Today we want to take an opportunity to think about strengthening and making firm the foundation of our lives.
The parable that was just read talks about the importance of building on a sure foundation. If life was always calm, if there were no storms, if troubles never came our way, then perhaps we could get by with a less sure foundation.
In regions of the US where there is rarely, if ever, any severe weather, they get away with building homes with pretty shallow foundations. Trailer parks do well in good climates. Not so well in tornados.
This is really the 3rd in a series on this, the 3rd Sunday of January, where we’ve been talking about beginning afresh, taking a new perspective on the freedom we have in Christ, and leaving behind the snares and burdens that rob our joy.
A few weeks ago we talked about remembering the goodness and faithfulness of God; we talked about forgetting the former things and not dwelling on the past.
Then we thought about what it means to have our hearts and eyes open to the good work that God is doing, and then being ready to proclaim to others the goodness that we experience from God’s hand.
Last week Pastor Lee talked about living out of the personality that God has given to us, one that is being continually shaped by God to be more like Jesus.
We've talked a lot at this church about Jesus Christ being the sure foundation for a life. And that is so. Jesus is the rock, the very Cornerstone, of our salvation.
1 Corinthians 3:10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. 11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Jesus is God in the flesh. He is the faithful high priest. He is the One through whom we come to God the Father. This much is talked about a lot here.
But I want to take the understanding that we have of Christ as our foundation, and go further into the Word of God to help us to understand 3 other essential elements that rest on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
In a building you have the foundation, without which you have nothing. But then the foundation needs to have supports - supporting structures that provide strength to the building.
There are three pillars of a life resting on a sure foundation, that foundation being Jesus Christ, our King, our Saviour and our Redeemer.
You know, if you follow any of the construction downtown over any period of time, you notice a few things.
One thing is that even as they are digging out the foundation of the building that they are about to build, you can get a clue as to how high that building is going to go by how deep the foundation that they are building is. In fact, the higher you go the deeper the foundation needed.
Likewise, it can be said that the higher and more effective we want our witness to be, our service to God to be; the more fruitful the impact that we want our lives to have, the deeper the foundation needs to be, and the strong our commitment to these pillars needs to be.
The First Pillar is the Word of God
Psalm 119:97-105
Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies... I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path. Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
I love the Word of God, the Bible. I think the beauty of the Bible is threefold: it keeps us grounded in the character of God, it keeps us wise about the follies of the human heart, and it keeps us personally connected to the story of God, WHEN we invest our time and heart into it.
A great deal of the Bible is a revelation of the character of God: who God is, how beautiful and worthy of adoration and praise He is, how He thinks and what He places value on. God is a person - a person who has chosen to reveal to us all that we are able to learn about Him.
Does the Bible contain all there is to know of God? Of course not. Not even eternity can contain that. But all that God wants us to know about who He is, is found in His Holy Word, which keep us grounded in the character of God. (Although it’s true that creation speaks of God’s glory as well).
It’s massively important to grow in our understanding of and appreciation for who God is. But that’s not all that’s in the Bible. We also need to know a lot about the biggest problem that impacts us in terms of relating to God, so the Bible tells us a lot about the human heart. It informs us both by statements about the human heart and through stories about people ‘following their heart’ and getting into huge trouble, causing massive damage.
Whether it’s King David committing adultery with Bathsheba and then arranging to have her husband killed, Peter denying Christ 3 times after he vowed to be faithful or Judas following Jesus for 3 years and then betraying Him to the religious authorities.
Or any one of a great number of stories that reveal the fragility, untrustworthiness and just plain illness of our hearts, the Bible makes it clear that we can neither trust or even understand our own hearts.
Now, of course that flies in the face of a thousand cheesy love songs and the commonly accepted sentiment that we should all just ‘trust our hearts’. I know that, and I know how conditioned we are by the secular culture around us, so as to find what I’ve just said very lame or maybe even offensive.
But the Bible isn’t fuzzy about this.
Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
Jesus says in Mark 7:20-23: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
Proverbs 4:23 says: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”
You might say, “Hang on. If I can’t trust my heart, where does that leave me?” Well. Again, the Scripture gives us the best counsel: Proverbs 3:5-7 says: “TRUST in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight”
So the Bible is a key pillar because it keeps us grounded in the character of God, and it keeps us wise about the follies of the human heart.
It’s also essential to the life of a Christ-follower because it keeps you and me personally connected to the story of God.
I think that one of the ways that our city and country is very, very impoverished is in the way that we each tend to live such isolated lives.
It is hard, in this city, to build community, it’s hard even to be part of a church, where we only see each other once or twice on average a week.
It takes a long time to build trust, to build friendships, to build a deep sense of belonging and a feeling of being invested in each other’s lives.
I see this in contrast to communities in other parts of the world that, unlike this city, are materially poor - but the trade off is that they are incredibly rich in friendships, in feeling like they belong to a community.
One way to state it is that our stories don’t intersect enough to be a rich tapestry of community. I know I felt this as I was growing up.
And as a teenager, when I stopped being a part of one key social group, I became aware of just how alone I was.
So you can imagine how refreshing, shockingly refreshing, it was for me, and likely for many of us here too, to discover that my story intersects now with the story of God.
The Bible tells the story of God’s people - God’s called, chosen, graced people - most of whom were misfits; quirky people whose spiritual lives were as messy as mine is.
When I read the story of God’s people, both the good parts when then do well, and the bad parts when they are incredibly thick and disobedient - yet still recipients of God’s mercy and love...I see myself.
And when I read the Bible I see us. I see this church as an extension of the story of the early church in the New Testament. That’s because...we are.
We are God’s people who are part of the unfolding story of God in the early 21st century in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
So, even though we may struggle to share a sense of community and of connectedness to one another in a way that we might wish for, we can find inspiration and joy in living as a people who are intimately connected to the story of God that we find in the Word of God.
So the Bible keeps us acquainted with the character of God, and it keeps us real about our own sinful hearts. It also invites us into the the story of God, the narrative of God’s gracious dealings with humanity and especially with those that He has called to Himself.
May we each spend lots of time in God’s Word. May we grow in its knowledge and wisdom, and may we grow closer to God through it.
The Second Pillar is the Love and Grace of God
Psalm 36:7-9 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.
The Word of God, like I said, reveals the character of God. I think two words that best express the character of God are: Love and Grace.
Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God’s love is so incredibly different from human love. The highest love that one human can offer is but a shadow of the love of God. I am heart, soul, mind and body in love with my wife Barbara.
I feel there aren’t limits as to what I would do for her, so completely wrapped up am I in her. But...do I do my chores around the house always in a way that consistently demonstrates my love?
No. I fail at the practical things of love at times, though my heart and emotions always celebrate her and always are grateful for her presence in my life.
But God’s love...it is different. It is so powerful that nothing external from us has the power to separate us from it.
Nothing in creation, no distance, not time, not heavenly beings or demonic forces...not even that terrible last enemy of humanity - death - can cut us off from God’s love. It is that strong, it is that pervasive, it is that triumphant, it is that utterly committed to us.
We fail to demonstrate let alone even have any love sometimes. The Scriptures say that: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. Romans 5:8.
And here’s why God’s love is a pillar on the foundation of Christ. You know, I love my wife, because in my heart of hearts she is absolutely deserving of my love. I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to love her.
That I even have her let alone may deserve her makes me shake my head. But God...while we were completely and utterly undeserving, while we were in rebellion against Him, using His holy Name in vain.
Transgressing His law, indulging in all manner of sin...that’s when God came to us in the flesh. While we were still sinners, way before there was any good thing that we had done, Jesus died for us.
That is a mighty love. That is a love than there is not enough space on this planet to contain the books to try to explain. And His love is intimately tied to His grace. Grace is being given what we don’t deserve. No one one this planet deserves or has or can ever earn God’s favour.
But freely, He gives it to us in Christ Jesus...Who died for us, Who sent His Holy Spirit with Whom to indwell us.
