The Stories That Jesus Told
Sermon # 13
“The Parable of the Wise & Foolish
Builders”
or
What to Expect When the Storms Come!
Matthew 7:24-27 (Luke
6:46-49)
The story before us has the
distinction of being the closing illustration in Jesus’ great “Sermon on the
Mount.” In this last illustration Jesus
describes two men who had built houses. The use of this illustration should not surprise
us, after all Jesus was traded by his earthly father to be a carpenter. He had no doubt
built furniture that people put into their houses and He had probably even built some
homes as well. As a result Jesus knew from experience the difference between a solid
building and a shoddy one. He therefore uses the illustration of two builders to
illustration how many people build their lives.
Jesus begins what has
been called “The Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders” in verse
twenty-four, "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."
Jesus talked about the folly of building a
house on sand. This was obviously something that actually happened at times. In early
Summer many of the areas in Palestine, or even in United States, appear to be wonderful
places to build homes. People tried to get as close to water as possible, so they
sometimes built stone houses near a river on the land formerly a riverbed. The land as smooth, the view was great and the
sandy soil looked like a inviting place to build. But unknown to builders this sandy soil
had washed down years before. If someone built upon this sand, the home was fine until an
unusually large amount of stormy weather and rain occurred. As the water in the river
rose, it reached the sandy soil beneath the house and the sand shifted beneath the stone
walls, and “ka-splat!”
The water didn’t even have to reach the house; it only had to reach the sand beneath
the house. When the water washed away the sand on which the house was built, the house did
not just shift, lean, or tilt, it totally collapsed. That’s why Jesus said in verse
twenty-seven, “and the rain descended, the floods came,
and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."
Smart builders could still build on the old
riverbed very close to the house on the sand. But the difference was that wise builder
continued to dig beneath the sand until he found solid rock. Then, he built the walls of
his home upon the bedrock. Same location, same storm, same high water, so what is the
difference? The difference in what the house was established on! Before the storm, both
houses looked identical; the difference wasn’t seen until the storm came.
Since this is a
parable, we know Jesus wasn’t primarily talking about houses. He is not giving
instructions on how to build houses. He was talking about people, people just like us and
he is talking about building our lives. There are four principles that we can learn from
this parable concerning the Storms of Life.
First, We Learn Storms Will Come Into Every Life.
For both the wise and the foolish builders,
the storm came and the waters rose. Nobody is immune to the storms of life. You’d
better be prepared because you will face storms. Jesus said, “In
this world you will face trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John
16:33) You need to get over the idea that you can live a storm-free life.
Some storms that you will encounter
storms will come from the outside which like the weather; you have no control over
them. You are pounded by sickness, or a family crisis, or a financial crisis or a
relationship problem.
Storms also come from the inside.
That’s when
you may struggle with discouragement and you want to quit. Or it may be the depression
you battle when life doesn’t happen the way you planned. It’s the pressure
building up on the inside from all the junk life throws your way.
Another thing we have discovered after the
unusual amount of rainfall this year is that storms are very often followed by floods.
Storms happen when there are clouds, thunder and lightning but floods from the storms
sometimes happen in the sunshine. Sometimes, we survive the storm. It’s the flood,
the aftermath, which sinks us. Most of us have an “emergency mode” so
when an emotional storm strikes suddenly; we react with strength in the face of the
immediate threat. But when the adrenaline wears off, it’s the slow rising tide of
despair that often produces our emotional collapse. Remember storms come to everyone of
us, and dangerous floods can follow them.
As a friend of mine says I can assure you
are either in the midst of a storm right now, coming out of a storm or abiding
in the calm before the next storm. What are you going through right now?
Today, meteorologists have great
technological tools like Doppler radar to warn us when a severe storm is approaching. They
issue watches and even warn us to take shelter. Unfortunately, it’s harder to predict
the onset of the storms of life. Most often, they strike suddenly with little or no
warning. You don’t know when they may come, you don’t know how long they may
last, and you don’t know the degree of damage they may cause. The time to prepare for
a storm is before it hits, not when you are in it.
Storms
Will Come Into Every Life and…
Secondly, We Learn That It Is In The Storms That You Discover
The Stability Of Your Foundation.
If we look at those two houses Jesus
describes, from the outside they look identical. The man whose house collapsed was not at
fault because he had not worked hard, but because he did not lay the proper foundation.
