The Simple Secret of an Unsinkable Life │ Msg 14/14

0:26 This brings us to the last words Jesus spoke in his immortal Sermon on the Mount. As he drew his remarks to a close, he used a vivid word picture of two houses built on opposite foundations. You may remember from this familiar illustration, we can learn the secret of an unsinkable life. So, as Jesus concluded his magnificent sermon, he did as he so often did during his ministry. He told a story. And this story, though brief, had all the elements to make it memorable, unique personalities, identifiable situations, and lingering lessons. So, let's read this story with interest.

1:20 the story that Jesus told as he was finishing his Sermon on the Mount. Listen as if you've never heard it before. It's recorded in Matthew chapter 7, verses 24 through 29. I'll be reading it from the New Living Translation. Matthew chapter 7, verse 24 begins, Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise. like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it is foolish like a person who builds a house on sand.

2:16 When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash. When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. For he taught with real authority, quite unlike their teachers of religious law.

2:42 Few things are more memorable than a good story. It's funny, we can forget the details of information and data that has to do with the abstract, but somehow our minds never fully release a great story. The stories don't always have to be true, though sometimes if they are true, they seem to make a bigger impact. I thought about that while I was with the former coach of the Washington Redskins, Joe Gibbs. He dropped by, visited with Paul Salehammer and me for a while, talking about the possibility of some kind of ministry he might have as a Christian coach. And in the discussion, we got into some lighthearted stuff, and he told a terrific story, and it is absolutely hilarious. And I thought, it doesn't fit my sermon, but I'll ram it in anyway. I'm going to tell you about this.

3:39 This is too good to keep to myself. A man we'll call Frank has a fine retriever, I think a Labrador retriever. He looked out of his front window one morning and he saw his very obedient dog sitting there near the front porch, looking up toward the door with a dead rabbit hanging in its mouth. and he was shocked, seized with surprise because the rabbit happened to be his next door neighbor's pet.

4:13 Not sure what to do, Frank, gingerly took the rabbit from the dog's mouth and came inside and went to the kitchen sink and washed off the blood and the dirt and the gunk that was on the rabbit and he got a blow dryer and he decided to blow dry the hair of this rabbit so it would be all clean and fluffy and looked like it was still okay. And that night, late at night, he crawled over his back fence, slithered across the backyard, opened the rabbit hutch and put the dead rabbit inside, closed the hutch and crawled back over the fence and decided that's that. The next morning, there was a big pound at the front door of Frank's home, and he opened the door, and it was the neighbor with the rabbit in his hand.

5:10 And the neighbor said, we got a real sickie in the neighborhood, Frank. Wait. Frank said, why? He said, Frank, my rabbit died three days ago. I buried it. Some sickie dug it up and put it back in the rabbit hut. Ha ha ha ha.

5:33 Ha ha ha ha. That is a great story, you know. You may not remember another thing from this sermon, but you will never forget that story about the rabbit. Sometimes the stories are fictitious. They are drawn from mythology or they are drawn from some novel you read or some imaginary story. Sometimes they are deep allegories like Pilgrim's Progress. There will never be a better story than that outside the Bible. Each thing, it seems, representing some profound message or some truth that could not be more clearly defined than by that 17th century man named Bunyan. But the best stories of all are found between the covers of our Bibles.

6:32 Even though we were small children when we heard those stories, by the time we reached teenage years, we could repeat them almost verbatim with details added. Stories about Moses as he crossed the Red Sea with the Hebrews. Stories like Abraham walking up Mount Moriah with his son Isaac to sacrifice him on the altar.

6:56 Joseph forgiving his brothers. There will never be a greater story than Joseph and the family reunion in Egypt as he reveals his identity. Or Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath. Jonah and the great fish, Elijah on Mount Carmel, Jesus feeding the 5,000, and the conversion of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Great stories. And all of them absolutely true.

7:29 Why is it that those stories stay with us? What is it about a story, an illustration that hangs in our heads and just digs its teeth into our gray matter? Why is it we will forget facts and data, but we won't forget stories? I've thought about it. I think, first of all, there's always a personality that gives the story interest. It may be an animal. It may be some other living creature. It may be a person. but there is the presence of a person or a personality that will break abstract truth down into meaningful and interesting stuff. Second, there are life situations and stories with which we can imagine and sometimes even identify. Some of us have been there.

