Jan. 27

Building on a sure foundation.

Background: Matt. 7:24-27.

When hurricane Hugo struck the coast of South Carolina in the early 90’s, there was tremendous damage to property. Many of the houses and other buildings that were made of wood and built on the beaches were completely destroyed.

The eye of the storm also passed through the old city of Charleston, and while there was damage, many of the older buildings made it through the storm relatively unscathed.

The older buildings were made of stone, and were built on bedrock further inland.

It could be argued that people living two hundred years ago understood the limits of what we can do better than we do today. When these storms come, it is the buildings built on sand, very near the beach that get most heavily damaged.

1. A Spiritual Foundation.

It could have been just this type scenario that Jesus had in mind when he spoke of building our lives on a firm foundation.

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is contrasting the dead religion of the Pharisees with the alive relationship with God that both Jesus and the Father desire. As he nears the conclusion, he points out, that those that insist on following dead religious practices will find destruction, while those that have a vibrant and alive relationship with God will find blessings.

Both then and now, it may be hard to tell outwardly, who has a deep and meaningful relationship with God, and who is just going through the motions. It is also very hard to tell just by looking, whether a building has a strong foundation.

It is only when storms come, that you can see how strong a building is.

It is the same in our lives. It is hard to tell how strong a person is, until that person goes through a storm. It may be that we cannot even know for sure ourselves, until we go through a storm.

How a person handles himself in a storm, or how a person gets through a storm, says a lot about what their life is based on.

The Jews of Jesus’ day, looked very good. They were very religious, and to the casual observer, they seemed to be very good people.

However many of them were basing their hope on being a descendent of Abraham, or on obeying the laws of the church. Jesus called this sort of religion building on sand, because parentage or legalistically following laws will not save anyone.

2. Storms expose the foundation

Jesus was saying that when storms come, these type of people will have no deep spiritual root to grasp on to. Following the law, or depending on one’s ancestors, does not give one a deep spiritual life, it only gives one a sense of pride in ones own self.

When a big storm does come up, that type of person, has nothing to hold on to except himself, and people are not usually strong enough to stand against a storm by themselves.

To get a deep spiritual root, one must have a deep relationship with God, and his son Jesus Christ.

If we have that deep relationship, that is received by faith, as a result of spending quality time with God, we know where our strength comes from. When the storms come, we can run to God for shelter, because we know him and he knows us. In that situation, we will not even try to stand in our own strength, but we will instinctively lean on God to see us through the storm.

Even today, in some circles, it is said, “God helps the one who helps himself.” However, there is no biblical basis for such an attitude. The more biblical attitude was summed up in a popular Christian song of a few years ago, which said, “It’s not in trying but in trusting.”

In addition to having profound influences in this life, the idea of the foundation of one’s life also has tremendous implications for the next life.

3. Tested by fire.

We understand from scripture that there will be a great judgment for God’s people. While our salvation is secure because of the work of Christ on the cross, there will be rewards, and perhaps punishments, based on the things we do while on this earth.

Paul wrote about how we are building a spiritual house with our lives. Instead of the storm analogy, he used a fire analogy. He said our works will pass through the fire so that it will be tested. The wood, hay and stubble of our lives will be burned away, but the jewels, gold and silver of our lives will remain. Another added benefit to this is, that when our gold passes through the fire it will be even more purified.

Our salvation is secure of course, only if our spiritual life is based on the rock of Christ Jesus. If our spiritual life is based on Christ, then we are building on a rock. If we are building our spiritual life on anything else, then we are building on sand and we will be destroyed on the Day of Judgment.

People do all sorts of things to try to build a spiritual life apart from God and Jesus.

4. Rickety foundations.

Just as many people did in Jesus’ day, many people base their hope of salvation on being a good person. They want to feel they deserve it because they have done well. Others base their hope on false religions that depend on anything else but faith in Christ.

Most people in our modern Western culture have abandoned the idea of God altogether. One way of not having to deal with personal morality that God wants from us is to completely deny the existence of God. This atheism, when it is combined with the idea that science can solve all our problems, can turn into a religion that is often called Post Modernism.

This too, is building on sand. When storms of life come, or when that person is dying, his believe in science or disbelief in God cannot help him. No matter how nice of a life this person has built, or even how good the person is, his destruction will be complete without Christ.

This is why Jesus said we should store up treasure in heaven. We can store up treasure on earth, but we cannot take that treasure with us to the next life. We will leave everything we have built behind when we die, so we would be wiser to store up treasure in heaven.

The Pharisees of Jesus day were busily gathering treasure that was temporal. They were also busy trying to impress each other with how spiritual they were, and often Jesus exposed this type of hypocrisy. They seemed more interested in building on sand than in building on bedrock. They were more interested in appearing to be religious than they were in having a meaningful relationship with God.

This type of religion is around today as well, and even in Christian circles. When we get to the point that we are more interested in appearing to be Christians, than we are in loving Christ, then we are in danger of building our religion on sand.

5. The surest foundation.

We need to be certain then, that we are building our spiritual lives on the rock of Christ and not on sand.

We can do this by realizing that it is only in Christ that we can be saved. We must also realize that only in Christ can we have a successful spiritual life. Anything, even something good that glorifies self and does not glorify Christ will not last.

This does not mean our good works necessarily, as Paul writes that our good works are filthy rags. The only thing that will last eternally, are the things done for God and by the power of God. Only things that are done by faith will last. These are the things that give us a strong foundation, so when the storms rise, we will stand firm in Christ, whether in this life or the one to come.