Based on the Scripture found in Matthew 7: 21-29, this was given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on June 2, 2002…

      My brother was three years younger than me. In our later years it didn’t seem like much of an issue. But when I was 15 and he was 12 we were worlds apart. Or so it seemed at the time. And in all honesty, since we were half-brothers, there were a number of differences. For one thing, I had always had what seemed like a natural ability to operate any piece of equipment. Indeed, after letting me drive forward and backward all over the school blacktop, my Drivers Ed instructor had me driving out on the streets and highways of Edwardsville during my very first time behind the wheel! (My only problem was going over 30 MPH…I had never driven anything faster than that!) At seventeen, I was driving myself down to my grandparents in the Ozarks, about a three-and-a-half hour drive. Mike, however, was chomping at the bit to get behind a wheel. As the older brother, I had usually been the one to get to drive the tractor or whatever, and he just hadn’t picked it up like I had yet.

      During one of our summer stays together at grandma and grandpas’, grandpa decided to wash grandma’s car. As I’ve said before, only the main highways in this part of the country were paved. All of the other roads were still gravel, and it didn’t take long for a vehicle to reach the point where it was impossible to tell what color it was. Creeks abound in these hills, and most roads just went right through them. But for the bigger ones, a concrete slab was poured to cross on. The water would still run over the top of it, and over time gravel would fill up to the top of the slab, but at least you had a firm footing to drive on! The road past their farm crossed water four times, but only one such crossing was big enough to require a slab. And it was to this creek that grandpa took my brother and me in the car to wash it. This creek was about twenty feet wide and four inches deep before it crossed the slab at this point. Grandpa backed off of the slab onto the gravel where we used buckets dipped in the running water to wash with. Yes, we got good and wet ourselves, but that was part of the idea.

      When we were through, grandpa went to pull back out onto the slab, but the gravel was just too deep and the tires started to spin. He stopped right away, shut off the engine and got out. He had half expected this to happen so there was no surprise and no look of chagrin as he started walking back to get the tractor. Since there was a chance that I might drive, I went with grandpa, leaving Mike to ‘guard’ the car in case anybody was to drive by.

      About twenty minutes later, as we came around the corner with the tractor and chain, we were greeted with a very…er…surprising…sight. There was grandma’s car right where we had left it…except that the rear bumper was now in the water! Mike had decided that HE could get it out all by himself, and had tried to rock it back and forth the way he had seen us do at various times. The problem was that he wasn’t moving at all, and each time he spun a tire it dug itself deeper into the gravel. The first realization he had of this was when water began coming in through the bottom of the doors! Now, he thought, he HAD to get it out! Instead, of course, it just went deeper! By the time we got there, water was started up the cushion of the back seat!

      Looking back, it seems like water and gravel played a very important part in most of what went on in that area. First of all, they were probably two of the most common elements to be found around there, and generally had to be figured into any project that a person might plan…either in making use of or in getting rid of! Let me give you one example about how one business I knew of managed to use both.

      Shortly after moving down there, grandpa bought a small, very used dragline. He used it, along with the dozer that he took down with him, to build a number of little ponds and lakes around the farm. However, the hills and hollers and mud and gravel proved to be too much for the crawler drive gears, and for the last year that he had it he had to push it around with the dozer. Finally a man came to buy it for his rock quarry. Grandpa told him that the travel gears were out of it, but the guy said that that didn’t matter. The crane would be set next to the creek/river where his business was and would dig out all of the gravel that it could reach from there in a day’s time. Overnight, the flowing water would fill the hole that they had dug with more gravel, which they would dig out again the next day. He had a never-ending supply, thanks to the power of water and the fluidity of gravel!

      The fluidity of gravel? Oh, yes! Gravel and sand are both very fluid, as both of these stories illustrate.

      At various times through the years I have been a member at the St. Louis Science Center, and used to get down there fairly often. I recall on one visit watching an associate demonstrate just how fluid sand can be. Sand was built up and sculpted into a miniature landscape including hills, fields, and valleys. On this landscape were placed scale houses and barns, trees and bushes, cows, pigs…and people! A reservoir above the landscape was filled with water, then allowed to run out at various speeds. Even at lower amounts, the water began to cut out and reshape the low areas and ‘gullies’. As the flow increased, whole banks would fall in and be swept away, until, finally, the house itself was carried downstream with the flowing sand! And this is just the type of scenario that Jesus is describing in today’s verses!

