The Parable of the Two Builders (Part 1)

Welcome and Introduction

Thank you for the word that you put on Nolan’s heart, and I just pray that you open up the eyes of our heart to receive it. Speak to the core of who we are, with how much you love us, through this message, in Jesus’ name.

Thank you, John. Good morning, everybody. John and I are continuing our series on parables, and this morning John and I have the privilege of speaking on the parable of the two builders. This particular scripture speaks to me because I am a builder. I wanted to come up here in a hard hat and high-vis and maybe interject some colorful language, just so you know I’m in construction, but I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. My wife’s saying no, don’t do it.

Reading Luke 6:47-49

So without further ado, I want to jump right into scripture. I’m reading from the book of Luke, chapter 6, verses 47 through 49, in the New Living Translation. It reads like this:

“I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teachings and then obeys me. It is like a person who builds a house on a strong foundation laid upon the underlying rock. When the flood waters rise and break against the house, it stands firm because it is well built. But anyone who builds a house without a foundation, when the flood sweeps down against that house, it will crumble into a heap of ruins.”

Teachings From the Sermon on the Mount

The teachings Jesus was referring to came from his Sermon on the Mount. This is one of the more well-known passages of scripture, where Jesus lays out for us some foundational, God-honoring practices. He draws up his conclusion by saying, “Hey guys, listen up. Obey. This is some good stuff here.”

You know that in his time he had crowds and throngs of people around him. We’ve spoken of this before: some were eager to hear what he had to say, some were there to witness his miracles, and perhaps some were just there to get fed. He was trying to tell the people, “Listen, there are messages I want to impart to you, with strong foundational kingdom of God scripture and living.”

Two Builders, Two Foundations

Jesus often used real-life imagery to illustrate his point. So here we have two builders. One builder is putting the work in. He’s putting his shovel to the ground, digging out the trenches, and building his home on a rock. Then there’s the one who isn’t putting the work in. He looks at the ground, tests it out a little, and says, “Ah, good enough. I’m going to build my house right here.” Perhaps it’s on the sand.

I remember this parable very well from childhood, because they taught us a song in Sunday school. “Jesus loves me, this…” Oh no, that’s the wrong song. What is it again? Yes, “The wise man built his house upon a rock.” Thank you. I was close. The song talks about the rising water and the floods that came down, and the house on the rock stood still, but the one on the sand got undermined and washed away. As a kid you think there are just two different places for homes. But to actually think about placing a house on a rock, there’s some work that needs to be done there.

Building on Bedrock in First-Century Galilee

I explored a little bit what this area would have been like. We’re talking first-century Galilee and Judea. In a lot of that region the ground was desert-like, hard and crusty because the sun would bake down on it. It actually seemed firm at first. But in that region they would often get heavy storms, and the water would come in torrents. If your home was built on what you thought was sturdy, the water would turn that clay-like substance into liquid. It would crumble underneath the house, and your house would collapse.

Builders knew this, so they would go in, carve away, dig down and find the bedrock, the heavy, hard limestone underneath the surface. Nowadays, if I want to dig a hole, I call up my Gary on the excavator, he pulls in, gives me a quote and digs it himself. In those days they didn’t have heavy equipment. They had rock picks, shovels and chisels. Getting down to bedrock was very labor-intensive work. And reaching bedrock still wasn’t enough. If the house was on a hill, they had to level the ground and terrace sections of it to build anything. You can’t just build on a slope, you have to chisel into the ground. So there was an amazing amount of what I call sweat equity involved. It was a process, but it was necessary in order to protect the home from the environment.

Hearing Is Not Enough

Jesus uses the two builders to illustrate that hearing his word is just not enough. There’s an application involved. You actually have to put it into practice to have a strong spiritual foundation.

I chose my scripture from Luke, but Matthew gives a more detailed account of the Sermon on the Mount. When you start to read it, you see a whole bunch of really good things. He teaches about the law, about being salt and light. He teaches about anger. Oh man, anger. He teaches about adultery, and he makes clear that adultery happens with your eyes as well as your actions. He goes on and says, “Listen, I want to lay down some authentic life practices for you that establish kingdom of God living, but you can’t pick and choose which ones you’re allowed to take.” These teachings aren’t merely suggestions.