8:25 We've known the shock of seeing another animal in our dog's mouth, or we have been there when a neighbor has said something like that and we feel cornered or in some way awkward. We've been in the scene, even true in biblical stories. There's a part of every story where the mystery of the plot, as it struggles its way to surface, reveals something about where we have been and what we have gone through or what we could imagine.

8:56 Third and best of all, there are lingering lessons that can be spun out of a story that span the ages of time. Doesn't matter if it happened back in the ancient days, but today it still has a relevance about it. Stories are timeless in that sense. I think the best stories really need very little explanation, sometimes none at all. I remember as a little boy sitting at the feet of my granddad as he would spend stories of his childhood and of his growing up years. And I remember sitting with my dad at leisure times and hearing about his past. Let me encourage all parents to tell your stories to your offspring. It's one of the ties that hold families close are the ties of shared stories and events that brought you to where you are today.

9:56 Jesus was a master storyteller. I've never heard a great preacher who couldn't tell a great story. He was the best. And in the 13th chapter of Matthew, he even reveals that he preferred the use of storytelling in his sermonic style. Jesus was not one who preached abstract messages or held congregations by some kind of complicated explanation. He spoke of a farmer on a hillside who was sowing seed. He would speak of the fish of the sea or the trees of a forest. And in this case, verse 3 of chapter 13, he used parables. He spoke many things to them in parables. Parabole, meaning to cast or to throw something.

10:53 Parase alongside. You place something alongside something else for the purpose of illustrating the unknown. You take the familiar and you cast it alongside the unfamiliar, and the familiar becomes clear and understandable. A parable does that. See again in chapter 13, verse 24, he presented another parable. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to, what's he doing? Well, he is comparing a man who sowed good seed, that's familiar, with the kingdom of heaven, and by explaining those two together, drawing those two together, he helps us understand the kingdom of heaven better. Again, in verse 31, he presented another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. As a matter of fact, verse 34 tips his hand.

11:52 All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables. In fact, he was not talking to them without a parable. I would love to have listened to him teach. I make it a point to be a student of communicators. I watch them, I listen to them, I read them, I study them, and Jesus is the master. This remarkable ability to take something as mysterious and profound, even invisible, as the kingdom of heaven, and to liken it into something you could put in your hand or hold in your arms. It's a remarkable skill. Genius. no one wants to live in a house without windows but I don't think I've ever met anyone who wanted to live in a house that was nothing but windows sermons that have no light coming in are like the house with no windows but sermons that lack substance and are made up of only one story after another aren't that helpful either somewhere between the two we have to have a balance and Jesus was a master at it throughout the sermon on the mount he has been laying heavy truth on the reader or in in his case on the listener back to chapter 7 of Matthew I believe by now they are literally held in rapt attention he hasn't been telling a lot of stories but he's been using a lot of analogies you may remember some how about the log and speck in the first part of chapter 7 or the dogs and the swine in verse 6 and how about the gate which is wide and the gate which is narrow down in verse 13 or the tree in verse 18 that that cannot produce bad fruit because it's a good tree all of those are wonderful analogies designed to teach a deep message.

13:55 But when he comes to the conclusion of his sermon, he turns to a story. Because it is a familiar story to us, it seems, well, it seems so obvious that it wouldn't hold anyone's attention. But remember, when it was first told, it had never been heard before. In fact, I think it's part of the reason verse 28 reads, The result was that when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were amazed at his teaching. Believe me, they had slept through many a scribe's sermon. They had been bored many a time as the Pharisees went on and on with their long discourses about their laws and requirements and doctrines of Judaism. but when Jesus stood up and broke a new a new path into their minds with the telling of a story he had their attention a.t. Robertson says they listened spellbound to the end and were left amazed a buzz of astonishment ever had that happen in a sermon held and wrapped attention right to the end and when you finish there was kind of a buzz of astonishment around you.

15:14 That's the way it was then. What was it that became the capstone of the great Sermon on the Mount? It was a story. A story about one who hears the words of Christ and acts on them compared to a wise man who builds his house upon a rock and rains come and floods and winds blow and burst against the house, but it doesn't move because it's founded on a rock.

