A Solid Foundation

 

[Jesus said] “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like aa foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27 ESV).

 

There are some places prized for their view that simply are not safe to build on. We have all seen reports of homes that have collapsed that were built without an adequate foundation as the soil eroded beneath them. The people Jesus was teaching understood this fact very well. The Sermon on the Mount takes place near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. People who were building homes in that area would have been tempted to build on the sand, which was firm and stable during the dry months of the year but shifted precipitously during wet or stormy weather. Those homes simply did not last.

 

By contrast, a wise builder would dig about ten feet below the sand to find the solid basalt rock underneath. That provided a much firmer foundation. You can imagine how much work that would be in those days, without any power tools or excavators. But the hard work proved worthwhile whenever storms came.

 

Jesus wants us to have a secure foundation to base our lives on—and that means doing some hard work to put his teachings into practice. It’s not enough just to listen to Jesus’ teaching as we go through life. Jesus calls us to be followers; he urges us to be not just hearers but “doers” of the Word. Obeying his will helps us to avoid unnecessary storms of our own making. But even when we face tough times in life, we can trust that we will have what we need in the sure hope of God’s love for us.

 

How’s your foundation?