The key to the House built on the Sand
Who would build
their house on the sand? Look around the world. Apparently, there are a lot of
people. Intelligence is not necessarily the same thing as wisdom. Jesus said
the foolish man builds his house on the sand. The word for foolish is the same
word we get for moron. Only a moron would build his house on shifting sand.
Sand is beautiful,
soft to the touch and feet. It certainly is much more pleasant than the
hardness and immovability of a rock. I remember reading a book about a person
who was contrasting a wall of brick and a trampoline and relating them to our
faith. Amazingly, he was favoring a trampoline as an analogy to our faith than
a wall of bricks. He might as well have used an illustration of sand and a
rock. Trampolines are fine for fun, but for foundations for a house, give me a
rock and brick walls, and not shifting sand and trampolines.
What is your life
built on? Some people live for the weekends. Others are longing for retirement.
Younger people are longing for independence, a solid career, education, a life-long
relationship, marriage, a family. All those are wonderful, necessary even, and
certainly worthy of pursuing. But please note: None of those are permanent. All
of those will shift. Only one thing is truly worthy of building your foundation
on, and that rock is Jesus’s words and living our lives by them.
How many college
students have switched majors? How many marriages have started off so well and
yet ended so terribly? How many parents have poured their lives into their
children, only to see them go in a different direction than the one to which they
have pointed them? Even churches have turned sour on their members. Pastors and
church leaders have failed their congregations.
Jesus is
culminating his Sermon on the Mount with this introduction to his conclusion:
Don’t place your faith in knowing about Jesus and His name. Don’t place your
faith in doing works, even good works, even good works in the name of Jesus.
Don’t get hung up in good works, good formulas, and yet being outside of being
in the will of God. Jesus says to miss the reign of heaven by an inch is as
good as missing it by a mile.
Is the foundation of
your faith based on a formula of works and wonders? King James renders those
whom Jesus never knew in Matt. 7:23 as “those who work iniquity,” NKJV and NASB
say, “practice lawlessness,” NIV translates them “evildoers,” HCSB calls them “lawbreakers.”
Jesus doesn’t
sound much like a trampoline, does He? He sounds, well, hard. He almost sounds contradictory
because those evil doers who will be rejected by Christ did great and marvelous
things in the name of Jesus. If it wasn’t clear enough in Matthew 7, Jesus
underscores the coming judgment in Matthew 13:41, “The Son of Man will send out
His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and
those who practice lawlessness.”
The key to the
wise man’s house is found not in the works done in Jesus’ name. It’s not found
in avoiding practicing lawlessness, since we all have broken the law. It’s not
in calling out, “Lord, Lord.” The key to the foundation of the house built on
the rock is found in doing the will of the Father; it’s found in the Lord’s
prayer, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven;” it’s found in doing
the Father’s will by becoming a part of God’s family (see Matt. 12:50). We are
not become a part of God’s family by being born into the right family (“born, not
of blood,” John 1:13a), not by working our way to heaven (“nor of the will of
the flesh,” John 1:13b), not by any man-made institution or denomination (“nor
of the will of man,” John 1:13c). We become born into God’s family by receiving
Him and believing in Him (John 1:12).
Titus 2:4 says
that even if we are “evildoers,” Jesus redeems of “from every lawless deed.” Even
though God hates lawlessness (Heb 1:9), He will forgive us and not remember our
lawless deeds (See Heb. 8:12 and 10:17).
Perhaps John the
Apostle summed it up the best in 1 John 3:1-10 in saying that we all have
practiced lawlessness, once we become a child of God, we have a new
relationship with Him. We may not be what we are someday going to be, but
praise the Lord, we aren’t what we used to be! Read this from the ESV:
See what kind of love
the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we
are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved,
we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we
know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he
is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone
who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no
sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has
either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever
practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a
practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the
beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the
devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in
him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it
is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil:
whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does
not love his brother.
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