Exposing Foundations

As we look then this morning at these verses that we've read together from
Matthew chapter 7, the verses 24 to 27, like to make three observations.
Number one, storms are an inevitable reality of life. Listen again to verse 25,
the rain came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that
house. The rain came, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat. Sometimes it
just rains on your parade. I don't know how many of you have seen the news story
coming out of China this past week, but the officials in China are so worried
about rain at the opening exercises of the Olympics that they have surrounded
the city of Beijing with 26 artillery locations. Did you know that? About 25
miles away from the city. And these artillery locations and rocket launchers
are designed to shoot silver iodide into any clouds that might gather and
threaten the opening exercises with rain. Now it'll be very interesting to see
how well this works because July and August in Beijing are the wettest
months of the year. And a while back when they tried this as an exercise
someplace, silver iodide the idea is that it precipitates the rain out before it
actually rains. This has been around for many years, only works so so in most
locations, but listen, in China when they tried this recently, they set off a
phenomenal series of thunderstorms in some other location that just about washed
them away. So we'll see how it all goes. Sometimes it rains in your parade and
sometimes the rains are of our own making, aren't they? We spend our money
foolishly. We drive recklessly. We don't cultivate relationships properly and
sooner or later it catches up with us and we pay the price. Other times the
rain and our parade has nothing to do with us. I love this little story. It's
circulating on the internet. Somebody sent it to me a while back. It's under
the heading. Things got you down. We'll then consider these. In a hospital's
intensive care unit patients always died in the same bed on Sunday morning at
about 11 o'clock in the morning, regardless of their medical condition. This is
you can imagine, puzzled the doctors, and some even thought it had to do with
something supernatural. No one could solve the mystery as to why the deaths occurred
around 11 o'clock in Sunday morning. So they gathered a worldwide team of
experts to investigate the cause of this incident. On the next Sunday morning, a
few minutes before 11 o'clock, all the doctors and the nurses nervously waited
outside the ward to see for themselves what this terrible phenomenon was all
about. Some were holding wooden crosses, prayer books, other holy objects to
ward off the evil spirits. Just then, the clock struck 11, and Pookie Johnson, the
part-time Sunday custodian, entered the ward, unplugged the life support system so
that he could use the vacuum cleaner.
You're still having a bad day, listen to this one. The average cost of
rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000
per seal. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were
being released back into the wild. I made cheers and applause from onlookers. A
minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both. And you thought your
life was hard. You want to hear still another one? A woman came home to find her
husband in the kitchen shaking frantically, almost in a dancing frenzy with some
kind of wire running from his waist toward the electric kettle, intending to
jolt him away from the deadly current. She whacked him with a handy plank of
wood, breaking his arm into places. And then she discovered that up until that
moment, he had been happily listening to his walkman.
Sometimes the rain is your own stupid fall. Sometimes the rain is caused by other
people's stupid faults. And sometimes the rain is just caused by the fact that
we live in a world that is in turmoil and we get caught up in the changes
that are happening. Number of months ago, a number of people from here had the
privilege of attending a leadership nova conference in Toronto sponsored by
the Willow Creek folks. And of all the speakers and all the workshops that most
resonated with me was a speaker by the name of Leonard Sweet. It surprised me a
little bit because it so happens that I have one of his books in my library and
it's so complicated I haven't been able to get into it to read. But he talked
about a thing called the perfect storm. You've seen the movie maybe or read the
book. A perfect storm is when you have a convergence of a number of weather
elements that take a single storm and make it humongous. The Quebec ice storm,
you know, years back that hung around was was one of those perfect storms. Back in
1953 when I was a young lad living in the Netherlands, a combination of high
tides and northwesternly winds flooded the whole part of the country where I
lived in a perfect store. And Leonard Sweet says that unbeknownst to most churches
and to most church people, the church in the 21st century is sailing into a
perfect store. And that perfect storm he says has three elements to it. Let me
quickly walk you through them. The first is postmodernism, a change of thinking
that is produced by, in part, the electronic revolution. He says what are the
ways to remember and understand postmodernity is to contrast the operative
words are Gutenberg and Google. Gutenberg is the printed page, Google as the
symbol of the changing media world. The postmodern world is a visual world and
people's brains are in fact being wired differently by all the video gaming
and media messages which they are receiving a very significant transition. Then he
says we live in what's known as post-Christendom. That is to say no longer do
Christians in our society hold the advantage of being the home crowd where society
as a general rule is favorably inclined towards us. The last couple of
decades that has rapidly been shifting and our culture is not only increasingly
non-Christian in its favor and values, it is decidedly anti-Christian. And you
hear that from all sides. And then he says, and this is the one that I had never
heard of before, the third element of convergence he says is something called
post scale. And by post scale what he means is that there comes a time when a
society goes through transitions that all of a sudden you move from one
state or from one position into another. And a good example of that is water. Water
is typically liquid. And you can chill water all the way down to 32 degrees when
all of a sudden what happens to it or zero degrees Celsius? It freezes. Now all
of a sudden you can walk on water, you can skate on water, you're dealing with
two different worlds. You've got the same thing if ever you've stirred your
cream hard and long enough. You wouldn't be the first housewife to all of a
sudden discover that your whipped cream turns into water. Butter, it has changed
states. Well he says we live in a world where the transitions are now of such
a nature they're moving us from one way of doing life into another. And he
summarizes it with the word green. G stands for genetic engineering.
