Building Your Life on the Rock - Life of Christ - Part 20

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now let's get to the Word of God. This morning, we're going to talk about laying solid foundations, not for buildings, but for our lives, because that's what Jesus talks about in the passage that we have in front of us here in Luke chapter six. In fact, this is one of the most interesting and one of the most familiar passages in all the Bible. Just about every kid who's ever been to Sunday school knows this passage, and the reason they know it is because there's a song that forms around this passage. The wise man build his house upon the rock and the rains came tumbling down and the house on the rock stood firm right. And there's a third verse that goes, so build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessings will come down. Now, that might be a kid's song, but I'll tell you, that song is full of grown up truth. And I'm going to talk to you about that this morning from our passage.

Let's look at it. Luke chapter six, verse forty six. Jesus said, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you do not do what I say?

I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. And when a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it because it was well built.

But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. And the moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete. To understand this parable that Jesus tells, we have to understand a little bit about the topography of Israel. In Israel, particularly the southern part of Israel, from Jerusalem south, the architecture down there consists of high, rocky cliffs with big, wide, deep valleys in between. And these big, deep, wide valleys are called wadis.

Sometimes during the rainy season in Israel, which is December, January, and February, suddenly out of nowhere, flash floods can roar down through these wadis, wiping out everything that's down there, houses, everything. That's what lies behind Jesus' parable. Jesus says that the foolish man is the man who goes ahead and builds his house down in the wadi. But all of a sudden, sooner or later, the inevitable happens and the wadi suddenly rages with water and the man's house is swept away. By contrast, the wise man is the man who goes up on the hillside into the rocky land and there's where he sinks his foundation. Now it's true that he has to work a lot harder to sink his foundation up there on the hillside. In fact, if the wise man and the foolish man had started building at the very same time, the wise man would still be up on that hillside with his sledgehammer pounding away long after the foolish man who built down in the wadi was done. However, when that flash flood came through, that man who built his house up on the rock was going to be awful glad he put in the extra time and effort that it took to build it up there and not down in that valley. You say, Lon, what's the point that Jesus is trying to get across to us?

Here it is. Jesus wants us to see that whether we've ever stopped to think about it or not, every one of us here is a builder. Every one of us here with our actions, with our words and with our habits, we are building a lifestyle, a building that will either be of benefit to people around us or it will cause people around us great suffering. A building that our grandchildren and our children are going to copy, whether it's good or bad, they're going to copy it and a building that Almighty God, one of these days is going to evaluate. And what Jesus is trying to get us to understand is how important it is to build our lives on the right foundation, on a solid foundation, because a weak foundation means a weak building.

I don't care how flashy the upper stories might be. You can build a building that has the flashiest superstructure in the world. But if the foundation's bad, sooner or later, that building's coming down. And Jesus says, by the same token, you can build a life that on the outside has flashy and looks just perfect. But if the foundation's weak, sooner or later, the storms of life are going to bring that building down. This is what Jesus is talking about. Say, okay, okay, Lon, I got that. I got the point. Good foundations are important. I understand all about wadis, thank you very much. But Lon, really, so what? What difference does this make for me?

Let me tell you. You know, when it comes to having a solid spiritual foundation for our lives, there are three footers that the Bible tells us about, and I want to tell you what they are so you're sure you're using the right footers. Footer number one is this, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In the book of Ephesians chapter two in the Bible, verse 20, it says that Jesus Christ himself is the chief cornerstone. And what God means by that is that whether or not we're building a nation or whether we're building a society or whether we're building a church or whether we're building our personal lives, Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone around whom we must build if we want a solid foundation. If you want a life that has a solid rock as its foundation, a life that will withstand the storms of this world, a life that will even stand up to a few flash floods every once in a while, the only place you and I are going to find that kind of foundation is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the living God of the universe. Isaiah said this, chapter 28, verse 16, he said, this is what the sovereign God of the universe says, I am setting up a tested stone in Israel. He's referring to Jesus now, a precious cornerstone on which you can build a sure foundation and the person who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Do you hear what God says? Wouldn't it be awful if you and I wanted to build a life and we wanted to build it on a solid spiritual rock and there was no solid spiritual rock anywhere to build it on?

But you see, God hasn't left us in that condition. God says in Isaiah, I have set up a stone, I've created a cornerstone that you can build a foundation on and I put it in Israel. The cornerstone is Jesus Christ and if you will build on that cornerstone, you will never, the Bible says, be put to shame.

