Faith in Life and Death
Those who dare to reflect on their lives, even casually, will acknowledge a gap between the standard of behaviour they see as ideal and the standard of behaviour they achieve. This is particularly true for people of faith who accept that God sets the standard. For us, there is the tendency to recognize the divine standard, but dismiss it as unattainable. Then we establish our own human standard, which takes into account our weaknesses. Finally, we live by a lower standard yet which not only takes our weaknesses into account, but accepts them as inevitable.
True disciples choke on this model. We acknowledge our inability to live consistently by God’s standard, but we can’t accept our behaviour that falls short of it either. There are too many passages in the New Testament which link hearing God’s voice and doing what He says. Jesus tells a little parable about this between verses 47 and 49 of Luke 6. He said: “I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When the flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.” (Luke 6:47-49 NIV)
Too often, we oversimplify this to mean that those who “build their spiritual house on Jesus” will survive the storm while those who build on anything else will experience destruction. That may be fine for a young Sunday School class, but there’s a disturbing depth to the parable that this simple gospel application, however appropriate, misses.
The difference between the two men is their response to the teaching of Christ. They both built houses. They built them in the same location. They both experienced the same storm. Superficially, the houses were indistinguishable. Spiritually, we build our lives. We build them in communities of Christians. (After all, we all came to Jesus and heard His words.) We all experience the same challenges and troubles. Superficially, our lives are indistinguishable. The difference is that some lives are built on the foundation of acting on the words which we heard, while others are built on the mere act of hearing the words without putting them into practice.
As we reflect on our lives, we need to focus on our response to the words of Jesus. This parable forces us to consider our obedience to Jesus. Do we really respond profoundly to His truth and build our lives on that, or do we accept His teaching as pleasant platitudes and build our lives on human philosophies.
Faith is important, but the foundation of faith is more important. Faith in an unworthy object will result in ultimate destruction. To be any use at all when the judgment of God falls, faith must be in Christ alone. Human philosophies, ethical systems and cultural values may be beautiful to consider and discuss. They may seem to be worthy concepts to challenge or defend. In the end, they are irrelevant; they are vanity. They have no strength to withstand the onslaught of God’s anger against unresponsive, rebellious, proud, hard hearts.
This simple little parable demands us to pay attention to the way we live. If our faith affects the way we build our lives, it will affect our survival in the storm. Conversely, we might well ask ourselves if our stated faith does not make a difference to the way we live, why should we expect it to make a difference after we die.
James summed it all up when he wrote: “ Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22 NIV)
Ron Hughes
© August 2007