15:46 And while you compute that, he tells of the opposite side. Another man building a similar house, but the foundation is of sand and the same kind of storm comes and the same kind of rain and wind, and yet it falls. In fact, he says in 27, great was its fall. first of all notice the identical elements the two main people in the story are builders they're building the same thing just two different ones two different builders are building two different houses they aren't literal houses you and i know that because of what he says at the beginning of the story. He who hears these words of mine and acts on them is like this person, is to be compared to one who was wise. So what we have here is not literal houses and literal rock and sand, but the building of a philosophy of life. It has to do with the establishment of values and making decisions that relate to time and eternity. Don't miss that.

17:02 second I noticed that there is a life situation that is identical for both both experience a storm in fact there are two identical verses 25 and 27 as they describe the storm both say the rain descended the floods came and the winds blew and burst against that house now obviously Jesus is not telling a story about how to avoid bad weather that's not the point or how to miss life's storms neither man misses the storm on the contrary he's telling us not how we can find a safe setting but life isn't safe there are storms and they are inevitable Oh.

18:00 he's not talking to fathers about how to find a non-threatening climate where you can build a place that would be easy for your family to live. I like what Earl Palmer wrote. He's not telling fathers how to build roads for their children, but how to build children for the roads. Good word. There are also contrasts in this story. the builders may be doing the same work and they may be facing the same storm that's lashing against their house but they themselves are a study in contrast builder number one is different from builder number two builder number one has not only heard the words of Christ he has what? acted he has done something about it builder number one has been involved in the truth he's been hearing interestingly builder number two has heard the very same thing that builder number one has heard but the second builder simply heard the things that christ had said You know what exposed the reality of the builders?

19:30 The storm. It'll do it every time. all of us in this human race marching from earth to heaven or hell, all of us can pretty much live pretty much the same kind of life. Given the same breaks, given the same kind of parents, given the same kind of life situations, take away the storms, we can pretty much rock along and make it fairly well on our own. But there's something about a storm that brings us to our knees. For some, it's a prison experience.

20:16 For some, it's the news from the doctor that the x-ray does not look good, that the growth is larger. For a few, it's a death, a sudden and unexpected death. Joseph Parker, for many years, was at the city temple. His ministry was somewhat in the shadow of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. They both ministered in the Victorian era. Joseph Parker, however, was different from Spurgeon in that he wandered a bit during his ministry. As one biographer says, there was a time when he gave too much attention to the modern theories of the day. men were reasoning and speculating and undervaluing the word of God and he found himself as he read their books and mingled in their meetings losing his grip intellectually upon the great fundamental doctrine of salvation alone through the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ but he tells us that there came a time in his life the most awful sorrow that he ever had to bear, his devoted wife of many years, whom he loved tenderly, was stricken, and in a few short hours died.

21:40 Died. Imagine that. He was unable to share his grief with his colleagues. And walking through the empty rooms of his home with a breaking heart, his misery felt for some footing in modern theory, and there was none. he writes, And then, my brethren, in those hours of darkness, in those hours of my soul's anguish, when filled with doubt and trembling and fear, I bethought myself of the old gospel of redemption, alone through the blood of Christ, the gospel I had preached in those earlier years, and I put my foot down on that and my brethren I found firm standing.

22:40 I stand there today and I shall die resting upon the blessed glorious truth of salvation alone through the precious blood of Christ. You know what I thought of when I read that? My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ, the solid rock, I stand. All of the ground is sinking sand. Does that mean I won't have storms? That is not what the story says. Both men had storms. The storms are inevitable and often sudden. I was sitting in an elders meeting last Thursday evening with our other pastors and elders. The room was full. Conversation was rather intense.

23:39 And suddenly the door pulled open and in walked a security guard. He asked for one of our ministers to step outside. Both were grim-faced as I watched them through the window. Buck, one of our associate pastors, walked back in and sat down silently. We stopped our discussion to hear what he had to say, and he informed us that one of our dear support staff, a man in his young 20s, had been killed just minutes before. my mind whirled i don't know if you have a churning place mine is right below the the rib cage on the left side my churning place began to erupt my heads began to swim partly because i had been at the church early that morning around 6 30 i started early knowing that the day would be full and i met one of our members here who was setting up a breakfast for our prisoner fellowship group and we talked briefly.