If you're here and you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, I hope that you'll really think about what I'm sharing with you this morning because everything else out there that you're building on is just sinking sand. Your career, you're building on your career, it's sinking sand. You're building on the money you've got, it's sinking sand. It's all sinking sand. It's all going to go away and collapse. The only thing there is that's not is Jesus Christ, the risen son of God. That's it.

If you want to build a life that's solid, don't build it on your career, your money, your health or anything else but Jesus Christ. I got a phone call this week, my family did, from a lady in our church and she said, you know, I have some friends I'd like to know if you'd be willing to talk with. They said, she has a little daughter who has the same problem your little daughter has. Our little daughter has epilepsy.

And as many of you know, we've had a terrible time. My daughter's 16 months old. Terrible time getting her seizures under control.

It's just been a horrible year with that. Now she is doing a little better, thank you. But she said, this other family has a daughter who's having the same problems. And as a matter of fact, she's in Fairfax Hospital right now, the daughter is, and they're trying to get her seizures under control.

She's the same age as your daughter. And these friends of mine are not Christians. And they told me that they feel like their whole life has fallen apart, that there's no place to turn, there's no solid ground to run to anymore. We said to this lady, sure, we would love to talk to your friend because we understand how your friend feels.

Man, do we understand. And we got an answer to their problem, not to their epilepsy problem, I don't have an answer to that. But I've got an answer to the problem that you might feel when you don't feel you've got any ground to run to anymore. Because when we were going through these tough times, what we found is that having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is what made all the difference. Knowing that Jesus Christ loved us, knowing that God had a plan for our life, knowing that we could go to him to get strength and to get hope when there didn't seem to be any hope in this life and in the details of this world. Folks, that's where you build a life that will stand the flash floods that God sends. And if you don't know Jesus Christ in a real and personal way, then you're building on sand.

I hope you'll think about what I've shared with you. Well, that's footer number one. Footer number two is a lifestyle that is based on the values of the Word of God.

Not just a personal relationship with Christ, but a lifestyle that's based on the values of the Word of God. There's a song, we sang it this morning, how firm a foundation you saints of the Lord is laid for your faith. Where? Remember?

In his what? Excellent Word. Folks, you know, really, when you boil it all down, there's only two possible bases in all of this world on which for you to decide the moral issues of life. Basis number one is relativism, meaning that you say, I am the authority and I will make the decision as to what's right and wrong.

I will decide what to do based on what seems best to me in the given situation. Relativism. The only other option is revelation, meaning that you are not the authority anymore, but God is. And that we go to the revelation of God as we find it here in the Bible and we say, all right, God, based on the fact that you know man from the end to the beginning and you know the world from the end to the beginning. What is the eternal plan that you have and what are the eternal truths morally and ethically that you have so I can do them?

That's it. And, you know, our country today is like a ship that's been cut loose from its moorings and is morally adrift at sea. We've eliminated the values of the Word of God and eliminated the teachings of the Word of God from our universities, our public schools, our local governments, our courts, our legislatures, our media, our national ethics, our businesses. And we've replaced it with rampant relativism. Everybody out there is doing what's right in their own sight. You say, well, how could we, the greatest country in the whole world, get to be like this?

Very simple. We took the foundation for morality and sanitized American life from it. We wiped it out. We took the Bible, the only real foundation there is for moral truth anywhere in the world.

And we've sanitized our culture. Folks, you can't build a firm foundation for your life on relativism. You're not capable of deciding the moral issues of life for yourself and making good decisions. A solid moral foundation has to be built on a solid, unshifting base. And that's why God gave us the Word of God.

Third footer and last is not only a personal relationship with Christ, not only the values of the Word of God, but third and finally, a personal surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Look at verse 46. Jesus said, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you do not do what I say?

That's a pretty good question, isn't it? I mean, that wouldn't work anywhere else in the world. Try it at your office. Call him boss, boss, and then don't do what he says and see what happens. Say, well, I love calling you boss and you're the boss and you know that boss, but I do what I feel like doing here at the company.

And the boss would say to you, here's your pink slip, pick up your check and sayonara. Why is it that we think this won't work in any other area of life except when we're dealing with Jesus Christ, huh? We always are saying Lord, Lord, and Jesus says we don't do what he tells us. Friend, even if you know Jesus Christ is your personal Lord and Savior, and even if you acknowledge that the Bible is the truth source around which you're going to base your life, listen now, that will not translate into a solid foundation for life.

