Sermon Tone Analysis

24Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

26And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 27And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

| *PRAYER~~~~~~~~~~Matthew **7:24** – 27*  |

 

\\ These words conclude one of the greatest sermons ever preached.

Jesus Christ brings to culmination the great Sermon on the Mount, and he does so with a poignant truth about two men.

These two men raise the question, what kind of foundation are we building on?

These two men can be seen in terms of a comparison, a contrast, leading to a clear conclusion.

*I.

They shared the same Vision:*

These two men had the same vision.

They both wanted to build a house.

Their dreams were the same.

Their longings were the same.

Their desires were the same.

What makes these two men alike is that their view of the future was on par.

They both wanted to build a house.

The concept of building a house – in its most immediate interpretation – would be to erect a life, to build a life worth living, to build a life that’s significant, to build a life that is going somewhere.

You could relate it to building a family, since families live in homes.

And you could say both men wanted to have vibrant, dynamic, strong households.

Of course the church of Jesus Christ is called the household of faith, so we could apply it to building a ministry.

You are probably building all three.

You’re building a life.

You want a life that you are proud of, that God is proud of, and that when you look back on it you are glad.

You want a family that’s strong and stable and vibrant and alive and committed.

You may be in Ministry and you want a ministry that will stand the test of time.

You want a ministry that will please God you want a ministry that will stand forever.

All of us fit into this brief story.

Both men had the same vision.

*2.

They both listened to divine Truth:*

Not only did both have the same vision, they both went to the same seminary, because it says both men “heard these words of mine.”

Both men went to the same classroom and had the same professor.

You don’t get any better that this church, because in this case, the written word was communicated by the living Word.

Jesus himself was the professor.

Both men were oriented to listening to divine truth.

Both men were committed to making themselves available to divine input.

We’re not talking about one man having a love for hearing the truth, and another man a total distain for it.

We’re talking about both men availing themselves to Scripture.

So the comparison between these two men is they have the same vision.

They want to see things rise from the ground and go higher – a life, a family, a ministry, or all three.

And they have the same instruction, the same instructor, as they avail themselves of divine truth.

*3.

They faced the same Storm:*

These men lived in the same neighborhood.

I know what you’re saying.

You’re thinking, I’ve read this story, and I don’t see anything about the location of the houses.

They lived in the same neighborhood because they were both affected by the same storm.

The description of the storm is precisely the same in both cases, and affected both men.

Both men were subject to the same storm, which meant they were in reasonable proximity to one another.

They suffered the same storm.

Everybody here is affected by a storm.

Everybody here is affected by the negative realities of life or ministry or family.

It may not be the same, but one thing is true for us all – we do get rained on –Amen?

We do get rained on.

Life is not always sunshine.

Life is not always exciting.

Life has its moments of tears.

We all share the same vision – we want to build something; same training – we want to hear something; and same storms – we all have to face something.

* *

*Let’s Look at Some Contrast between these two men.*

* *

*1.

There was a contrast in character:*

Those comparisons in this story are paralleled by some contrasts, some things that made these men different from one another.

First of all, these men possessed two different characters.

Jesus calls the first man a *wise man*.

He *calls the second man a moron.

*The Greek word for “foolish” is where we get our word moron from.

One is viewed as wise, a wise man who wants to build something, a wise man that gets spiritual training, and a wise man in the storm.

The other man is a foolish man who wants to build something, a foolish man who exposes himself to divine truth but merely listens to it and does not apply it, a foolish man in a storm.

Wisdom, in Scripture, is the ability to take divine truth and apply it to life.

The fool in Scripture is not necessarily the person who lacks information.

It is the person who does little or nothing with the information received.

It is the person who fails to apply it to their life.

So these two men were fundamentally different.

Don’t get me wrong.

They both had dreams.

They both had training.

They both had storms.

On the outside they would have looked like Siamese twins, but in the description given by the Lord, it says they were fundamentally different men.

*2.

There were different foundations.*

The contrast that demonstrates the fundamental difference between these two men is foundations.

It says that the wise man built his house upon the rock, and it says the foolish man built his house upon the sand.

While both men have the same vision, while both men have the same dream, the same training, and the same storm, they did not have the same foundation.

What’s the difference between building on a foundation of rock and building on a foundation of sand?

What made one a fool and one a wise man?

When Luke tells the story in Luke 6:48, it says *the wise man dug deep*.

It cost to build on rock.

You can build on sand fairly cheaply.

To build on rock is hard work, to build on sand takes little time.

It cost time and energy and effort and additional funds if you’re going to go deep.

You can be cursory if you only want to stay on top of the shifting realities.

You can be quick about it on sand; you can’t go to fast on rock.

This difference between the two men is fundamentally rooted in the fact that the second man, the foolish man, was building a house for show.

The man building his house on rock was building a house to last.

The second man was not concerned about how long the house would be there.

He just wanted to make sure for however long it was there people would want to drive by and look at it.

It was for a public persona, not for depth.

*~~ Illustration ~~*

Minister on fast track

 

A life, a home, or a ministry that is not properly founded on the right foundation is a tourist attraction.

*3.

There were two different results:*

The biggest contrast of them all is the results, because it says one house stood and another house fell.

Not only did it fall, “it fell greatly.”

It was a total collapse.