A Firm Foundation Matthew 7:24-27

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Dinah Harrell
5 years ago
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1 A Firm Foundation Matthew 7:24-27 I remember my first conversation with John Gray, the Jordan High School cross country coach. This short, gray-haired man is a bundle of intensity who speaks with enthusiasm about serious running. He was especially excited about the possibility of Kate Merrill, a junior at Jordan, winning a state championship. She would, in fact, go on to win two consecutive state championships during her career. Having kick started my own running career of long distances, I asked him how one became a good cross country runner. You ve got to have a firm foundation, he said. That means miles and miles. Most runners chart their progress by the number of miles they run a week. Most of the girls on Jordan s cross country team just started running long distances when school started. They won t really be in shape until the end of the season. Kate has been running all summer, so she is already in great shape and hopefully she ll peak at the state championships. That made a lot of sense to me. I remember when I first to run these 3 miles treks years ago. I thought I would die before it was over. But now I can survive the running and still have enough juice to do other physical things later in the day. All these miles are tough while they re happening, but I m convinced my long-term health is benefitting from it. You know what they say, No pain, no gain. I believe consistent exercise, a sensible diet, proper sleep provide a firm foundation for physical life. Of course, there s no guarantee that I won t develop some disease tomorrow and suffer from that as happens to many people. I can t control that. But I can lay a firm foundation for a healthy life by doing a few things that may be painful in the shortterm, but beneficial as the storms of life and age take their inevitable course. A firm foundation. Just as we lay a firm foundation for our physical bodies, we can lay a firm foundation for our spiritual lives. That s what this parable is about that comes at the end of Jesus Sermon on the Mount. Throughout this sermon, which is recorded in Matthew 5-7, Jesus makes distinctions about his ways and other ways. It isn t enough to use fancy religious language like Lord, Lord. Surprisingly, it isn t enough to do certain religious deeds like tithing, casting out demons, prophesying, and other deeds of power. Today s scripture is a fitting culmination, summation, and final exhortation for Jesus sermon. Jesus speaks about the wise person, which could also be translated prudent person. In the Sermon on the Mount, wisdom is similar to that in the OT. Wisdom is given to the person who wisely aligns his or her life according to the teachings of the Torah (the Law of God). Wisdom is given to the person who aligns his life with God. And so here, Jesus is transitioning from Torah to his own teachings. Jesus is saying, wisdom is given to the person who hears my words and obeys them. Most of the time the wisdom we admire and desire is different from that. We often think of wisdom in terms of experience, or intelligence, or sound judgment between competing interests. And certainly that is a brand of wisdom, which, no doubt comes in handy in this world. I think about the legend of a certain college philosophy professor who asked only one question on his final exam. He picked up a chair, put it on his desk, and wrote on the board, Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist. The students dug deep and wrote like crazy for a whole hour, some of them churning out 20 pages of heady philosophical debate and logic. They recalled the words of Aristotle, Plato,

2 Kierkegaard and others. Some of them produced sterling philosophical arguments on the existence and the proof of beings. But one student turned in his paper after less than a minute. As it turned out he was the only one to get an A. What did he write so quickly that turned out to be just the right answer? What chair? That was a very clever answer and that young man probably went on to be very successful in this world. But that s not the kind of wisdom Jesus was talking about. Jesus wisdom as expressed in his greatest and longest recorded sermon includes things like: * Don t worry about material possessions. God knows what you need. * Don t spend your time judging others. Be merciful, because one day you ll beg for mercy instead of justice. * Pray, ask God for things. * Don t follow the crowd because most of them are wrong. * Be careful about the teachers that you listen to. * Don t be fooled that religion is a matter of using religious language. * Give to the poor, but don t brag about it. Let you giving be its own reward. * When someone hurts you, turn the other cheek. * Be faithful in marriage. * When someone asks you for a dollar, give them two. * Walk the way of love and you end up being the light of the world. These are the kinds of things that will give you a firm foundation for living. Brick by brick, shingle by shingle, tile by tile, these are the building blocks that will prepare us for a life that can withstand the storms of life. In concluding his sermon with a parable about building, Jesus was showing his knowledge and affinity with the Holy Scriptures. For there are over 400 references frequent metaphors, parables, and illustrations that relate to buildings and construction in the Bible. Eccl 3:3 speaks of a time to build. Yet building by ourselves, or building just anything is considered foolish. The Psalmist wrote, Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. And our God is a builder. Isaiah said of God, My hand laid the foundation of the earth (Isa 48:13). Then in the NT we are told the church is the household of God (1 Tim 3:15) and Paul referred to his fellow Christians as God s building (1 Cor 3:9). Did you know that? We are God s building! That reminded me of the renovation plans our church undertook a few years ago and which have now been completed. I am very pleased that we now have a renovated education space, a new welcome center with an elevator, a state of the art youth space, and new properties to be used for parking or recreation. We have brought our church from a mid-20 th century facility to a wonderful 21 st century facility. But despite all of that, such a renovation of a physical structure is secondary to building a firm foundation in our spiritual lives. For if our hearts are not devoted to Jesus Christ, and