Just those two. You need the third footer. And the third footer is that because I have a personal relationship with Christ and because I grant the Bible to be my truth source, therefore I'm going to go out and I'm not going to just talk about the Bible, but I'm going to implement what the Bible says and I'm going to live it in my life. And would you notice in Jesus's parable, Jesus says the difference between these two men? Look, verse 47, the first builder, he says, heard his words and put them into practice. And the second builder, verse 49, hears my words, Jesus says, and does not put them into practice. For years when I read this parable, I thought the difference between these two men is one of them heard what Jesus said and one of them didn't. It took me years before I read it carefully and realized that's not the case at all. They both heard his words.

The difference is one of them did what he said and the other one didn't. And we as Christians are great at talking about the lordship of Jesus Christ, but a solid foundation only comes from living the lordship of Jesus Christ. I ran across a little article not too long ago called Honest Hymn Sing, and it says this is how some of the old favorite hymns would sound if we were really honest when we sang them.

Listen to a few of the titles. I surrender some. Onward Christian reserves, just as I pretend to be. I love to talk about telling the story. You know the hymn that says I love to tell the story? This one says I love to talk about telling the story. I don't tell it to anybody, but I love to talk about telling it. And here's my favorite. Take my life and let me be.

Can you relate? Isn't it true that most of the time when we're in church singing these kind of songs that maybe this is what we ought to really sing if we were honest about where we stood with the lordship of Christ? Folks, God has given us a solid foundation to build our lives on, but it's not enough just to come to church and listen to the Bible.

It's not enough just to read it occasionally for yourself. We have to commit ourselves to implement it in our lives. We have to be willing to make Jesus Christ the ruling force in our lives, not us, not what we feel like doing, not what we want to do, but Jesus Christ and what he tells us to do. And it's only then when we have a personal relationship with Christ and a commitment to the word of God and also a commitment to letting the word of God run our lives, then you've got a foundation you can build a life on that will withstand the storms of this world.

They say, well, Lon, that sounds so simple, and I understand it. Why don't more people understand this? Why don't more people build their lives on this very simple foundation? The answer to that question comes by asking another question, and that is what made the foolish man go down and build his house in the wadi?

Let's see if we can answer that. Maybe we'll get some insight as to why more people don't live the way we're talking about. First of all, maybe the foolish man went down and built his house in the wadi because he wanted to avoid hard work. Hey, it was a lot easier to build it down there in that old flat ground where he could dig and get done quick and then have time to relax and enjoy and kick back. He made the decision to take the easy route. And it describes the way people really live out there.

There's all kinds of foolish people out there who are just looking to wing it, looking to get by as quick as they can, as easy as they can with as little work and as little effort as they can, and the problem is they don't just do business that way, they build their lives that way. Is it easy to live for Jesus Christ in this world of ours? No. Is it easy to stand for the values of the Word of God in your neighborhood, in your family, in your office? No. Is it easy to dedicate yourself to the lordship of Christ and deny your flesh and deny what you feel like doing and obey Christ instead?

No, it is not easy to do that. But if you want a life that's going to stand a storm, you and I are going to have to be willing to put out the extra effort to build it on the rock. Second of all, maybe he built it down there because that's where all his friends built their houses. There's a whole little bunch of foolish people community. Maybe they call it Fool's Town Israel or something like that. Down there in the wadi. And maybe it was really important for him to be down there with all of his friends and all the in-crowd so they didn't have to climb all the way up the mountain to see him.

And he let his friends dictate his building standards and his choice of location. You know, when I was a kid, I used to always say to my mom, Well, so-and-so gets to go here and so-and-so gets to go there, and I don't see why they can't go there, why I can't go there. Do you ever say that? And you know what my mom used to always say to me? She used to always say, Well, if your friends went and jumped off a bridge, would you go jump off the bridge with them? And her point was, was I going to let my friends set the standards for my life?

Well, to be frank with you, back then the answer was yes. I was very happy to let my friends set the standard for my life. But now that I'm a little older and a little smarter, I've learned that that's a stupid way to live. That I'm not going to let my friends set the standard for my life.

