“House on the rock and house on sand” (Matthew 7:21-29)

Today’s parable is again, a very familiar parable to all of us. Many people simply understand this parable as simply talking about the difference between “faith with deeds/works and faith without deeds/works”. They interpret this to say “those who do works with their faith are the ones who built their houses on the rock, and the ones who do not do works with their faith are ones who built their houses on sand”.
To tell you the conclusion first, this parable does not mean that at all. Even by just looking at verse 29, there is a clue that it’s not that kind of a teaching.
Verse 29 says that the people were surprised because the teaching of Jesus was different to that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law – so safe to say Jesus’ teaching isn’t simply to “do good works”. 
Both fine houses
The key thing we need to know from this parable is that there is a fine house built on the rock and a fine house built on the sand – there is no difference in terms of what we can see. On the outside it is impossible to tell which house is built on a sound foundation. Simply put, this is a parable to teach us that the important thing is not the works we do, but what foundation we are built upon.
As I say all the time “it is not what we do that is important, it is why we do things that are much more important”.
<Read v21>
Jesus talks about works/”doing” here, but what kind of works is Jesus looking for? “The one who does the will of my Father”.
Then Jesus goes on to warn us about the kind of works that is not by the will of the Father. In verse 22 you see many people coming to Jesus on the day of the judgment, and they say “Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name, we drove out demons in your name, we did lots of works in your name”. But Jesus says all these kinds of “works” are rejected by Jesus. What did they do wrong?
Is it wrong to share God’s word and messages (prophesy) in the name of Jesus? Is it wrong to fix those poor neighbours who are demon possessed by driving out those demons in Jesus’ name? Is it wrong to help those less fortunate by performing miracles in Jesus’ name? Aren’t all these the kinds of things that the church is emphasising today as well?
Why does Jesus then call these things “evil” (verse 23)?

Because these things ignore the first and foremost will of the Father God.
<READ John 6:38-40>
God’s will for us is to believe in the son and have eternal life. This means to realise that with our human efforts it is impossible to reach the tree of life and eternity with God, and rely solely on the works of Jesus, on the grace of the cross and fall flat on the face in front of God. That’s what it means to do the will of the Father, that’s what it means to believe.
God’s will for us is not for us to be a co-worker to help Him in His work… do you really think He needs our help?
Yes, He does choose to use us as part of His instruments in fulfilling His plans for His chosen nation. But the way He does that is by making us into His obedient instruments who have submitted their wills to God to say “I am nothing, you are the one who is sovereign and in control, you do whatever you want with my life”. He wants us to let go of our “self”, lose our “self” and give ourselves to God, so that He can do what He wants.
Explain:
<Being used because you’ve given your life to him VS being used because you are helping him>

Reason of our existence – God’s Glory
What is the reason that we were created in the first place? It is to reveal God’s glory.
<READ Isaiah 43:7>
But we took the fruit from the Tree Of Knowledge Of Good And Evil (TOKOGAE) and started to live for our glory.
Explain:
• As soon as we ate from the TOKOGAE, God blocked the way to the tree of life, to make us realise we cannot reach it on our own.
• But we strive to reach salvation, eternal life through our own efforts and good works. 
• The only way is through the grace of God, through Jesus – but people just cannot accept this, which is why it is so hard to hear this message in the world of Christianity today. Even if you hear it, it is always mixed with so much humanism that the message of grace gets lost.
So people keep trying to achieve salvation in their own way, and there is absolutely no glory of God in there!!!
So Christians including us are living their lives thinking they are living out God’s will, but in fact it is the exact opposite because they are not revealing God’s Glory at all.
We hear Christians say “Glory to God” all the time… Let’s have a think about when they say these things:
1. Cool things happened to me, glory to God! Higher
2. Doors of evangelism opened – Glory to God!
Is that REALLY glory to God?
What should the glory of God focus on? His greatest work right? What is God’s greatest work?
God’s greatest work is my salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ.
So God’s will is to reveal the glory of the work of Jesus’ salvation through your life. This happens through realisation of sin, realisation of hopelessness of salvation of my own, and the glory and beauty of Jesus’ gift…

But Christians are doing all these works, focusing on our efforts without the slightest hint of giving glory to Jesus for their salvation.
Why??
Let’s see what Jesus said about the works of believers in the chapter just before today’s passage.
<READ Matthew 6:1-6>
Like this, all the “good” things that people do, if you do it for your own glory, it is called “evil” by Jesus.
<READ Matthew 7:23>
As you can see, the people in today’s parable have prophesied, driven out demons and performed miracles in Jesus’ name, for their own glory.
Then Jesus says “Therefore” to go on to Verse 24.
<READ Matthew 7:24>
So after cursing the fake works of those who do it for their own glory, Jesus tells us to do something different. He tells us to build our houses on the rock. What does that mean to build our house on the rock?
The rock is Jesus Christ.
<READ 1 Cor 10:4>
<READ 1 Cor 3:10-11>
To rely and believe only in Jesus. Have confidence in only Jesus, not you. Depend on only Jesus…
But there are churches and Christians who talk about “grace”, but constantly talk about works and contributions… talk about grace but you can see their entire life is about their own glory.
These are the houses built on sand. They look fine on the outside, but their foundation is wrong. Foundation is themselves.

Conclusion
So the life of the one who has been made by God to be His own, is designed to make Jesus shine. How would that happen?
By increasing the value of what Jesus has done, by increasing the value of His grace. We can only increase the value of what Jesus has done if we decrease the value in ourselves.
• Keep seeing that my good works are driven by my motive to be praised
• I am selfish in all things
Having these things constantly exposed in our lives and saying “wow I am beyond repair, I am worse than I ever sought. Wow, so what Jesus has done is truly amazing!”.

Next week we’ll discuss the second part of this message.