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The scripture reading of the morning is from the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 8. I begin the reading at the verse which is numbered 21. Jesus is speaking. Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?"

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And then will I declare to them, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers." Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon 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 upon the sand,

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and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, and great was the fall of it. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Amen. Pray with me.

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Why is it that some people just don't get ahead? Why is it that two people can set out to build, and one can build, and what he builds stands, and what the other builds falls, and great is the fall thereof? Why is it some people get ahead, and other people don't?

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Jesus speaks to that question in the parable which I've just shared with you, and I'd like to explore the details of that parable with you now. It's the story of two builders. Now notice please that both of these builders understand Jesus to be the Lord. Both of them say, "Lord, Lord."

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It's not a question of one builder knowing Jesus, and the other one not knowing him. It's not a question of one having a good theology, and the other a bad theology. It's not a question of one being biblically literate, and the other one being biblically illiterate. It's not a question of liberal versus conservative.

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It's not a question of charismatic versus non-charismatic. Both of these builders are believers, but one fails, and the other is successful. We understand, of course, from other places in the scriptures that belief is often not that which differentiates us. We remember, for example, in James, the second chapter, where he says that even the devils believe and tremble.

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It is possible for a person to be absolutely orthodox in her theology, and at the same time be an agent of hell. So we can believe all of the right things. And still hear Jesus say, "Depart from me, for I never knew you." And notice that the two builders are not distinguished by how hard they worked,

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by how conscientious they were, by the nature of the goals they were pursuing. Both of these men had very noble goals. Some say that the reason some get ahead and others do not is that some have good goals and others do not have good goals, but the goals in this instance are the same.

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And Jesus specifically identifies, immediately before the parable, individuals who have very, very worthwhile goals and succeed at them, and they still fail in an ultimate sense. He says, for example, "There are some who prophesy." Now, one who prophesies is one who gets a message from God and passes it on to others.

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And there are those today, preachers amongst them, who seek to fulfill the prophetic office. But Jesus says, "There are those who have been prophets, and to them he will say, 'Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity.'" Paul said, "Though I have the gift of property, it is nothing."

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Jesus says, in the same introduction to the parable, that there are those who cast out devils. That is, those who are able to force evil into retreat. And these, too, are not blessed of him. You remember how early in the training of the disciples,

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Jesus sent the disciples out on their first discipleship journey, on their first missionary tour, you might say. And when they came back, they reported to him, "The devils are subject to us." Did you ever think of the fact that Judas was one of those who went out?

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And that Judas was one of those who came back and said, "The devils are subject to us?" You see, there are individuals who can drive evil out of others, but are utterly unable to drive evil out of themselves. Again, Jesus says that there are some people who are able to work signs and wonders,

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miracle workers, if you will. He speaks of these in Matthew 24, when he says, "There shall arise those who call themselves Christians, false prophets, and they shall show great signs and wonders,

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and they shall deceive the elect," that is, the people of God. But they will not deceive Jesus. Their goal, their purpose, altogether good, and they accomplish it, but something is missing.

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So that he says, "I never knew you." And that which they have built in the end falls, and great is the fall of it. And notice also that it's clear from the story

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that it's not a matter of ardor and enthusiasm. It's not simply the fact that some people are working harder than the others. They're both very intense. They both cry out, "Lord, Lord."

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It's not a matter of one giving 100% and the other one only giving 80%. These are both go-go people. I mean, translated into the terms of today, these people are very involved in the life of the church,

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and they're serving on every committee. But still, one succeeds in what he builds, and the other does not. Wilberforce, that great parliamentarian from Britain who wrote so much social legislation

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which has blessed all Western civilization since the time he wrote it, was asked on one occasion by a woman, "Sir, how is it with your soul?" And he replied, "Woman, I had forgotten that I had one."

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It's possible, you see, to be caught up in such a round of activities, good and purposeful and worthwhile activities. And yet, out of this, out of this zeal and ardor and passion, while what one builds stands, what another builds falls.

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You can't distinguish, you see, between the two builders on the basis of their orthodoxy. This is not a theological question. And you cannot distinguish on the basis of their goals.

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This is not a stewardship question. And you cannot distinguish between them on the basis of their zeal. This is not a question of enthusiasm and passion. Both of these men have all of these things, but to one of them,

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there comes the word in sad surprise, "Depart from me, for I never knew you, and great is the fall thereof." There's a storm coming, you see. And in that storm, what they build will be carried away.

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Now, notice that Jesus in the parable does not say that a storm may come. He says a storm will come. The word that's used to describe it in the passage is, "It's a great torrent of water from which there will be no escape."

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None of us can escape from the vicissitudes and the hardships of life. We are woven into the web of a caring fellowship so that what impacts upon someone that we care for also impacts upon us. And we're in a world which is ruled by natural law.

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And when you go against that natural law, you are going to be broken. You will not break the law, you will break yourself going against it. There are natural phenomena, there are occurrences in the warp and woof of life, which hit every one of us.

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There's no escape. I've always been fascinated by the story of that Australian military historian who was studying in the 1930s and came to the conclusion that war between Japan and the United States was inevitable.

