Following God's Building Code

It happens every year here on Long Island. It’s an annual event. You can count on it. A big storm comes in off the Atlantic and washes away several houses on Dune Road. Last week, it happened with a vengeance. Two dozen houses were smashed to bits by the power of the wind and the waves.

You would think that people would begin to get the message - that building a house on a barrier beach isn’t the brightest thing to do. But no, the folks who live out in Westhampton have more money than brains. They like the beach, and the lifestyle that goes with it. They party hearty all summer long. They like the idea of having an address that speaks of luxury and wealth. So they build their houses on the sand, and when the storm comes in, their houses go out.

We come today to the final section of the Sermon on the Mount. You thought we’d never get there didn’t you?! After all that Jesus has taught us about what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, he leaves us with a challenge.

Matthew 7:24-27 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

In this passage, you have two of everything. You have a pair of builders. Both of them hear Jesus’ words, and both of them set out to build a house. Both of them are successful - they both succeed in building a house. You end up with a pair of houses. Are they the same? Well, not exactly. Although they may look the same on the outside, there is something fundamentally different about these two houses. One is location, the other is foundation.

Ask any real estate person what are the 3 keys to buying a house and they’ll tell you - location, location, and location. Where a house is located means everything, and that is very true in Jesus’ illustration. To quote from that memorable S.S. chorus: The wise man built his house upon the rock; the foolish man built his house upon the sand.

Now why do you think they did that? Well, it’s easier to build on sand than on rock. I’m not much of a builder, but I’ve dug a few postholes in my time. I put in a fence up in Canada once. Had to dig about 20 postholes. The ground was very hard clay, and believe me, it was hard work to dig. It took me a couple of days. But then I dug some postholes here on Long Island when I put the footings in for the deck on the parsonage. Much easier. You go through about a foot of topsoil, then it’s nothing but sand after that. Took me a couple of hours.

The foolish man built his house on the sand because it was easier. Especially when you look closer at this passage and you realize that it doesn’t say anything about the foolish man putting in a foundation. He built literally on top of the sand. Just smoothed it over and began to build. Now think about that. If you are going to put in a foundation on a house, what do you have to do?

Well, the first thing you have to do is dig a hole, right? And to dig a hole, you have to disturb what is already there. There’s rocks and tree roots and boulders that have been sitting there for centuries. You have to remove the dirt that’s there, and replace it with your foundation. That’s a lot of work! Then you end up with a big pile of dirt that you have to get rid of. That’s even more work! Wouldn’t it be much easier to just leave everything in place, smooth over the surface, and begin to build your house? Well, the foolish man must have thought so, because that’s what he did.

Now I want you to imagine that these two builders are within sight of each other. They’re working away on their houses, and they can look over and check on the other guy’s progress. Whose house do you think goes up more quickly? Right, the foolish man’s house. It goes up faster, because he didn’t bother with a foundation.

The wise man is over here on the rock, drilling and digging for his foundation, and it’s taking a lot of time. Several days go by, and all he’s got to show for his work is a big ugly hole in the ground, and an even uglier pile of dirt and rock. Actually, his building site is looking worse every day instead of looking better!

But meanwhile, the foolish man is over here on the sand. It only took him a couple of hours on the first morning to smooth over the surface, and then he started to build. He’s got the lower level already framed in and he’s working on the upper storey. Pretty soon, he’s putting in the sheet rock, and then he’s got the vinyl siding on, and the windows are in, the roof is shingled. Before you know it, he’s starting to landscape his house. And the neighbors are coming by and admiring his place. And they look over at the guy whose struggling with his foundation still, and they chuckle a bit, and whisper to each other, and shake their heads.

Jesus is telling this story of the builders to communicate spiritual truth. You are a builder. The house that you build is your life. Now you can choose how you’re going to build your life. If you hear the words of Jesus and obey him, you’re building your life on the rock. You’re putting in a solid foundation. But if you hear the words of Jesus and ignore them, then you’re building your life on sand. There are a lot of things you can substitute for the words and teachings of Jesus. That sand may be your own reasoning and common sense. That sand could be any one of dozens of man-made philosophies or religions.

It’s easier to build your life on sand than on rock. Sand is easy to work with, rock isn’t. Sand is yielding - you can make the sand do what you want it to do. With rock, it’s just the opposite - the rock dictates to you what you can and cannot do. If you build your life on human philosophy or religion, you can pretty much shape it to your liking. You can push it and mold it and get it just the way you want it.

But if you come to Jesus, and you want to make Jesus the foundation of your life, you’d better be prepared to follow his agenda. He’s going to tell you what to do, not the other way around. The tragedy of so many “wanna be disciples” is that they want Jesus to act like sand. They want to wear the label Christian, but they want to determine what they’re going to look like, how they’re going to act.

Jesus said “No. It doesn’t work like that. Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Notice what he said. It’s hearing and doing. It’s listening and obeying. Many so-called Christians sit in church week after week and just soak up Bible teaching. They’re hearing it, but they’re not doing it. But Jesus said it can’t be that way. Your biblical knowledge has to translate into biblical action. Your Christian theory has to become Christian practice. Your theology has to become your lifestyle. Obedience is the key.

That’s why, when Jesus gave his apostles the Great Commission, he told them to make disciples of all nations, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. He didn’t say “teach them everything I have commanded you” he said “teach them to obey everything I have commanded you”. Because without obedience, you don’t have a disciple.

When you hear and obey the words of Jesus, you will be building your life on the rock. Your life will have a solid foundation and strength to ride out the storms that will come. In Matthew 7 you have two builders and two houses, but you also have two storms and two very different results.

