Sermon for Sunday, June 15th, 2025 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC)
Old Testament Reading:
[Psa 18:31-48 ESV] 31 For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?– 32 the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless. 33 He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights. 34 He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. 35 You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great. 36 You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip. 37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed. 38 I thrust them through, so that they were not able to rise; they fell under my feet. 39 For you equipped me with strength for the battle; you made those who rise against me sink under me. 40 You made my enemies turn their backs to me, and those who hated me I destroyed. 41 They cried for help, but there was none to save; they cried to the LORD, but he did not answer them. 42 I beat them fine as dust before the wind; I cast them out like the mire of the streets. 43 You delivered me from strife with the people; you made me the head of the nations; people whom I had not known served me. 44 As soon as they heard of me they obeyed me; foreigners came cringing to me. 45 Foreigners lost heart and came trembling out of their fortresses. 46 The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation– 47 the God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, 48 who rescued me from my enemies; yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me; you delivered me from the man of violence.
New Testament Reading:
[1Co 3:10-15 ESV] 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw– 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Gospel Reading:
[Luk 6:46-49 ESV] 46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
Sermon Text:
[Mat 7:24-27 ESV] 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 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. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Introduction
Hear ye, hear ye, is what the town crier would say. There is an important message for you, for all to hear.
Listen up, you don’t want to miss this.
Now, we are to Hear the words of Christ.
And do them!
Jesus says “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
“These words” are, in the context, all that Jesus has said in the Sermon on the Mount, now coming to its conclusion. But, we would not be wrong to think that ALL OF JESUS’S WORDS more broadly are in view. Jesus is the wisdom of God and the word of God. We ought to listen.
But it is clear that hearing his words alone does no good. If they go in one hear and out the other, they might be “heard” but they did not take root.
If Paul Revere road by on a horse yelling “The British are coming!” and you did nothing, you’d be in trouble. You need to flee to safe ground. You need to grab your rife. You need to make preparations.
So Jesus says “Hear and DO.”
I. Hear and DO. (v. 24)
This is a frequent refrain in the New Testament:
[Luk 11:28 ESV] 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
[Jhn 13:17 ESV] 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
[Jhn 14:15 ESV] 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
A. A description of the believer.
This is a description what a Christian looks like.
Christians — all of us — are guided by the Holy Spirit to seek the Lord, to obey His Word, to have faith, and to pray, and to do good works.
So the word of Christ do not “go in one ear and out the other,” but we “hear and do” them.
B. Not salvation by works but by faith.
But this is not to overturn “justification by faith.”
When Jesus says “Hear and DO” he is NOT saying that we are justified by works.
It is not good works that make you a child of God.
But it is because you are a child of God that you DO good works.
We must always be sure to have the order right.
Faith leads to good works.
Jesus is not saying “do good works” so that you may be a Christian.
No, he is giving a description of Christians. Christians “do” the words of Christ.
But what exactly Jesus calling us to?
What does it mean to “DO”?
We saw last time that Jesus says we must “do the will of my Father who is in heaven.” And that the will of God is “to BELIEVE in the one whom has sent.”
Now, Jesus says “hear and do.”
And in a similar statement in John’s Gospel he tells us:
[Jhn 5:24 ESV] 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever HEARS MY WORD AND BELIEVES HIM WHO SENT ME has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
The parallel is that with our text he says “hear and do” and in John he says “hear and believe.”
So what are we to DO? We are to believe.
Jesus is calling us to faith in Him. Faith in his word. To trust him and be united to him. And that faith acts; good works are produced.
If you don’t hear the words of God and have faith in Christ, you are likened unto the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And the rain feel and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.
So there is the continued antithesis between the two destinies of man. There are those who enter in through the narrow gate and walk the hard path of faith in Jesus Christ. And there are those who enter in through the wide gate and walk the easy path of their own sins and desires.
We are called to enter in through the narrow gate, and to hear and do the words of Christ. All that He teaches is that we are to be different, we are to be separate unto God, we are to be holy, we are to have faith in Him, not in self.
II. Steadfast under trial. (v. 25)
And then, when you “hear and do” you are likened to the man who built his house upon a 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.”
We are steadfast under trial, not by our own strength, but because our foundation is so strong!
Christians still have storms in life, but Christians have a foundation that holds through the storms.
In Luke’s Gospel it says
[Luk 6:47-48 ESV] 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and COULD NOT SHAKE IT, because it had been well built.
You will not be shaken when your foundation is in the Lord.
James describes the Christian similarly saying:
[Jas 1:12 ESV] 12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
And David says in the Psalms:
[Psa 125:1 ESV] 1 Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. 2
The foolish man is not steadfast under trial. Our text says that when the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house that was built upon sand, IT FELL, AND GREAT WAS THE FALL OF IT.
