The Words of Jesus | Matthew 7:24-8:1
Brian Hedges | June 7, 2026
Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew 7.
I wonder if any of you will recognize this image. Does anyone know what building that is? Some of you are thinking. Maybe if you’ve been to San Francisco, you’ll recognize it is the Millennium Tower, a 58-story luxury skyscraper in San Francisco that was opened in 2009. Some of you may know that within a few years engineers discovered that the building was sinking because its foundation piles were anchored in dense soil rather than bedrock. And within just a few years, it had actually sunk more than a foot and had developed a noticeable tilt. This led to years of litigation and expensive repairs.
It is an illustration of exactly the point that Jesus is making in the final section of the Sermon on the Mount: that it matters what we build our lives on. Foundations are important. Foundations matter.
In this series on the Sermon on the Mount, we have been considering the words of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus. Today, we’re looking at Matthew 7:24-8:1, which is really the end of the section. And we’re looking at the final words of Jesus in this most famous of all his teachings, the Sermon on the Mount.
Let me just remind you briefly of the shape of this sermon. I showed you this slide early in the series, and you can see that there’s something of a chiasm in this sermon, as the very center of the sermon is the model prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. And now we’re in this final section on the two ways, the two trees, and the two builders, as Jesus is talking about those who enter the kingdom of heaven, and then he comes down from the mountain.
So that’s where we are today. The theme of this message is the words of Jesus. And it’s, of course, what we’ve been considering the entire sermon, but in this final paragraph, Jesus talks about what people do with his words. So, in a way, you could say this whole final message is application for the entire Sermon on the Mount. What do we do with the words of Jesus? Some of you may be relieved that we’re coming to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, but I don’t want us to leave it behind. As difficult as some of the teaching of Jesus is, it is the word of God, it’s the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus tells us what to do with his words.
So let’s read this passage, Matthew 7:24-8:1.
“‘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 blew 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 a 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.’
End of the sermon.
“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 their scribes.
“When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him.”
This is God’s word.
We began this series by saying that Jesus is the King, the Sage, and the Savior; and that we only understand the Sermon on the Mount when we understand it as coming to us from Jesus filling all of these roles—the King, the one who is inaugurating the kingdom of God on earth; the Sage, a wise philosopher teacher, who is giving us in this sermon wisdom for living, he is giving us his own portrait of the good life that belongs to those who live under the reign and the rule of the Father in the kingdom of God. And these words come to us from Jesus, who is the Savior, the one who has come to give his life as a ransom for many, as, of course, the Gospel of Matthew and all of the four Gospels climax with the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus.
Today, I want us to see that the Sermon on the Mount, including these final words of Jesus, call us to submit to Jesus as our King, to follow him as our Sage, as a wise teacher, and to trust him as our Savior. And we’re going to do that by looking at three aspects of Jesus’ words:
1. The Authority of Jesus’ Words
2. The Wisdom of Jesus’ Words
3. The Grace of Jesus’ Words
1. The Authority of Jesus’ Words
Look at verses 28-29 at the end of chapter 7. It says, “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 their scribes.”
This is characteristic of the teaching of Jesus. “He taught as one who had authority.” We find this theme sounded again and again and again in the Gospels. People were amazed when they heard Jesus teach. They were astonished at the teaching of Jesus. Jesus didn’t come simply telling what other people had said before; he comes saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you.” Jesus comes with the authority of a king.
One way you see that in this passage—that he speaks with divine authority, the authority of God himself—is the parallel between what Jesus says here in verses 24-26—“Anyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like the one who builds his house on a rock,” or who does them not is “like the one who builds his house on the sand”—the parallel between that and the earlier passage in verse 21, where he said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” So in one verse he’s saying, “It’s important to do the will of my Father,” and three verses later he’s saying, “It’s important to do my words.” Jesus’ words are the Father’s will.
Do you see it? Jesus here is claiming divine authority. The authority of Jesus’ words.
