This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Well, I want to welcome you to Day 5 of Matthew 7, Part 2, and that means the
end of the Sermon on the Mount. We've been talking this week about decisions
that determine your life direction, six of them this week. Decide to discern,
decide to ask, decide to practice the Golden Rule, decide to enter by the narrow
gate, decide to watch out for false prophets, and now there is a seventh
decision in this seventh chapter that we're looking at in verses 24 down through
verse 29.

Here's what Jesus taught at the end of this sermon, "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 and the streams rose and the
winds blew and beat against that house, and 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. " When Jesus had finished saying these
things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one who had
authority and not as their teachers of the law. So added to these decisions
we've looked at through this chapter, here's finally the most important thing
that we need to do.

We need to decide to do what Jesus says to do. Jesus says, "Act on my words. "
That's what builds a strong foundation.

Act on my words. Jesus points out that the foundation you build on determines
the decisions that you make, and the decisions that you make determine the
direction of your life. Foundation determines decision, and decision determines
direction.

It all starts with the foundation. So here's Jesus. Remember, this is a
carpenter talking for the first 30 years of his life, a carpenter teaching us
about the importance of a life foundation.

And he says you can build on a weak foundation or on the right foundation, a
strong foundation. You can build on a weak foundation, on sand. Sand looks easy
to build on, and it is easier to build on.

In that day, sand was usually down in the lower part on the riverbed. It was
nice, right by the riverbed, right by the water. It was soft.

It was easy to dig. Oh, let's just build here. I remember years and years ago,
my family went on a camping trip, and we found that the softest place to put our
tent, we thought this was going to be awesome.

It's just sort of this little dip where there's this real soft ground. We
thought we'll put the tent there, and that means when we sleep, it's going to be
really comfortable at night. Well, the reason there was a dip and it was soft is
because when it rained, it filled with water.

So we were gone for an hour. It rained, and we came back, and our tent was
flooded. Just because it looks easier doesn't mean it's the best.

It's hard to make good decisions. When you're always in the midst of a disaster,
you're always being destroyed by a flood. And some of us, there are floods,
there are disasters that come into our lives.

There's nothing we had to do with them. I understand that. I've been in a
literal flood.

Our entire house was destroyed, our neighborhood, our church that we were
serving at that time was destroyed. So I understand that there are floods that
come that are not of our own making. But I also understand the truth of the
matter is some come of our own making, some come because other people did
things, some come because we live in an evil world.

But the truth is, for every one of us, there are going to be floods in our
lives. Notice what Jesus teaches here. For both the person who built the house
on the sand and the person who built the house on the rock, look what happened.

The rains came. The streams rose. The winds blew and beat against that house.

They both had floods. They both had rains. So you build into your life
recognizing the rains are going to come.

So I got to build strength into my life. I can't build expecting that it's
always going to be easy. No, I got to build strength into my life.

It's not if there's going to be rains, if there's going to be a flood, it's
wind. So don't build on the weak foundation. Build on the strong foundation.

Build on the rock. And Jesus has something very interesting to tell us here
about what it means to build on the rock. He says building on the rock has to do
with what you do with what you listen to, who you choose to listen to, but not
just that, what you do with what you listen to.

You got to listen to the right person, but you got to do the right thing. Notice
Jesus says building on the rock means hearing what I have to say. But then he
says and then acting on it.

It's not enough just to hear God's words. You have to then put them into
practice. That's what makes you a wise man, a wise woman.

Now first you hear God's word. What are the practical ways to do that? Well, you
hear God's words in sermons, you hear them in Bible study group, you hear them
in drive time devotions, you hear God's word by reading God's word daily,
letting it get into your life.

You let God's word get into your life. Unless you hear it, you can't act on it.
So first you've got to hear it, but there are a lot of people who are hearers of
the word only.

They don't do the word as James talks about. So then you have to decide to act
on it. Jesus is teaching us here that when it comes to hearing God's word, there
are two types of listening.

