The Secret of an Unsinkable Life, Part 2

If you've ever been inside a house during a hurricane or a tornado, you know the horrific damage caused by extreme weather.

The average home cannot withstand torrential rains and gale force winds. Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll will employ this metaphor to describe the spiritual parallel. It's not original with Chuck. Actually, it was Jesus who first described the wisdom of building your house on a solid foundation. Let's open our Bibles to Matthew chapter 7 beginning at verse 24.

Chuck titled today's message, The Secret of an Unshakable Life. And we begin with prayer. Our Father, but we are flawed. Our record is marked with times of failure. But not only have we disappointed you, we've disappointed ourselves. We have made poor choices. We have faltered when we should have stood firm.

And we have weakened when we should have been strong. And so together as we stand, we are able to do so because of your grace that provides what we don't deserve and your mercy that ministers to us in the misery of our memories. Thank you, Father, for your great heart of forgiveness, for your love that is everlasting, overwhelming, and beyond description. Thank you for caring about us far more than we have ever cared about you.

Thank you for your consistency, your sovereignty. How grateful we are that you have given us our families. We thank you for the women who have stood beside us, our wives who know us better than anyone else on this earth, who understand us even when we don't understand ourselves. Who have provided for us stability when we lacked it and perspective when we missed it.

Whose counsel is wise and always for our good. How much better we are as men because of these ladies. So today we thank you for them. We thank you for each of our children, how precious they are to us. We're grateful for their love for us, for their acceptance, for their forgiveness, for their respect.

Remind us that we earn it each day we live, that every dawn brings a new day of possibilities. Refresh our hope, Lord, as the enemy would push us down and do his best to drown us in our own failures. But today we stand by your grace because of your mercy and we look ahead counting on you to provide the strength we need to face whatever storms may come.

They are inevitable as we learn about in this story that Jesus told. Bless firm in our resolve through the rains and the floods and the winds and the storms that slam against our homes. May we be men of integrity, though we live in a world that has long since forgotten the meaning of that word. Bless these men in a very special way as we together acknowledge you as Lord of our lives. And our gifts we give with gratitude for all the things you provide, the pleasure of our homes, the delights of days gone by, even the beauty of the earth and all we have to enjoy day or night because of your provisions. We thank you, we praise you, and we give to you because of that.

Through Christ our Lord we pray, everyone said, Amen. You're listening to Insight for Living. To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck titled The Secret of an Unsinkable Life. I think it's worth noting that, and certainly we shouldn't be surprised, that when he comes to the end of the most famous sermon he ever preached, he ends with a story.

First there are some identical elements. Verse 24 we have an individual who is building his house. Can you see toward the end of verse 24?

Look at the end of verse 26. Here's another man who built his house. Two houses, but they're far from identical. Matter of fact, this isn't about houses at all. He uses houses alongside the truth about a life. This is the second occasion to build your life house. You're building it now. When it's over, there's no returning to the project. You will experience the result of how you built your house.

Look at the identical life situations. Verse 25, the rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew, slammed against that house. Verse 27, identical words. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew, and slammed against that house. Storms happen.

The point is life is difficult. There are different results to the homes being built. Builder number one builds a house, according to the end of verse 25, that in spite of the storm did not fall. It did not fall.

Look down at verse 27. Builder number two working on a house maybe looked just like the other one from a distance, but I notice here it fell and great was the fall. None of it held together. Even though there was sincerity among the builder and the crew working on that house, it couldn't withstand the storm. And there's a reason.

That's the reason, obviously. The end of verse 25, one is founded on the rock. He found a place where he could start at Blue Rock or Bedrock. So his house didn't fall, but the other house, because it was built on sand, last word in verse 26, it fell. Totally collapsed. So much truth to be found in a simple story.

But look closely. The first builder built on the rock and it didn't fall because it was founded on the rock. And the second builder built on sand and his house had a mega collapse. As the rain fell, the winds blew and great was the fall. Period. End of sermon. Jesus doesn't now say, I want every head bowed, every eye closed.

