“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
Jesus is calling us to hear his words and act on them. If we want to hear him we must create a certain amount of silence in which he can speak. Our lives are busy so we tend to try to skip this step. We rush through prayers and instead we act on what we assume his words to be. Alternatively, if we listen to him and don't act we aren't further ahead. If we don't let his words have their full effect in transforming us we are still building on sand. The house will eventually be blown down.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
will enter the Kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
If we don't listen we can't act on his words. If we do listen but don't act we risk deluding ourselves. We may even think that because we listen to his words it justifies carrying out our own initiatives in his name even when they weren't his plan.
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?
Did we not drive out demons in your name?
Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’
The LORD does want to use us to speak his word, to drive out demons, and to do mighty deeds. But listening to him must be the basis of it. If we don't move in response to his word we are assuredly moving in response to our own pride. What might build the kingdom instead becomes a vanity project. We become so prideful that we are doing these things. We append that we are doing them in the LORD's name as an afterthought.
This is more or less what goes wrong in the passage about Abram this morning. He and Sarai encounter setbacks which they believe are too severe for the LORD to overcome.
“The LORD has kept me from bearing children.
They use the promise of the LORD to justify their own project to produce offspring with Hagar.
Have intercourse, then, with my maid;
perhaps I shall have sons through her.”
How then do we ensure that we hear the LORD? How do we make sure we aren't wandering off into our own projects? We hear the words of Jesus and act on them. How do we make sure we aren't just hearing ourselves? The words of Jesus are not like other words. They are not like our internal monologue.
When Jesus finished these words,
the crowds were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority,
and not as their scribes.
We must give Jesus the space to speak until we experience this difference for ourselves. If we give his words space (good soil) within us they will bear fruit in us. When they do we won't plead our worthiness to enter the kingdom on the basis of our amazing accomplishments. Counterintuitively, as we act on his words we realize more and more that absolutely everything depends on his mercy.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
Who can tell the mighty deeds of the LORD,
or proclaim all his praises?
Speak LORD, I'm Listening
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