PASTOR'S MESSAGE

 

Our Rock of Refuge

Matthew 7:15-29

 

It was a very dark night and Scott was standing by the side of the road hitch hiking in the middle of a storm. The night was rolling and no cars passed.  The storm was so strong, he could barely see a few feet in front of him.  Suddenly he saw a car come towards him and stop.  Without thinking about it, Scott got into the car and closed the door.  But then he realized that nobody was behind the wheel.  The car started to slowly move forward.  Scott looked at the road and saw a curve up ahead.  Scared to death, he started praying, and just before he hit the curve, a hand appeared through the window and moved the wheel.  Paralyzed with shock, Scott watched as the hand appeared every time right before a curve.  Finally Scott gathered up his strength, jumped out of the car and ran to the nearest town.  He ran into a cantina and started telling everybody about the horrible experience he has just gone through.  And everybody was amazed at his story.  Shortly after that, two guys walked into the same cantina.  When they saw Scott sitting there, the one guy said to the other:  “Look Tom, that's the idiot who climbed into the car while we were pushing.”

            Although he didn’t really realize what was going on, Scott found a refuge in the storm – a place of rescue where he was safe and sound.  Dear friends, isn’t that what we all need?  When the storms of life assail us, whether it be pressures at work or conflicts at home, medical emergencies or threats to our wellbeing, whether it be depression or frustration, or the normal stresses of day-to-day living, we all need a place of refuge, where we can be safe.  And thankfully we have just such a place – God Himself is our Rock of Refuge, who shelters and protects us in all the storms of life.

            That’s what the Lord Jesus was talking about in our Gospel lesson for today, when He told the parable of the wise and foolish builders.  The picture that Jesus uses here in our text is that of two men who decide to build their homes in the bottom of a dry, sandy riverbed, like those you find in the dry, arid Southwest.  Most of the time there’s no water in them.  But when the rainy season hits, a flash flood can strike without a moments notice, and anything that's left in that dry riverbed will get washed away in raging torrent and dashed to pieces.  Such is the scene that Jesus painted in our text. 

Now keep in mind, both the wise man and the foolish man built in the same spot.  It’s a reminder that the storms of tribulation and the flash floods of pain and sadness strike everyone, whether they’re wise or foolish, Christian or non-Christian.  Sickness, bereavement, financial loss, old age, and failure come to all of us regardless of who we are or what we know.  The difference in our text, though, is that the wise man, before he built his house dug down deeply into the sand until he hit solid bedrock.  Then he cleared the sand away and built his house on the sturdy foundation that the rock provided.  The foolish man, on the other hand, didn’t bother to go through all that labor and sweat and toil.  He simply erected his structure right on the topsoil.  So when the winds and the rain came his house was completely swept away!

Let me ask you, which of those two builders are you most like?  Do you build your life on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, putting your faith in Him alone for salvation, trusting in Him with full confidence in all things?  Or do you build your life on the sinking sand of earthly treasures and temporal pleasures?  Sadly my friends, as foolish as it is, by nature we all do the latter.  For instance, when we give into the license of the world, thinking that we can do whatever we want.  The motto of this world is:  If it feels good, do it.  Anything from illicit sex and overindulgence in food and alcohol to giving into the passions of anger and dishonesty, lying and cheating one another.  That’s what Jesus was talking about, when He said:  “BY THEIR FRUIT YOU WILL RECOGNIZE THEM.”  Such licentiousness is like bad fruit.  In fact, the word Jesus used in our text literally means:  ‘rotten and decayed.’  And that’s what lust and immorality does to our soul.  It does not provide a solid foundation for our life.  Instead, when the storms of adversity come along, we have nothing to cling to the house of our life gets swept away.

On the other extreme is the deadly quicksand of legalism.  This is the faulty foundation of works-righteousness, where we mistakenly think that we can save ourselves by the Law, believing that we can somehow do enough good to cover up our evil nature.  It’s the pseudo-gospel of false religions like the Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons, who deny the deity of Christ and like the false prophets in our text, teach a righteousness that is supposedly attained by following certain rules.  As Jesus said, they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, who subtly seek to draw us away from God’s grace in Christ.  And not only do these false prophets knock on our doors, they may also enter our homes via the airwaves. 

That’s why we need to guard against the misleading dream of legalism, for there is no way we can ever do enough good to save ourselves our make ourselves pleasing in God’s sight.  If that’s the foundation upon which we build our lives, then our house will fall with a great crash.  For it is the fall into sin and death.  As Jesus said to those false teachers in our text:  “I NEVER KNEW YOU.  AWAY FROM ME, YOU EVIL-DOERS.”  He used there the typical formula the Rabbis used to banish someone from the synagogue.  Only in this case, He’s talking about the ultimate banishment.  If we erect our lives on the sinking sand of legalism or license, we will wind up banished from God’s presence eternally in hell!

            Fortunately for us, Jesus the Master Crasftsman came to rescue us from all of that.  Since we cannot build our lives without making a shambles of them, Jesus the Master Builder has built for us the perfect home, a mansion in the heavens.  And He paid for it with the price of His blood, shed on the cross, to erase our every guilty stain.  In other words, He has completely rebuilt us as His righteous, holy, forgiven saints, not because of anything within us, but simply because of His merciful grace.

            This past week at our Mary/Martha Bible study, we were discussing the passage from Ephesians, where Paul says that Jesus has purchased us as His bride, to present us before God as a radiant church, without any wrinkles or blemishes.  We noted that by nature that’s not what we look like, but that’s how God sees us in Christ.  In Baptism He has cleansed us of every spot and stain, and made us pure and perfect in His eyes.  And when I said that, Margquerite Sheeder smiled and said:  “That’s what you call our Extreme Makeover.” 

            Indeed, dear friends, that’s what Jesus has given us in the Gospel – the extreme makeover of forgiveness and salvation.  He pours it out to us in our Baptism, and continues to renew it in us every time we read His Word and feast on His Holy Supper.  That’s why instead of building our lives on the shallow, sandy pleasures of the flesh all around us, we need to daily dig down deeply into God’s Word where we can fix our sure hopes on  the firm and steady rock of Jesus’ love, His unchanging promises of forgiveness and life, knowing that then our faith will be like an enduring house that will stand the tests of time!

They call her the miracle girl.  She’s the 8-year-old who was left for dead, buried beneath a pile of stones in a trash dumpster after she was brutally raped.  Once she was found by police officers, who are being hailed as heroes, the first thing she did was ask to see her pastor.  That’s the word from the little girl’s godmother, Lisa Taylor, who told CNN, “She stated that she wanted a pastor to pray with her so she could thank God for saving her life.”

 

What an amazing story of faith.  That little girl obviously knew that Jesus Christ was her only rock of refuge, the shelter in the midst of the terrible storm of trial and tribulation she was going through.  She believed that He was the only solid foundation on which to build her life, and she wanted to thank and praise Him for rescuing her.  My friends, in the same way may the Holy Spirit fill us with a strong, confident faith in Jesus our Rock of Refuge as we look to Him alone to see us through the storms of life, knowing that some day He will bring us to that Mansion He has built for us in heaven.  For His name’s sake.  Amen.

    

                   

           

Archived Sermon