THE DANGERS OF 2007
A Sermon on How To Build For the Future
TEXT: "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock." --Matthew 7:24
You are going to be given 8,760 of them. The person sitting next to you will get exactly the same. Every person here will be given exactly 8,760 of them. Have you got a lot of money? You’ll still get only 8,760 of them. Are you financially strapped? You’ll get 8,760.
Of course, I’m talking about hours. Beginning tonight at 12:01 you’ll start using them. Hours make up the building blocks of this new year now under construction and we are all absolutely equal in the gift God has given each of us. In 2007 we will all be given -- 8,748 hours. You can do with them what you will. The only difference is what we choose to do with the gift God has given us.
And what an important difference this is. Given absolutely the same set of circumstances, we can respond in a wide variety of ways. Same situation -- different interpretation. Same amount of time each of us is given, same world we live in, same people we work with -- but what a different result will emerge from the way we respond to what God has given us.
This new year God is giving us is our opportunity to build something lasting and meaningful. That is God’s assignment to us. There are all sorts of choices, all kinds of opportunities. We will have a new year in which to build. Don’t mess it up!
There are dangers in 2007. Be careful, you may need to put on your hard hats. Danger number one is our excessive determination to hold on to the past year. There is danger that we will let the past have too much voice in building this brand new year.
By its very nature, building is a future tense assignment. Did you hear Jesus’ parable in the scripture reading this morning? Jesus’ main point is the wise builder’s awareness of what the future might bring, and the foolish builder’s disinterest in the future.
In the original Greek of this passage, the language conveys the understanding that the foolish man not only BUILT his house on the sand, but that he KEPT ON BUILDING it there. Do you see the picture? The dumb guy just kept on building his house on the sand. He was tied to that sandy site by the past, despite its bad record as a place to build. He was never willing to move away and try another place.
That is a genuine danger that we will encounter in building a new year. The ghostly hand of the past reaches out and knocks down anything that we try to build. It may represent loved ones whom we have lost. It may represent places we’ve lived that we like better than the present one. It may represent jobs we’ve had that have been taken away. It may represent children who have gone with the wind.
There are a thousand things reaching into our lives from the past -- reaching out to grasp the reins of our life. All of these ghosts represent the things that will always be there in our memory and that is all right. But these ghosts from the past are trying to take control of our lives that we are trying to build in 2007, and that’s not all right.
I remember the story about the arrival of Hernando Cortes. In the year 1519 Cortes landed with his 650 men on the east coast of Mexico. Once they were ashore and all the supplies had been unloaded, Cortes ordered the ships burned. When hardships would develop on the expedition, he did not want men whose attention was centered on easy trips back to Spain. That little company of men stood and watched those ships burn, knowing that any return to Spain would have to depend on new ships being built or new expeditions sent out.
In a symbolic way, every December 31 is a time when old ships are burned, and new adventures are begun. And yet there are so many people today who will stand looking back across an ocean of years or miles of time. They are looking back at people or places that won’t be again. But they seem unaware that even as they stand looking back, they are standing on the shore of a whole new continent of time and an opportunity grand beyond description, if only they will claim it!
Someone has said, "Those who cannot forget the cold hand of the past are condemned to repeat it."
Listen, it is tomorrow that we are going to be living in. If we want tomorrow to be any better than today, we have to plan for it. It will be just as miserable and as hopeless as we choose to make it. It will be just as joyful and exciting as we choose to make it.
I have the opportunity to see this in so many people who come to live in the Parkview where I live. Many of them come from nice homes and loving families and a beautiful comfortable life. But things are not the same at the Parkview. It is a hard adjustment to make. I’ve seen many adjust and make a new life for themselves. But there are also many who look back at the burning ships which are gone forever. They are miserable. They never see the new world that can open to them.
Let me give you another application that is relevant to our church. Central Christian Church has a fascinating history. There have been grand moments in the past that were exciting and triumphant. One dramatic photograph that everyone has seen was taken in this sanctuary. It shows a Sunday worship service in which every seat is taken and even the balcony is full. Significantly, the picture shows people walking down the aisle at the invitation to take the minister’s hand and unite with the church.
There are some people for whom this memory it so strong that they cannot accept the present. That was a grand day, but time has moved on. Our society has changed; most of the people in the picture are now deceased. That past can never be recalled.
But that is not something to be discouraged about. We face new and different challenges. I have often thought that if we were a brand new congregation -- if we were the nucleus of a newly organized church -- we would be rejoicing at the scope of our accomplishments and the strength of our leadership. We would be celebrating and dancing in the aisles at the bright future instead of the dead past.
How does this truth apply to your own life? There is a person here today facing a new year without the one that was loved for so many years. The memories of the good life flood their consciousness -- so much so that they are not able to build 2007 into a year that is bright with promise. The ships of the past are all burned -- but they stand looking longingly across the ocean for things that cannot be. And they’ve turned their backs on the opportunities and adventures of 2007.
There is a person here today that cannot quite erase the memory of a disastrous failure. They curse their fate. They are so colored by what has happened to them that the crimson stain of yesterday runs like dye into tomorrow. 2007 is doomed before it starts.
There is a person here today who has been badly abused and hurt. Even though the memory of yesterday is a painful nightmare, they cannot let it go. It cannot be forgotten. They stand in the darkness stubbornly trying to make life something it is not and can never be. "If only things had been different -- if only things had been different." But they weren’t different and they can’t be different.
Dear people, if you try to build your life on the past, you are building on sand. And no matter how hard you work at building your house on sand your house will fall. The new year is a reminder that you CAN build anew -- on a new foundation -- you can build on the rock.
Now let me tell you danger number two. It is that we will be satisfied with too little as we build the new year.
The provocative detail the Jesus leaves out of his parable of the builders is this: why was the foolish builder content to build his house on such a questionable foundation? Why did he settle for so little? Did the past tie him to that one site? Was it an inexpensive place, one that cost him nothing? Why did he settle for the sandy place?
Why do WE settle for so little? Given these 8,748 hours, given these opportunities, given the fact that we are going to be living in this house we build, why do we settle for so little? The ironic point in the parable of the builders is that it takes just as much hard work to build a house on a poor foundation as it does on the good foundation. The work involved is basically the same; the result is so vastly different.
Why did the foolish builder do it? The answer is that he made the choice. We make our choices. When you awaken in the new year tomorrow, who will determine what kind of year 2007 will be? You know the answer: YOU DO THE CHOOSING.
Who says that you must build your house on the sand? You are in charge of your life. You are not a helpless victim of circumstances; you are in charge. The prodigal son decided on his own to leave home; the prodigal son decided on his own to come back home. The Good Samaritan decided to stop alongside that road between Jerusalem and Jericho. The wise builder decided to build his house on a rock.
There are 8,748 hours in 2007, hours that will be filled with all sorts of building material, jobs and assignments, friends and families, opportunities for learning, adventure and growth. You are going to build something with all this. And listen: one year from now you will be living in the house that you build.
The poet, Robert Sharpe, wrote this inspiring poem on this subject:
Isn’t it strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings,
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools,
a shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
And each must make
Ere life is flown,
A stumbling block
Or a stepping stone.
Which will it be for YOU in 2007?