Friends, it’s so crucial for us to grasp this, that when we read these words of Jesus, he speaks as one who has authority, which imposes obligation on us. Obligation. He’s the king! We have the obligation to follow what he says.
That means two things.
(1) It means, first of all, we must obey his commands. We must obey his commands. Jesus says, “Everyone who hears and does my words will be like the wise man who builds his house on the rock.” It’s doing the word, not just hearing the word. It’s the same thing James says, and James got it from Jesus.
James, in James 1, says, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” We must be doers of the word. This means there must be obedience. It means there must be application in our lives.
I’ve recently been listening again to a great preacher of the twentieth century, Stephen Olford. I mentioned him a few weeks ago. I first heard Stephen Olford years ago. I think it was 1995 when I heard him for the first time. I’ve been listening to those original messages that I heard back in 1995; I listened to those again here a few weeks ago.
In one of those messages, he talks about going to a church where he preached. It was a church that had a well-known expositor for their pastor, a man who was known for his Bible teaching, someone who had written books. He said you would recognize his name. And he went to this church, and he noticed there was a coldness in the church. There seemed to be a hardness in the church. He felt a deep burden. He changed his message, and he preached. He prayed, and he preached with great power, and there was a tremendous response, as people were convicted of sin and responded publicly to the message. He did this in both services; tremendous response in both services.
He only discovered why afterwards, when he was talking to the leadership of the church and discovered that in that church, with all of the expository preaching, there was very little application. The result is that there was a tremendous problem with sin in the church. There was adultery even in the leadership of the church. There was sin, in the congregation, of the worst forms. There had been no application of the word!
Olford just made the point, there must be application. Exposition without application will lead to hardness and coldness and spiritual death.
Jesus says it’s not just hearing, it is doing. There must be obedience to the word of God. And friends, you and I are called to do what Jesus said. The worst thing that could ever happen to any of us is to spend twenty-five weeks in the Sermon on the Mount—today’s sermon twenty-five—twenty-five weeks in the Sermon on the Mount, and then go on as if we never heard it, go on and change nothing in our lives, go on and forget what Jesus said. We must apply the word. We must obey the word. We must obey Jesus’ commands.
(2) Secondly, we must teach Jesus’ followers all that he has commanded. This is the Great Commission. The Great Commission is not only, “Go into the world,” it’s, “Go into the world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” That’s at the end of the Gospel of Matthew. We are to teach the followers of Jesus, teach the church, teach those who are disciples, teach them what Jesus has commanded.
Making disciples involves teaching. It involves teaching what Jesus has commanded, not least of all in the Sermon on the Mount.
Dallas Willard has said that the great omission of the church is the failure to do just this, to teach what Jesus commands. We’ve neglected the teaching of Jesus, we’ve neglected the Gospels, and it’s one reason we need to return to passages such as this, the Sermon on the Mount, to get the teaching of Jesus.
Let me just ask you this morning, are you a learner of Jesus? That’s what a disciple is. Are you learning Jesus’ words? Are you a student of Jesus? Do you study Jesus’ words? The label “Christian” is meaningless if you’re not actually a student of Jesus. Are you obeying Jesus’ words? Are you putting his words into practice in your life? Jesus is our King, and he has spoken with authority. He continues to speak to his church with authority through the word of God, and we are called to obey him, to follow him. Obey, put in practice the Sermon on the Mount, the authority of Jesus’ words.
2. The Wisdom of Jesus’ Words
But Jesus speaks not only with authority, he speaks with wisdom, and we should obey and follow Jesus’ words, not only because he’s the king, but because Jesus is a wise philosopher king, he’s a wise sage. He’s the wisest man who has ever lived, and his words are good for us. The Sermon on the Mount is not a bad thing. The Sermon on the Mount gives us a blueprint for how to live the best possible life as citizens in the kingdom of God.
You can see the wisdom emphasis in the passage this morning, where Jesus gives us this contrast between the wise man and the foolish man. Those are wisdom categories, obviously. He’s giving us a portrait of two kinds of people, the wise and the foolish.
