousness (Rom 6:16–18)

You see, Jesus isn’t the only one who says this—that we all have a master. For Paul says it as well in Romans 6:16–18:

“Do you not know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.” (CSB)

In Christ Jesus, we are dead to sin. When we rose in our baptism, we were symbolizing for everyone: we believe that we have risen to new life. We have risen with Christ, and we are dead to sin (Rom 6:4). And when you were no longer a slave to sin, you were now a servant—a slave to God—and therefore a slave to His righteousness. Now, every now and then, a slave might mess up and disobey the Master. But the Master comes home, and He puts us back in line. So yes, we do sometimes sin, even though we’re a slave to righteousness. But we have a loving Master who corrects us as a loving Father and puts us back in line (Heb 12:6).

Now here’s what I want you to know: if you disobey the king of this world, he will also try to discipline you. You will lose friends, lose your job, and you may even lose your own life. But at the end of the day, what we must be looking for is how we will stand in the weather. My question for you is: which master are you obeying? If it’s not Jesus, you might think that you’re living under a worldview that’s not satanic, but I assure you, if it’s not of Jesus, it is satanic.

And there are many. You see, a worldview is a lens that you wear over your brain, and everything in life you interpret through it. So when something bad happens to you, if you’re a Christian, you say, “God is with me, no matter what. In this moment, I know that God loves me.” No matter what happens, in the thick and the thin, the good and the bad, the Lord is with me, and I believe that He loves me. I may not understand this bad thing, but I know that He says in Romans 8:28, “All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” That is a Christian worldview.

But there are other worldviews. For example, if you’re an atheist, you will see bad things happen and just say, “Yep, this is the law—the second law of thermodynamics. We’re all leading to entropy, and we’re all doomed to just die eventually, because all matter must die eventually.” That’s another worldview; it is satanic. Another worldview is secularism: “We can be a moral people and creature even without any sniff or whiff of God existing.” It’s very similar to atheism. When we see bad things, a secularist or a progressivist will say, “We just need bigger government to solve our problems. Let’s take more tax money and let’s give it to these people who are hurting. We’ll hire therapists, and these therapists will give them secular therapy. We’ll take God out of the picture; it’ll be state-funded.” We’ll see single mothers, and our response will be, “Well, the state now must have more daycares, and the state will provide these single mothers with an opportunity to dump their children on us. We will raise them, and mothers can go work their fingers down to the bone.” This is satanic, because it says that the answer to life’s problems is in anything but God. That is satanic. But we must obey the King. So what worldview are you living under?

Every person will be judged based on the master they obeyed (v 24, 27)

So, with that, when any master is disobeyed, there is judgment. Therefore, every person will be judged based on the master they obeyed. When we disobey Satan by obeying Christ as King, I already mentioned, Satan is going to try and punish you by making your life very difficult and hard to withstand. But what happens when we disobey Jesus? What happens when we hear the words of Jesus and we do not build our lives on obedience to them?

The storm comes. When I read this parable many years ago, I used to think that building your life on the rock to withstand the storm meant the storms of life. But that’s not what this is talking about. This is talking about God’s storm—the final storm that every person must go through—and that is the judgment at the end of days.

Now, how do we know that? For one, this passage starts with a “therefore.” The ESV actually only uses the word “then,” so it may not be as obvious. But there’s this really cheesy phrase—it’s so memorable I’ve got to use it: “Whenever you see the word therefore, you have to see what it is there for.” A “therefore” says you look back. In light of what was just said, we now say this, right? “If you don’t clean your room, you will be punished. Therefore, go clean your room.”

Jesus begins this imagery with a “therefore.” That means verses 24 through 27 are directly related to verses 22 and 23. And what are those words?

“On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’” (Matt 7:22–23, CSB)

And then, therefore, build your life on the teachings of Jesus and obeying them because a storm is coming. The “therefore” tells you that if you think the storm is the struggles of life, you’re missing the whole context. He’s building on the Judgment Day of verses 22 through 23.

And not only that, we also see weather imagery as a sign of God’s judgment all over the Old Testament. One is Ezekiel 13. But there’s also Isaiah 28:17 that talks about hailstorms and floods. Think of the ten plagues with God’s judgment; a lot of that was weather events (Exod 9:23–25). And then the only other time a weather event is mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew is chapter 24.

