We are now at the end of the sermon Jesus gave to his disciples and to the crowds on the mountainside. A sermon that demands more than applause; this is not a sermon of 10 keys to improving your life; this is a sermon that says ‘do all of this’, ‘build your life on the whole sermon’; this is what Jesus said to end his message:-
“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.” (Matthew 7 v 24-27)
There is no promise from Jesus to say you won’t face tough times. Living in His kingdom doesn’t mean you won’t be facing floods and torrents striking your life with such force that you become in danger of collapse. Why do bad things happen to good people? Wrong question! They happen to everyone, good or bad. There isn’t enough good in you to stop the bad happening anyway. Life contains the floods and the torrents, rivers are beautiful but they burst their banks and bring ruin. That is how it is.
But being in danger of collapse and collapsing are different.
What’s underneath you today?
Deuteronomy 33:27 The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemies before you, saying, “Destroy them!”
The enemies will come, you will face them and they will beat against the life you have built. All that you have built, all that you call are blessings, all that is beautiful in your life will be challenged to its core. It will happen but the destruction that it brings is determined by you.
Jesus is rounding off his beatitudes and he is saying to his disciples that just hearing his sermon is not enough. He wants them to be in the kingdom. The only way is not through listening, through worship or through respect. What Jesus says is so important that we must take the sermon and make it the base of our lives, we must practice the message of his parables that are to follow, we must live according to the Word of God with all the responses and decisions and the attitudes of the heart that it calls for. If we do then it doesn’t matter what the enemy of our souls throws at us, we will respond not in the way that was expected, we will not lie down, back off, walk away, crumble, crash out. We will not become a casualty, a statistic, we will not walk through the valleys of the shadows of death in fear of our surroundings.
If there is one sermon in your life you must remember and apply to your life it is this sermon on the mountainside. Let the Church do this sermon. It is our security.
Missions Paul 