      We find Jesus finishing up the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, as it came to be called. Let’s try to picture the scene. Jesus’ ministry has been going on for some time now, enough so that there are ‘multitudes’ who have come to see and hear Him. So many, in fact, that He must climb to a mountain top to address all of them. Mathew Henry’s Commentary says that, that alone carries some significance. “The place was a mountain in Galilee. And not one of the holy mountains neither, not one of the mountains of Zion, but a common mountain; by which Christ would intimate that there is no such distinguishing holiness of places now, under the gospel, as there was under the law; but that it is the will of God that men should pray and preach every where, any where.”  Some of the people are there because of the stories they have heard about Him healing and casting out demons. Some may indeed be there hoping for such to happen to them. Some are there to try to find fault in what He says in order to discredit Him. Some have come because they truly believe Him to be the promised Messiah! But most have come because they’re curios. They have heard about this ‘man’ Jesus, and about all of the miraculous things that His has done, and want to see for themselves just what everybody has been carrying on about!

Jesus begins, in chapter 5, by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”, then goes on to talk about the salt of the earth and hiding our light under a bushel. He told how He had come to FULFILL the law, then gave us lessons on anger, adultery, divorce, revenge, and love. He taught us how to give…how to pray…and how to handle money and possessions. In chapter 7, verse 12, He says, “Do for others what you would like them to do for you. This is a summary of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” In short, in under an hour, and in an amazingly few concise words, Jesus laid out the outline of how a person should shape his life. A ‘Christian’ way of life. The way God wants us to live!

And now, in our verses today, Jesus says that it is decision time. Barnes’ Notes puts it this way…Jesus closes the Sermon on the Mount by a beautiful comparison, illustrating the benefit of attending to his words. It was not sufficient to “hear” them; they must be “obeyed.” He compares the man who should hear and obey him to a man who built his house on a rock. Palestine was to a considerable extent a land of hills and mountains. Like other countries of that description, it was subject to sudden and violent rains. The Jordan, the principal stream, was annually swollen to a great extent, and became rapid and furious in its course. The streams which ran among the hills, whose channels might have been dry during some months of the year, became suddenly swollen with the rain, and would pour down impetuously into the plains below. Everything in the way of these torrents would be swept off. Even houses, if erected within the reach of these sudden inundations, and especially if founded on sand or on any unsolid basis, would not stand before them. The rapid torrent would gradually wash away its base, and it would totter and fall.

But Jesus is not talking about houses…He’s talking about foundations! We must read the Sermon on the Mount with its final application in mind. Jesus sets before us two choices. The “wise and foolish builders” share two traits in common: Each were builders and each had “heard” Jesus’ instructions. What matters, Jesus declared, is not familiarity with his teaching but putting it into practice. It is of supreme importance to build upon the right foundation. The man whose house collapsed was at fault not because he failed to labor, but because he did not use the rock. And the rock is Christ.

We’re told that those who heard Jesus speak were impressed by his authority. But amazement doesn’t equal acceptance or submission. In today’s’ passage, Jesus starts off by saying, “Not all people who sound religious are really godly They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’ but they still won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven.”

What about you? On what foundation is your house built on? Most people do not deliberately seek to build on a false or inferior foundation; instead, they just don’t think about their life’s purpose. People who agree in theory that a house should be built on a solid foundation may still go out and construct their lives on a swamp. Many people are headed for destruction, not out of stubbornness but out of thoughtlessness.

Some may think that they can get by with a simple foundation…that they can weather whatever storms life might dish out to them. Like the three little pigs, they just don’t want to make the investment of time and resources required to be secure. They ‘gamble’ on everything being all right. And when the waters rise and the winds howl, they feel all alone…which, indeed, they are! But if we have a good, solid foundation…a foundation in Christ…then we know that we can weather what ever comes our way. We can face the trials and tribulations of life secure in the knowledge that we are NOT alone…that whatever happens, God is with us!

Every life has its share of storms and swirling waters. That’s just the way it is. But how each of us face and hold up to these storms tells a great deal about what kind of foundation our life is built on. Is your life like the gravel being pushed around the waters of a rushing creek or river, with no idea and no control over where you are going?  Or are you standing firm on the Rock of Ages? And if you’re not sure, think about it this way…if you asked your neighbor what they thought, what would they say? Part of our responsibility as believers is to help others stop and think about where their lives are headed and to point out the consequences of ignoring Christ’s message.

Is the way we are living our lives showing the strength of the rock…or the weakness of shifting sand?