July 5, 2023
Author: Pastor Bernard Ibrahim
July 05, 2023
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be
like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and
the floods came, and the winds blue and beat on that house, but it did
not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who
hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like the foolish
man who built his house on the sand. 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. And when Jesus finished these sayings the
crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one
who had authority, and not as the scribes.”
Matthew 7:24-28
This passage has been in my mind from time to time and most recently
in that series of twos that Jesus so powerfully uses even on the Sermon
on the Mount, but in many other places. If you flip back in Matthew 6:24
there's that passage where Jesus is describing two masters. We either
hate one or love the other or we love one and hate the other, God and
money, there's only two masters for every person. Or in Matthew 7:13
there's two gates, there's two roads, there's two ways, there's narrow
and wide and there are only two. There are two trees, Matthew 7:18, and
two kinds of fruit. There are only two kinds of trees, it’s a healthy
tree or a diseased tree and there's only two kinds of fruit, good fruit
or bad fruit. So there's good and bad fruit, there's a healthy or
diseased tree.
And here in this passage of Matthew 7:24 and
following, there are only two kinds of hearers, two kinds of people that
hear. They all hear, but one does, verse 24. You’ll notice it if you go
back, “does the words of mine,” that Jesus is speaking; in verse 26,
the other one does not do them. Verse 24, does them/does not do them.
Two kinds of hearers, the one that does them and the one that does not
do them. Notice that they both hear, but the difference is what they do
or do not do from what they hear and it's really all focused on the
words of Christ.
This passage brought back to me that Jesus is
giving us a very crystal clear summary of all our lives and it's going
be one of two ways. Do we do his words or do we not do his words? His
words are the crux, as the apostles said, “You have the words of life.
Where shall we go?” We are told by Christ himself in John 14, “If you
love me, you will keep my commandments.” We will do the things that he
commands, we will avoid the things that he tells us to avoid. In John
15, there are two kinds of branches, the one that bears fruit, that's
the one he prunes, so it bears more fruit. And you can see that this
fruit is a result of us doing what we hear from the words of Christ. The
branch that does not bear fruit he takes away and it's burned and that
is really the key for us is that there are only two kinds of people and
we need to examine ourselves. We are the ones bearing fruit if we are
doing the words of Christ. So it's the simple return for our thoughts,
our minds, how do we make our decisions, how do we live our lives. The
question is, am I doing Christ's words? Am I making the decisions in my
life, my priorities, the things that I do, the things that I avoid; are
they according to the words of Christ? Or are we dismissing Christ's
words and doing them according to some other standard? And that to me is
really the test as I look at my life and try to examine myself, Lord,
am I serving you? Am I growing in faith? The question that comes back
is, am I doing what I hear in Christ's words? We hear them from our
brothers and sisters, we hear them preached to us. Are we following
after Christ's words? That's the fruit we want to bear.
And so
that's my encouragement to all of you, brothers and sisters. Keep
pursuing the simple gospel, the simple truths. Christ commandments and
hearing them and doing them.
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