Nobody knows where that's going to lead and nobody knows what the implications
of that are. R for robotic engineering. I, I don't happen to remember.
And for nanotechnology where things are becoming increasingly small and a whole
different set of rules begins to operate. And the point of what I'm making and
the point of what he's making and all of that is that Christians as well as
non-Christians are caught up in the changes that are coming and that are
happening. And there is not much we can do about it in terms of stopping it.
It's very important to understand that because a lot of people think that
somehow or another Christians ought automatically to be kept safe
when the rain falls. But truth of the matter is scripture says God makes his
rain to fall in the water. They just stand on the unjust and the
sun to rise on the good and on the evil. If a war were to break out in our
country tomorrow, you and I would be caught up in the turmoil of it.
If the economy continues to go down the tubes, you and I, Christian or not,
we're going to be affected by it. The vast movements of life, the vast movements
of society, the things that make us feel powerless if we have a natural
disaster, we're not automatically saved. I mean, Fred and Mark's trees,
they're all God, are most of them, even though God saved their house.
See, the promise in scripture is not necessarily that we will never go through
storms in life as a lot of us can testify to year. The promise is that God will
either avert all evil or he will turn it to our good.
But the reality is that sooner or later it's going to rain on our parade.
And God's promise is that in the midst of the rain, he's still with us
and he will somehow or another turn it around for our good.
So storms are an inevitable reality of life. And it doesn't mean that your faith
is wiped out, doesn't mean God doesn't love you, doesn't mean that he's
against you, doesn't mean that he is abandoned you.
It simply means that he loves you enough to allow you to walk through tough times
to make you strong for his glory. Here is how Charles Spurgeon, famous English
preacher of the 1800s put it. He says whether your religion be true or false and
will be tried. Whether it be chaff or wheat, the fan of the great
winner will surely be brought into operation upon all that lies on the
threshing floor. If you have dealings with God,
you have to do with a consuming fire. Whether you be really or
nominally, that is a name only a Christian. If you come near to Christ,
he will try you as silver is tried. Judgment must begin at the house of God
and if you dare to come into the house of God, judgment will begin with you.
But understand this. The whole world is heading towards a final day of judgment
and of God allows fires to come into our lives today
if he allows rain on our parade. As I said a moment ago, it's not because he's
against us, it's because he loves us enough. So as to call our attention to the
issues of life that he wants transformed in our hearts. So that on that final day
of judgment will be able to pass the test, flying color. Think of all the people
that are going to discover when everything is tested by fire. Now there is
nothing left and there is no longer the prospect of transformation.
Storms, I say it again, are a reality even for God's people.
And the purpose of that then is that storms expose
foundation, storms, labor, what your life is built on. Think back to a year ago.
A year ago we first began developing the property
at a hundred college street west. What is the very first thing our crews did
when they began to develop that property? Well they carted truckloads and
truckloads and truckloads of land feel out of there
because it wasn't good solid soil to build on.
I think back to the truckloads of old culverts that were hauled out of there.
One of the neighbors who used to operate a television shop took it upon
himself to dump all his used junk. VCR's televisions on our
property. For a long time the land was used as a land fill. So all had to be
carted out of there and then trucks had to bring back the gravel to bring it
back up to proper grade for the foundation to be laid.
And why do we do that? Because anybody who builds can tell you
that your house or your building is only as good as the foundation
that you're building on. Now Jesus says in this wonderful little story
that when it comes to building there are really two foundations that people
build on. One is rock and the other is sand.
