Actions Do Speak Louder Than Words

[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 7:21-29
Under different circumstances, it might have been cruel. But not in this circumstance.

The woman in one of my former parishes had made the lives of her husband and children impossible. She was an alcoholic, totally addicted.

"Get help or I'm taking the kids and leaving," her husband said. "Don't leave," she pleaded. "Stay and I will get help. I promise."

The husband had heard it before. The wife had made all sorts of promises. On three previous occasions, in fact, the husband threatened to leave. Each time he had stayed before the wife took steps to put her promises into action. Each time she broke her promises and the disease raged on. This time, he followed through. He left.

"How could he do this to me?" the wife asked me. Now it was my turn to be tough. "You need help," I told her.

Thankfully, she checked into a hospital and began the life-long journey of daily recovery. Today, she and her husband and family are together.*

One point in their story is this: Promises are only words unless you fulfill them. Actions really do speak louder than words,

The words of Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson conclude His Sermon on the Mount. He begins by speaking to people like you and me, people who week after week, during worship, whether in the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed, publicly confess our faith the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus says:

“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. 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 deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’”

Jesus is saying that our actions speak louder than our words. We may have Scripture memorized. We may be able to explain John 3:16. We may have served on Church Council. But is Jesus our Lord in the everyday places you and I live? Is Jesus the Lord of my checkbook, the Lord of my family life, the Lord of my workday, the Lord of my leisure time?

As good Lutherans, we all know that we are saved by grace, God's charity. Our works will not free us from sin and death, only the grace of God and our faith in what Jesus has done for us on a cross and from an empty tomb.

But there are many people who make promises to God, many who verbally confess Jesus on Sundays who leave Him in the dust on Monday through Saturday.

Jesus’ call and Jesus’ command to those who call Him their Lord is, as the New Testament book of James puts it, “…be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”

To drive this point home, Jesus next tells a mini-parable, one familiar to all of you. It’s about two homebuilders, one wise and one foolish. The wise one builds his house on rock. The other builds on sand. Storms and winds blow against both houses. The one built on rock remains. The one built on sand falls flat.

If you build on My Word and on Me, Jesus is saying, your house you will stand. You will stand, through the troubles of this life and into eternity. Actions do speak louder than words. Who and what we truly build our lives on will, in the long run, predict how we weather life’s storms.

Pastor Benjamin Reaves, in a sermon based on Jesus’ parable, identifies—rightly, I think—four major lessons for you and me. First, he says, all of us are builders. Each and every day, we’re building the “houses”—that is, the habits, the practices, the lifestyles—in which we live. The woman I talked about earlier, in spite all of her good intentions, although she knew that life is best when God is at the center of our lives, allowed God to be displaced by alcohol. She was building on the wrong foundation. It caused a series of storms that harmed her children, threatened her marriage, and was destroying her health.

By contrast, another person of my acquaintance, David, decided he needed to build a different house. He had been a successful businessperson, his life made easier by a six-figure income. But he felt empty, his life defined by the next big commission. He took a different job, one that let him volunteer at church and with Habitat for Humanity. “I even pray regularly now, Mark,” he told me one day. David was building on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ and Christ’s will that we love God, love neighbor, and help others know Christ.

We’re all builders. Also, all of us must live in the houses we build. The story’s told of a wealthy business owner who told his assistant one day, “I’ve decided to take nine-month trip. While I’m away, you make all the decisions. Also, I want you to take charge of building my new house on that spot above the lake I’ve always talked about. I’m leaving the plans and the funds to build it with you.” The assistant decided that if he cut a few corners, he could score several hundred thousand bucks and the boss would be none the wiser. He hired a crooked contractor, used inferior materials, and hired sloppy workers. Still, when the house was finished, it looked pretty good.

The boss returned and went with the assistant to look over the new place. “How do you like it?” the boss asked the assistant. “I think it turned out well,” the assistant said. “I’m glad you like it,” the boss replied. “You see, I’m retiring soon and won’t need your services. I wanted you to have a nice place for your retirement. The house is yours.”**

We can cut corners in our faith. We can settle for a faith that looks good to the world. (Jesus once excoriated the Pharisees, very religious people, for being "whitewashed tombs," seemingly alive with God's love and power on the outside, but actually dead and removed from God on the inside.) But when you and I have retired from this life, we want to be living in a house founded on Jesus Christ alone.

We’re all builders and we must live in the houses we build. We must also know that every house will be tested by storms. One thing I’ve noticed in twenty-four years as a pastor and fifty-four-plus years as a member of the human race: No one is exempt from the possibility of troubles. And each of us is subject to one storm, death. Without Jesus Christ, that is one storm we cannot survive.

All of us are builders. All must live in the houses they build. All houses are tested by storms. Finally, the difference between the houses that stand and the houses that fall is their foundations. A woman I knew used to tell me about when her house and barn were wiped out by a literal storm, a tornado. Later, her son died from a horrible disease at the age of ten. How did this woman and her husband weather these storms? They built their lives on Christ. They trusted Christ completely. This is the same woman who many of you have heard me quote. When she would consider tragedies, she would ask, “How on earth do people without Christ cope, pastor? Where do they look for strength or hope?”

Storms happen to all of us. Some collapse before they. Others stand. The ones who stand are those who have built on the strong rock of Jesus Christ, who seek to live life God’s way each day.

Jesus’ words to us today are a call and a command to never settle for playing at being Christians. “Walk the talk,” He’s telling us. “Make it your aim to not just call me ‘Lord,’” Jesus is saying, “but to actually build your every moment on Me. Make it your goal to love God, to love neighbor, to forgive as you've been forgiven, and to make disciples. Then, no matter what happens, your life will have been well spent.”

Actions do speak louder than words. May our actions reflect complete reliance on the One we confess as Lord.

*Specifics have been omitted or changed in order to conceal the identities of the people in this story. But it's a true one from my twenty-four years of pastoral ministry.

**Reaves tells this little parable here.