We’ve seen this emphasis on wisdom throughout the Sermon on the Mount, as Jesus speaks to us in the categories of Old Testament wisdom. He shows us that there are two ways to live. There are two possible roads to walk. He shows us what true flourishing looks like. The good life belongs to the poor in spirit, to those who mourn, to the meek, and so on. He shows us how to build a life that will weather the storms. That’s what this passage is about. The wise person is the person who builds a house that will weather the storms; the foolish person builds on a faulty foundation. The same storm comes to both, but the wise person’s house stands while the foolish person’s house falls. They both face the same rains and floods and wind; the difference is in the foundation.
So, part of our application of the Sermon on the Mount is applying the wisdom of Jesus’ words in the storms of life, so that we are building on the right foundation. Let me just give you two applications of this.
(1) First of all, think about the storms of temptation. All of us face temptation. We face temptation to sin. We are in a battle, a battle for our souls, the battle of sanctification. We’ve talked about this. At different times in this series.
I use this category of temptation partly because of something I read this week. I’ve been reading a biography of a man named Bishop John Taylor Smith. He was an Anglican bishop; he was the bishop of Sierra Leone in the early twentieth century. Bishop John Taylor Smith was famous for writing extensive, copious notes in his Bible. He never published a book of his own, but two books actually were published just on the notes in his Bible. So I’ve been reading a biography of Taylor Smith, as well as a little book called Spiritual Secrets from Bishop Taylor Smith’s Bible.
I was reading that this week, and I came across this statement. He said,
“Whatever temptations come, they seem to be met within the Sermon on the Mount. Is it pride? ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ Is it sorrow? ‘Blessed are they that mourn.’ Is it a fiery temper? ‘Blessed are the meek.’ Is it carelessness in spiritual things? ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.’ Is it impurity? ‘Blessed are the pure in heart.’ Every day a battle is gained or lost. Have you overcome today or been defeated?”
You can see how he just shows the practicality of the Sermon on the Mount. As I’ve been reading his biography and reading these books on the notes in his Bible, one of the things that has stood out—this is something the biographers point out—is that the secret of spiritual power and fruitfulness in Bishop John Taylor Smith’s life was his devotion to the word of God and his commitment to what he called the morning watch. Every morning in the word of God.
He would often come to his disciples and his students and people in his church, and he would ask them, “What is your best thought of the day?” And he was asking them, “What did God speak to you from his word in your morning watch?” He was devoted to the word of God.
What foundation are we building on to see us through the storms of temptation? What is your source of wisdom, and who do you seek for counsel in life?
Over the past few months, I’ve had a number of conversations with people about AI, artificial intelligence. A couple of months ago, I had a conversation with Mark Vroegop, who is an old friend of mine. He’s now the president of The Gospel Coalition, and a group of us were at a table over dinner. We were talking about AI, and he commented that the number one use of AI among adolescents and teens is for therapy. Adolescents and teens are going to AI—Chat GPT or whatever—and they’re getting advice. They’re doing therapy through AI.
Now, let me just say, I believe that AI has many legitimate uses. I’ve used AI. I’ve found it very helpful in a myriad of ways. I think it can be helpful, and I think it will take the best minds in the church, in our generation, to figure out the ethical use of AI and best practices for it.
But listen, if you look to AI, or to podcasts or influencers or therapists or authors or experts or anyone else—if you look to them for wisdom more than you look to the word of God, more than you look to the words of Jesus, you’re building on sand. You’re not building on the rock. Jesus says it’s the one who “hears and does these words of mine” who builds on the rock. Don’t neglect the words of Jesus, who is the sage.
Here’s another category: the storms not only of temptation, but the storms of trials in our lives.
Let me just give you a very personal illustration here. Yesterday I had the wonderful privilege of preaching the funeral for Dena Enders, who was a longtime member of our church at Redeemer, recently passed away after several years of dementia. Some of her family are here in our church today. Many of you will remember Dena.
