Ready for the landslide
This week is on Luke 6:46-49:
People are always freaked out by flooding. They don't naturally understand that something that looks solid, like the ground your shed is on, can be really fluid if hit with a lot of water, or that something that seems really fluid, like water, can actually be really solid when a wall of it hits something like your car and knocks it over an embankment. The same goes for the water cannons used in riot control. People talk about them like they're the hose you use to keep two naughty dogs from fighting, but in actuality they're more like a power washer. People have had bones broken and received internal injuries from the power behind the stream of water coming from them. None of our day to day experience prepares us for this stuff. Water is soft, and ground is solid, until they aren't.
When we build only on our experiences, without listening to God's direction, we're just like the guy who thinks the ground will always hold up his house, or the person whose car gets swept off the freeway by a flooded river. Our experiences as individuals, or even as a society, can't always prepare us for everything we might run into. The solutions we have figured out seem to work fine, until one day they don't.
God has told us how to live our lives, and has given us a lot of wisdom about how the world works, physically, morally, and spiritually. He gives us more wisdom every day, if we need it. The question is whether we're willing to put the work in to follow his advice. Are we going to hear the word of God and put it into practice, or are we just going to pretend?
It's hard to build on rock. Sometimes you have to dig in order to find it. It's way easier to just start building without any of that planning and searching and digging. If you didn't know about floods and earthquakes, you'd think the guy digging a big hole was an idiot. Why waste all of that time? Why dig down if you want to build up? You're going the wrong way and making a mess in the process!
If you want to know if you're built on the rock or not, ask yourself if Jesus really is your lord. The natural Christian response is to automatically answer "yes", because that's what you sing every Sunday, but is he really? Lord means "boss" in a really big way. A lord owns what he rules over. Does God have that kind of role in your life? Or is "lord" just a name to you? People say "Jesus is Lord" but do they mean it sincerely? Have they put their money on that statement? Is their life built on that truth? Or do they just say it because that's what people say?
Picture the difference in outcome between the guy who has a solid home on solid ground and the guy who knows it all who built on the topsoil on a floodplain. The first guy has a legacy he can pass on to his kids, unshakable by the changing world. The second guy will get swept away and is a liability to anyone who relies on him. When we build on Jesus, we're unshakable. When we just build on whatever's on the surface, we can get swept away and lost.
"Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete."
People are always freaked out by flooding. They don't naturally understand that something that looks solid, like the ground your shed is on, can be really fluid if hit with a lot of water, or that something that seems really fluid, like water, can actually be really solid when a wall of it hits something like your car and knocks it over an embankment. The same goes for the water cannons used in riot control. People talk about them like they're the hose you use to keep two naughty dogs from fighting, but in actuality they're more like a power washer. People have had bones broken and received internal injuries from the power behind the stream of water coming from them. None of our day to day experience prepares us for this stuff. Water is soft, and ground is solid, until they aren't.
When we build only on our experiences, without listening to God's direction, we're just like the guy who thinks the ground will always hold up his house, or the person whose car gets swept off the freeway by a flooded river. Our experiences as individuals, or even as a society, can't always prepare us for everything we might run into. The solutions we have figured out seem to work fine, until one day they don't.
God has told us how to live our lives, and has given us a lot of wisdom about how the world works, physically, morally, and spiritually. He gives us more wisdom every day, if we need it. The question is whether we're willing to put the work in to follow his advice. Are we going to hear the word of God and put it into practice, or are we just going to pretend?
It's hard to build on rock. Sometimes you have to dig in order to find it. It's way easier to just start building without any of that planning and searching and digging. If you didn't know about floods and earthquakes, you'd think the guy digging a big hole was an idiot. Why waste all of that time? Why dig down if you want to build up? You're going the wrong way and making a mess in the process!
If you want to know if you're built on the rock or not, ask yourself if Jesus really is your lord. The natural Christian response is to automatically answer "yes", because that's what you sing every Sunday, but is he really? Lord means "boss" in a really big way. A lord owns what he rules over. Does God have that kind of role in your life? Or is "lord" just a name to you? People say "Jesus is Lord" but do they mean it sincerely? Have they put their money on that statement? Is their life built on that truth? Or do they just say it because that's what people say?
Picture the difference in outcome between the guy who has a solid home on solid ground and the guy who knows it all who built on the topsoil on a floodplain. The first guy has a legacy he can pass on to his kids, unshakable by the changing world. The second guy will get swept away and is a liability to anyone who relies on him. When we build on Jesus, we're unshakable. When we just build on whatever's on the surface, we can get swept away and lost.
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