Theme: True Foundations
Just off Loganlea reservoir in
the Pentlands, up from the waterside where anglers cast their lines, on a rocky
outcrop there are the remains of a very interesting building. Why are the ruins
interesting ? Well, they are not those of a farmhouse,
despite the name, not the broken down stones of an old sheepfold, they are the walls
and foundations of Logan House tower, and they are over five hundred years old.
Set back off the road on a crag in a quiet glen, the old tower house is built
on solid rock, with a sheer drop of thirty feet down into a burn on one side.
Some walls, about three feet thick still stand.
Whoever built this tower did
not build it , down in the valley, where in storm and
flood the water might have thundered against the foundations and round them. No
- the old tower was built on solid rock. And the foundations are still there,
more than five hundred years later.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
speaks about two men who build.
One wise, the other foolish.
The wise man built his house up
there on the rock, and
when the rain thundered down, the storm came, and the river nearby flooded, the
house stood firm.
The foolish man a foolish man
built his house on the sand, near the river. Much easier to
dig foundations there. But when the rain thundered down, the storms
came, and the river flooded, the house, caught up in the swirling flood fell
down and was swept away.
Jesus says: Everyone who hears what I say, and puts it into
practice is like that wise man who built on solid foundation. Everyone who hears what I say, but does not
put it into practice is like the foolish man, what he built is swept away.
Two ways of building: wise and foolish.
We hear the same thing in Deuteronomy
11, Moses declares to the people of
two
choices, two ways: blessing and curse, wise and foolish........
But, you see,
there is a problem
here.............. we might very well want to choose
blessing, we might very well want to choose
solid
rock as a foundation for our lives
But, if we are realistic about
life, a lot of the time building on solid rock seems to elude us........ and we end up building on sand - don’t we often see things
we built, things we built swept away ?
If we are realistic about
life, it is often very difficult to tell the difference between solid rock and
shifting sand..........
That’s the problem...
How striking, then, to find
that this is just exactly what the Bible says about life......... We may well hunger and thirst for
righteousness, but we are only too well aware of our failures and our lack of
love and holiness. As Paul says in Romans
7, we may know what we want to do, but we are only too well aware of our
failure to live it out.
As we grow in Christian faith, we want to live in
the way Jesus commands, we try to, but
instead we seem only to see even more clearly our failure and our sin. So then,
how do we build on that solid rock, that firm foundation.........?
Well, first: here is the
promise of Jesus Christ..........
Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and the
door shall be opened to you we have this, His sure promise to
us, that in our seeking to live as He commands us to, we will find, knocking at
the door, it will be opened to us. Which means that whoever
longs and prays for holiness and searches for it, will find it. Whoever
longs to love God above all else, and to love others, whoever longs for purity
of heart and mind and soul, whoever
longs to be like the Lord Jesus Christ, will find all he or she is looking
for..... now that is building on solid rock
Yes, we may be only too well
aware of our failures, our lack of love and holiness, but the New Testament
declares that God has acted decisively to do something about this. At the cross, Jesus has taken upon Himself
our sin, and taken it away once and for all.
So that now we can bring before God our failures, our lack of love and
holiness, the way sin has distorted our lives, and in His loving kindness and
mercy, the
living God takes our sin away and we find forgiveness. Now there is a foundation, a real foundation
of solid rock.... on which to build !
And yes, we may be only too
well aware of our failures, our lack of love and holiness, but through Jesus our
loving Father in heaven has given us the Holy Spirit, His Spirit to work within
us to make a loving, holy, life possible for us.............. and so the foundation of our lives gets deeper
Back to the words of Jesus:
Jesus, besides speaking of a wise, deep, rock solid foundation also speaks of
the moment when the storm strikes...... that was the moment, is the moment, you
see, when the foundations are tested. The moment when we discover whether the
foundation will stand, or be swept away ?
What does the Bible say about
the foundations, the kind of foundation we have been talking about when the
storm comes ? Does the foundations hold
? what happens when the storm comes, the floods
rise, as the old hymn says: will our
anchor hold ? Well, the declaration of the Bible is a clear, unmistakeable Yes !
When the storm rises, the wind
picks up, when the flood surge strikes,
the foundation of
life shown to us, given to us, in Jesus,
does
hold, and will hold........!
The book of Psalms, often
speaks of the ground of our life in God,
the
roots of our life, the foundations of our life.....
Surely, says Psalm 112, the righteous will never be shaken,
Surely he will never be shaken, He will have
no fear of bad news,
his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord,
His heart is secure, he will have no fear....
Or Isaiah 28.16 - this is what the Sovereign Lord says: See, I
lay a stone in
the one who trusts will never be dismayed.............
From the New Testament we
learn that right in the middle of his travelling for the sake of the gospel, Paul
was arrested and imprisoned. His preaching,
his work, all seemed at an end. Here surely a storm has struck Paul’s life, a
flood surge that destroys all he was building. Yet he writes to the Philippians
from that same prison, he tells the Philippians that he is giving thanks to God
for his imprisonment, because it has given him an opportunity to tell the other
prisoners, the warders and prison staff about Jesus Christ. Despite being
deserted by those he thought he could trust, he was perfectly happy and quite
serene through it all, he writes to the Church at
I know that through your prayers, and the help given by the Spirit of
Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance... !
Yes, in other letters, Paul
will write of his sorrow at his failures, and his own sinfulness, the many things he
lacks....... but here in Philippians, in
the storm, when the flood surges, we see clearly - he has a sure foundation, in
Jesus Christ. Here is the secret, the open secret of living, facing the
difficulties of life, living a life on the strongest, surest foundation
possible..............
We may be only too well aware
of our failures, our lack of love and holiness,
But what is it to live, face
the difficulties of life, live life on the strongest, surest foundation
possible.............. ?
It is, of course, to live life
in Jesus Christ and His Cross,
and
to know the power of His Spirit at work within us........
building
in us a sure, an enduring, a rock-solid foundation
AMEN.