What Are You Standing On?

Have you ever built a sand castle…for a day? Perhaps as a child you spent endless hours creating a beautiful castle only to find the next day the tide has demolished it completely. Such is the way of houses built on sand! As an adult, if you have undertaken the task of building a home, you certainly wouldn’t choose a foundation of sand, but one of something much stronger, so that your home would sustain torrential storms without collapsing.

I am in the process of memorizing the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6 & 7 with my D-Group. It has been challenging, but so rewarding, for all 4 of us. Near the end of Jesus’ sermon, we we are told we have a choice…building our house on the rock or on sand.

“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27

What does building our lives on sand look like in our lives?

Perhaps for us it looks like our personal priorities of power, money, material possessions, physical image, popularity? We have to live in this world until Jesus calls us home, so we must have jobs so we have money so we have food and homes, right? We want to provide for ourselves and our families. But have we gone from providing for needs to wanting more and more than we actually need, and doing anything to get it?

We need to take care of our physical needs through healthy eating, exercise and rest, but we can become obsessed with going to the gym, or making sure we look good. We need relationships, but we can become desperate to have certain influential relationships so we will be a part of the crowd with clout. We love our job, but we can use unethical methods for achieving the next step up the career ladder.

In contrast, what does building on rock look like?

Simply put, giving Christ first place in our lives. We do this by:

• trusting in His faithfulness more than our own abilities
• making sure He is first place in our day and throughout the day
• making people more important than tasks
• living lives of integrity so that we do not dishonor the Lord we say we love.
• staying in His Word
• living in obedience to His Truth
• focusing on the basics of the Great Commandment: Love God, love others (Matthew 22:36-40)

Two results are obvious in this passage: collapse, or stand strong! When we build on the sand, we are trusting in things that will never fulfill the heart need we have for Christ. We trust in money, people, power or careers to give us purpose and satisfaction. None of these things are wrong unless we are looking for them to be to us what only Jesus can be. If those are more important than our relationship with Christ, it won’t stand up in the storms of life.

But when we build on rock, we build on the Rock. Ultimately this passage is talking about whether or not we have given our heart to Jesus, anything else is sand and will not hold us up in the judgment.

Jesus talks about building His church on the “rock” later in Mathew. Here is what Jared Wilson says about this passage in a recent blog post on LifeWay Voices : And this is why, by the way, I don’t think the most reasonable interpretation of Matthew 16:18 is that the “rock” immediately being referenced is Jesus Himself but rather the Peter who is confessing Jesus. I was always taught in my churches that the rock Jesus is referring to is Himself—and in a very vital way this is true—but that is not the plainest reading of the text. Jesus is saying, “I call you rock. And on this rock I will build my church.

We must build our lives on the confession of Christ and on the Christ who gives us salvation. But, after salvation, to get there, we have to be intentional about carving out time to develop our relationship with Him. We must spend time in His Word daily to get to know Him more intimately. He is a solid rock upon which we can fully rely.

I believe we can relate this to daily life and those times when the storms pelt us. We can trust His ability to carry us through any storm of life, even if we don’t “feel” like there is anyway we can survive. If Christ is number one in our lives, we will be able to endure any storm! He will hold us together even during the greatest of storms…or the challenge of pandemic.

Perhaps you have used this time of isolation to refocus on family, rest and even more time in the Bible. Let’s don’t “go back to normal” as we re-enter the world. Let’s keep Christ, our eternal Rock, at the center of our life.

What are you building on? If it’s not Jesus, it won’t carry you when the storms come. As the age old hymn reminds us, “on Christ the solid rock I stand, ALL (my emphasis) other ground is sinking sand. For you to use as a way to worship Him now, here are the full lyrics written in the 1800’s and SO relevant today (found here):

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name. 

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
 All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
In Him, my righteousness, alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Banner photo by Léonard Cotte on Unsplash