The idea is that “without God” you may sometimes “survive”; you may have some successes, but in the long run and against all the troubles of life you will fail catastrophically. Maybe a little rain, a little problem, won’t be your undoing. But what are you going to do when the rains fall down hard and the flood waters come up and the winds blow from the side? All around you are forces bent on your destruction, and you will fail, if you built on sand; if you have no foundation.
Peer pressure will draw you aside into false ideas and bad practices.
Political views with horrific results will infest your mind.
Ultimately, the GREAT RUIN, the great fall, is that the foolish man — without Christ — dies and goes to hell. It is not a little fall. It is a great fall. So there is the command to believe in the Lord, and the warning against going your own way in sin.
And while the result of sin is destruction,
the result of faith is eternal life, and steadfastness under trial.
III. The Foundation, The Rock is Jesus Christ (and His teaching)
But you are only as steadfast, only as secure, as the rock you are holding on to.
So Hold on to the Rock.
The wise man built his house upon the rock.
What comes to your mind when you think of the most unmovable thing?
A refrigerator?
A grand piano?
A ton of bricks?
All can be moved … ask Archimedes … he says give me a lever long enough and I can move the world.
Even still, a rock — an extremely large rock — makes for a good metaphor because such is a beyond our general ability to move. You can move a pebble, maybe even a stone, but you can’t move the Rock of Gibraltar.
So Jesus says the wise man builds his house upon the rock.
What is the rock?
Or better asked,
WHO is the rock?
The rock of salvation is Jesus Christ, very Lord and God.
Paul is clear in 1 Corinthians:
[1Co 10:4 ESV] 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
The Rock was Christ. The Rock is Christ.
David says in the Psalms:
[Psa 18:2 ESV] 2 THE LORD IS MY ROCK and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my ROCK, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
The Lord is the Rock.
Against David says:
[Psa 18:31 ESV] 31 For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?–
So if God is the Rock, and Jesus is the Rock, what is our conclusion …. we must conclude Jesus is God.
A. The Immutability of God.
Now, an important point about God, our rock. God is the rock because “he does not change.” He does not move. Being founded on him, you are stable, strong, not changing with every wind.
Immutable is the big theological word. That is what you’d find in Charnock in “The Attributes of God,” for example. Immutable means without change. Unable to change. God is not a “developing God” like the “Open Theists” believe. God is not “getting better” because he is already perfect. God is not learning anything new because already knows everything.
God’s immutability therefore coincides with his other attributes. His omniscience and omnipotence. He knows everything and there will never come a day where he doesn’t know everything.
He’s all powerful and there will never come a day where he is not all powerful.
God doesn’t have “good days” and “bad days” like us. He is a rock!
That is who we want to go to! When we are struggling, when we have our emotional ups and downs, when we are unstable, we need the Rock of Salvation, Jesus Christ.
God’s immutability, his unchangeableness, also means that He is unchangeable in his covenant faithfulness. His promises are forever good, and we can trust in Him. He is our Rock.
B. Christ, the only foundation.
We also must recognize this point:
Jesus is the ONLY foundation. [REPEAT]
Just as Jesus is the only WAY, he is the only foundation.
[Jhn 14:6 ESV] 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
[Act 4:12 ESV] 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
[1Co 3:11 ESV] 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
All other approaches to life and salvation are failures.
ONLY Jesus Christ is our solid foundation.
So there is the song that is based on this passage. And it rightly reflects the doctrine. Catchy tune as well.
The wise man built his house upon the Rock (3X)
And the rains came tumbling down.
The rains came down and the floods came up, (3X)
But the house on the Rock stood firm.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand (3X)
And the rains came tumbling down.
The rains came down and the floods came up (3X)
And the house on the sand fell flat.
So build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ (3X)
And the blessings will come down.
The blessings come down as your prayers go up (3X)
So build your life on the Lord.
And a hymn that mentions this verse in saying: “On Christ, the solid rock, I stand—all other ground is sinking sand.” All other ground is sinking sand … Christ is the only rock.
Conclusion: The Storms will come, but those founded on the rock will withstand them.
Storms will come.
But with Christ on your side, they will pass, and you will stay firm.
Without Christ, you will be washed away.
So we find the importance of hearing Christ, so that we might know Him and withstand the greatest of storms.
What storm are you undergoing in your life at present?
Pain?
Sickness?
Loss?
Frustration?
Sin?
Lethargy?
Disappointment?
Whatever the storm, the rock is the same.
Matthew Henry: That there is a storm coming, that will try what our hopes are bottomed on; will try every man’s work (1 Co. 3:13); will discover the foundation, Hab. 3:13. Rain, and floods, and wind, will beat upon the house; the trial is sometimes in this world; when tribulation and persecution arise because of the word, then it will be seen, who only heard the word, and who heard and practiced it; then when we have occasion to use our hopes, it will be tried whether they were right, and well-grounded, or not. However, when death and judgment come, then the storm comes, and it will undoubtedly come, how calm soever things may be with us now. Then every thing else will fail us but these hopes, and then, if ever, they will be turned into everlasting fruition.