“As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. For in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark. They didn’t know until the flood came and swept them all away. This is the way the coming of the Son of Man will be.” (Matt 24:37–39, CSB)

Weather imagery most of the time is referring to God’s judgment. Therefore, the storm here is talking about Judgment Day.

Now let’s do a storm analysis, shall we? Note the rainfall. Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that God gives good things to the good and the bad. He sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45). In that context, it was a blessing. We serve and love a merciful God who even gives rainfall to those who reject and hate Him. And we’re called to mirror that; we’re called to love our enemies. That’s great.

But the rain that is here creates rivers. It says the rain falls and the rivers came (v 25). I want you to think about this for a second. Picture this image: you have a house that is on a rock. And you are in the house and the house is standing. But you look out of every window and all you see is a river. As a Katrina survivor, I can tell you this is very real imagery for us. Do you remember the images of the people standing on the roof and helicopters filming them? And they’re writing “Help, help” on the roof? That is Judgment Day that we’re seeing, okay? Judgment Day tells you there is nowhere to go to escape the river. When Judgment Day comes, you step out of the house, you drown. You jump out a window, you drown. You leave the house that you built for yourself, you are dead. That is why it is absolutely critical to make sure you know what you are building. Is it on obedience to Jesus?

But also note the standing. When something falls, it falls to judgment. And if it doesn’t fall, that means it’s standing. This is the image that you see, for example, in Romans 14:4:

“Who are you to judge another’s household servant? Before his own lord he stands or falls. And he will stand, because the Lord is able to make him stand.” (CSB)

So when it says here that the house falls in this image, and we know it’s Judgment Day, the falling of the house is condemnation for the home builder. It is the final judgment.

But there is something really interesting here. When Jesus is describing the event, the judgment of the weather storm for the man who built his house on the rock, He repeats all of the same imagery and the vocabulary as when He describes the man who built his house on the sand, with one exception. He uses a different Greek word when He’s describing the force of the wind that slaps on the house for the sand builder.

You see, He uses this word in verse 25, prospipto, to describe the house that’s beaten by the wind for the house that’s on the rock. This just shows that the wind is testing the structure of the house. It takes the judgment of God and it stands. But He changes the word when He describes the house built on the sand (v 27). Instead of prospipto, He uses the word proskopto. Why in the world would He change the word? Until I did some research on this word: this word can be used in a beating or a striking manner, just like we translate in our texts. So the translations are accurate. In verse 27, when it says the wind “beat” on that house that was built on the sand, that is an accurate translation.

But sometimes, just like in English, we use a specific word because we intend to convey two meanings. I think that’s what Jesus is doing. Because the other way that you use this word is also when you are using it metaphorically to say that you feel repugnance for someone else. You loathe them. Jesus is saying, for the man who built his house on the sand, the beating and the judgment of God will be a statement that says, “I feel repugnance, and I loathe you.” It is absolute rejection, and the rejection of God is the most painful part of His judgment.

We can be beaten, we can be bruised, but nothing hurts more than Jesus on the cross saying, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matt 27:46). That’s the only time you see Jesus cry out in the midst of His crucifixion in Matthew. He doesn’t wail, He doesn’t moan because He is the slaughtered lamb that goes to the slaughter with His mouth closed (Isa 53:7); He doesn’t bleat in pain and agony, but the second He feels the abandonment of God, He cries out. And that is the worst part in this storm. He not only destroys you, but He tells you, “I’m repulsed by you.”

And why would God feel repulsed by disobedience? Because God has given us everything we need to live for eternity. He has given you your entire lifetime to know the path to life. He has demonstrated His love for you by dying on the cross, being separated from the Father. He has fulfilled centuries and millennia of Scripture. He sent you the prophets. He’s given you the Scripture. He’s given you teachers. He’s given you aunts, uncles, pastors, and neighbors who are telling you, “God loves you, and there is a way that you can be forgiven and given new life.” You have your whole life, and you reject it. So yes, it is absolutely appropriate that when God judges those who have rejected Him, He feels repulsed by them because He has given them every opportunity.

The wise person proves Jesus is Lord through obedience (v 25)

So we will all be judged based on the master we serve, but Jesus has a special word for those who live lives of obedience to Him, and they are called the wise. And by obeying Jesus, we are telling the world that we truly believe that the Lord of our life is Jesus Christ. Therefore, the wise person proves Jesus is Lord through obedience.