3 we re not obedient to his teachings, and his love is not evident in our relationships, and his name is not reverenced in our worship, and our minds are not devoted to growing in knowledge of him, it s all just sort of shifting sand. We could have the greatest facility in the world and it would be built on shifting sand. There are some great cathedrals that I visited when I toured England years ago, but their sanctuaries are relatively empty and the people are no longer committed to living for Jesus. Buildings without the committed body of Christ within them are of no value to Jesus. Jesus has provided the building blocks for a life that will withstand the storms of life, and those blocks are revealed in the NT and especially in his teachings. Warning And so this concluding parable is both a warning and a source of encouragement. It s a warning that laying a firm foundation isn t inevitable. It s not automatic. There is the possibility, and history teaches a great probability, that we will build our lives on sand instead of the solid rock of Jesus Christ. Jesus warns that rains will come down, the streams will rise, and the winds will beat against our house. Notice in the parable he doesn t say, If the rains come, and if the streams rise, and if the wind becomes strong. No, those things are inevitable. The rains and storms and winds are going to come. In other words, bad things are going to happen in everyone s life. Most of us will encounter the severing of relationships through the enemy of death. It s very unlikely that we will go through life without opposition to our most cherished values. We will be faced with decisions that will cost us dearly if we do the right thing. We will learn that the stock market doesn t always go up, our jobs aren t always secure, our friends aren t always dependable, and our judgments are often flawed. What then? What happens when we come face to face with our crises, our dark night of the soul? I must tell you, I have met people who come to the end of life and they are empty, embittered, and shallow in spirit. I know of someone who came to the end of life in great bitterness and despair. She was bitter over the breakup of her marriage and bitter about the course her two children had taken in life. And now at the end of her life, all she has is bitterness. Shortly after observing her death I read somewhere, An embittered person is a sign that the person lacked the moral resources to deal with life s difficulties and disappointments. And I though, how true. As we live, through our ongoing decisions, our experiences, the people who befriend us or become our teachers, we are amassing the moral resources to face death and the demands of life. We are building, brick by brick, a solid or sandy foundation. All of this reminded me of another parable created by Fred Craddock, a minister I respect and read often. He told of his sister who takes in retired racing greyhound dogs, because she can t stand to think of them being put to sleep, after their racing days are over. She had one of those big greyhound dogs in her home in Arizona when Fred was there. The big old spotted greyhound was lying there in the den. One of the kinds, just a toddler, was pulling on the tail, and a little older kid had his head on that old dog s stomach, using it for a pillow. The dog just seemed happy and content. So Fred began this imaginary conversation with the dog. Uh, are you still racing any? No, no, no I don t race anymore. Fred said, Don t you miss the glitter and excitement of the racetrack?

4 No, no. Well, what happened? Are you too old? No, no I still had some race in me. Well, didn t you win? The dog said, I won over a million dollars for my owner. Then what was it, bad treatment? Oh no, they treated me royally when I was racing. Fred said, Then what? Did you get crippled? No, no, no. Then what? And he said, I quit. You quit? Yea, that s what I said. I quit. Fred said, Well, why did you quit? And he said, I discovered that what I was chasing wasn t really a rabbit. And I quit. He looked up at Fred and said, All that running, running, running and what I was chasing wasn t even real. That s the way life is when built on sand. The things that we are so often chasing, the things the world values are fleeting and temporary. They provide momentary pleasure, shortterm benefit, and temporary security. Financial security, physical pleasure, and control of destiny aren t really real. We chase them around like dogs chasing mechanical rabbits, only to find out at the end of life they were fake. We miss the mark by following the world s standards rather than following Jesus standards. Jesus said, In the end, that kind of life will come crashing down, and great will be the crash. Encouragement That s the warning. A house built on the sand will eventually crash when the storms come. But there s a word of encouragement in the parable as well. Those who do build their lives on the teachings of Jesus are building their lives on a firm foundation. He s a solid rock that is trustworthy and tested. All people past and present who have put their trust in Jesus, not only are given the moral resources to overcome the world, they are given the promise of entering the new world, called heaven. The life built around Jesus is sturdy enough for this world and the next. It s not just one or the other. It s both. There is a tendency among some churches to cater to young people. I understand the reasoning behind it. Young people aren t as likely to be in church today as their pastor or grandparents were. Although Americans like to define themselves as spiritual they aren t very interested in the church which they see as a bureaucratic organization that wants to control their lives and take their money. They are suspicious of the church, and often, for good reason. So some churches are catering to young people, especially their musical interests to lure them back into the church. The future of the church depends on it, we believe. I agree we need to try to meet the needs of young people, and if we can sing songs that are more culturally relevant to them,..great. But I don t want to lose our senior adults. I don t want us to forget those disciples of Christ who have actually built their lives on the firm foundation of Christ s teachings, and then weathered the storms that followed. Who will be able