Verse 24 everyone who hears these words of mine and put them into practice
is like a wise man who built us house on the rock
then in verse 26 but everyone who hears these words of mine
and does not do them or does not put them into practice
is like a foolish man who built his house
on sand. Now we read that over lightly and we
sort of understand the basic concepts but
allow me to take just a moment and talk you through each of these because
they're very significant. What does it mean to build your life
on the rock? We know what it means in terms of
a physical building. What does it mean to build your life
on the rock? Well the rock there of course is the person and the teachings
of Jesus Christ and to build your life on the rock then
is to confess that there is a God who has created us, that we are
alienated from him because of our sin, that God in his love and compassion
has sent his son into the world to pay the penalty and the price for our sin,
that he arose from the dead, that he poured out his Holy Spirit, that he not only
forgives us our transgressions but that he now enables us to be in proper
relationship with him and he enables us
progressively to hear and to understand his will and to learn how to do it.
That's building your life on the rock. In contrast to that of course
is the sand and the sand here is the shifting
philosophies of human thinking. Instead of submitting to the
authority of Jesus Christ how He says life ought to be lived
and how life can be successful we develop theories of our own.
And some of those theories are things that we make up on the basis of our own
experience, how we learn to do life and react and respond to it.
Some of those theories are the result of traditions of the four bears that we
have uncritically accepted and we've learned how to do life that way.
And some of those philosophies are in the ultimate manifestation,
the result of principalities and powers that try to shape the thinking of the
world to be anti-Christ and to be anti-god.
And so what kind of sand, what kind of philosophies am I talking about?
Philosophies like thinking that you can have a relationship with God based
on your own good works. Thinking that God likes you better if you do it
right and that only you try hard enough he'll take notice of here.
Philosophies like well if I go through religious motions or exercise religious
practices then God will overlook my sin and I'll be okay.
Philosophies like if only we can get the proper kind of education
into people in the world then we can overcome all the disadvantages of the
fall and we can produce an intelligent society
that will get along with each other. Or if only we can get everybody to buy
into a particular philosophical or political or social
or economic movement then then we'll all be together on it
and we'll be able to overcome the power of the curse
and we can live a happy life. All you have to do is go to the bookstore
look at the self-help section read current literature and current magazines
on how to be more beautiful and how to be richer and how to be more successful
and how to be a better lover and you'll get some idea
of what are the philosophies of the world that we are encouraged to build our
lives upon. And the Bible says every last one of them
is shifting sand. It was Oscar Wilde I believe many years ago
who made the observation that he who marries the spirit of the age will soon find
himself a widow or a widower. Why? Because society keeps on changing.
You've noticed that I have you not what is invoked today
is out of vogue tomorrow. I remember the days when everybody said
butter is bad for you. Do you remember that? Eat margarine.
Well now lately they tell us that butter is in fact better than margarine.
A while back all eggs were bad for you. Now maybe there is some merit in eating
eggs. I remember in my own lifetime the concept of continental drift.
You know how the continents spread apart
was too hard as a scientific impossibility.
So any kid looking at a map can say these things belong together, right?
And of course in recent years we've discovered all about
plate tectonics and how in fact historically there may well have been
a landmast that was all joined together
and that the great currents of molten rock have been moving
the the continents into their locations. Things change all the time.
Now here are two things I want us to understand
about building on sand versus building on the rock.
It is much easier to build on sand.
Go back with me to when we started the building program a year ago.
We spent as I said a considerable amount of money time and effort
digging all that junk out of there. It would have been much easier to bring a
bulldozer in and just level that off nicely.
Lay the foundations and put the building up. We could have saved weeks and
months of time. Why didn't we do it? Because
sand and junk do not a good foundation make. And so
building on sand is really easy because all you do is you flatten it a little bit
and you start building and the guy that's building on sand is half done
before the other guy has even started. Because remember now
today we do a lot of building with heavy-duty equipment and we're
grateful for errand and other guys like him who come and move great piles of dirt
in no time at all. But in olden days it was pretty much
all handwork and you could imagine that digging down to the rock
and building on that was a tedious and a difficult process.
