Building one’s life on the Rock!

복 있는 사람은 악인의 꾀를 좇지 아니하며 죄인의 길에 서지 아니하며 오만한 자의 자리에 앉지 아니하고 ² 오직 여호와의 율법을 즐거워하여 그 율법을 주야로 묵상하는 자로다 ³ 저는 시냇가에 심은 나무가 시절을 좇아 과실을 맺으며 그 잎사귀가 마르지 아니함 같으니 그 행사가 다 형통하리로다. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; ² but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. ³ He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (Ps. 1:1-3)

²⁴ 그러므로 누구든지 나의 이 말을 듣고 행하는 자는 그 집을 반석 위에 지은 지혜로운 사람 같으리니 ²⁵ 비가 내리고 창수가 나고 바람이 불어 그 집에 부딪히되 무너지지 아니하나니 이는 주초를 반석 위에 놓은 연고요 ²⁶ 나의 이 말을 듣고 행치 아니하는 자는 그 집을 모래 위에 지은 어리석은 사람 같으리니 ²⁷ 비가 내리고 창수가 나고 바람이 불어 그 집에 부딪히매 무너져 그 무너짐이 심하니라. ²⁴ "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ 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." (Mat 7:24-27)

FCF: We have a tendency of hearing Lord’s Word without doing it.

주제: 그리스도는 우리의 반석이 되시기에 그의 말씀을 듣고 행하므로 삶을 건축해야 합니다.

Theme: Because Christ is the Rock, we must build our lives by hearing and doing His Word.

Introduction: We have one life to live on earth. So, we want to live a good, meaningful, and successful life. If you have tried to live properly or have lived a long enough, however, you may have realized that life is too tough and complex to manage. Indeed, a great number of people feel that they have failed to live a happy life. We often hear a story like this: A drunken dad rebukes his son for his juvenile delinquency, saying, “You shouldn’t be like me. Don’t you see how tough a life I have had? You had better study hard and get out of this poverty. If you keep doing like this, you will follow my path of misery in life. Son, listen to me. I didn’t listen to my dad because I thought I knew better back then. I should have listened to my dad long ago. If I had done it, I wouldn’t be like this today. Please, listen to me and take a different path for your life.” Even this dad wants his son to live a better life. Surely, all of us wish to succeed in life. Life consists of complicated networks of values, relationships, cultures, careers, activities, etc. Though some fritter away their precious time, people in general look for a way how to make their lives solid and happy. To find wisdom for life, they turn to religion, philosophy, spiritual gurus, or self-help books. The question for us today is how to live a solid life here on earth and prepare for eternity. To find a reliable answer to this question, we have to turn to the One who had a perfect life and so can show us how to build our lives. He is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Through His Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus has been teaching what kind of life God’s people must live or what kind of character they must develop. In His conclusion, He urges His listeners to obey His Word on how to live as the representatives of His kingdom in the world. He compares His kingdom life to entering the narrow gate and walking on the difficult path leading to eternal life. He compares the kingdom life to a good fruit-bearing tree. Also, He compares His kingdom people to those who honor His lordship through obedience. Now, He likens the kingdom life to building a house on the rock. Here He talks about two different kinds of builders. The one group are wise builders who founded their houses on the rock. In contrast, the other group are foolish builders who founded their houses on the sand. Each of their foundations determines solidity and strength of their houses in times of trial. He stresses the importance of the foundation on which to build one’s life. One thing we need to notice is that He was preaching His Sermon not to non-believers, but to His disciples. He knew not everyone listening to His sermon would obey His Word. He exhorts His listeners to follow His Word to build their lives on the rock foundation. Surely, God’s kingdom people are those who hear and do the Lord’s Word.

Our common tendency is that we often contradict our Christian standing in Christ by hearing the Lord’s word and failing to implement it. Some pretend to listen to the Lord but never make efforts to obey Him. We know where we stand in relation to the Lord and His Word. Whether we obey His word or not, our common desire is to build our lives on a solid ground. So, we must pay attention to His wise exhortation. The lesion today is that we must build our lives by hearing and doing the Lord’s Word by the power of His enabling grace, knowing Christ is the Rock foundation of our lives. Now, we must ask this question: On which foundation have we built our spiritual houses? The answer is either the rock or the sand. As we answer this question in our hearts, let’s make up our minds to construct our lives on the Rock of Jesus Christ. I have three points to share with you. Today, I will discuss the first point, which is...    