One of the things that was remarkable about the eulogies and the testimonies from family that were shared in that service was how characteristic the fruit of the Spirit was in Dena’s life. Joyful, loving, hospitable, a servant—in spite of really severe trials in her life. Some of you will know that as a young mother of two she lost her first husband, who was a state trooper for the state of Michigan and was killed in the line of duty, and yet she never expressed the least resentment or bitterness. She just remained faithful. And as I saw in later life, even when she and Dave began to face pretty severe trials with their health, declining health, she was still joyful and kind, expressing her faith in Christ. The storms of life didn’t destroy her. You know why? Because she built on the right foundation.
The trials are going to come, and listen, the trials come to everybody. That’s one of the points of this passage. The trials come to everybody. The storms come. The storms of life will come. The wind’s going to blow, the rain’s going to fall, the flood’s going to rise. The storms of life are going to come; life is going to be hard. The temptations are going to come, the trials are going to come. But whether you stand or not all depends on what foundation you built on. If you built your foundation on Christ, Christ alone—knowing him, trusting him, following him—you are a wise person, and you will be stable in the storm.
So this raises the question, then: How do we become people like this? How do we become people who build our lives on the rock and not on the sand? Is Jesus merely giving us a list of things to do, a list of rules to keep?
3. The Grace of Jesus’ Words
I think there’s more than that here. Jesus speaks with authority, he speaks with wisdom, but Jesus also speaks with grace. The grace of Jesus’ words—because Jesus is not only our king and he’s not only our sage, he is our savior. There’s grace in these words of Jesus: “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 blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.”
These are words of grace. Why are they words of grace? Well, we have to remember that Jesus here is speaking to us as the savior. His very name means “savior.” The angel said to Joseph, “You will call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” Jesus is the savior.
Jesus is the one who came to be the suffering servant, the one who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. He came to seek and save the lost. Everything about Jesus’ mission was about saving sinners. And he comes proclaiming the good news or the gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 4:23), leading right into the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is part of the gospel of the kingdom. This is gospel. It is good news. Yes, it includes teaching, it includes instruction; but it’s still good news.
I think we can explain it in two ways.
(1) First of all, we can put it this way: Jesus’ words are not a job description, they are a doctor’s prescription. I’m borrowing that from John Piper. Jesus’ words are not a job description. A job description gives you a list of responsibilities that you must fulfill in order to earn a wage. That’s not what the Sermon on the Mount is. We do not earn wages. We do not earn salvation. We do not merit anything from God. We are not workers in that sense. The apostle Paul makes clear—and I believe it harmonizes perfectly with the words of Jesus—that we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
But Jesus does give us instructions. So what kind of instruction is it? It’s not a job description for earning, it’s more like a doctor’s prescription. If you go to the doctor and he gives you a prescription, he prescribes medicine, he prescribes a course of therapy or something for your health, you’re not earning anything if you do what the doctor says. You’re not doing it for a wage. You’re doing it because you’re sick, and because you trust your doctor, and because you trust that what your doctor says is good for you. You take this medicine, you go through this physical therapy, you make these changes in your life; it will lead to health. And the obedience to your doctor flows from faith in the goodness and the wisdom of your doctor and believing that what he says is good for you.
That is what obedience to Jesus is like. It’s not earning; it’s trusting. It’s not meriting, but it is obediently following what the great physician of our souls, the great savior of our souls, has called us to. His words are not a job description, they are a doctor’s prescription.
(2) Then secondly, we could say there’s gospel in what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, because Jesus in this sermon offers hope to the needy, he reveals the heart of the Father, and he promises deliverance from the storm of final judgment.
