“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” Psalm 127:1 ESV
Reflection: what does your spiritual house look like?
Jesus gives the famous parable of the house built on rock versus sand, a parable that most Christians know and understand, even from childhood. Let’s read it ““Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.””Matthew 7:24-27 ESV. Let me ask you, without looking back at what you just read, what is
the key message from Jesus here?
He actually gives us the clue right from the beginning. It is so easy for us to read something we have heard perhaps a thousand times before, and not really see what it says. Not really dwell on the key message, so that we can get “life from it”. Jesus is clearly not talking about physical house building, although His main principle comes from that. The message is about how to build a spiritual house that will stand the tests of life. That will not be shaken. In psalm 127, Solomon starts out with “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1a ESV. So, the idea of building a spiritual house is not new. But what does that mean, to let the Lord “build our house”?
Let’s go back again to what Jesus was teaching. He opens up with “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Matthew 7:24 ESV. Do you see it? The two dimensions of what it takes to let the Lord be the builder, is 1) The one who hear His word (“hearing” can be reading and studying, listening to a sermon, etc), and then 2) The one who does them, meaning that actually put the words into action. Living by them. That is what Jesus says is to be building on the rock; the “rock” being Jesus Himself.
Paul wrote about the Israelites of past “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” 1 Corinthians 10:1-5 ESV. They were entrusted with the truth, the Lord walked with them. They knew, yet many of them still rejected the truth, as many also did when the Messiah was revealed.
The message from long ago, written by king Solomon, still echoes thousands of years later. Still is true today. Solomon also wrote “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.” Proverbs 3:5-8 ESV. Notice his deep wisdom here, of not always using your head, your intelligence, but rather your heart in trusting the Lord. That is not easy for us, as we want to understand everything. It is clearly ok to think and to plan. “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 ESV.
So the question again for us to contemplate is what our spiritual house looks like. Are we letting the Lord build our houses with His materials, or are we using “rotten” materials from the world, building on sand?