We're going to sing just as I am as you start working your way down the aisles. No. Period. The pause is deafening. You're left to examine your own house, to picture it, and you realize that there is a lesson you dare not miss. Before I get there, let me warn you against an intellectual understanding of a story.

You are made up of intellect, your mind, emotion, and your will. Unless all three are engaged as you hear the teachings of Jesus, you'll miss the significance of the one who acts upon what he hears and the one who does not act on it. Like some of you.

You're not hard of hearing, but you're hard of listening. You hear the very same thing. This story is about two who were building just alike. One is known for hearing and doing something about it, and the other just hearing. A good friend of mine named Reg Grant, wonderful professor at Dallas Seminary, is the chair of the media arts and worship department at Dallas Seminary, has written a book about stories. It's called Telling Stories to Touch the Heart. Listen to what Dr. Grant says about intellect, emotion, and will. Our job as storytellers is to campaign for righteousness, to solicit the support of the intellect, the emotion, and the will in a concerted effort to vote against selfishness and in favor of righteousness. When we appeal to only one-third of that which makes us human, the intellect, we leave two-thirds, emotion and will, to argue the other side, to vote the other way, and if self-interest is the issue, as it always seems to be, the majority rules.

Stay with it, he goes on. We fool and flatter ourselves if we think we can isolate our intellects to obtain absolute objectivity. We simply cannot make a decision, any decision, without emotion and will tugging at our sleeves, our intellectual sleeve. Will and emotion will annoy us to death if we try to ignore them.

So let's put them to work for us. Let's engage them in the story. A good story doesn't permit casual observation. It wraps you up in truth and recognition and won't let you go. You are there in the story.

Your imagination is kindled. You are involved. You are interacting with truth on a deep and personal level because you are in the story and the story is now in you.

Then it's over and you sit in the embrace of truth. The story is still resonating in the deepest part of you for the moment you are still because it simply takes time to get back. And once you emerge from the story, you're never the same again.

That's what stories can do. Where are you in this story? What's your foundation for your life? Don't just use your intellect to try to imagine something.

Let your emotions go. Project yourself to your last breath when you have absolutely no control from then on as you move from time into eternity when your foundation will be the most important ingredient of your life. One man writes of this when he writes, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name, on Christ. What? The solid rock I stand.

All of the ground is sinking sand. Directly from the story out of Matthew 7. Where are you in the story? Here's the question. It is not, am I building a life? Of course you are. You're alive. You're aging.

Whatever your age, you're older now than you were last year. You're living a life. Of course you're living. It's not a question, am I building a life? How about the question, will hard times come? Of course they will.

You just think you've seen tests. There are winds to blow and rains to fall and floods to rise. You and I have no knowledge of right now. They're coming.

Because, as the Lord says elsewhere, if difficult times will come, in the last days there will be savage times. No need to get off in it, but you and I know that the terrorists live in our country, ready to make the next move. Tests will come. So that's not the question.

Here's the question. Is my foundation solid and sure? The ultimate is, will it get me through eternity? If the answer is I'm not sure, it's on sand. If your answer is no, I really don't believe it will, you're building on sand, it's only a matter of time before there will be a collapse.

At that point, I can't help you, nor can anyone else, no matter how much we love you. The wise person heard and acted upon what he heard, the foolish heard and went to lunch, or took on the rest of the day. So here's the lingering lesson as I read it and think about it. The right foundation will take you through any storm. Other foundation no one can lay than the name of Jesus Christ.

We learned that last time. He alone is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Him. Through Him.

Through Him. Since He's the way. Without the way, there's no going. Without the truth, there's no knowing. Without the life, there's no living. Is your life being built on Jesus Christ? If not, today's the day to deal with that.