He offers hope to the needy. The whole sermon begins by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Blessed are those who mourn.” He’s talking to the needy. He’s talking to the humble. He’s talking to the broken. He’s talking to the mournful, those who mourn over their sin, those who mourn their condition in the world, those who feel in need for God, and he says you’re blessed. You’re blessed. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
He reveals to us the heart of the Father again and again and again. One of the most concentrated places in all of Scripture where you have the name Father is here in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus here is speaking to children of the Father. He’s speaking to disciples, and he’s saying, “Your relationship with God is a relationship of a child to a father—a Father who loves you, a Father who cares for you, a Father who knows your needs before you ask. And if you’ll seek the Father, seek the face of the Father, ask and seek and knock, the Father will meet your needs.”
Jesus here in these final words promises deliverance from the storms. And listen, in context, these storms are not just the storms of life. It’s not just storms of temptations and trials. In context here, the storms are especially the storm of judgment. It’s the final reckoning. He has just talked about those who will stand before God and will say, “Lord, Lord, did we not do all these things in your name?” But they had no relationship with Him.
Here, in the same context, Jesus talks about two builders who build two different kinds of houses on two different foundations. One building falls, the other building stands. Why does one building stand? Because it’s built on a rock.
Jesus is telling us the kind of person, showing us the kind of person whose life will stand in final judgment and will not collapse. It’s the person who hears and does the words of Jesus, someone who hears the words of Jesus, the grace of Jesus’ words, and who in faith, repentance, and trust in Jesus as savior and as king and as sage builds his life or her life on Christ.
Jesus is our savior who speaks words of grace. He promises deliverance to those who believe in him. So the call this morning is to trust in him.
If you’ve never trusted in Jesus Christ, if you’re not building your life on Jesus Christ, if you’re seeking to stand on the basis of your own wisdom, your own accomplishments, your own works and you’re building on a faulty foundation; instead, build your life on Christ. Trust in him, believe in him, and follow him, and you will be secure.
Let me conclude this morning with words from Amy Carmichael, who’s that great missionary to India, who wrote a beautiful poem called “Security.” It’s a poem that’s all about the security that can be found in the storms. Here’s what she says; you can follow along.
“When the stormy winds against us break,
Stablish and reinforce our will;
O hear us for Thine own Name’s sake;
Hold us in strength, and hold us still.
“Still as the faithful mountains stand
Through the long, silent years of stress,
So would we wait at Thy right hand,
In quietness and steadfastness.
“But not of us this strength, O Lord,
And not of us this constancy;
Our trust is Thine eternal word,
Thy presence our security.”
Now there it is. “Whoever hears and does these words of mine—these words of mine.” “Our trust [our strength] is Thine eternal word, / Thy presence our security.” It’s building our lives on Christ. It’s building our lives on his word.
So, brothers and sisters, as we finish this series on the Sermon on the Mount, let’s not move on from the words of Jesus; instead, let us remember that Jesus is the king who speaks with authority, therefore we should obey him; Jesus is the sage who speaks with wisdom, therefore we should follow him gladly; and Jesus is the savior who speaks with grace, therefore we should trust in him.
Let’s pray.
Gracious Father, we thank you this morning for your word. We thank you for the words of Jesus, for the Sermon on the Mount, for this teaching, so astounding in its wisdom, so practical in its implications, so convicting to our hearts, and yet teaching that holds out to us the hope of the gospel as Jesus addresses the spiritually broken, points us to you as our Father, and shows us the way that leads to life. We ask you, Father, to give us hearts to respond to your word in trust and in obedience. Lord, help us not move from this word but make it a foundation under our feet. Help us build, as the wise man built, on this rock.
As we come now to the Lord’s table today, we pray that the table as well as the word would be means of grace to us, and that just as we have considered the words of Jesus, including the gospel of Jesus this morning, so may we in the table see the gospel displayed in the broken bread and poured-out juice, a reminder to us of what Christ our Savior has done for us in giving his life as a ransom for many, the one who has inaugurated the new covenant through his own blood for the forgiveness of our sins. Lord, help us come this morning trusting in Christ our Savior, and let the table be strengthening to us as it displays the gospel of Christ. Draw near to us in these moments and work by the power of your Holy Spirit. We pray this in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
