Be Reconciled to God

When Jesus ends his famous Sermon on the Mount, Matthew makes this remark about the people’s response:

 ²⁸ When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, ²⁹because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law. Matthew 7:28-29

These verses are a part of this wrap-up to Jesus’ sermon. The crowds were amazed at Jesus’ teaching “because he taught as one who had authority.”

Has your business ever hired an outside consultant to give you advice? What did you do with it? So many times, after going through a consultation process, the boss or others think: “They don’t really know us.” “That won’t work for us.” “We can’t really do what they recommend.” “We have to decide whether or not to accept their authority to speak to the matter.” 

These final words of the chapter suggest the crucial question: What do you make of the one who gave us this teaching? There are lots of authorities in life. We might even make ourselves the only authority we listen to. The question: What do we do with the authority of Jesus? This is a question with eternal consequences.

In the Sermon on the Mount, there are two builders. Both builders build houses, one on the rock, the other on the sand. When the storms come, the one built on the rock stands, while the house built on sand falls with a great crash. Some scholars say the storms are not representative of the storms of life; they are representative of the final judgment. However, I agree with the scholars who say it’s both. We face the storms in this life as people who put Jesus’ teaching into practice, knowing that there are also eternal consequences. 

I would have loved to finish by celebrating with the people whose houses will endure. Praise God! But, Jesus wraps his sermon up with an emphasis on the house that fell. I think he does this because it would be a great tragedy if just one of us failed to embrace Jesus’ authority and put his words into practice. The first step of accepting Jesus’ authority is to believe that he is Lord of all, and that he died and rose again as the sacrifice for our sins. I urge you today: be reconciled to God.