Blog Post 42// Sand or Rock?

Studies show that in America last year, one out of 10 homes were damaged by extreme weather. One out of 10, over 14 million homes in America were damaged by extreme weather.

Of course, we know some of the usual suspects:

Tornadoes and hurricanes and floods.
Extreme cold in an area not ready for it.

This opens our eyes to see how fragile our civilization really is. All it takes is one flood. All it takes is one event.

Now, that's physical storms. We also know there are other kinds of storms, other situations, deals that we banked on that all of a sudden go south. Relationships that end unexpectedly. People that we love out of nowhere are stricken by disease and die. There are medical emergencies. Things are awesome for one moment and then all it takes is one text message, and then they’re not. It’s all storms.

Jesus says in Matthew 7 that the thing that determines how a home, how a family, how a life does in a storm, is what that house is built upon.

That house that looks amazing, the one everyone's jealous of when they see the photos of it, all it takes is one storm to realize that that place, that life was built on sand.

Many of the lives that we ourselves crave have no substance to secure them to safety in the stormy times.

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Matthew 7:24

There are two things here: hearers and doers!

It’s not enough to check a church box. In fact, simple scripture memory alone will still fall short (You’re still memorizing Psalm 128, yes?)

But it’s in the knowing AND the doing.

The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. Matthew 7:25

Jesus says the man who knows the Word AND does my Word, what I tell him to do, that man will still face the storm. It will still beat on his house. The wind will still rage. The difficulties will come. But it will still be standing. HE will still be standing. He will not be quickly broken.

It’s a famous teaching of Jesus.

Did you know that many theologians suspect and believe that Jesus based that parable on Psalm 128 and that the promises contained in Psalm 128 are, in fact, what Jesus had fueling His imagination as He took that scenario and played it out in the lives of the two different homes, the two different families?

I know you want a home, a life, a marriage, a family, and a legacy built on rock, not on sand.

Well, then, you’ve come to the right place, Psalm 128.

In a day of confusion, in a day of distortion, in a day where people and culture are basing things on their feelings and not on what God has to say, we choose to turn our attention to what inspired Jesus to write one of His best parables.

That, my friends, is Psalm 128. Read it again and tomorrow we will dig into it.

Psalm 128

A song of ascents.

1 Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to Him.

2 You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours.

3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

4 Yes, this will be the blessing for the man who fears the Lord.

5 May the Lord bless you from Zion; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

6 May you live to see your children’s children—peace be on Israel.