      I.         행함이 없는 들음은 우리의 삶을 건축하는데 충분치 않다.

Hearing without doing is inadequate to build our lives.

The one thing that both true professors and false professors share in common is that they hear the Lord’s Word on how to live as their representatives on earth. Look at verse 24 and verse 26. If we compare both, the common thing is that they hear and the difference is that a wise builder obeys the Lord’s instructions whereas a foolish builder disobeys it. Let’s pay attention to the fact that both groups hear the Lord’s Word. Indeed, the multitudes hearing the Lord’s Word consisted of true disciples and false disciples. However, both groups were interested in the Lord and His teachings on happiness, God’s law, His kingdom, and His kingdom life. Both spent their precious time listening to His lessons on how to live a happy and holy life as God’s people. Both were drawn or attracted to His powerful teachings. It seems that both were willing to use the Lord’s Sermon as the guide of their lives. They were eager to hear His Word. Apparently, they agreed on the importance of His teachings for their lives. 

However, it seems that they didn’t realize that hearing His Word is not equal to doing it. They didn’t see that listening to Him cannot be a substitute for practicing His Word. They assumed that they were doing all they could do because they were hearing Him carefully. Hearing of the Lord’s Word doesn’t mean hearing Him. They might have heard what He said, but they might not really have heard Him. They might have heard His teachings on various topics, but they might not have heard Him as God’s mouthpiece, or God himself. Also, hearing His Word doesn’t mean doing it. Hearing is easier than doing. False professors took the easier part and ignored the hard part of obeying His Word. Furthermore, it seems that they forgot the purpose of hearing God’s Word is to obey it. The ultimate purpose of listening to God’s Word is to put it into practice. How would you feel when your children, workers, or friends hear what you say and do not do it? You say it again to remind them of what to do. Again, they fail to do it. You want them to follow your instructions. That’s why you say it to them. They hear what you are saying, but they don’t do it. This is a common problem today. The same thing occurs every day in the lives of God’s people. We simply ignore God though we try to say we honor God by hearing Him.

In short, lack of fear of God surely causes us to fail to obey the Lord’s Word. We must analyze why we keep failing to obey His word even though we keep listening to it. In the parable of the sower (Matt. 13), the Lord defines true hearing as hearty hearing to bear fruit with patience: 좋은 땅에 있다는 것은 착하고 좋은 마음으로 말씀을 듣고 지키어 인내로 결실하는 자니라. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience (Lk 8:15). In order to hear and do the Lord’s word, we should have reverential awe of God and love for God. We should believe what we are in Christ and act on our glorious status in Christ. However, Satan, trials, covetousness, worries of life, or doubt hinder us from listening and doing the Lord’s Word. Satan tries sow the seed of doubt and disbelief in our hearts concerning God’s Word. If we doubt God’s promises, we may not practice our faith. If we do not like God’s commands, we may disregard them and pursue our desires. If we are burdened with weighty problems in life, we won’t likely obey the Lord’s word. Instead of listening to His word plainly, many today hear the word of Christ in the way they wish to understand or pick and choose whatever they wish to hear from the word of Christ and interpret it in their own ways. Indeed, true hearing that comes by faith leads us to stand against Satan, trials, temptations, worries, or doubts. It learns to obey the word of God in the midst of trials. It learns to grow deep and strong in the word of God against storms of life. If we want our hearing of God’s word to be beneficial and fruitful, we must soften our hearts by the grace of God and practice it in the midst of all difficulties and hinderances. As the Lord says, we must hear the word carefully, hold it fast with all our good hearts, patiently practice it to bear God-pleasing fruit. It takes hearty hearing and patient laboring to build our lives on the rock foundation of Jesus Christ. However, if we ignore such a spiritual hard process, we may deceive ourselves by being satisfied with listening alone.

Indeed, hearing without doing makes us more damnable before the judgment seat of Christ. It can’t build up our lives. Rather, it makes us hypocritical. It makes us callous to the work of the Holy Spirit. It paralyzes our spiritual growth, even though we want to think that we are growing spiritually. Hearing without doing never builds our lives in the way that the Lord wants to build for us. The Lord likens the one who hears the Lord’s Word without living it out to a foolish builder. The word “foolish” comes from the Greek word “moros.” Our English word “moron” comes from it. It means “idiot.” It refers to someone who is imbecile. It suggests the idea of not intellectual foolishness, but moral foolishness. Those who heard the Lord’s Word gave intellectual assent to the rightness and potency of His Sermon. They understood what He was trying to say. There was no problem with understanding His sermon intellectually. Nonetheless, they willfully ignored His lordship through their disobedience.  