No matter how much the person loves you sitting next to you or near you, there's nothing we can do to make that decision for you. You make it. But the good news is, when the storms come and you find yourself beginning to sink, you will be rescued, thanks to the love of a father who gave his son for us. I thought of that when I came across The Wizard's Tide, one of Frederick Bietner's books. He tells the story of a boy named Teddy Schroeder and his sister named Bean. Again, a story. They lived during the desperate era of the Great Depression, back in the late 20s and early 30s. It's a turbulent time for them and their family, and not everything has gone well in the family. But Teddy has this respect for his dad, even though some things about his dad were disappointing to him. They were all at the beach, they, parents and grandparents, and Teddy and Bean, and he had the joy of swimming in the ocean with his father.

It's a great scene. His dad's a good swimmer. Teddy is becoming one. His daddy says, let's swim out to the barrels. The barrels were out quite a distance from the shore, marking you don't swim beyond this, too dangerous. Teddy wasn't sure, but his dad was, and off they went. Dad swam ahead of him.

Teddy is behind, splashing along. Now I quote, Teddy thought the barrel still looked a long way off and the beach was so far behind, he could hardly recognize his mother and Bean sitting on the sand. His arms were beginning to ache and he was feeling out of breath. What if he started to drown, he thought. What if he called for help and his father, who's a little ahead of him, didn't hear him? What if a giant octopus swam up from below and wrapped its slimy tentacles around him? Remember how you feel like that when you were a kid? Ooh, Jaws! No, no, no, no. Here comes this massive thing out of the dark. What if that, just as he was thinking of those scary things, his father turned around and treaded water, waiting for him.

Get this. How about a lift the rest of the way, son? So Teddy paddled over and put his arms around his father's thick neck. He held on from behind and that was the best part of the day for Teddy, the part he remembered for many years afterward. He remembered as his dad swam how the sunlight flashed off his father's freckly wet shoulders and the feel of the muscles working within them as he swam. He remembered the back of his father's head and how his ears looked from behind. He remembered how his father's hair felt thick and wiry like a horse's mane against his cheek and how he tried not to hold onto his neck too tightly for fear he'd choke him. His mother had said bad things about his father.

She said that he hadn't had the get up and go and that he was worse than Grandpa Schroeder, already though 30 years younger. She said he needed a swift kick in the pants, things like that, but Teddy knew that his father did things that he wished he wouldn't, like drink too many cocktails or drive his car up in the lawn or come to kiss him and be goodnight with his face all clammy and cold. But as he swam out to the barrels on his father's back, he also knew that there was no place in the whole Atlantic Ocean where he felt so safe. It was while I was picturing that poignant scene, my mind whirled back to an old gospel song. I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore, very deeply staying within, sinking to rise no more. But the master of the sea heard my despairing cry and from the waters, remember, lifted me.

How safe am I? Love lifted me. Love lifted me when nothing else could help.

Love lifted me. Please close your eyes and bow your heads just for a few moments. I will end soon with a period, and all of this will be a memory, but you will never forget the story. Engage not only your intellect, but let your emotions run free.

Force yourself to realize there will come a day, perhaps sooner than you think, when you'll take your last breath. No, you don't know when. The emergency vehicles may be in front of your house this afternoon.

Tonight, perhaps in the morning, you may not awaken in the morning. Perfect moment for you to seal the deal. The Father has turned around and said, Come on, I'll take you out to the barrels. Get on my back. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll be rescued.

Trust Him now. Thank you, Lord, for your mercy when we are sinking. Thank you for your understanding when we are afraid. Thank you for being there when there is no one else who could help. Thank you for preparing us to live now so that we might glory in your presence throughout eternity. Thank you for rescuing us as we were sinking and dying. Thank you in Jesus' name.

Everyone said, Amen. Forever recorded in the seventh chapter of Matthew is The Secret of an Unsinkable Life. You're listening to Insight for Living and the Bible teaching of pastor and author Chuck Swindoll. To learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org.

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