24:45 She and I shared a few remarks, and then I went on to my study, and I saw Ron, who was emptying the wastebaskets and beginning to vacuum, and I spoke quietly with him. He said a few kind words, and that night before sundown, Ron is dead. Dead. Gone. Thankfully his hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. What if it had been you? Don't tell me your age. Don't tell me how great your health is.

25:29 Don't even mention the longevity of your family and how long a life so many have lived back in the past. You live every breath as if it were your last. the storm will come, the wind will blow, the flood will rise, and it will beat upon your house, and if you haven't a rock to stand on, you will plunge.

25:55 If not by death, by some awful time of discouragement and despair, you will have nothing to fall back on if you haven't Christ. I think I realized it anew, as I have not in years, how brief life is, how fragile, how essential it is to be ready. you observe the opposite results, don't you? You saw that, didn't you? Verse 25, it did not fall. Verse 27, it fell, and great was its fall. What are the underlying principles of this story? There are many, but let me focus on two of them. First, if you are just hearing the truth, you're not prepared for life's storms.

26:51 if you're just hearing the truth, you're not preparing yourself for life's storms. It was the man who acted upon them who was blessed with a rock beneath him. that's why I have never placed a great deal of emphasis, in fact, hardly at all, on church attendance.

27:13 I care much more about truth absorption. Crowds mean nothing. Mean nothing when it has to do with absorbing the truth. Great, vast crowds can be just as preoccupied as one can imagine. I watched during the Billy Graham crusade, come to think of it. I sat up in the stands and at times chose my seating rather carefully so I could watch the crowd as I also prayed for and watched the evangelist whom we all admire. Interesting crowds at crusades. Some were tossing a ball back and forth. Some had brought a meal and were eating it. Some were thumbing through the books and rummaging around. some changed seats for some reason four or five times. I guess it got a little hot where they were.

28:10 But I wondered as I sat in the crusade how many are hearing and plan to do something about what they hear? what do you do about what you hear that's one of the underlying principles if you're just hearing it you're not preparing for the storms they will burst on your house trust me the slats are going to get kicked out from under you the rug will be pulled without Christ you have nothing to fall back on your son may be next I hope not. Mine may be. I pray not.

28:54 But storms haven't stopped, nor will they ever. The second is this. If your foundation is sure, no storm will cause your life to collapse. It may jolt you. There may be a whole lot of shaking going on. You may feel the blows. You may get wet in the rain. But your house will stand. you know what you have to do you have to make it personal you have to say to yourself the man is talking to me he's got me in his scope or better still the lord has me in his sights clarence mccartney for so many years a pastor of first presbyterian church in pittsburgh Pennsylvania left a legacy of many many works one of them includes a wonderful story that illustrates what I've been saying it's the story of an artist named Steinberg who found a young gypsy girl struck with her beauty he brought her into his studio to watch him paint and at times to model for some of his work on the canvas she frequently would sit for him at a particular time in his life he was at work on his masterpiece, Christ on the Cross, was its name. The girl used to watch him work on this painting. One day she said to him, he must have been a very wicked man to be nailed to a cross like that.

30:34 No, said the painter, no. On the contrary, he was a very good man. The best man who ever lived, he died for others. The gypsy girl looked up at him and asked, did he die for you? Struck with her question, he backed out of it for a moment in his mind and thought, I don't know the one I'm painting. He gave his heart to Christ. Because for a moment, he moved from the color and the palette and the canvas and the scene of painting, he moved into the story. And he realized, in the words of this great sermon, I have heard, but I haven't acted upon it.

31:36 he could even tell her that he was the best one who ever lived. I was struck anew with the whole thought of this when I realized that there were a number of people who knew where the wicked gate was in the story of Bunyan's story of Pilgrim's Progress. A lot of people said, it's over there. They could even tell him where it was. But you think they had gone through it? No.

