Building the Foundations of Your Life. (Matthew 7: 24-27 )

Introduction.

You don’t have to be a builder to know that the foundation under a house is very important. We tend not to think about the foundations of our home very much, we don’t even talk about them, we would rather talk about new bathrooms or kitchens. But we all recognize that you got to have a good foundation under a house otherwise it might crumble and fall.

The same thing could be said about our lives, that we need to build our lives on strong foundations. Some foundations are better than others again so it’s worth stopping for a minute and thinking about the different things upon which we can try and build our lives. Maybe I should ask what the options are to choose from if you decide to build your life in a certain way, or how about this what are the consequences of the things you choose to build your life on.

What I’d like for us to think about today is the foundation of life because at the end of the Sermon on the Mount this is what Jesus talked about when he closes this message. So, this comes at a strategic spot in the scripture. So, lets me read to you the closing 6 verses of Matthew Ch 7,

24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. 26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” 28 And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, 29 for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. (Matthew 7: 24-29)

Outlining this passage of scripture would be rather simple as it naturally falls into three sections 

Section, 1 v24-25, Jesus is talking about a wise man who built his house or his life an on rock.

Section 2 v 26-27 he talks about a foolish man who built his house, or life if you will, on the sand.

Section 3 v29-29, the third part of the passage is sort of the editorial comment by Matthew, and we shall use that to close off this whole, Sermon on the mount, passage tomorrow.

This is all really significant to what Jesus just said at the end of the sermon on the mount. 

A wise man who built his house on the rock.

We’re going to look at, a wise man, we’re also going to look about a foolish man, and we’re going to talk about the initial reaction people had when Jesus taught not just this but the whole sermon on the mount. Let’s begin with the wise man notice that verse 24 says,

24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:

Notice the wise man didn’t set up a temporary structure, he built a house which is a permanent structure. Something in which our protagonist plans to live probably for the rest of his life. 

I suppose the first question we need to ask is what does Jesus mean by the rock on which this house is built. I think most would say that that’s rather simple.  It’s a familiar trope used throughout the New Testament. Paul says there’s no other foundation on which we can build other than Jesus Christ, that’s a statement well know statement by the Apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians 3. To be a little more specific you need to look at this Matthew passage carefully because verse 24 says whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, is building his house upon the rock. So more specifically than just saying you’re building on Christ’s salvation it’s talking about being obedient to Christ, that is the rock upon which we should build our everyday lives. So, what does that involve? Well, he says, that he hears and does. Remember this is at the end of the sermon on the mount and Jesus has been talking for three chapters about the sort of things we should do and the way in which we should live our lives. Obviously, everybody sitting before him had heard what he had to say. So, the issue is not the hearing, they all heard already, the issue is the doing, and there’s a huge difference between the two.

It's one thing to sit in church and hear the Bible being taught, it’s another thing entirely to go out and implement that and do what it says. Building your life upon the rock is not about hearing, the rock come from having understood and doing what we are told. No other foundation is going to withstand the storms of life other than doing what Jesus Christ says. It great to want to know how to really dig into the Bible and how to study the Bible but understand that’s the subject of the bible and that will only take you so far in life. Doing that is great, and I happen to be real interested in doing that, I’ve spent most of my adult life doing that. But I’m tempted to say you can study it and then still forget to do what it tells you to do.

If you really want to know how to utilize the Bible to its full power, then you need to study it and do what it says. For example, if go read a book in the bible. Try this, take a book in the New Testament, any book, take a short book like Philippians or Colossians. Read it by all means but while you reading it and take a pen and paper and write down everything it says that you should do. If it commands you to do it, write it down, take note, but just write down the commands then go do them over the following week. I do not know of any finer way to study the Bible than that. Just go do what it says. Jesus says here that, that is the rock on which you should build your life. Now he talks about a storm he says in verse 25.

When Trouble Comes.

 And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. (Matthew 7: 25)

Jesus says you can build your house by obeying, but what he says is that there’s a storm coming, and by the way it doesn’t matter where you build your house, the storm is still  coming. Storms are like that, especially of you live in the part of the world I come from.  Where I live, in the winter we had a storm just last week, one last month, and a big one at least twice a year. In the winter on the North West Coast of Lancashire, in England if you not experiencing a storm, that just means you’re between storms. Storms come in seasons, but that’s the nature of life, it’s full of trouble. So, a storm is always coming. 

It’s interesting to read what the Bible commentators say about this storm. There are all kinds of theories as to what constitutes the storm being talked about here. Some say it’s a trial or adversity which is what I have just suggested. Others say it’s things like a misunderstanding a disappointment, some say it’s about doubt or suffering or persecution and some even suggest it’s ultimately about the judgment of God. It could be all of those, but the point is that the storm that will test the foundation of the house you have built. So, the point is the foundation of life should be able to withstand the storms of life and if that foundation of being obedient to the word of God, and what Jesus says here is that by obeying God word we build strong foundations.