When Jesus says the wise man “acts on these words of mine,” or he “does these words” in verse 24, scholars agree that Jesus has in mind all the instructions that we found in the Sermon on the Mount, that is Matthew 5–7. We went through these for the last few months. So I’m going to review these commands, these words of Jesus, especially since we’ve grown a little since we started this. Here’s what you’ve missed; I’m going to ask you these in the form of a question, because those who are building their life on the rock, this is what you’re obeying:

Are you seeking the Beatitudes to be in your life? (Matt 5:3–12)
Are you seeking to stop the moral decay in the world by being salt? (Matt 5:13)
Are you seeking to reveal God’s glory to those around you by being the light? (Matt 5:14–16)
Are you actively fighting against feeling anger against your brothers and sisters in Christ, or do you hurl insults at them? (Matt 5:21–22)
Are you prioritizing reconciliation with others before you offer your gift to the Lord? (Matt 5:23–24)
Are you cheating on your spouse by looking at others and lusting after them? (Matt 5:27–28)
Are you committing adultery through inexcusable divorce and remarriage? (Matt 5:31–32)
Are you trying to keep your word by being a trustworthy individual? (Matt 5:33–37)
Are you turning the other cheek when others revile you or sue you? (Matt 5:38–42)
Do you love your enemies and pray for them? (Matt 5:44)
Are you pursuing the perfect holiness of God the Father within yourself? (Matt 5:48)
Do you give secretly, or do you make sure to tell others about how much and what you gave? (Matt 6:1–4)
Do you give, pray, and fast to be recognized by God alone or by other humans too? (Matt 6:5, 16)
Do you pray after the pattern Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer? (Matt 6:9–13)
Do you refuse to forgive others but expect God to forgive you? (Matt 6:14–15)
Do you store your treasures on earth or in heaven? (Matt 6:19–20)
Do you hoard money to yourself, making it your god? (Matt 6:24) Does your cushy savings account give you your comfort, or does your comfort come from the Lord?
Do you worry about money, food, drink, or clothing, or do you trust God to meet all your needs without feeling anxiety? (Matt 6:25–34)
Do you judge others while being guilty of the same sins? (Matt 7:1–5)
Do you believe that the Father wants to give you salvation? (Matt 7:7–11)
Do you do for others what you want them to do for you? (Matt 7:12)
Do you walk the easy and popular way because you hate confrontation and difficulty, or do you walk the narrow road that is difficult but leads to eternal life? (Matt 7:13–14)
And do you test your teachers to know if they are truly of God, or do you just accept everything they hand you? (Matt 7:15–20)
Are you doing the will of the Father and obeying the Son as the Lord of your life? (Matt 7:21)

That is the life of someone building their house on the rock. It is the narrow way. It is difficult. And the enemy of God is going to come after you if you try to do it. But you cannot say that Jesus is Lord without obeying these commands. If you disobey the Lord and you call Him Lord, you are a liar, and your house will fall on Judgment Day. If you are looking to withstand Judgment Day, you will build your life around obeying these.

I want to emphasize: it is not our obedience that earns your salvation. Jesus has earned your salvation for you. But we prove that we have taken hold of that salvation by living as servants of God’s kingdom. You call Jesus Lord? You know Lord means King, right? You know it’s His kingdom, right? You have to obey Him. You must have allegiance to your King.

You see, the scary reality is James says that without obedience, having faith is no different from being a demon (Jas 2:19). Even demons recognize that ʏʜᴡʜ is the one true God. Even demons can say Jesus is Lord. What separates us from demons is obedience. James 2:24 says, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Your faith proves you have been justified.

The fool only builds where the land is cheap and easy (Matt 7:26–27)

So the question is, what do fools do? The fool only builds where the land is cheap and easy. I mean, look, you can go on YouTube right now and you will see these really funny videos of these guys in Indonesia, I believe. They go out there with literally a stick they found on their way and buckets to carry water. And they just start carving into this muddy red clay cliff and they build a little abode. Sometimes they’ll carve a water slide and they’ll do this really neat thing where they’ll take sticks and build this catapult thing to move water up. And it’s fascinating. It’s like caveman engineering. It’s really impressive. But you have a bad storm come by and that thing is gone in minutes because it’s built on mud.

