Matthew 7:24-27
What?! Does that mean I'm going to hell if I don't do everything Jesus taught perfectly?!24 So anyone who hears what I have said, and does it, I will call a wise man who has built his house on a rock.
25 When the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and pounded that house, it did not fall – because it was founded on a rock.
26 But everyone who hears what I have said and does not do it, I will call a fool who has built his house on sand.
27 When the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and pounded that house, it fell – with a big crash.
28 When Jesus finished his discourse, the listeners were astonished at his doctrine,
29 for he taught them like one having authority, and not like the scribes.
Hell may indeed be what you deserve, but that is not Jesus' point. We should read his teaching like this:
Whoever hears my message of salvation and follows through is like a man who builds his house on rock.
When a storm came in all its fury, that house remained standing because it was properly secured to rock (me).
But the one who hears my salvation message, yet does nothing about it, is like a man who builds a house on sand. When the gale-force winds strike that house, it collapses, and there is a huge disaster (because I'm not there).
Sure we should strive toward a pure-heartedness as we walk with the Lord. But human-based moral perfectionism is not what the Lord is seeking. Why would Jesus demand the impossible from us? And everyone knows how very difficult it is, if not impossible, to adhere strictly to everything in the Jesus' sayings. What Jesus does in many of these sayings is to hold up a mirror for us, so that we can see ourselves as we really are: in need of his help!
Though some think this passage from the Sermon on the Mount implies that Jesus was setting up a new law that was meant to supersede the old Jewish law, the Sermon should be seen in light of the rest of the New Testament. You can't earn your way up to heaven by following a code of laws. No. What you need to do is fall to your knees, ask God's forgiveness for your misdeeds and ask Jesus into your heart.
The King James version's use of the word sayings here prompts some readers to assume that Jesus was primarily focused on perfectionism, when by the phrase my words he meant my message. And that message was: YOU NEED ME.
Yet, there is no denying that, once you have been born anew, you are certainly expected to strive to follow the ideas laid out in the Sermon, ideas that all point in the same direction: love for God and love for others.
Consider Billy Graham's conversion in 1934. [FF.1] Mordecai Ham, a Kentucky-born Baptist revivalist, came to Charlotte, N.C., and preached a powerful sermon. The revival stretched over weeks, and for the first week or so, the Grahams did not attend. Billy was persuaded to go and hear Ham by one of his father's employees. There, in response to Ham's message about sin, Billy surrendered himself to Christ. Later Billy told his mother, "Oh, Mother, I've been saved tonight."
In 1976, Billy's sister Catherine recalled some of the outward signs of his interior change: He no longer wanted to go to the movies, and he was nicer to his siblings.
This personal contact with Jesus came about after long exposure to the Presbyterianism of his parents. Both of Graham's parents were raised in the Presbyterian church. As children, the Graham family was at church every time the doors opened, and prayer was part of their daily life.
Yet, despite all that, Billy still needed to make contact with Jesus on a personal basis.
The foregoing should not be taken to mean that some things said by Jesus are not very important. That idea is untrue. Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is ultra-important, and Jesus' taught only what God showed him. We may recall that at the beginning of the Sermon, Matthew's writer says Jesus "opened his mouth," a Semitic phrase meant to underscore the importance of these teachings, which were coming straight from God.
In fact, Jesus in a number of places begins a teaching with the word amen or truly in order to emphasize that he is speaking God's truths. Hence someone who undermines any part of the Sermon's message is causing others to fail to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. But, let us beware. How can anyone properly understand any word that comes from God without the assistance of the Holy Spirit? And the Spirit comes only to those who put their trust in Jesus as Savior.
So I reiterate that the wonderful truth in the Sermon comes through when Jesus makes contact with the wandering soul. He is not a petty martinet requiring the impossible of you. He is showing you your options. You can't go anywhere but down without him because who can walk perfectly before Jehovah God without divine assistance? Nobody. So we're all dead. But wait! Jesus really does save and grant eternal life to those who put their trust in him rather than in their own understanding.
Softly, tenderly Jesus is calling you – through the sayings that were compiled by his servants. Those of us who like to play professional logician may find that our logic works, but quenches the Spirit so that we do not truly hear the Master. The word of the Lord, as recorded and implied by all four gospelists, is aiming at transforming your earthly spirit (=water) into divine Spirit (=delicious new wine). The son of man (=son of God) came to join heaven with earth within you, where the kingdom of heaven resides.
When I was newly born again, I began reading the New Testament,
beginning with Matthew. I was astounded. It was as if Jesus were
looking up right at me from the page and uttering those mind-blowing
bombshells. In my unregenerate phase, those sayings did not resonate.
Now they resonated like loud gongs, as I realized that I had been
heeding few if any of these admonitions.
And even today, decades later, the Spirit in me discloses their acuity and power. I still hear the Master's voice in those sayings.
And even today, decades later, the Spirit in me discloses their acuity and power. I still hear the Master's voice in those sayings.
No matter what the writer of Matthew was trying or not trying to do, the character and authority of Jesus jump right out of the page. There never was anyone like him. Yet it is our desire and goal to become like him to the point that we become him. A Spirit-imbued person will want to conform more and more to Jesus, which does mean seeking to imitate the law of love and compassion, a "law" which results in behavior like that outlined in the Sermon.
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Takeaways from the Sermon on the Mount
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