God’s love is an essential pillar of our lives, resting on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
His grace is what we rely upon in order to come to Him in faith...knowing that our walk with God is gift, it is a treasure not earned or worked for, but given freely, flowing from the character and personality of our amazing God.
May we say as Paul does in Galatians 2:19-21 “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”. Amen.
The Third Pillar is Work of God
Now the 3rd pillar might surprise you. In order to have a life that is grounded, spiritually strong and vital we need to build our lives upon Jesus Christ.
We need the pillar of the Word of God so we stay grounded in the truth of God. We need the pillar of fulsome revelation of the love of God and the grace of God.
The 3rd pillar, the 3rd essential in living a grounded life of faith is our willingness to be used by God to do His will. Jesus as the foundation is something I say ‘yes’ to, something I affirm, and then I experience as I do life with Him walking with me every step of the way.
The inerrancy and truth of the Bible is something I say ‘yes’ to and affirm, and then I experience as I move forward with confidence in God’s promises and a feeling of connectness to the story of God.
The love of God is something I say ‘yes’ to and agree with, and I experience it transforming me from the inside out.
These pillars are all God’s work, and then our aligning ourselves and identifying ourselves with God’s work.
But the 3rd pillar is something that we actually do.
Ephesians 2: 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
You see, if we say ‘yes’ to those other realities, but then we refuse to engage in the work of God, refuse to allow God to work through us to bring His blessing into the community, we are missing something very important.
You could say in fact that God wants us to believe in Jesus, trust His Word, affirm the love and grace of God...SO THAT...we can truly be used by Him to bring His blessings into the world.
Hang on. Are you saying that if I do what I do...the good things I do...without believing in Jesus, without the faith of the Bible...that those things I do are not used by God?
I’m saying that they don’t please God. For our actions to please God, they need to motivated by faith in God. Romans 14:23 says: “Everything that does not come from faith is sin”. Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
Therefore, where there is no faith, all acts displease God. That’s not something we want to hear necessarily, but we have to honestly wrestle with it because it’s something God has said.
Leaving that aside, in order for your life and my life to proceed on solid ground, on a firm foundation, we need to be willing to accept that we ARE God’s workmanship and that we WERE created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of doing good works.
Not random things that we might come up with on our own, but works that God prepared for us in advance to do. He leads us to those things as we worship Him in spirit and in truth, and as we seek Him.
So...how do you use your time and your energies? I hope you spend regular time in the Word of God, growing in your knowledge of God and of His love and grace.
That’s something we can’t stop doing for long without becoming unhealthy spiritually. And of course we pray - we commune with God. Michael yesterday said something that I thought was so good.
He said that prayer is an intimate conversation with God. Our intimate walk with God is strengthened by these things.
But if we don’t get engaged in the works of God, the ones that He’s created us for; if we sit on our hands and do not actively live out the things we believe, we run into serious trouble.
Not only might we get in the situation that many have before us, where they poorly represented Jesus, but we would rob ourselves of joy…the joy of serving another in Jesus name. The joy of a calibre of friendship that can develop with others who share a commitment to live out their faith in tangible ways.
So the third pillar of a life built on the on the firm foundation of Jesus is engagement with the people and the world around us
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These 3 things - God’s Word, God’s love and grace, and doing God’s works – these are the 3 pillars, these are the essential parts of an abundant and fulfilled Christian life.
You know, we’re all the same before God. And we’re all really at different places in our walk. Perhaps you’re here today and you’ve never made Jesus Christ the foundation of your life.
If that’s you, I would encourage you to come to Jesus. Come to Him in faith. Come to Him believing.
If you have doubts – come like the man who brought his sick child to Jesus and watched Him heal the boy did. He had evidence right in front of Him of Jesus power and authority, but he still said: “Lord, I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief”.
If you pray that with sincerity, Jesus will answer you and you will be able to come to Him in faith, receiving Him as the Lord and Saviour of your life.
May we all recommit ourselves, even as we partake of communion in a few moments, to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, our Foundation, to His Holy Word, our guide and authority, and to the love and grace of God. Let this be our meditation as we come to the table of the Lord. Amen.