But guess what? It was free and it was much easier to build than finding a contractor, going through the permit process, checking out the geoengineering of the earth’s soil, right? But you see, the fool is the one who says, “I don’t need to build my life on obedience to Jesus’ teachings.” They are the atheists. The Bible says the atheist is a fool because he says in his heart, “There is no God” (Ps 14:1). The fool is somebody who only calls Jesus a good teacher, a moral leader, a good example. That’s the fool. Why? Because that’s the easy way to get along in this life. It’s easy to “go along to get along.” You get to keep your job.

We just saw an NBA player; he lost his job because he refused to participate in Pride Month. And the NBA said, “We let him go because he exhibited behavior that doesn’t meet our standards of morality—the code of conduct.” While the league continues to employ wife-beaters and adulterers. That’s the easy way. In this way, the land is cheap because you get to do whatever you want. Because that’s how you obey Satan: by disobeying the Lord. And Satan will make you think that you are going places. But Jesus says on the day of judgment, that house will fall, and how great that fall will be (v 27).

Folks, now is the time. We, all too often as Christians, do not talk about Judgment Day. A lot of times we don’t even like to talk about sin. But the truth is, we’re trying to offer people a Physician. Jesus is a Physician to our disease, and our disease is sin (Mark 2:17). We are a slave to it, and Jesus is the magical antidote. But if you don’t tell people they have a disease, they won’t want the Physician. You cannot tell people, “Here, take Jesus, you’ll love Him,” when they don’t even see they need a doctor. For people to know they need a doctor, they need to know that they are sick.

So we must be willing to tell them that they are terminally ill with sin. And we must be willing to talk to our loved ones and tell them: “The path you are on is going to kill you eternally. And Jesus is the only way out of this situation.” So don’t just invite Him into your heart. You tell them: you call on Jesus as Lord, and then you bow the knee. He loves you, but make no mistake, He demands obedience. You know He loves you because He gave His life for you, but you must turn to Him and obey Him as Lord and King.

Now I’m going to close with this. Because I read this week… you know, sometimes when you’re interpreting the Bible, you really need to work hard to understand: what did this passage mean to the original audience? And it actually turns out, when Jesus is talking about building your life on teaching, He was actually using a metaphor that the Jewish people had been talking about for centuries.

Their ancient rabbis used to talk about building a life on Torah. If you don’t know what Torah is, it refers most of the time to the first five books of the Bible. To some groups of people, Torah can actually refer to everything from Genesis to the last book in the Old Testament, Malachi. But they were expected to build a life on Torah. They taught that hearing the words of God and doing them—obeying them—is what matters. Jesus agrees with that. Christians agree with that. But these rabbis also said that the world stands on Torah.

Do you hear the vocabulary there? They use the word “stand.” They find security and foundation and they embrace God’s judgment because if you build your life on Torah, you will stand in the day of judgment. And yeah, that’s true. But they also said that in Torah, you find life—eternal life. And that’s true because Torah tells you there’s a Messiah who’s coming who’s going to save you from your sin.

But Jesus comes on the scene and He says, “Everything that you applied to Torah—the books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy, and through Malachi, all of that—give Me the same attention and allegiance.” Jesus is saying He is God’s Scripture. He is the Author of Scripture. Jesus is saying He is God in the flesh, and you must obey Him. That’s a cultural challenge. No wonder they wanted to kill Him.

But what is your cultural challenge? Who do you need to have a difficult conversation with? What area of your life has the Spirit been telling you, “Don’t do that”? Where has the Spirit been confronting you and saying, “Jesus needs to be Lord of that, too”? Is it your money? Is it your secret addiction? Is it your unholy relationships? What is it? You must bow the knee to the God who loves you. Salvation is coming, but so is judgment. Let’s pray.

Lord, I pray that You please let this ring true in our hearts. Let us bend the knee in obedience and humble submission as Your servants. And Lord, all of this is ultimately so that we will live better lives as disciple-makers, because our job is to make disciples who obey the commands of Christ (Matt 28:19–20). Help us to do that, Lord. Help us to live obedience to the Gospel as we put our faith in it.

And I pray that if anybody here thinks that they believe and they are saved, if they are not, will You please convict them of that today? And Lord, I pray that anyone who has pet sins that is not Lord of their life, that they have not killed to be submissive to You—if there is that in their life and they don’t see it, I pray that You would open their eyes to see it today, that they would repent and turn and give it to You. Please be with us, Lord. Help us to be the salt and the light of the earth (Matt 5:13–14). In Jesus’ name, amen.

“Build Your Life on Me” (Matt. 7:24-27)