Reading the Sermon on the Mount Again

I’d like to go through here and look at some of this stuff. “Oh yeah, that teaches me how to love my enemies. Yeah, I could do that. Sure. Give to the needy? Oh, I give really well. Oh wait a minute, it says I can’t blow my trumpet when I give. So I’ll tell you guys that I don’t give to the needy very well. Don’t worry about that.” You can go through this and, I’ll tell you like it is, there are some really hard things to read. God says it’s not going to be easy. He is the foundation we build our lives on, but he says we still have a job to do. We have to clear the soil. We have to pull out of our lives the stuff that looks mucky or silty, and do the work required.

I’ve looked at several of these teachings over the last few days. I was trying to come up with a message and asked, “Lord, how can I talk about the building?” He said, “Read the Sermon on the Mount.” I just kept hearing this over and over. Read it. So I read it, and I was really struggling. He said, “No, you’re going to read it again.” I think I’ve gone through it about five or six times. And he asked, “Does anything stick out to you?”

I wish I could sit up here and tell you that I’ve got it all figured out, that I’m nailing it, so just follow my example. But I don’t have it all figured out. Can I share one with you? “Stop judging others.” Ouch. Guilty. And the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That’s a really good one. I don’t have it all together, and I struggle. That’s my humanity coming forward to all of you. I struggle with a lot of things. But I know who I go to when I struggle. Jesus doesn’t leave me there. He might highlight things in my life, but he has never left me there. He’s always said, “Come on. You don’t have to do it alone. We can do it together.” His grace is immeasurable and his love is unmatchable. We can’t begin to think that we can match it, but he says, “I want to show you how to live a life that honors me,” and living this life is a foundational part of who we are as believers.

Christ Our Cornerstone

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:11, “For no one can lay any other foundation than the one we have in Jesus Christ.” Jesus is our cornerstone. He is the rock that we place all the other rocks of our life around. You know what’s important about a cornerstone? It’s the vital first piece. It aligns our home. He is our structural support, and that’s what’s vital.

Sometimes, through the Holy Spirit, he’s going to uncover things in your life and in mine, and he guides us through them. It’s not always easy. It might require some sweat equity. We may have to roll up our sleeves, right, Dave? Get to work. I love Dave here. This guy always has a smile on his face.

Underpinning the Foundation

Sometimes I think I have it figured out, that my foundation is pretty good, and then I’m reminded. Do you guys ever watch Holmes on Homes? Mike Holmes, do you remember this fella? He was a popular TV personality. He would often go into the basement of a home and look at the foundation, and if there was a structural issue, he’d say, “Well, we’re going to have to lift this foundation up. We’re going to have to underpin it.”

I don’t know if you know what underpinning is. It’s a process where you excavate under an existing footing, and you don’t get a lot of room to work in. You have to take the soil out, hydraulically lift the foundation, and pour concrete around it to reinforce it. This is hands-and-knees work. It can be fingernail-losing work. But sometimes it’s required.

So if you find the Holy Spirit nudging you in certain areas, don’t ignore it. If there’s an area where you struggle, I’d really encourage you to read the Sermon on the Mount and read it through a couple of times. Don’t just read it quickly. Read it, then ponder and pray, and read it again. You might find something sticks out to you, the way it stuck out to me. Then give yourself permission to admit when you’re struggling with that area, and then take action.

The Rock in the Garden

Sometimes the things in life that you think are the smallest turn out, once you start to uncover them, to be the biggest stumbling blocks. I have an analogy of a garden. I don’t know if you like to garden, but picture a garden that is beautiful, with rows, and one rock in the center. You’ve ignored it for a while because you thought, “I can grow around it. It’s not a problem.” But then you realize that when you grow around that rock, the roots don’t go as deep as they should. So one spring you put it on yourself to say, “You know what? I’m going to finally take care of this rock.” What looked like something small and in the way turns out, once uncovered, to be quite a big rock. It is necessary to remove it if you want those roots to go down deep.

You Don’t Do It Alone

So you don’t do it alone. We are a community of believers here, and we all love the Lord. Every Sunday morning we have people who line up at the front here who love to pray for you. We don’t do it out of obligation, and we don’t do it because we have to. We do it because God says this is what we do for each other: we pray. So if you need to confide in somebody, come on up. That’s what I’ve got.