What Are We Building?

Scripture: Proverbs 22:1-6; Matthew 7: 24-27

Sermon: What Are We Building?

Topics: wisdom, profundity, belief, behavior, sand, rock

Preached: February 26, 2017

Rev. Mike Abma

Proverbs 22: 1-6

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,

   and favour is better than silver or gold. 

² The rich and the poor have this in common:

   the Lord is the maker of them all. 

³ The clever see danger and hide;

   but the simple go on, and suffer for it. 

⁴ The reward for humility and fear of the Lord

   is riches and honour and life. 

⁵ Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse;

   the cautious will keep far from them. 

⁶ Train children in the right way,

   and when old, they will not stray. 

Matthew 7: 24-27

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. ²⁵The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. ²⁶And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!’

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION — PROVERBS

Proverbs: Short, pithy sayings. Nuggets of truth.

Proverbs: One generation’s attempt to hand down wisdom to the next generation.

We’ve all heard them:

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Ethnic groups have their own proverbs:

Never marry for money. Borrowing is cheaper (Scotland).

A drink precedes a story. (Irish)

Fortunately, the sun comes up for free (Dutch)

There is something appealing about proverbs. They are catchy.

But for me, there is also something unappealing about them.

They can be trite, moralistic, preachy. Have you ever sat down to read the whole book of Proverbs? It feels something like being stuck in an elevator with your high school guidance counselor.

When I hear a passage from Proverbs, there is something in me that is tempted to roll my eyes. Maybe it is because the book of Proverbs likes to give rules, and I like to think of exceptions. Take the proverbs from our passage:

* A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches;

* The clever see danger and hide, the cautious avoid thorns and snares

but the simple walk straight into evil,

and the perverse have thorns and snares on their path.

* Train a child in the right way, and when they are old they will not stray.

Already we’re thinking of exceptions, aren’t we?

* the times when we think riches wouldn’t be a bad option

* or when the godly seem to have as many or more thorns and snares

in their path than the ungodly,

* or all those trained in the right way, and who have, in fact, strayed.

We can all think of cases where these proverbs don’t seem to apply.

The result is that we usually treat proverbs politely, but not passionately.

They are very nice, but we take them with a grain of salt.

We are pretty sure they aren’t always the best advice for living in the real world.

Our world is less like King Solomon’s Court and more like the show Survivor.

Just imagine if the contestants on the Survivor show were offered a choice between joining a tribe devoted to having a Good Name,

and a tribe devoted to having Great Riches.

Which tribe do you think would have the most people?

Wouldn’t the “Good Name tribe” be seen as losers?

As people who do not know how to play the game?

JESUS – FROM PROVERBS TO PROFUNDITIES

You would think that when Jesus came to teach us how to live, he would have given some of these old proverbs a dose of realism. Instead of saying a good name is better than great riches, Jesus could have said something like, “Strive for a good name and great riches.” Strive for the best of both worlds. That sounds good, doesn’t it?

But Jesus takes an even tougher line than the book of Proverbs.

Jesus says bluntly we can’t have it both ways.

We cannot serve two masters at once

– we’ll hate the one and love the other

or be devoted to one and despise the other.

We simply cannot serve God and great riches.

Do you know what people in Luke’s gospel did when Jesus said this?

They laughed at him.

They thought he was joking.

But Jesus wasn’t joking.

He went beyond the proverbs of this world

and gave us the profundities of his kingdom.

In the profundities of his kingdom,

he didn’t simply caution us to avoid evil.

He gave us blunt instructions that

if our right eye causes us to sin,

we need to pluck it out;

and if our right hand causes us to sin, we need to cut it off.

He didn’t simply say train up a child in the right way.

He explained what being a child of our heavenly Father meant.

Only those who loved their enemies

and prayed for those that persecuted them

are considered children of the heavenly Father.

When Jesus spoke, it was one profundity after another.

At the end of this profound sermon in Matthew,

Jesus summarizes everything he had said with these words:

“the wise are those who hear my words and do them;

they are like those who build their house on rock.

The foolish are those who hear my words and do not do them;

they are like those who build their house on sand.”^[1]

DISCONNECT BETWEEN BELIEF AND BEHAVIOUR

Here is our problem.

We still have this habit of taking things with a grain of salt, or in this case, a grain of sand.

We still have this habit of thinking these teachings are out of touch with the real world.

