Matthew 7:24-29
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.
Introduction
In Virgil’s account of Aeneid, the boatman of the underworld, Charon, is given a chance to visit on one occasion to visit the earth. From a high mountaintop, the feared oarsman looked down upon all things, the cities, the palaces, and works of man. As he went away, he said “All these people are spending time in just building birds’ nests. No wonder they fail and are ashamed!” Building birds nests to be swept away in the floods, when they might be erecting palaces of immortal beauty to dwell in forever.
Now, we know that Charon is not a real person, nor do we believe in the myths of the Romans. In fact, we repudiate them because we know the true God and we know his only son! But it’s interesting that even the Romans had a version of Jesus’ story about wise builders. Of course, this is one more of those Sunday School lesson stories that we know very well. In fact, a few years ago, there was a whole VBS curriculum that was based out of these verses! But even though this is familiar, we can always learn more from it as we look deeper. I’ve often said that the Bible is the ultimate book because every time we read it, be it something that we are reading for the first time or the 50th time, we always glean something new from it.
This particular passage of scripture comes at the very end of the Sermon on the Mount. This is the most important message that Jesus ever preached. We could spend weeks and weeks just upon this sermon, and we might in the future! Many of our core beliefs about how we are to live our lives, how we are to address our God, and how we are connected back to God comes from this sermon that Jesus gives on the side of a mountain.
The entire Sermon on the Mount ends with this story. It was the one that Jesus wanted his listeners, and in turn, us the reader of the Bible in today’s time to remember most. Whenever I am talking to you, preparing my sermon, what often takes me the most time is what I begin with and what I end with. It’s an old axiom of musicians: no matter how badly you mess up in the middle, if you do great at the beginning and especially at the end, most of the time you’ll be forgiven for any mistakes you made between the two! But what Jesus was saying to his people was this: go and do. As one author put it, this is the proper conclusion for any sermon; the discourse which demands no decision, no choice, no act, is not truly Christian! When non-Christians read this story, there are some who see Jesus as nothing more than a dreamer, an idealist. But in reality, Jesus is the greatest realist who saw into the heart of the truth of man. He is the one who showed how things truly are. And if we ignore that, we are doomed to complete sorrow. That realism, that knowledge of what we need most in our lives is God, is why God prompts us to action. Let’s look at these two men in the story.
I want to take these out of order, actually. Jesus talks first about the man who has the house built on the strong foundation, but I want to wait on him until the very end. Look at the man who is the foolish builder. Now, I know that you’ll find this hard to believe, but there are many times where I do not follow the directions. I remember when I was in elementary school, there was a teacher who told us our instructions for a test. She said very clearly, and even had in the instructions on the top of the paper “read all of the instructions, all the questions, then begin your test.” Well, nearly all of us dove right into the work. It was perhaps the hardest test that we had all seen in our lives! Schoolwork that was WAY above our level. But for the few of us who had either 1) had an older sibling who had warned us, or 2) done what was actually told to us for instruction, the instructions told us at the end of the test to write our name at the bottom of the test and turn it into the teacher’s desk. We didn’t have to do any of the hard work that was on the test at all! All we had to do was to write our name and to turn it in. And so many of us got poor grades because we tried to do the work that we weren’t prepared for.
Someone who is like the foolish builder is like this, someone who does not follow directions. They are going through life without instruction. Have you met someone who is truly and completely lost? They may have been to church when they were younger, they might have even said they were saved, but you look at their life and you know they don’t have the least inkling of what they are doing? It’s because they don’t have the instruction manual in hand. They are going through life without God’s guidance in their life. They are going through the test that they are not prepared for because they aren’t looking at the full instructions. God still takes care of those people. But He wants them to pick up the instruction manual, the Bible, and to live it!
Another aspect of someone who is like the foolish builder is one who has a weak foundation. As I was reading this week, I came across a passage that struck me hard. It read that from the outside, the houses that Jesus talks about in this story look similar. They both look like they are stable, both look like you could live in them. But what good is a house if at the first sign of trouble, the winds, the floods, and any other trouble, is that house if it falls in on itself? It all seemed so wonderful when the sun was shining on it and when there was no true need for protection from the worst. But we need that house to be able to stand when the storms come and try to blow it over!
Another part of this weak foundation is when we make our spiritual lives mechanical. This is part of a weak foundation. When I first went off to college, I went to a Christian school. It was an eye-opener for me, in certain ways. First, you had people who had been so sheltered their entire life that when they were able to have a little bit of freedom, they went buck wild! But on the other hand, you had the ones I lovingly termed the Pharisees. You see, the Pharisees at this college were ones who would come up to you and ask all sort of questions about your spiritual life, and if you didn’t answer them in such a way that reflected their own personal, mechanical way of devotion to God, then you were an outcast. For example, I was asked one time when I did my Bible devotions. At that time, I did it at night right before I went to bed, that way it would be fresh in my mind for the next day. Oh no! The Pharisees couldn’t have that. You had to do it first thing in the morning. In fact, if you weren’t doing it in the first 30 minutes that you were up, which should be some time around 5:30 or 6 in the morning, never you mind if you don’t have a class until 10 AM, then you were doing it wrong and you should repent of your sins because of that!
