Moses lived to be 120 years old. And roughly speaking he had 40 years in each place. When he was 40 years old he had to run away, and he spent 40 years in the desert as a shepherd. God met him at the burning bush and called him to be the deliverer when he was 80 years old. And then he led the people for 40 years. It has been said that Moses spent 40 years in Egypt learning something. He spent 40 years in the desert learning to be nothing. And then he spent the last 40 years of his life proving God to be everything. I think that’s a good way of putting what the Christian life is all about. Some of us don’t prove God to be everything, because we never learned that we ourselves are nothing. And when we come to that point, then we are ready to have God work through us. And that’s what He did with Moses. 

What is the most important message of this Sermon? Certainly, it is the person of Jesus of Nazareth Himself, the Son of God, who spoke as no man had ever spoken before or since, who lived as He preached, and who then died and rose again that He might offer us a full and perfect salvation. Do you believe that? Have you committed your life to His care?

But Jesus did not only speak with authority. He also acted with authority. And thus, His works serve to substantiate His claims. What were His works? By the time of the preaching of this Sermon, according to Matthew (4:23-25), Jesus had already healed various types of sickness among the people and had cast out demons. They were yet to see lepers cured, the eyes of the blind opened, the dead raised to life, the storms stilled, water turned to wine, thousands fed from just a few shreds of lunch, and heaven opened. These works were meant to accredit Him by revealing the source of His teaching. We cannot study them candidly without coming to the conclusion reached by Nicodemus: "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him" (John 3:2). 

Everyone knows the difference between a person who speaks out of a vast and accurate knowledge of his subject and one who merely repeats what he has heard from others. The one is the voice of authority; the other is the voice of a parrot. The first is the sound of the fountain bubbling forth freshly from the ground; the second is the empty sound of the cistern. 

Now there is one last point here, and it is a point for Christians. What are you building? Oh, you are on the foundation all right. Christ is your Savior. But do you know that it may be possible for Him to be your foundation and yet for you to go through life building things that are worthless and that will not remain as fruit for eternity, even though you will be saved personally?