Solid Foundation

Build Your House on the Rock

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.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

Grace and peace to all of you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ - Amen

I have a couple of very easy questions this morning for all of you. Would any of you buy a house that was not built on a solid foundation? –No? I didn't think so. Here is an easier one? Perhaps a better question is: if you were in the market to buy a house and looked at lots of houses, and after an exhaustive search, you found some new construction going up. You could build your dream home. You looked at some of the models to choose from, and even among the most luxurious, you saw that the price was well within your budget. It's also close to all your favorite shops and in the safest neighborhood in town. Would you buy it? Many of us would, if not, we would give it the most consideration, given all these assurances.

In matters of property, we like to have as much assurance as possible that what we put our resources into will yield a return. We tend to be very cautious, don’t we? Most of us would like to think of ourselves as making good choices, using sound judgment, and making safe decisions, so that we can avoid the costly consequences. In matters like a home purchase, we gather as much information as we can and give it our full attention, because they aren't small transactions. Many of us who buy our homes stay there for many years, if not for the rest of our lives.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus concludes his preaching with some words that also demand our attention. Jesus describes two types of people: those who hear his words and “do” them, and those who hear and “do not do” them. One seems a little better than the other.

Think to yourselves, though, when you heard the reading today, what did you think about? Did you imagine yourself as one of the two hearers? If so, which one of the two who heard Jesus’ words did you see yourself as or imagine yourself to be?

I would suspect that most of us would see ourselves as the ones who hear and do, rather than the other. I would expect that we would place ourselves, at least in our own minds–because, hey, who is going to disagree with you there–as the kind of people who build our houses, or at least buy our houses on solid rock.

Perhaps we need to embrace the idea that we must be the ones constructing our foundation on solid rock, just a little bit, before the words of Jesus can truly reveal themselves to us. The reality is that, more often than we would like to acknowledge, we find ourselves building on sand! We need to examine the reality of our ability to make good decisions through what Jesus is saying.

Whether our homes will withstand the elements is quite important, but we know that even under the best circumstances, we can lose them in a second—due to an earthquake, fire, tornado, or, quite frankly, some floods that can toss a house from one side of town to another, like what we witnessed during Hurricane Helen in western North Carolina.

Jesus certainly understands that some weather events can destroy and uproot anything created by human hands, laying it to ruin in just moments, if it is God's will. Catastrophe happens all the time. Given this reality, we must ask ourselves: have we put our attention to worldly assurances, which can come to nothing in a moment, or to heavenly ones, which promise beyond any earthly assurance?

Spoken through the prophet Isaiah long ago, “we have made our covenant with death, and with sheol we have an agreement…we have made lies our refuge and in falsehood we have taken shelter” (Isaiah 28:15). Isaiah, speaking about the rulers of the Israelites, in antiquity, still has much to teach us of our sinful nature. Our old sinful Adam refuses to trust God and rejects life, and has chosen death. It is quite the opposite of being rational and careful, making smart bets. Who would be crazy enough to make a covenant with death, or make lies their refuge? Oh, wait… we do, sinners do this all the time!

Long ago, in a garden far away, we did just this. God had provided us with all we needed in creation. He gave out of the abundance of His grace and mercy, all things: light, water, seed, food, life, his blessing, and presence among us. He provided us with His creation and issued a command that leads us to life (be fruitful and multiply). And another command (but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat), if ignored, would cause death, not only for us, but for all living things. Like the foolish hearer in Jesus' message, we heard God, but we chose death because we believed the serpent's lies. We heard God and bought a house on the sand.

Jesus knows our condition in His sermon. He knows that we are often too eager to think ourselves good builders and build on a foundation that looks more like ourselves and less like Jesus. He knows that the enemy, that old serpent, is only too eager to have you believe about yourselves that without Jesus, you are good, even in seemingly “simple” dilemmas like life choices.

We might delude ourselves and believe that bad weather and floods only happen in certain parts of the world more frequently than others. We might truly get comfortable with our judgments and forget what God reveals to us in the scriptures: that often, we sinners, desire the taste of death more than the promise of life.

What Jesus emphasizes and distinguishes in our Gospel lesson here are a few things: hearing and doing His word, and the likenesses of both, either a wise man or a fool. This is precisely our condition. Our inclination is to say to ourselves, “Ok, the man said ‘do’ so I better show in some way my ‘doing’ so that God or others can see my solid foundation! I don't want to be a fool, so I'd better do something to make my likeness look a bit cleaner or more polished.

This is hard, but we ought to be very careful here and examine before we slip into putting our attention on our own works. Our tendency might be to behave like a Pharisee and get our hands on this, rather than letting Jesus teach us something about who we are, who He is, and what He has come to do.

Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them.” How do we do Jesus’ words exactly? Well, he tells us first that we have to hear them. This assumption means that I am listening to Jesus rather than my ideas, the devil, or anything else, for that matter. Hearing is not easy, and it is something that our sinful old Adam cannot overcome without divine help. Also, what happens when we hear? Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Our help comes from the Holy Spirit being active in the word. The Holy Spirit’s job is to bring us to faith in Christ. To bring us to the remembrance of all that Jesus says. The Holy Spirit aims to create in our hearts faith by hearing the gospel. This “doing” is faith!

The wisdom, then, is that we believe that Christ is our only true and solid foundation for everything. This belief and trust make us like a wise man who built his house on the rock, rather than on the soft sand, which may seem stable until the floods come, the waves crash against it, or the winds blow it away.

The Old Testament scriptures will attest to Christ being our solid rock for all things and all time. God, through Isaiah's words, gives us a concrete promise. He tells us who and what the foundation must be and who lays it down, ensuring that whoever believes won’t be on the run, no matter the weather thrown our way. 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’’ (Isaiah 25:16). Those who believe will not be in haste, or another way to say it, “the one who believes will be unshakable” (CSB)

For believers, Jesus is our precious cornerstone, the cornerstone that governs all aspects of the foundation. He is the one laid down by the Father's authority, for you! He is the one who was tested and is sure, because He has overcome all things, even death, for you! What stronger foundation does the world provide than the stone that God calls “sure, precious, and tested?” For this, the world provides nothing! Everything apart from Christ Jesus is just sand.

Christ has called all of you listeners and given you ways to hear him in His church—a church of Word and Sacrament. Through Word and Sacrament, everyday common elements such as words, bread, wine, and water become the graces by which Christ communicates with everyone. They are found everywhere in creation: they are borderless, transcend language and unify all believers as brick upon brick built atop a foundation of rock declaring in all of these, "Your sins are forgiven You" (Mark 2:5), "I have redeemed you…you are mine" (Isaiah 43:1), and "I am your rock and redeemer" (Psalm 19:14). This is where we must hear him. This is the doing–the faith, and it comes from Jesus. It is in His “doing” that we have hope in being taken from the punishment of death, to the assurance of life eternal.