The first is you listen with one ear, you're just interested. But the second is
you listen with your whole being. You are determined to act on what you hear.

This is the difference between listening to airline instructions at the
beginning of the flight, nothing's going to go wrong, or listening to those
instructions when one of the engines have gone out. In one case, it goes in one
ear and not even out the other, you don't even hear it. In the other case, you
are listening with your whole being because you know this is about my life and
everything that Jesus had to teach, it's about my whole life.

It's about your whole life. So notice when Jesus got to the end of his teaching,
when he finished, those who listened to him that day said, "This is so
different. Everything we've been hearing taught by our teachers, it's boring, it
has no power to it.

" But Jesus teaches with authority. Now this does not mean Jesus was teaching
louder than everyone else, or he had an angry tone to his voice. No, this means
that Jesus was teaching about real life.

He wasn't teaching in footnotes, he was teaching in reality. He was telling
people how to live life. So as we go back through, we've been these last several
weeks in the Sermon on the Mount, as we go back through what God has taught us
in this, how can I, my question is, how can I act on what Jesus taught me to do?

I can't act on a hundred things at once. That's one of the ways Satan tries to
fool us. He gets a hundred actions in our minds and I can't do any of them.

What's the one thing that with authority you heard from Jesus as we walked
through this Sermon on the Mount these last several weeks? It may have had to do
with the Beatitudes, being poor in spirit, or being merciful. It may have had to
do with your relationships as we walked through that, being the kind of person
who loves even your enemy, being the kind of person who forgives, even as Jesus
has forgiven us.

It may have had to do with your relationship with God, seeing him for the first
time in your life as a loving father, or seeing him in a new way as the one who
provides for your needs. When Jesus speaks with authority in our lives, it's
like he puts his finger on something and we realize, that's right, there's
something I need to do about that. Or maybe as we walk through this, Jesus
teaching with authority in your life, it had to do with you trusting him with
your material things and realizing that I need to seek first God's kingdom, not
seek first my needs.

I've got it turned around somehow. Or you trusting him that instead of worrying,
you know that he will be providing for you and the decisions you need to make in
life, deciding to not be judgmental, deciding to be more discerning, deciding to
ask God more often, instead of trusting in yourself. You say, "Well, I'm not
trusting in myself.

" Well, if I'm not asking, I'm probably not trusting. That's what I've learned
in my own life. I'm trusting myself and not him.

Maybe it has to do with you entering by the narrow gate or you watching out for
the false prophets. Maybe it has to do with this last one we've just talked
about. Some area of your life that we, I haven't even mentioned just now, but
Jesus put his finger on it as we're talking and he said to you, "Right there.

That's where I'm authoritatively talking into your life. This is an action you
need to take. This is where you need to trust me.

It may seem small. It may seem gigantic to you right now. However it seems, when
he speaks, I want to act on that because he's speaking with the authority of
love.

The fact that he loved you enough to give his life for you on a cross. The fact
that he loved you enough to be resurrected from the dead. The fact that he loves
you enough to be seated at the right hand of the Father praying for you right
now.

He speaks with the authority of love. So let's right now talk to him. Our
Father, we pray that we would be wise men and wise women.

That we'd first hear what you have to say, Jesus, and we are hearing it. That's
why we're listening to this, but then that we'd also act on it. It's easy for us
to get caught up in our busyness or sometimes in our stubbornness.

It's easy to get caught up in all the many things that we could do, or maybe
it's our own pride. It's easy for us to get caught up in things that keep us
from doing the thing that you're asking us to do. So Lord, we ask, we humbly
ask, would you make it clear?

What do you want us to do next? How could we follow you out of this Sermon on
the Mount? What are you calling for us to change, for us to do in our lives?

Help us to hear your word and then put it into practice. We ask that you would
strengthen this in us, Jesus. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

Join us next week. We're moving on to Matthew chapter 8. We're going to look in
that chapter at the miracles and the ministry of Jesus.