We quite often get flat-pack furniture, furniture that we have to put together. We got Skylar a new bedside cabinet last week. They all come with instructions, but just pictures, no words. I always say that, when it comes to self-assembly furniture instructions, a word paints a thousand pictures. What normally happens is that, when we’ve nearly finished, we realise that we did something wrong at the beginning, we set out wrong, and that meant that everything else was wrong, and we have not option but to take the whole thing apart, undo all the work, and start again. It’s frustrating when that happens. We’ve all had the annoyance and frustration of losing a lot of hard work and having to start again, right from the beginning.
But what if it was more than a piece of furniture? What if it was our whole life, everything that we have ever been? Or some great project and plan, some new enterprise that we have? To lose all that would be even more than frustrating, it would be catastrophic.
That is why the Psalmist and Jesus both tell us the same thing. Ps 127 – unless the Lord builds the house, they labour in vain who build it. The psalmist talks of the complete waste of time and energy of following our own plans, or dispensing with God’s instructions, thinking that we can do it better ourselves.
We might think that we have a wonderful idea, a way of spreading the gospel, a way of serving the community, but if it is not from God, led by him, following his instructions, it is all a waste of time and energy.
But Jesus goes further. He always does. He had been teaching and preaching for some time. People were flocking to him, calling him Lord. But were not doing as he said. Were not obeying him.
That was when he told the story so familiar to many of us. The story that Sunday School children sing about. There were two men, who both wanted to build a house. One of them listened to and read the instructions. More importantly he followed them, right from the beginning. He knew that his house needed a foundation, that it needed to be anchored to the ground so that it was stable. He worked hard. He dug into the solid ground, laid up the foundations, and then he started the slow, labourious work of building. His friend had also read the instructions, but thought that he knew better. He decided to do it the easy way, build quickly, on the beach, without all the hard work his friend, building on the rock, was doing. He probably had a bit of a laugh at the other man’s effort, thought he was the wise and sensible one for choosing the easy route. Both houses were soon built, but not long after a storm hit. Gales and floods. Then it was seen who was really sensible and wise and who was actually foolish. The man who thought he was saving himself a lot of effort, by ignoring the instructions and doing things his own way, suddenly found that his house had collapsed, with a loud crash. All that he had put into it had gone. He had nothing left. How he must have regretted then ignoring the master builder’s instructions and advice. How he must have regretted trying the way that he thought was easy and quick. But it was too late. His house was gone, everything that he had planned and relied upon was no more.
This story is about more than the houses we live in. It is of course, more about the way we live our lives. But even more than that, it is about what we base our lives upon. God has given us his word, his way of salvation through Christ. That is what we are to build and base our lives upon, obedience to him and his word. It is then that the Lord will be building our house. Any other way will all be in vain and pointless activity. Any other way will lead only to loss and regret.
So let’s abandon other things that we might be basing our lives upon, and come to Christ, the rock. To allow the Lord to build our lives on that rock, so that we don’t work and labour in vain. So that we don’t ultimately end up in regret and loss.