32:04 Some of you could fill out a form. I could give you questions and you could finish the answer. You could fill in the blanks and miss very few of them because you have been in church for years, but you have not acted upon the very truth you could put in in a test. Your life is founded on sand. and so let's put ourselves into the story like the artist the question is not am i building of course we are that's not the question the question is not will a storm hit someday trust me it's going to hit even if you never face physical ailments believe me you will die you will die the ultimate storm will hit you're building whether you know it or not and the storm will arrive when you least expect it so the questions i have for you are two number one is your foundation absolutely solid now you have to answer that for yourself it's a simple question is your foundation the foundation you're laying is it absolutely solid don't answer back about how many times you've been to church or how great you have been as a father or mother or tell me your moral or ethical life and lifestyle that will not hold up in eternity look at yourself before God the judge find yourself somewhere near the cross and ask have I ever placed my faith and trust in him who died for the sins of humanity if the answer is no I have not you're on sand you are not ready for eternity get ready Second, while we're getting into the story, is the house you're building eternally reliable?

34:09 Will life's storms level it or will it endure? the right foundation will last through any storm. That's the secret of a storm-proof life, having the right foundation. Now, you have listened very well, and I commend you. You've hardly moved.

34:33 Probably you thought, it was pretty simple stuff, Chuck. That's right. I'm just giving you what Jesus preached you may call it simple I call it profound I think any fool can complicate stuff but I think it takes a genius like Christ to put something as profound and deep and eternal as this into terms even a child sitting near you can understand This hasn't been new truth.

35:12 But let's face it, for some of you, it's been truth you've not acted upon. living in the same city with Joseph Parker was, of course, the greater light, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. What a prolific, prolific man. He began his ministry about 1855. He ended it in 1892, interestingly, the same year my father was born. From 1855 to 1892, every week of the year, a sermon was published by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Think of it. he died prematurely. He, by the way, had quite a backlog because after he died, they continued to publish a sermon a week, not repeating one of them for 25 years until 1917. We're talking prolific.

36:03 Perhaps 3,000 or more sermons masterfully presented by the Prince of the Pulpit. in one of them he writes there are tens of thousands to whom the preaching of the gospel is as music in the ears of a corpse they shut their ears and will not hear though the testimony be concerning God's own son and life eternal and the way to escape from everlasting wrath To their own best interests, to their own eternal benefit, men are dead.

36:43 Nothing will secure their attention to their God. To what then are these men like? they may fitly be compared to the one who built no house whatever and remained homeless by day and shelterless by night. When worldly trouble comes like a storm, those persons will not hear the words of Jesus and have no consolation to cheer them. When sickness comes, they have no joy of heart to sustain them under its pains. They feel its full fury, but they cannot find a hiding place.

37:23 And he concludes, they neglect the housing of their souls. Isn't that beautiful? They neglect the housing of their souls. And when the hurricane of almighty wrath shall break forth in the world to come, they will have no place of refuge. Let's bow our heads together. please for a moment just sit quietly It is my responsibility as a minister of the gospel to declare that the righteous wrath of the Most High will someday fall upon this world.

38:10 There will be no escaping. People will cry for the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them. There will be no escaping. the only sound you will hear from human throats will be the empty wailing sound screaming for relief. There will be no escaping. Only houses built on rock will be delivered. That is the truth. Some of you have sat through most, if not all, of the sermons on the Sermon on the Mount.

38:59 But today's the day you need to act upon what you've heard. Jesus will never ask you to quote for him sections of his sermon. He will look at your foundation. and see if it's rock. I plead with you today to place your hope in nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. because without that, there is no escaping. Come today. Give him the sin, the heartbreak, the whole story of your life.

39:50 That's why the Savior died. Give him all the stuff no one else can do anything about, including you. Tell him you trust him. You believe he died for you and rose from the dead. And you stake your whole eternity on that. then live like it. Our Father, we're reminded again, and in a sober manner, how eternal the truth of God from your word really is. forgive us our father for the full focus we give to everything but eternal truth for listening so carefully to the opinions of men and women for gauging our lives by the the clock of time and all the while ignoring the eternal dimension of life bring us to the rock our father and may we find there the satisfaction and fulfillment we've needed all our lives those today who have been building on sand Lord stop them in the process bring them to yourself even if it takes a storm to do it that they may know the joy of sins forgiven and the pleasure of eternal life with you.

41:27 In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. The preceding message, The Simple Secret of an Unsinkable Life, was copyrighted in 1988 and the sound recording was copyrighted.