5 to say, I have listened to the teachings of Christ since I was a child. I have been in the church and yes, I ve heard some bad sermons and watch Christians treat each other like they were enemies instead of brothers. But I still, to this very day, have found nothing more sturdy and credible and sustaining than the teachings of Jesus. I have seen love work, when hate only made things worse. I have seen forgiveness in action and saw it heal deep wounds. I have seen people give away money and possessions they had no business giving away, and they survived and seemed to be happier than those who clutched on to every dime that touched their fingers. I have seen committed disciples make stands for Christ that were unpopular. Yes, it hurt their careers, but their lives seemed to be enriched. I ve attended prayer meetings, and Bible studies, and worship services that weren t always exciting, but I found nourishment from them. In short, I took Jesus at his word. I built my life on him. I don t mean I m perfect and haven t failed him along the way. I just have been determined to build my life on his teachings, brick by brick, block by block, and now that I am near the end of life I can say I have peace in my heart. And how does that happen? As Jesus said in the parable, it comes from listening and obeying. Listening to the teachings and obeying his teachings. You can t obey Jesus if you don t listen to him. And if you only listen to him without obeying him, you re sort of wasting your time. Dietrich Bonhoffer, the German pastor who stood up to Adolph Hitler and paid with his life for such courage once wrote, Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes. Listening and obedience are two sides of the same sword. They are the key to building a firm foundation for your life. Robert Kupherschmid was an 81 year old with no flying experience. However, due to a tragic emergency, he was forced to fly an airplane. On June 17, 1998, he and his 52 year old pilot friend, Wesley Sickle, were flying from Indianapolis to Muncie, Indiana. During the flight, the pilot slumped over and died at the controls. The Cessna 172 single-engine plane began to nosedive and Kupferschmid grabbed the controls. He got on the radio and pleaded for help. Nearby were two pilots who heard the call and hustled into small planes to offer help. Mount Comfort was the closest airport, and the two pilots gave Kupherschmid a steady stream of instructions of climbing, steering and the scariest part landing. The two experienced pilots experienced pilots circled the runway three times before this somewhat frantic and totally inexperienced pilot was ready to attempt the landing. Emergency vehicles were called out and ready for what seemed like an approaching disaster. Witnesses said the plane s nose nudged the center line and bounced a few times before the tail hit the ground. The Cessna ended up in a patch of soggy grass next to the runway. Amazingly, Kupherschmid was not injured. This pilot listened and followed those instructions as if his life depended on it and it did. Imagine what would take place in the lives of believers if we listened to and obeyed the Word of God with the same earnestness. Conclusion In the closing parable to his greatest sermon, Jesus is saying, in fact, our lives do depend on it. We are daily building our lives. Our lives are the sum of these decisions. We are laying the foundation for a secure life that can withstand the mortal force of the devil, or we are building a life on sand that will be swept away when the tide comes in. And the tide is coming.

6 It can t be held back. We can t make ourselves immune from the inexorable forces of nature or supernature. We can only prepare for the impending storms. My friend, your life does depend on it. Listen to the voices of the saints who have been around the block a few times. They ll tell you. Listen to the prophets of old, who spent their lives warning of the storms to come. But listen most of all, to Jesus, who gave wise counsel on how to live in this world and prepare for the next one. Come to church and listen. Go to Bible study groups and listen. Open the pages of God s Holy Bible and listen to God s Spirit teach you how to live. Then go out into the world, your job, your home, your university, your school and obey what Jesus says. Listen and obey. If you do, you ll be building a firm foundation so that when the storms come, your house will not fall.

Get Real! Only a Few are Truly Saved Matthew 7: Mark Vroegop

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