The Lord intends to reveal how foolish or idiotic we are if we believe we can build our spiritual houses on hearing alone. Of course, faith comes by hearing. But hearing without trusting and obeying never changes our worldviews, words, thoughts, characters, or deeds. Biblical hearing always brings changes into our lives. If we try to build our lives only through hearing without doing, then we are building our houses on the sand. The house founded on the rock and the house founded on the sand look alike in appearance. All of us hearing God’s Word today look the same as believers of God. We show the same desire to hear God in worship. We all build our lives with the same purpose of building it strong and solid. But, if we hear without obeying, we are foolish builders whose foundations are too weak and shallow to withstand torrential trials. The Lord describes the total ruin that we will experience for our self-deluding hearing without practicing the Lord’s Word as follows: 비가 내리고 창수가 나고 바람이 불어 그 집에 부딪히매 무너져 그 무너짐이 심하니라. ²⁷ 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."

The rain, the floods, and the winds imply trials that test whether our foundation is the rock or the sand. In normal times, both houses look the same. But, when severe trials hit us, they will reveal whether our spiritual houses are founded on the rock or the sand. Hearing alone can’t withstand spiritual upheaves in life. Hypocritical hearing, or self-deceiving hearing can never build us up. Judas the Iscariot was swept away when he was tempted by money. Years ago, a man ignored the advice of his financial counselor and his building contractor. He invested a good part of his life’s savings in building a magnificent home with a great view of the ocean. For him, the closer to the ocean the better. In fact, he built his home right on the beach. When storm season arrived, a devastating hurricane hit and totally destroyed his home. As he surveyed his loss, a reporter asked him: “Why did you take the risk of building your home so close to the water?” With a heavy heart he replied, “I just never thought a storm would hit this beach in my lifetime.” Contrary to some popular beliefs, Christians are not exempt from the storms of life. We have no choice about some of the storms that come our way, but we do have a choice about where we build our lives: on the solid Rock of Jesus Christ or upon the shifting sands of this world.

Today, we are living in an age that we have easy access to teaching and preaching of God’s Word on the internet. We have a blessing of listening to best preachers and teachers of the Bible through online, which was impossible years ago. A lot of Christians make a habit of listening to online preaching. They listen to it more than previous generations of Christians. However, this fact doesn’t necessarily mean that they are more knowledgeable and sanctified as a result of their enthusiastic listening to online sermons. For some reasons, their listening fails to lead them to greater obedience. Some hear God’s Word habitually without having their minds engaged. Others hear God’s Word to learn important lessons on how to live. Some hear God’s Word to find support for their ideologies and arguments. Some read God’s Word as the ancient book that has nothing to do with modern lives. Others hear God’s Word aesthetically. They hear or read it from the literary standpoint. They analyze it to appreciate the beauty and logic of God’s Word. However, they never practice it. They may feel awe before the grandeur of God’s divine Word. However, they always stop there and never feel they need to obey it.

No doubt, we hear God’s Word more than anyone else in history, because of modern technological developments. We can watch services at home. We can listen to CDs while driving or exercising. Sermons and Bibles are easily accessible to us. Despite all this, a sad reality is conspicuous lack of obedience to the Lord’s Word. We often feel that we are good Christians because they have a great desire to listen to God’s Word through CDs, TV, or online. But false professors were sitting in front of the Lord Jesus Christ and paying attention to every word that came out of His mouth. They had a fervent desire to learn from Him on how to live as God’s people. They had revered Him as a great moral teacher. But they didn’t practice they heard from Him. Hearing the Lord’s Lord as much as possible doesn’t necessarily mean we are true believers. Unless it is combined with our obedience, our hearing makes us more accountable to the Lord and makes us inexcusable before the Lord, because we have failed to respond to Lord’s Word by faith. Hebrews 4:2 says, 저희와 같이 우리도 복음 전함을 받은 자이나 그러나 그 들은 바 말씀이 저희에게 유익되지 못한 것은 듣는 자가 믿음을 화합지 아니함이라. “For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.” Thus, hearing alone cannot be God’s blessing unless it is combined with obedience of faith. Hearing the Lord’s Word always necessitates obedience.