Externally you can’t tell which
one has a strong foundation and which one has the weak foundation. Foundations can’t
be seen on the outside. Only when
the storms come will the stability of the house be known. It is the storms that
test us. Living in the sunshine of life doesn’t tell us much about ourselves.
All of us are building our lives according
to some design, and it is the storms that reveal the stability of that one which we have
built.
There is always the temptation to build our
lives on false foundations, but although they may appear as inviting as the sand down by
the beach they are equally treacherous. Some people chose to build their lives on false
foundation of possessions – on how much they own. Some build their
lives on their passions – the satisfaction of desires. Some build their
lives on position – the jobs and offices they hold. But the truly wise
build their lives on what is eternal.
But understand with me that the storms do
not reveal to God the nature of the foundations of our lives, he already knows, the storms
reveal to us what our lives are really built upon.
David Gooding who writes: “There is only one way to build a house secure against a storm and
that is to dig deep and lay its foundations on the rock. But digging deep can be
troublesome. It is all too easy to be content with a superficial knowledge of Christianity
and a superficial, normal profession of faith without real obedience to Christ. But just
as there is only one foundation, so only those who by personal contact with him build
directly and squarely on the foundation of His Word, believed, applied and performed, will
survive the storms here and hereafter.”
Jesus Christ is the only truly secure
foundation on which to build our lives. But we are not just talking about holding the
right opinions about Jesus. We are not even talking about having the right religious
doctrine, as important as that is. We are talking about a personal commitment of our lives
to Jesus Christ and living our lives accordingly.
In
the storms you discover the stability of your foundation and…
Third, We Can Learn From the Storms and Rebuild Our Lives
Accordingly.
Most of us have
experienced times in our lives when the storms came and we fell apart. The truth is that
we will experience multiple storms in life the question is, “What are we going to do
after the storms have devastated our lives.” The truly foolish man is the one who
rebuilds his or her life on upon the same foundations that have failed them before. Someone has defined insanity as, “Doing the
same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
I was recently watching a program on the
History Channel about the Great Hurricane that nearly destroyed Galveston. On September 8, 1900 a
great hurricane came barreling out of the Gulf of Mexico toward the Texas coast. With no
warning, Galveston Island absorbed the brunt of this storm. The raging winds and the flood
tide devastated the city of Galveston. It still ranks today as the most deadly natural
disaster in American history with over 6,000 deaths. It was Galveston’s worst hour
but every writer since agrees the storm also became Galveston’s finest hour. Rather
than deserting the island as many suggested, the survivors decided to rebuild. But they knew they couldn’t rebuild as
before. Three civil engineers were hired to raise the entire level of the island
by 12 feet. 16 million cubic yards of dirt and sand were pumped in from the sea bottom.
Before any structure was rebuilt, they dug down deeply to make a firm foundation. They
built a large seawall along the south coast of the island. It actually took 60 years to
complete the current seawall. Did it work? In 1915 another hurricane of the same severity
socked Galveston. Everyone held their collective breaths and when the sky cleared, the
island. was flooded but almost all the structures survived and there was little loss of
life.”
Galveston learned from the storm and
rebuilt accordingly, the challenge for us today is, “What
have the storms in your life revealed and have rebuilt accordingly?”
The Fourth, and
Final Consideration this morning is The Storms
Reveal Things You Would Never Know Otherwise.
The last principle that I want us to consider today is that God has a plan even
in the storms. He does not allow the storms to devastate us, He allows them so that we
will rush into His arms. As parents so of our most precious memories are opportunities we
have to comfort our children. I want to share a short video clip with you as we consider
that sometimes “when the storms come we feel desperate and
helpless. We wonder, ‘Where is God when I hurt?’ Maybe God is closer to us than
we think. Maybe its when we are in these situations, when everything falls apart that God
gets an opportunity to remind us of how much he really loves us!”
(Video Clip - Nooma – The Rain) www.nooma.com - Rob Bell is pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church
in Grandville, Michigan
Four Principles About The Storms of Life
Storms Will Come Into Every Life.
In the storms you discover the stability of your
foundation.
We Can Learn From the Storms and Rebuild Our
Lives Accordingly.
The Storms Reveal Things You Would Never Know Otherwise.