I'm going to learn what God says and set the standards for my own life. And you know, there's a lot of our friends who are building their lives down there in the wadi, and if they want to build their lives there, you can pray for them and you can try to talk to them, but you can't stop them. But that doesn't mean you and I have to be stupid enough to go build our house next to them. Maybe he built his house in the wadi because he wanted to be with his buddies. Third and finally, maybe the reason he built his house down there is not just because he wanted to be with his friends or not just because he wanted the easy way out, but maybe he built it down there because he was just plain stupid. Don't you think he knew that sometimes flash floods came through these wadis? I think he did. Don't you think he knew that other people's houses had been wiped out because they built down there?

I think he did. Maybe he figured, well, that happens in other people's wadis, not mine. Or maybe he just didn't have enough sense to appreciate the long-term dangers. All he was interested in was the short-term advantages. And you know, in the Bible, God says whenever we choose short-term advantages over long-term godliness and integrity, God calls us stupid.

Fool is the word he uses in the Bible. And we always live to regret it. Always. You know, folks, the Bible says that one of these days, if you're Christian, every single one of us is going to stand in front of Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians chapter five, we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that God may give us the things we've done in our body, either reward us or not reward us for the things we've done in our body, whether good or bad. You're going to have a performance review.

Did you know that? As a Christian. Now, that won't decide whether or not you get into heaven or not. If you know Jesus Christ personally, you'll get into heaven, but you're going to have a performance review. When you get there, that will have a lot to do with how things go in heaven for you.

And you know what? Knowing that that's out there in the future, it seems to me that we ought to be asking ourselves about any decision that we have to make. Am I prepared to stand before Jesus Christ and defend this decision when I face him? And if you can't answer that question and say, yes, I'm excited about defending this decision in front of Jesus Christ. My advice to you is don't do it. If we lived more like that, I think we'd make a lot better decisions.

But you see, we're willing to trade so often short-term advantages and we're willing to trade in long-term benefit. God says when we do that, we're stupid. In this regard, one of the stupidest people in the Bible was a fellow named Lot.

Say, I never heard of him. Well, he was Abraham's nephew. And Abraham and Lot were living together in the land.

And Abraham said to Lot, he said, Lot, look, he said, we're getting too many people here to live together. Here's what we're going to do. You go this way, I'll go that way. You go east, I'll go west. You go north, I'll go south.

You choose and I'll go the other way. And the Bible says, Genesis 13, that Lot looked and saw that the land around Sodom and Gomorrah was well watered and green like the Garden of Eden. Now, there were some short-term advantages to that site. But a little further down the passage, it says, but the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. There were some long-term disadvantages and dangers there.

But Lot was willing to trade in the long-term disadvantages to get the short-term advantages. And brother, was he sorry he did. He lost everything he owned. He lost his wife. He lost the moral integrity of his daughters.

He lost it all. What a dumb decision. And, you know, friends, God wants you and me as Christians to be a lot smarter than Lot.

He wants us to be smarter than the fool who built his house down in that wadi. Don't assume that the floods never come in your way. Don't assume you're never going to stand before Christ. And if you make this decision, nobody will ever hear about it again. I promise you, there is not a decision you or I will ever make that we will never hear about again. We're going to hear about every one of them again.

Make sure the decision you make is one you're prepared to face a second time. When Jesus Christ brings it up, shoots it on the screen and pauses it and says, now, what about this? Tell me about this. Friends, the issue is not whether we're building but how we're building. We're building.

The issue is how. And God loves you so much and he loves me so much, he wants us to make sure that we're building properly. Don't kid yourself and assume that the storms of life only hit the other guy's house. Believe me, God has a few flash floods he's going to send your way to test your house.

Make sure your foundation is ready for them. Build for long-term benefit from God. And then we won't have to sing there shall be sprinkles of blessing. We can sing there will be showers of blessing because that's what God will do for us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I want to pray that you would use what we've talked about this morning as a reality check for the lives of every single person that's here. I want to pray, Lord Jesus, that you would help us to evaluate our lives in light of the footers that we've talked about this morning. Help us not to build where our friends build.

Help us not to look for the easy way out. But, Lord Jesus, I pray that you would help us to build a foundation that is solid and firm and can withstand the storms of life, one that can withstand the judgment of God. Lord Jesus, I pray that if there are folks here, as I suspect there are, whose foundation has gotten a little wobbly lately, maybe there's some things in our life that in light of the lordship of Jesus Christ ought not be there as Christians. I pray that you, through the power of your spirit, will change our heart towards those things this morning. Make us willing to bring our behavior and our attitudes in line with your will so that we can change our character and our lifestyle. Lord Jesus, thank you for speaking to us about this very timely issue. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information, visit our website, lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions, So What.