Again, we must not substitute hearing God’s word for doing it. If we do so, we are deceiving ourselves by believing that we have done our part in relation to the word. James addresses the issue of hearing and doing as follows: 너희는 도를 행하는 자가 되고 듣기만 하여 자신을 속이는 자가 되지 말라 ²³ 누구든지 도를 듣고 행하지 아니하면 그는 거울로 자기의 생긴 얼굴을 보는 사람과 같으니 ²⁴ 제 자신을 보고 가서 그 모양이 어떠한 것을 곧 잊어 버리거니와 ²⁵ 자유하게 하는 온전한 율법을 들여다 보고 있는 자는 듣고 잊어버리는 자가 아니요 실행하는 자니 이 사람이 그 행하는 일에 복을 받으리라. ²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴ For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. ²⁵ But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (Jam. 1:22-25). He denounces hearing without doing. True hearing always results in doing. True hearing is by the heart, not by the ears. We are to seek the Lord’s grace to prepare our hearts to hear and do His Word. Satan always tries to prevent us from hearing and doing it by faith.

In 2013, Peter Mallory, the ex-owner of a local TV station was sentenced to 1000 years in prison for having downloaded child pornography. He was well-known and respected in Lagrange, Georgia. When Lagrange Police Department detective first realized child pornography was being downloaded somewhere in the building, he thought it was a student’s doing, but he soon learned otherwise when investigators searched his computer. The detective said the nearly 26,000 files of movies and photos found on his computer were more than investigators in Georgia had ever seen in one case. “Everything that we found was the rape and torture of children,” the detective said. Investigators said while they were searching for the child porn, they also stumbled upon photos of some of his employees. Police said he had cameras under his desk that took photos underneath female employees’ skirts. A jury convicted him of sexual exploitation of children, tampering with evidence and invasion of privacy. He was sentenced to 1,000 years in prison.

Mallory’s attorneys argued that the images were downloaded by mistake and that the cameras were placed to catch whoever was stealing from Mallory’s office. They have asked for a new trial. People believe 1,000 years are in the longest sentence in Georgia history. What was striking in this case is that Mr. Mallory was respected as “a living saint” in the town. His wife and daughter appealed to the court for mercy, quoting that Peter Mallory was a very good person to his family and neighbors. His daughter took the witness stand, saying, “If there were only people like my dad, the world would be a much better place.” His wife said, “Even during his trial, my husband in prison, a devout Christian, was reclaiming his fellow prisoners.”  But the judge in wrath stated, “He trusted his being…economic and social status and wrongly thought that the police, prosecutor, and the jury wouldn’t make him accountable to his crimes.”    

I know this is an extreme case. But his case illustrates a complete downfall of the man who was a respected citizen and Christian man in his town and yet disregarded God’s Word against pornography, spiritual adultery. If we do not pay attention to the Lord’s warning today, we could be swept away by trials that reveal our true foundation. The ultimate trial is the Lord’s eschatological, final tribulation. Unless this man repents of his wickedness and receives His forgiveness, he will not pass His final judgment. As seen in his case, we often hear God’s Word and fail to obey it because of our carelessness, secret evil desires, or willful disregard of God’s authority. When we disobey His Word, we are destroying our lives because the sin of disobedience and its consequences are detrimental to the soundness of our lives.

Unfortunately, we still listen to God’s Word without much endeavoring to practice it. Or we feel incapable of obeying what we hear from the Lord’s Word. Sometimes, we simply ignore what we have heard from the word. Other times, we make our minds to practice what we have learned from the Bible. In a few days, we return to our old way of living like many new year’s resolutions fail. So, we feel depressed. We feel so gloomy that we don’t want to try again to do the Lord’s word. Of course, we can’t obey it only by our willpower. Unless we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit, we will fail to obey the Lord’s word. We repeat the same cycle for years without growing much in grace. We feel despair in our ability to obey God’s word. But the Lord keeps encouraging us through His Spirit not to give up obeying Him. Sometimes, we try to concentrate on listening to the word of God so that we can obey it. But listening to it doesn’t automatically convert us to obeying it. First, we must acknowledge it take time to learn to practice the word of Christ in the process of sanctification. Second, we must rely on the Holy Spirit not only to understand what we hear but also to bear fruit by obeying it. In so doing, we must internalize the word of God to control our emotions, thoughts, and wills. As we rely on the Lord’s enabling grace, we must be deadly serious to obey God’s word to please Him by faith. John Stott said, 우리는 겸손하고 경외하는 마음으로 말씀을 듣고 이해하기를 갈망하며 우리가 이해한 것을 믿고 순종하기로 작정해야 합니다. “We listen to the Word with humble reverence, anxious to understand it, and resolved to believe and obey what we come to understand.”