There is story of a sailor who served in the Royal Navy here in England many years ago, the sailor was on the crew of a small boat that was towing a much heavier vessel that was experiencing engine trouble in a rough sea. Suddenly in the midst of the wind and the spray the officer in charge shouted down to the sailors and his crew members of the smaller boat to “hit the deck”. Because they had all been trained to immediately obey their captain, without hesitation they immediately responded and dropped to the deck. The all on mass immediately responded to that command. What they didn’t know was at that moment the cable between the two vessels had snapped and because it had snapped swished across the deck like the swipe of a huge steel tail. If any man had been struck by it, he would have been cut in half or instantly killed. But the whole crew immediately obeyed, and no one was injured. I believe that’s the kind of obedience that Jesus s talking about here.

Jesus is talking about how that’s the kind of people we ought to be. Looking to not only know the bible, but to obey Bible. The word that describes someone who does that, is what is called a disciple, one who learns from the Lord. That’s the wise man he builds his house on a rock, he is someone who is obedient to what Jesus and the bible teaches. 

The Foolish Man.

But now he talks about the foolish man, and Jesus says in verse 26.

“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: (Matthew 7: 26)

Let’s stop for just a second and talk about this foolish man, notice verse 26 carefully, ‘but everyone who hears’ so the foolish man heard apparently. He heard the command, but he didn’t do it. So that means he built his life on something else and what is this something else that you could build your life on. Think about this for a moment, if a wise man builds his house on a rock and the rock is obedience to Christ, then if you build your house on the sand what’s the sand.  The sand is anything other than obeying Jesus Christ. That’s what it’s saying and this is very serious for us and how we live our lives. Important because if you build your life on anything else it’s not going to sustain you. 

Some people build their lives on working their way up the corporate ladder some build it around possessions, the merry go round of trying to get more and more and more things. What are you building your life on today? It seems to me that a lot of people want to build their life on pleasure seeking. Their whole idea about life is just to be happy.  Those are just two of the options, but neither of them or anything else for that matter is based on obedience to God, which means all of those other things are just shifting sands. I live at be the coast and the tide comes in and out twice a day, would nobody dare to build a house here on sand at the low tide mark? As a matter of fact that very kind of thing happened all the time in ancient Palestine houses were built in a sandy dried out river beds to be near a source of water, but that was during the summer, only for it to be swept away by raging torrents of water in the winter.

Jesus is saying here that if build your life upon a framework of anything else other that deciding to be obedient to the word of God, then the storms come the trials the adversities the difficulties of life come and they are going to overwhelm you and you are going to be washed away. So, we better but we go build our lives on something other than that.

Stanford University in the United States was built many years ago had an arch like a great Roman victory arch built in found in memory of the founder Leland Stanford. He was the man who gave an enormous amount of money to start the university. Today on the West Coast of the USA Stanford ranks with Harvard and Yale on the East Coast as one of the best three universities in the USA. Brilliant people will pass though there, so they built an arch, and the arch was an impressive structure that looked like it would stand forever but the first time an earthquake came it collapsed in ruins for the simple reason that the builder tried to save money by not constructing a solid foundation under the arch. That’s what Jesus is saying that you build your life on something other than obedience to him and when the rains or the earthquakes come, and the storms come into your life that framework will collapse.

I believe this principal can also be applied to financial stability a well, because when a downturn comes things can fall apart for you quickly of you haven’t planned and saved in the right way. I can only imagine the enormous sums of money and the financial reverses that have come about due to the recent bitcoin collapse. People are devastated, but it was always going to happen, and it will probably happen again, because never before in financial history have so many people invested in something that they had no real understanding of how it worked. As all financial markets are primarily driven by greed and fear it was obvious if a downtown threated people would panic and want out.

So, you can live your life for money, or for work or for pleasure but at any point illness or unforeseen outside pressures can arrive and it can all collapse, really quickly. You can live your life on something other than obedience to Jesus Christ because eventually you will have to face the storms of life, they always comes, and then things will fall apart. In my firsthand experience I have seen that those who really knew the Lord those who were walking with the Lord and I can honestly say that those who knew the scripture, and obeyed the Lord weathered the storms of life much better than those who didn’t, and they also did a whole lot better than those who just came to church and listened but who obviously never really took it on boards and spiritually grew by being obedient to what was taught.

That is exactly what Jesus Christ is teaching here. Some build their house on the Lord and obedience to him, and others try to build on something else and if you want to know the difference just wait till the adversities of life come and see how these frameworks stand up. That is not to say we won’t have grieve, but we don’t have to grieve as others who have no hope do. It doesn’t mean we won’t face adversity but somehow, we will have an inner strength, that others don’t have and those that don’t crumble.

That’s the at the end of the Matthew narrative account of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  But then Matthew closes it off with a sort of editorial, but we shall look at that next time.