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And he thought that Australia would very likely be drawn into that war and would possibly become a battlefield of it. So he determined that he would pick out some place to which he could move his family where they would be altogether safe, where they would be away from the war,

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away from the storm. And after much deliberation and consideration, he settled on a small remote island in the South Pacific. And the name of that island was Guadalcanal.

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And for those of you too young to remember that war, Guadalcanal wrote some of the bloodiest pages in the history of that conflict. Now, none of us are going to be able to escape the storm. Jesus is no doubt thinking of the torrents which sometimes run through the wadis in Israel.

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A wadi is a canyon which sometimes becomes a chute for water. I remember once riding horseback down the wadi seek in Jordan, going to the rose-red city of Petra, and learning from my guide that in 1954,

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34 French tourists had lost their lives there in that wadi. They had just been moving along and suddenly, water which had accumulated long before up in the hills suddenly came rushing upon them and carried them away.

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And what Jesus is saying is, if you're going to build on the sand of your theological system, or if you're going to build on the sand of your good works, or if you're going to build upon your enthusiasm and your vigor,

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when the storm comes, you're going to fall. You will not be able to stand that blast. Only one, he says in the parable, only one stands, and that is the one who built upon rock.

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And the rock is the surrender of the will to God. We are made up of three parts. We have intellect, we have emotion, and we have volition. We have minds with which to think and hearts with which to feel

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and a will with which to do. Now, as long as these are in balance, then we are in health. But when any one of these exceeds the other two, or when any one of these is missing from the triad,

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then there is trouble. For example, in the Christian faith, in the Christian faith, we should use our heads. No church should be built with doors so low

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that people have to take their heads off to get in. You are to use your mind in the exercise of your religion. Religion has a rational dimension. When you take all of the rational out of religion,

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you've turned it into nothing more than superstition and black magic. But you can sit down and read all the books in the world about swimming so that you understand swimming in your mind. But if your will never leads you to get into the water,

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unless you begin to do what you've read about, you will never learn how to swim. In like manner, there is room for emotion in our religion. We think of how Paul was caught up into the third heaven,

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or we think about how our Lord Jesus was transfigured with radiant glory in a moment of special theophany. And we have perhaps known times when our hearts and our souls have been thrilled by some emotional moment high in the faith.

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But when emotion is allowed to run without the control of will, when emotion is allowed to dictate, when how we feel determines how we act instead of how we will and our determination to act,

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determining how we act. Whenever that happens, we're in trouble. You see, will must be added to intellect. Will must be added to emotion.

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Notice what Jesus says here in the parable. He says, "You are my friends if you do," that's an act of will, "if you do what I command you."

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At another point, he says, "That one who is the child of the father is the one who does the father's will." The foundation, you see, the rock on which life is to be built is surrendered will. If you want it in one word, it's this word, obedience.

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The difference between the one who builds and his house falls and the one who builds and his house stands is a question of will. It's a question of obedience. Have you committed your whole life?

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And are you committing your whole life in an act of will on Jesus Christ, who is the rock and who can stand in the midst of any storm and say, "Peace, be still." And there's a great calm.

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A surrendered will means calling Jesus Lord and meaning it. Now, that word Lord, which occurs in our New Testament at so many points, has many meanings, but there are three that are especially important for us today. And the first is this.

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The word Lord is a synonym for the word Christ or Messiah. In other words, when we call Jesus Lord, we are saying that he is God. For unto you is born this day in a city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. When we call Jesus Lord, we are acknowledging his absolute leadership, his deity.

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And that, it seems to me, demands of us a very profound humility. And I sometimes worry about that in the life of the church. You know, we talk about Jesus as our friend. We talk about Jesus as our pal.

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You hear some people talking about the man upstairs means something good for me. And I suppose there can be great sincerity in that. And yet, when we use such casual language when we are referring to the King of kings and the Lord of lords,

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or when we make jokes about Jesus. Now, Jesus had a sense of humor. But to make a joke about Jesus, to laugh at some of the most holy things of the faith, even at a moment when we do not mean to belittle them, but we just become casual about them.

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To come into an act of worship and to be sloppy here. To be sloppy in what we offer. To be indecorous in our preparations. To come in like we'd come into a movie theater.

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Instead of coming into the house of God's people there to reverence him. When we call Jesus Lord, it seems to me we are acknowledging his deity. And that means reverent obedience. That word Lord is also a synonym in the New Testament for master or owner.

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It was often used to describe the commander of troops who could order the troops wherever he would, or the magistrate of a governmental district who controlled what went on. In other words, it's a symbol of authority. There are those you see who are willing to reverence Christ.

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They put him up on a pedestal. They never think of being casual in worship. They're always very decorous in their approach to him, but they do not open every door of their lives to him.

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When they leave the church, they leave him here. They do not bow down for him in every experience of their days. Their stewardship is weak. Have you heard the new parable of the sheep that's going around?