On Oct. 17, 1989 the San Francisco Bay Area was hit by a major earthquake that measured 7.1 on the Richter Scale. Most Americans remember it because it disrupted the third game of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s, and that was about all the inconvenience we experienced.

But it sure wasn’t that way in the Bay area. Over 60 people lost their lives, 14,000 people were made homeless, and the damage amounted to over 7 billion dollars.

Two areas in particular were the focus of the worst devastation. Houses and buildings in the posh Marina district simply collapsed when the earthquake hit. I’m sure you remember the pictures of the cars and trucks that were crushed by the buildings that fell on top of them. The Goodyear blimp, which had been circling Candlestick Park for the World Series game that never began, took some unforgettable pictures of a huge fire in the Marina district that was set off by ruptured gas mains. With all the power cut off, that fire in the middle of San Francisco blazed like a beacon of tragedy.

The reason that the Marina district suffered so heavily was that it had been built on landfill. Those expensive buildings, those luxurious homes had been built on an unstable foundation. When the earth began to move, that landfill turned to jello under those buildings, and they simply collapsed like houses of cards.

But an even greater tragedy took place across the bay in Oakland. Commuters were coming home along the Nimitz Freeway as usual that evening, listening to the pre-game show before the World Series began. All of a sudden, when the earthquake struck without warning shortly after 5 p.m., the upper deck of Interstate 880 collapsed onto the lower deck, flattening cars and trucks like so many paper cups. This devastating sandwich snuffed out the lives of over 40 people.

In the hours that followed, rescue workers frantically tried to locate survivors, some of them miraculously spared in the few inches of space that existed between the tons of concrete.

Subsequent investigation showed that the structure of the freeway supports was inadequate. When they were subjected to the stresses of the earthquake, they simply sheared off, leaving the upper deck to crash down on the lower. The engineers concluded that the design of the supports was below standard for a structure that was located in an area subject to earthquakes.

There is a great science to building for earthquakes. Engineers have found that two things are key to whether are building will be quake-proof: Foundation and flexibility. The worst thing about an earthquake is that it subjects a house to horizontal stresses which tend to separate the superstructure from the foundation. That’s what happened to the houses in the Marina district.

You have to design a building in which the superstructure is securely fastened to the foundation, so that it’ll go where the foundation goes. The problem with the Nimitz Freeway wasn’t with the foundation - that stood firm. The foundation rode out the quake, even when the upper deck fell on the lower. The problem was with the superstructure which broke loose from the foundation. The connection between the superstructure and the foundation simply wasn’t strong enough.

The second thing that engineers and architects strive for is flexibility. They have found that a house that has a wooden frame is much more quake proof than one with a concrete frame. Why? Because a wooden frame has more give in it. It bends and it flexes with the stresses of the earthquake, rather than breaking, as concrete tends to do. When you have to build with concrete, such as in large office buildings, you have to use flexible connections using rubber or coil springs.

In the earthquake of 1989, the Oakland Bay Bridge broke, but the Golden Gate Bridge didn’t. Why not? Because the Golden Gate Bridge was more flexible. It was designed to accommodate a sway of more than 20 feet in the middle of its one mile long suspension span. The Golden Gate Bridge was built on two great piers that extend far down into the bedrock. But every joint connecting the bridge to its foundation was designed to allow for some movement, some flexibility. That’s what made it so resilient - foundation and flexibility.

The quality of a building is not revealed on a sunny peaceful day - it is revealed when the sky gets black and the storms rage, or when the earth trembles under our feet. The same is true of your life. Anyone can be on top when everything is going well. But what happens when the trials come, when there’s tragedy, or illness, broken hearts, broken relationships, financial disaster?

A Christian who is living in obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ is a person with foundation and flexibility. He’s able to ride out the storms of life, because he has his roots in the rock.

Recently, the special prosecutor in the Iran-Contra case dropped all charges against Colonel Oliver North. After five years of silence, Ollie North is now finally able to tell his side of the story. You may have seen him recently on Nightline with Ted Koppel. But more significantly, he was interviewed on Focus on the Family last week, where he was able to talk about his spiritual values and his faith in Jesus Christ.

You certainly won’t hear that dimension of his life talked about in the secular media. You need to realize that the media is responsible for creating an image of Ollie North. They depict him as a wild-eyed loose cannon who was running around all over the world conducting foreign policy from his hip pocket.

Colonel North and his family were subjected to unending scrutiny by the press and the special prosecutor’s office. Every day for six months, the media camped out on his front lawn. They questioned his children on their way to school, his neighbors, his friends, his babysitters, his casual acquaintances. They traced every personal check that the Norths had ever written, and interviewed the people or businesses involved. They tried to find some way of digging up some dirt on him.

They were convinced that Ollie North had committed some crime, and they were going to find out what. The special prosecutor’s office spent between 50 - 100 million dollars of taxpayer money on the case. They had a press office that was larger than that of the U.S. Attorney General. And in the end, they had to drop all charges against North, because he was innocent of any wrong-doing.

Oliver North is a Christian. I have no doubt whatsoever about that fact. He credits his relationship with Jesus Christ as being the single most important factor in helping him survive the almost unbelievable pressure that was brought upon him during Iran-Contra. He tells about it in his recent book Under Fire.

Sooner or later, we’re all going to find ourselves under fire. We’re all going to go through the storm. It probably won’t be a public storm like Ollie North had to face, but it will be a storm nonetheless.

Proverbs 10:25 When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever.

The righteous stand firm forever because they have followed God’s building code. They have built their foundation on the rock of Jesus Christ.