What Are You Building On?

Andy King • 31 May 2026

Most of us learned this story as children. Two builders. Two houses. One storm.

There's even a song about it. Which is partly why it's so easy to think we already know what it means.

This is the fourth and final week of our series, The Kingdom of God Is Near, and we've arrived at the question everything has been building towards: so what do we actually do with all of this?

Jesus answers that question with a parable. And tucked inside it is something most people have never been asked to look for.

Imagining It — What Does Heaven on Earth Look Like?

Before we get to the parable, I want to ask you something.

What if you woke up tomorrow morning and heaven had come to earth? Same you. Same street, same job, same family. But somehow, heaven had broken through. What would your world look like?

I've heard people answer that question. "No one would be lonely." "Famine would be completely erased." "You could be yourself and be with Jesus."

Something stirs when you hear those words. That's not sentimentality — that's the seed of the Kingdom of God planted deep inside us. We were made to long for this. Most people, whether or not they would call themselves Christians, already know, somewhere deep down, what the coming of God's Kingdom would look like.

The good news of the Kingdom isn't primarily about getting you out of the world and into heaven. It's about heaven breaking into this world — through you, through a community of people who have given their lives to King Jesus.

"Salvation is less about getting you into heaven than getting heaven into you."

That changes the picture. We're not just waiting to be rescued. We're invited to be part of the rescue.

But heaven doesn't get into us by accident. We don't stumble downstairs on a Monday morning and stand up as radically different people. It takes something — the kind of spiritual discipline Jesus described throughout the Sermon on the Mount. And right in the middle of that sermon, he makes this clear:

"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you."

— Matthew 6:33 (CSB)

First, prayer: "Your kingdom come." Then, seeking: "Seek first his kingdom." These are not things reserved for a special category of super-Christian. They are within your reach. Things you can do today.

The Rock — What Are We Actually Building On?

Jesus closes the Sermon on the Mount — three chapters of the most practical, life-shaping teaching he ever gave — with a story. Here's how he ends what biblical scholars have called the constitution of the Kingdom of God:

"Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn't fall, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash."

— Matthew 7:24–27 (CSB)

Now, here's the question most people never think to ask: what exactly is the rock?

Your first instinct might be to say Jesus is the rock. And there are places in Scripture where that's absolutely true — Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that the rock in the wilderness was Christ. The Psalms are full of God as our rock and our fortress. But that's not what Jesus is saying here.

Your second instinct might be the Word of God. Always a good answer. But still not the right one for this particular story.

Look at the text again. "Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them." That's the rock. Not hearing alone. Not even believing alone. Acting.

Jesus isn't saying the foundation is good theology. He isn't saying it's church attendance or knowing your Bible well. Those things matter. But they are not, by themselves, the rock.

The rock is a life steadily shaped by the words of Jesus — day by day, in the ordinary moments of everyday life.

Both houses faced the same storm. Both got battered. The storm doesn't discriminate. The only difference was the foundation.

Practice — Putting Jesus' Words to the Test

So how do we actually do this? How do we move from hearing to building?

Think about what Jesus has just spent three chapters teaching. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Salt and light. Love your enemies. Don't worry. Forgive as you have been forgiven. Ask, seek, knock.

These are not impossible ideals. Jesus didn't set the bar so high that he already knew we'd give up. He closes the whole sermon by saying: Go on then. Build. Put my words to the test.

He isn't asking us to pass a theology exam or get everything straight in our heads. He's asking us to take one of these teachings and put it to the test on Monday morning — in a difficult relationship, in anxiety about money, in the moment when someone lets us down.

And here's what I find genuinely gracious about this parable. Jesus doesn't say "everyone who hears these words and obeys them flawlessly." He says everyone who acts on them. Practice. Daily, imperfect, earnest effort to take what Jesus says seriously — and try. That's the rock.

If you've never committed your life to Jesus

Maybe you're in a season where nothing feels settled yet — your work, your relationships, your sense of who you are. That's an honest place to start. Not with all the answers.

Start here: pick one of Jesus' teachings and take it seriously. Just one. Maybe it's "love your neighbour as yourself." Maybe it's "ask, and it will be given to you" — and so you begin to pray for the first time. Not to earn your way in. But because Jesus says that when you begin to live this way, you'll start to discover something about who he is, and about who you are becoming.

If you've already given your life to Jesus

The good news is that there is more. Far more than most of us have tasted. Paul writes, reaching back to Isaiah:

"What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived — God has prepared these things for those who love him. These are the things God has revealed to us by the Spirit."

— 1 Corinthians 2:9–10 (CSB)

Don't hear that only as a promise for the afterlife. Paul goes on immediately: these are things revealed to us by the Spirit. Here. Now. By the Spirit who already lives within you.

"The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."

— Romans 14:17 (CSB)

There is more righteousness, more peace, more joy available to you right now than you have yet tasted.

When Does Eternal Life Begin?

This might be the most important question of the whole series. Jesus answers it himself, in his prayer to the Father on the night before he died:

"This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent — Jesus Christ."

— John 17:3 (CSB)

Eternal life is not a destination you arrive at when you die. It begins the moment you trust him. It begins now.

The Kingdom of God is near — not just near in distance, but near in time. It is available to you today.

The storms will come. Jesus doesn't promise a storm-free life. But a life built on his words — practised day by day, imperfectly but honestly — is a life that holds.

Build on the rock.

A Moment to Reflect

A few questions worth sitting with this week:

When you think about the Sermon on the Mount — love your enemies, don't worry, forgive as you have been forgiven — which teaching do you find hardest to actually live?

Is there a gap between what you believe and what you do? Not to condemn yourself, but honestly: where might Jesus be inviting you to close that gap?

What would it look like, in a very specific and ordinary way, to put one of Jesus' teachings to the test this week?

A Closing Prayer

Father, I pray that we would be people who don't just hear what Jesus says — but who actually do it.

I pray that each one of us would go away today and pick one thing from the Sermon on the Mount and say: right, I'm going to put this to the test. Not perfectly. But honestly.

I pray that we would be a church where Jesus would feel at home — not because we have it all together, but because we're genuinely trying to live the way he taught us to live. A glimpse of heaven on earth, together.

And I pray that when the storms come, we will be found standing. Not because we are strong, but because we built on the only foundation that holds.

'"Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock." — Matthew 7:24 (CSB)

Build well. Build together. Build on the rock.