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The shepherd calls the sheep together in this new parable, and he has an open meeting. And he says, "Look, the wool production of the flock is down considerably, and what are we going to do about it?" And one of the old ewes said, "Well, the problem is basically yours because you haven't been

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leading us to the right grazing places. I mean, the pastures just aren't where we want to be." And another said, "And we always go so fast. I mean, if we would only take more time when we move from pasture to pasture,

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I just get comfortable when I'm told to move on." And another said, "And the brambles have been very bad this year, and my coat has been torn at some places. You see where it wounded me here?"

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And an old ewe said, "It's the spirit of the flock that is most important. It doesn't make any difference how much wool we produce. Look at how many new lambs we have." And a big buck ram said, "Look, I've worked very hard to produce my coat of wool,

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and having worked this hard, I'm not going to part with it without some kind of fight." And a young ewe said, "Well, the difficulty is that it's taken away from us too abruptly. I mean, they throw me down on the ground, and they shear it off, and sometimes they cut me, and you can see the places where it has happened."

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And an old timesheep said, "It's the newcomers. There's a lot of newcomers coming into the flock, and they eat the best grass, and they're always crowding around the water, and it just isn't like it used to be."

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And a grand dame in the flock, she said, "Well, as far as I'm concerned, they just don't use my wool in the right way, and I'm not going to give it if I don't approve of the way they use it." And the shepherd, looking at the sheep, said,

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"Whosoever will save his wool will lose it, and whoever loses his wool for my sake will find it." And I mean no pun when I say, none of us can pull the wool over Jesus' eyes

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when it comes to willing obedience in every dimension of our lives. It's there, or it is not. And we also, and lastly, use this word "Lord" in the New Testament to symbolize king or emperor.

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Now, your king or your emperor is the one to whom you give your heart and your will, the one to whom you utterly surrender. In other words, we are to reverence Christ as God, we are to obey him as he owns us,

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and we are to be loyal to him as our king. You know, the earliest creed of the Christian church, long before the Apostles' Creed, was just four words, "Jesus Christ is Lord."

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And the Romans became aware of that. And the way they would try to sniff out Christians was to go to one whom they thought was a Christian and say, "You must take the oath, 'Caesar is Lord,'"

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because they knew a Christian would not take that oath, and this would identify them. Now, a decree went out from Caesar that all of the troops in the army should show obedience to him.

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And there was, in one of the Roman legions, a company of 40 men who were all Christians. They had one one another. And they were known throughout all the Roman army as great wrestlers

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in the competitions that existed between the legions. This was the cream of the crop insofar as wrestling, which was a very great sport to the Romans, was concerned. Now, the commander of this legion was told

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that every one of those wrestlers was going to have to acknowledge Caesar as Lord before Christ, and he knew they wouldn't do it. And because he didn't want to lose them,

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he said, "Look, here's what I'll do. You don't have to say 'Caesar is Lord.' Just pour out some wine on the ground in front of the statue of Caesar.

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That's a libation. That's an act of obedience." But the Christian wrestlers wouldn't do that either. Now, the penalty for disobedience was death.

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The commanding general, still hoping that some might yield, instead of having them killed instantly, had them stripped of all of their clothing. And it was winter, and this legion was in Switzerland at the time.

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He had them driven out onto the surface of a frozen lake. His plan was, you see, that some of them would surrender before the cold took their lives. And when they went out onto the lake,

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they began to sing a song, which is still well-known in Christian history. "Forty Christian wrestlers wrestling for thee, O Christ. For thee we claim the victory.

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From thee we claim the crown." And as the day went on, and then the night, the sound of the singing got softer and softer as one after another succumbed to the cold.

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A Roman guard, standing in the night by the side of the lake to see that none returned, looked up and discovered one of the Christian wrestlers crawling to him, shivering.

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And looking up, the Christian said, "I will pour out the wine. I will pour out the libation. I will accept Caesar as my Lord."

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And with no other word of comment, the Roman soldier stripped off his clothing and said to this one, sniveling at his feet, "Since thou hast proved the coward,

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I will take thy place." And he went out onto the lake, and standing in the midst of the others, he sang up the song,

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"One Christian wrestler wrestling for thee, O Christ, for thee I claim the victory. From thee I claim the crown." He's the only one that can give the crown.

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And that's the reason that we say, when we say what we believe, in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,

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and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. And those who finish the fight and keep the faith

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are those who call him Lord and mean it, and they not only get ahead, they get the crown. Let us pray.

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O Jesus, in your humanity, you entered into the totality of our experience. O Christ, in your deity, you came to us in abject humility

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to astonish us with your grace. O only begotten Son of the Father, you have reflected God to us. In him, your image is pure,

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like Father, like Son. O Lord, you claim us, heart, mind, will. Mold us, mend us, bend us, break us,

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do to us whatever you must do until we are wholly thine. We pray it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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Amen. Amen. (orchestral music) (orchestral music)

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["Pomp and Circumstance" playing] [music] And the house of Israel, and the home of Israel, Gloria, Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

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Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Shepherds, why this new belief? Our results are vanishing; Nothing left is here to see,

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But the dying King! Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

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[END] © transcript Emily Beynon [END]