And so I can imagine that many people building on sand said well you know
don't be so facile let's just get on with it look at that guy over there he's
man he's just a sweat annoying hot sun and and he is just so particular about
getting it all right. I say again building on what comes
naturally following your natural inclinations doing it the way that your
parents have taught you without examining it biblically
following along the spirit of the age as to how you do life
that is much easier than trying to examine
who you are who God is and what God wants you to do
and most of the time people like that seem to be
much more content struggle much less than the believer who's trying to build
on the rock until it rains because what happens when it rains
the rain exposes the foundation and yes you can build your life on shifting
philosophies you don't have to live biblically when it comes to relationships
you don't have to listen to what scripture says about whether or not you live
together asleep together or mess around before or after you marry
you don't have to follow biblical principles in whatever area of life child
raising business work relationships we can ignore it whatever place we want to
ignore it and part of the struggle of believers in
scripture is that half the time the wicked prosper
when the righteous are struggling is not trying until it rains
and when it rains the workmanship is revealed
and the foundation is laid bare
while back we had this big downpour do you remember it I think it must have been
in a Sunday or a Saturday it just rained like the sky at least in belville
here it did and next Monday morning the workman came to the job side
and in a couple of places there was just water all over the place
now when you find water all over the place in a building that's going up what's
the first thing you do well you look at the roof right
roof wasn't finished flashing isn't on in the past places where the flashing
hasn't been put in place water got through see all these guys they're going
around looking at the ceiling tile and the ceiling tile's not wet
so now what where's this water coming from
well it turns out that the storm sewer had backed up into the building
under the pressure of water on the roof
because one of the plumber workman had not properly
fasten the closures on the pipe and John Roper told me later and I said you could
have saved us all a lot of grief trying to figure out where that rain came
from he was in there Sunday afternoon and he said the water was just as
squirting out of the walls because some of these things were hidden
inside walls see life's good till it rains and i'll tell you something
if God loves you it's gonna rain sooner or later and when it does
our foundations will be laid bare because the rain
exposes what's there very important principle to try to understand
because as i said part of God's love for us is to allow that to happen
now rather than after the fact and that again is one of these fascinating object
lessons about building the building better we discover it now we keep saying
that to each other better we find out now than after the whole building is
finished off and there is tons more money that has to be wasted trying to fix
what should have been fixed the first time around
very profound lesson for each of our lives so storms are a reality
storms expose foundations and on account of that then
we better build wisely the wise men did what he built his house upon the
rock the foolish man did what he built his house upon the
sand a wise man or a wise woman in scripture
is the person who knows how to cooperate with the reality of the universe the
reality of God the reality of the laws of God the reality of human
relationships the reality of this is how life works
a fool is a person who ignores that reality that's why the bible says the
fool says in his heart there is no God
why is he a fool he could be the smartest person in the world
he can be highly successful but a fool he is nevertheless why
because just because he thinks there is no God
doesn't make it reality God is God eternally
and a wise person then knowing that it's going to rain sooner or later it's
going to rain sooner or later you're going to have the perfect storm
the wise man the wise woman says in view of the coming storm
I'm going to do everything that I can today to build wisely on the teachings
of scripture a lot of you won't know this but every time
there are natural disasters people in positions of authority and power sit
down and they try to analyze what happened how can we reduce the liability
and some of you that have been volunteers in the building program will know
that in order to protect the roof of buildings from lifting off and the
eventuality of a hurricane in our building on a hundred college straight
west we have over a thousand strips of steel some of you will remember this
but all had to be nailed in place to hold the roof to the rest of the
structure so that in a strong wind it isn't going to lift off
and fly away houses that are built in earthquake zones
why do some stand and others fall a lot depends on how wisely they have been
built so how do we build wisely well Jesus puts it this way everyone who
hears these words of mine and puts them into practice
is like a wise man who build his house I'm the rock notice what he says
hears these words of mine and puts them into practice he doesn't say
he hears these words of mine and understands them
or he hears these words of mine and knows how to analyze them
or he hears these words of mine and knows how to preach great sermons or
right-grade books or develop other profound philosophical insight no no no
no no he who hears these words of mine and does what
practices that that is not an amazing thing
he expects to be listened to I mean I love the story and some of you heard me
tell it before preacher comes to new congregation everybody's excited you
know he preaches one oh it's just a homer I mean it's just a fine sermon
everybody you know marches barring shakes his hand and they're so pleased with
his new preacher next Sunday preaches the same sermon again
and they're a little bit puzzled because well maybe he was just busy moving
into the parsing age and he's got a lot of visits to make that that's
probably why he didn't have time make a new sermon
third week same thing well now the good Christian patience is beginning to