We still have this habit of thinking we can have the best of both worlds.

So what we often do is live with a gap between what we belief and how we behave.

We say “Yes” to Jesus.

We say “Amen” to his Amazing Grace.

We recite the words of the first question and answer of the Catechism

often by heart.

And we sing Precious Lord Take My Hand, while we look longingly

to heaven.

And then …..

then we live the way we want to live,

do the things our heart pulls us into doing,

visit the websites we feel like visiting,

drive the way we feel like driving,

all because we tell ourselves that

we still have to survive in the real world.

We know we aren’t perfect, but at least we are forgiven,

and thankfully that is good enough.

LIFE ON THE ROCK

But is it good enough?

Is it good enough to simply say we believe in Jesus Christ?

Well, truthfully, it isn’t good enough.

It isn’t good enough because Jesus calls believing without changing how we behave is, in a word, folly.

We tend to see folly and wisdom only in terms of intellect.

A wise person is someone who is a grand champion on Jeopardy.

A foolish person is someone who has never been able to complete a Sudoku puzzle.

But in the Bible, folly is not a failure of the intellect.

Folly is a failure of the will.

Folly is not so much simply thinking and saying there is no God.

Folly is living as if there is no God.

Jesus’ words aren’t simply suggestions for living.

Jesus and his words are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The profound truth is that Jesus really wants us to live the life he describes.

And this life is the very best life for us —

the brightest, most beautiful, most bountiful, best life for us.

It is a life built on rock and not sand:

sand is folly rock is wisdom

sand is slippery rock is solid

sand is temporary rock is eternal

sand is the way of death rock is the way of resurrection

and is the way things are -rock is the way things were meant to be

Jesus calls us to die to the sand, and rise to the rock:

He calls us to die to the temptation to trust wealth,

and rise to the ability to happily give things away;

He calls us to die to the urge to nurse resentment,

and to rise to the ability to forgive;

He calls us to die to the urge to explode in anger,

and rise to the ability to be self-controlled.

He calls us to die to our penchant to worry about everything,

and to rise to an unexplainable peace and trust in him.

He calls us to die to our desire to win everyone’s approval and applause,

and to rise to the amazing reality that we are accepted and approved by God;

He calls us to die to the strong pull to put ourselves before others,

and rise to the sweet sensation of sacrifice and putting others first.

He calls us to build our life on the rock – the rock of his death and resurrection;

the rock of dying to the old and rising to the new.

It is not a call to try have the best of both worlds –

a foot in the sand and a foot on the rock.

It is a call to live life firmly rooted in him.

SHARING LIFE ON THE ROCK

Life on the rock cannot be hoarded or hidden or held tightly to oneself.

By its very nature, life on the rock must be welcoming, inviting, ready to be shared.

To taste life in Christ is to want others to taste it too.

What kind of ministry are we building here at Woodlawn?

It is a Ministry that helps us in our own struggle to life the life Jesus has called us to live.

But it also must be a Ministry that

calls out to people sinking in the sucking sands of this world,

that there is a better life, a better way.

It is a ministry that calls out to the hurting, hungry, people of the world, saying:

Come on over.

It is okay.

Surrender your old way of life.

Take tiny baby steps in your new way of life in Christ.

Go 24 hours without drinking.

Go 24 hours without snapping at anyone.

Practice saying, I’m sorry.

Practice going to the back of the line so others can go first.

Practice driving the speed limit – or not driving at all but taking the

bicycle.

Practice giving something away and then not dwelling on what you

could have done with it.

Practice rejoicing in your colleague or co-worker’s success.

Practice praying especially when you are unsure about what direction

to go.

Practice praying for those who have hurt you or given you a hard

time.

Our Ministry needs to be about putting into practice this eternal life,

this wisdom life,

this kingdom life,

right now.

For in Christ, and with the power of the Holy Spirit

even the old can begin to live the kingdom dream,

and the young can begin to live with kingdom vision.

Amen

Prayer:

Heavenly Father,

help us build something of your kingdom in this world;

help us build our lives on the rock of your Son;

give us the wisdom to die to our selves, the courage to rise our new selves,

and the warm hospitality to invite others to share in the beauty of this new life in Christ.

Amen

1. All construction people trip over this passage because every modern building is built on sand. However, the point is that they are built on more than sand. They have footings and they have foundations, all made out of rock-like concrete. The point is, you always need to build on something solid. ↑