Conclusion: A minor or trivial violation of God’s Word, one after another, strikes our foundation imperceptibly and makes our lives a useless reject. In a Pennsylvania mining town, there was a strongly built and beautiful public library. It was sturdy at first. But ten years later, the building had cracks and twisted foundation. So, it was too dangerous to use. No one knew why the building came to have cracks all over. Later they found out what caused it. A few miles away from the library, there was a coal mine where they used dynamites. Each time they exploded them, it impacted the foundation of the library. Its impact was almost imperceptible. So, no one in the library felt it. But a decade long impact twisted its whole foundation. So, they tore down the building because it became unusable. The building looks fine if you look at it from a long distance. But it is still unusable. This illustrates our petty disobedience, one after another, is slowly destroying the foundation of our lives.

So, we must be careful how we hear and do. Surely, hearing and doing the Lord’s Word is a way of building our lives. It makes us live an abundant life. It brings us healing and restoration. It leads us to experience the power and glory of God. It makes us experience the gracious reign of God. It makes us taste the joy and power of holiness. It helps us withstand trials in life. Hearing and doing the Lord’s word truly glorifies God. It proves the Lord is working within us. The life of Christi is manifested in us when we obey the word of the Lord. The power of Christ is manifested through our obedience and for us when we obey Him. Also, it is manifested for others through us. So, the glory of Jesus is so manifested through us when we do His word, so that others may come to believe in Jesus and bring glory to God. But hearing without doing makes us deceived and proud. It is like a house without the foundation. Hearing is necessary for doing. True hearing leads to doing. We should listen to the Lord’s word to understand His promises and commands. According to His Word, we should know what we are in Christ and what we are called to do. We should hold unto His promises by faith. We should obey His commands out of love for God. As we listen to it, we should do it by faith to please Him. We do all things for His glory because God loves us in Christ and we love Him in Christ.     

            The Lord knows our common tendency of disregarding His Word and our common incompetence to obey His Word. Despite our sinfulness, He has loved us to the point that He gave Himself as a perfect Sacrifice for our atonement. He perfectly heard the Father’s word and obeyed it. He sets a perfect example for us to emulate. Surely, He has compassion on us who lament lack of our holiness and fulness of our sinfulness. He died in our place and rose again, breaking the power of sin and death. He invites us to come and reside in Him. He empowers us through His Spirit and Word so that we can hear and obey Him by grace. As we rely on the blessed union with Christ, we can be assured like Paul, saying, 내가 그리스도와 함께 십자가에 못 박혔나니 그런즉 이제는 내가 산 것이 아니요 오직 내 안에 그리스도께서 사신 것이라 이제 내가 육체 가운데 사는 것은 나를 사랑하사 나를 위하여 자기 몸을 버리신 하나님의 아들을 믿는 믿음 안에서 사는 것이라. ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal. 2:20).

            If we humbly acknowledge both our sinfulness and incompetence, we are likely to repent and trust the Lord Jesus Christ rather than our self-righteousness. We shall live by faith in Christ alone so that we can obey Him for God’s glory. When we turn to Christ in repentance and faith, Christ will say, “I love you with all my heart. I am proud of you for all your efforts to hear and do my Word despite all failures and hardships in life. You are so precious in my sight. I am always with you. I will never leave nor forsake you because you are mine forever.” Would we listen to such comforting words of the Lord who gave Himself as a Sacrifice to forgive all our sins and make us God’s precious children? This is the good news we must always turn to. We must turn to Christ for divine enablement for us to hear and obey Him.

Benediction: ²⁴ 여호와는 네게 복을 주시고 너를 지키시기를 원하며 ²⁵ 여호와는 그 얼굴로 네게 비취사 은혜 베푸시기를 원하며 ²⁶ 여호와는 그 얼굴을 네게로 향하여 드사 평강 주시기를 원하노라. ²⁴ The LORD bless you and keep you; ²⁵ the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; ²⁶ the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace (Num. 6:24-26).