wear pretty thin and so tongues begin to waggle what's with this preacher but
they're not yet brave enough to talk to him or ask him about it so
fourth week finally the powers that be they approach him tentatively and
and they asked him pastor we love your sermon
but why are you preaching to say one preacher looked at them and said
well as soon as you start doing what I told you in the first one
I'll give you the next one and frankly those of us who preach and teach
have some sympathy for that position because guess what
it's not just about intellectual stimulation
not just about feeling good about ourselves or feeling bad about ourselves
it's not you know ecclesiastical basket ball where the word of God
comes to me and it's so hot I gotta pass it on to the next guy before I take
another step it's not about you know feeling good about God or feeling
bad about no no no it's all about
putting it into practice he hears these words of mine
and practices them will be like a wise man who built his house
upon the rock so how do I do that well it begins by
taking him at his word that is to say it begins by recognizing
that Jesus knows what he's talking about surprise
surprise you know as the eternally begotten Son of God
the full reflection of God the Father he is the ultimate manifestation
of wisdom he knows how the universe operates
and as one who knows how the universe operates
he expects us to listen to him because he has authority we don't have time to
deal with it this morning but the last verse of this passage goes on to say
that the people who listen to his teaching were amazed why
because he taught them as one who has authority
and somewhere along the line in your life and in my life there has to come a
recognition a bending of the knee that says the Jesus
knows best how to do life and I must bend before his
authority and let his word shape me never mind whether that's
difficult never mind whether we fully understand that
that's not even issue at this point do I recognize
that he is Lord and when I call him Lord
I am saying you own me I belong to you when you say jump I
must jump I cannot sit here and argue with you
though all of us do that a lot I'm sure he is the ultimate
authority who has the right to tell me how to treat my spouse
what I ought to be doing on the job how I ought to relate to my kids
how I ought to relate to the broader world how I ought to live
my life not only that when push comes to shove of course
I need to obey what it is that he says he who hears these words of mine
and practices them older translations
put it he who does them I like the word practice because
it does more justice to the process right right a little
peace in I think it was readers digest just recently that says great
musicians are not just the product of genetics
but they are very much the product of practice practice practice
and some of our sinful habits in our lives are so
deeply practiced that we slide back into them again
and again and again and part of the antidote to that
is to take those places where God begins to speak to us and to convict us
and we learn to start being obedient a step at a time
until new habits are formed and new patterns are established in our hearts
and in our minds it takes practice to do the will
of God it doesn't come naturally to any one of us that I can guarantee you
that if you are truly in Christ if you've truly repented
truly bent the knee before him and said Lord I belong to you and I want to
serve you then what you'll discover in your life is that sooner or
later the Holy Spirit is going to come along
and he's going to convict you in two areas he's going to convict you
about old patterns that are not acceptable that have to be put off
stuff that we don't usually want to look at
stuff that usually bugs the daylights out of us
but a conviction that will not leave
and at the same time he begins to pull us in another direction
exercising forgiveness learning how to love somebody that you don't want to
love learning how to be different in your relationship with your spouse
your kids your work our God knows whatever else
and it's how we respond to those urgings of the Holy Spirit
that determine the foundation that we're laying
and the reason this is so important is nobody knows when the storm is going
to come and when the storm comes whether it be individual
collective whether it be minor or huge that is not the time
when you can rebuild your house because you don't even have time to
batten down the hatches it hits and it reveals
what life is made of as I said earlier that is why God in his
great love for his children he doesn't wait until the final day of judgment
because on the final day of judgment it's too late the part for me your
workers of iniquity and now he disciplines those
to me loves why so he can bring us to our knees
we can learn what we need to learn we can grow up in him and we can discover
that God's power and God's grace is so amazing
that even in spite of all our failures and the messes that we've made
he's still there and he's going to present us one day
without spot or wrinkle or blemish Christians do not
need to fear the future Leonard sweet when he ends his talk he talks
about the church facing into the storm lashing on to the mast
and riding it out knowing that God has promised to be with us
always even to the end of the age
wise man built his house upon the rock
wise man built his house upon the rock
wise man built his house upon the rock
and the race came totally down
the rain came down and the flights came up
the rain came down and the flights came up
the rain came down and the flights came up
and the house on the rock stood firm
the foolish man built his house upon the sand
the foolish man built his house upon the sand
the foolish man built his house upon the sand
and the race came totally down
the rain came down and the flights came up
the rain came down and the flights came up
the rain came down and the flights came up
and the house on the sand went flat
so build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
so build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
so build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
and the blessings will come down
the blessings will come down as the prayers go up
the blessings will come down as the prayers go up
the blessings will come down as the prayers go up
the blessings will come down as the prayers go up
so build your house on the Lord