2.11.15 3.9.2025 Matthew 7.24-29 Building Well

Start:

1 Entice: I'm going to tell you two stories today. One modern. One ancient. Before I finish, I want to bend the arcs of those two stories. Where the arcs of those stories intersect, we can draw an important conclusion about life and how to live it well. These stories remind us that our choices have consequences. Our decisions determine our direction. For every intended outcome there is an unforeseen, unintended consequence that may alter everything. The first story begins with the tale of one of the world's great industrial empires going through a period of decline. We will consider how that enterprise moved through a rebuilding and then a subsequent decline. The lingering question at the back of our mind?

What is the good life?

2 Engage:

2.1 In the mid 1940s the Ford Motor Company was in decline. With the war effort still at a critical juncture the U.S. government realized that it could not let a huge company, still critical to the war effort fail. They discharged Henry Ford II-Hank the deuce-from the armed forces and sent him home to Michigan to save and rebuild the company.

2.2 Among those Hank the deuce recruited to this effort was a remarkable group of men from the Army Air Corps who came to be known as The Whiz Kids.

They came from Statistical Control. They were numbers men and they gave the company the fiscal discipline and quantitative analysis that it lacked; eventually returning it to profitability.

2.3 Like many stories and many characters in those stories these men had a tragic flaw. They were not automobile men. They evolved a system of leadership that was based on strict, unwavering, quantitative analysis. their goal was productivity at the lowest possible cost, with every penny counted and every issue determined by the numbers—all to maximize profits. By the early 1970s these men had created a model that ignored the marketplace, cut costs, worshipped the numbers-and made bad cars. By the mid-70s the cars had poor quality, guzzled gas as the price exploded, and they were falling out of favor with shoppers who sought the high-quality, high-mileage, well-engineered cars being produced by Japan.

3 Expand: What you do and why you do it is as important as how.

Doing things right only works when you are doing the right things.

The second story was told by Jesus a long time ago. In concluding His Sermon on the Mount, He tells this story.

Matthew 7:24–28 ESV

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” 28 And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,

4 Excite:

You are the architect.

You are the engineer.

You are the contractor

for your future.

You are building your life.

You have choices to make.

Explore:

To build well you need the right foundation.

Explain: 3 Basic facts.

1 You get to Choose.

1.1 Between wisdom and foolishness.

1.2 Between the right foundation and the wrong foundation.

Fact #2:

2 Your Choice Will be tested.

2.1 Storms are inevitable.

2.2 Storms are not predictable.

The Final fact…

3 Your Choice will have consequences.

3.1 The foundation comes first.

How you build. What you can build is a consequence of that choice, and other downstream choices. Many of those consequences are unintended.

Back to the Whiz Kids for a moment

(The Whiz Kids never seemed to understand that the unintended consequence of favoring quantitative analysis was poor quality…there are things that cannot be quantified.) (The paint oven issue Chester, PA. You can never outrun a bad foundation.

3.2 Your life rises or falls based upon the quality of the foundation you choose.

Designing the Story of Your Life…

• The arc of Jesus' words intersects with the arc of your life. The choices that the Whiz Kids made transformed Ford Motor Company into the best place in the world to learn the numbers, to be an accountant, to learn quantitative management skills. In the 1950s and 1960s Ford managers fanned out all over the business community, sharing their good ideas and negative unintended consequences. How would you feel if you discovered that you built your life on the wrong foundation, for the wrong purpose, with a false sense of accomplishment?

The wise man built…(sing)

• Maybe you learned that song when you were at VBS or at camp, or in Sunday School. The wise man built…etc. Maybe you just thought it was a clever song for the youngsters. It's not. It is the profound wisdom of the Son of God speaking to what is most essential in life. You must build your life from the ground up, founded on Him to find ultimate success.

• There is no eternal satisfaction in arriving at the end of your life, only to discover that having done everything right you wasted it all doing the wrong things. Start today to build right, to build well upon the eternal foundation of Jesus Christ.

I hear the wind blowing.

I feel the rain falling.

I sense the river is rising.

Will you be ready?