Well, first of all, that attitude of judgment against a fellow Christian did more damage than good. Never are we going to convince a non-Christian to follow Christ if we can’t even treat one another well. That’s not to say that we can’t help correct our Christian brethren or sisters! But we always must do it in love and in kindness. But besides this, the foundation where if you don’t do something by some prerequisite list or methodology is fatalistic. It is building your life on the sands. It is relying more on the traditions of faith than faith itself! It’s not a bad thing to have traditions, and it’s not a bad thing to have a set time to study the Bible. It’s not a bad thing even to do it in the morning! But if we just make it one more thing that we have to ‘do’ rather than understanding the why behind why we are doing it, then our foundation is crumbling under our feet.
The final part of the foolish person who builds their life upon the sand is the one who suffers loss for trusting their own plan. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3:11 “for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” There are so many religions, faiths, and even some that parade themselves as false Christianity that claim a ‘system’ for faith. They claim that if you do this or you do that or if you pray a certain way that you will be guaranteed admittance into Heaven. This is a false foundation. People rely on science as their religion, and they claim that because this particular sequence of events happened, that is why all things are they way they are. They remove any of the divine in science, and lay a false foundation, believing in something that God has already preordained for us to know ages ago. The person who puts his faith into anything other than God realizes that when the rains come, when the floods come, whatever they have regarded as faith will fail them. Their foundation will fail, and they will have their house fall.
Now, we have said just about all we can for the moment about the poor paths of the man who built his house on the sand, but there is another one to talk about. The first man that Jesus describes in this parable is the one who builds his house on the rock. While in comparison, his life might seem perfect. But guess what? He’s also facing the storms of life, the floods of life, and all of the bad things that were happening to the other man. But he has something on his side. He has the solid rock foundation!
It reminds me of a picture I saw one time: be like a duck. Be calm on the outside, but paddle like crazy underneath the water! This man was proactive. He was standing against the storms of life because he knew he was on solid ground. The foundations of life are not visible and the inner qualities do not show on the surface. As one author put it, we cannot succeed in eliminating conflicts in our life, nor do they go away if we try to ignore them. When we choose to be proactive towards the storms in our lives, and when we make sure to build that life on the foundation of the Gospel, then we are able to withstand the storms of life.
We know that Jesus was a builder. He was a carpenter. Some Bible scholars believe that some carpenters were more like contractors are today: they are over a crew of carpenters, and others who have specialties in construction. Jesus would have been keenly familiar with the concept that he was talking about here, and would truly have known what it meant to have a strong foundation for a home. But Jesus was also completely in tune and understanding of the Law and of his audience. The Torah had a story similar to this in the extra writings, but Jesus took it one step further to show that he truly had come to fulfill the Law. Isaiah 28:16-17 says “therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: whoever believes will not be in haste.’ And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plumb line; and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.” It is interesting that so many years before Christ came to Earth God would foreshadow Jesus’ teachings through the prophet Isaiah. The precious cornerstone, the thing that carries the entire weight of a building and that which the foundation is perfectly laid, is tested, is sure, and is completely precious. But look at the second part of that verse. Does it not seem the same? That whoever does not build upon that cornerstone will see their lives washed away?
It is the wise man who heeds the words of Jesus and lives by them. When we have our lives down in the foundation of Christian living, not in a way that is just another thing on the calendar, or another thing to do during the day, but truly living in the way that Christ would have us live, we do find that our lives become easier to live. I remembered something that a friend said to me once. They said, how sad is it that those who live without God have to completely rely upon themselves and themselves alone for guidance, for wisdom, and for instruction? That has stuck with me. When the storms of life come, we have a great ally to depend on. One who will give us what we need to succeed in our lives, and to bring not only ourselves closer to God, but to also bring others to God as well. And we can do that today. If you have ever had a place in your life where the storms of life are battering you, and you don’t know if your house can stand anymore, this is the time to get your home on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. It is the time to get your house in order, and it begins by standing on solid ground with Christ. We have so many things that are attacking us today. We have a global pandemic occurring, not just in far flung places, but right here in the Valley. We have Christians being persecuted not just in lands that are being controlled by Muslims, but in our own United States. Places where our Christian neighbors are taking a stand for the most vulnerable of all peoples, the unborn. But we can withstand those storms because Christ has us. We can stand firm, we can stand tall, and we can always call on the name of Christ. Let’s pray.
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