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Fix Your Thoughts On The Builder

            The key slides into the lock.  The familiar sound of the deadbolt pulling back draws up the corners of your smile half a degree.  The door gently swings open.  Ahhh!  You’re home.  It’s been a long day.  You can’t wait to kick off your shoes and slip on the slippers.  For some, a little pooch scampers around the corner swishing its tail faster than the eye can blink and panting for scratches behind its ears.  For others, a pampered but independent kitty peeks around the corner to give your arrival her approval and slinks back to curl into a ball of fur alongside the register.  For others, screeches of joy bounce off the hallway walls and ceiling just ahead of the toddler who leaps into your arms for a hug.  The coat swings onto the hanger it has grown accustomed to during these winter weeks.  So familiar is your path to the kitchen that you can make your way down the hall without flicking on a light.  The keys are dropped in the dish on the counter so that you know where they are and don’t have to haul in a dredging machine to dig them out of the bottom of your purse or crawl half-hopefully and half-hopelessly, backtracking to find them if missing.  In short order a glass of wine sparkles its red glow across the end table as you plop into your favorite chair and elevate your feet.  Ah, it’s good to be home.  It might be a two bedroom condo near the airport or a single room studio on the lower Eastside or a Cape Cod in Bay View or an upper flat in Shorewood or Mickelson colonial in Tosa or a high rise apartment on Prospect or government housing or a dorm room.  But it’s home to you.

            In spite of the economic downturn, in spite of foreclosures, other than the homeless – and even they can check into a shelter – most people in our country have a place to live and a pretty decent place at that with running water (still unheard of in many parts of the world), with a thermostat (all we have to do is push a button up or down, and we get heat or air conditioning), and with lights that illumine every corner with a flick of a switch or turn of a dimmer.  Odd is the home without a microwave.  And if you don’t have an Internet connection at home and a digital flat screen TV, people wonder, “What’s the matter?”  Visit a friend who has rehabbed an old home, and your first thought is, “How can you survive with only one bathroom?”  So comfy, so nice, so easy do we have it that we never really give much thought to our house or apartment.  We take it for granted.  The only concern for most folks is how to get a place that’s bigger and better.

            But there are such things as disasters.  Jesus himself told us that those would occur to remind us that this world will one day end.  Tornados, hurricanes, flooding, or fire can wipe out a home in a flash.  Imagine being without shelter!  No matter what the climate, no matter where people live from the Caribbean to Crivitz, from China to Chicago, from Istanbul to Ixonia, we all need a house – and by that I do not mean a three-story, brick, Lake Drive mansion or a sprawling suburban spread, but anything from a cardboard box to an apartment to a double-wide to a palace, any kind of shelter.  I need a house.  You need a house.  Why?  Because a house, a shelter, whatever it is, provides protection from the elements, a place to be warm and dry, a place where we can be safe from enemies – either vicious animals, violent people, or viruses – a place to store and enjoy nourishment, a place for peace and quiet, a place of acceptance and no pressure to perform or seek approval, a place where we can just be ourselves.  Everyone needs that.

            But more importantly, more important than a house or some kind of shelter, we need a spiritual house, a spiritual shelter from the roaring lion who prowls around looking for people to devour, a place of safety for our souls, a place for nourishment of our faith, a place where there’s no pressure to perform or seek approval from God because we’ve already got it from him, a place where we can just be ourselves in the sphere of God’s love.  Everyone desperately needs that, or we’ll end up eternally homeless.  I need a spiritual house.  You need a spiritual house.

            There was a cartoon in the paper a week or so ago in which a character said to another, “I’d like you to meet my friend Bob.  He works in construction.”  The other character asked Bob, “What do you build?”  “Houses.”  “From the ground up?”  “Ceiling down.”  (“Pearls before Swine” by Stephan Pastis 1-24-09).  Ever get involved in building your own home?  A few of you have, but many have not.  Ever watch a building project?  Last summer I could glance out my office window and watch the massive cranes swing huge chunks of Spancrete over the fourteenth floor corner to finish off the Staybridge Hotel across the street.  Construction projects are interesting.  But in every construction project the key is the builder.  The writer to the Hebrews tells us that the same is true for our spiritual house, for building our spiritual life and our connection with God - Fix Your Thoughts On The Builder.

His character

            If you had the means to build a house and did not have the skills to do it all by yourself, you’d have to look for a builder.  Maybe you’d check online.  Maybe you’d drive through the neighborhood and ask those who recently completed a building you think looks nice or check with realtors to get their opinion or rely on word of mouth.  But one of the most important things you’d consider before hiring a builder is not so much the portfolio of the buildings he has built, but his character.  You don’t want to get taken to the cleaners.  Because if you did, you’d not only be out several thousand smackeroos, but you’d be afraid that he’d bilk others, too, and you wouldn’t want it on your conscience that somehow you had a hand in that.

            God used Moses to build the spiritual house of Israel.  Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future.  Flying over his resume with a bird’s eye view, we’d have to say that he was one of the shining lights of the Old Testament.  Scripture says, “No prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face … For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel” (Deuteronomy 34:10-12).  Yes, Moses was quite a character, but his was not a flawless character.  He carried a murder rap over his head and demonstrated on more than one occasion that he thought he was smarter than God.

            Why does this Bible writer even bother telling us about Moses?  What’s the connection with building a spiritual house today?  Well, the writer of this letter knew that the folks he wrote to were under a lot of pressure.  Many of them had come out of Judaism and had become Christians, but the government had declared Christianity to be illegal while Judaism remained legal.  Because of pressure from government and neighbors they started thinking that moving their worship of Jesus undercover would be the better part of wisdom, and that they should go back to following the rules God gave the Israelites through Moses.  They thought that would put them in a safe and nurturing spiritual house, in a less pressure-packed, persecution-producing situation.  The writer of this letter tossed up a huge stop sign, “Don’t go there!  Don’t go back!  Moses was great, and God used him in a mighty way, but Jesus is greater.  You need a better builder than Moses if you want to live in a safe and nurturing spiritual house.”

            Do you sense what they were going through, or is your life so cushy, so comfortable that your beliefs have never been challenged?  Do you know what it’s like to be made fun of for being a Christian?  What if we faced demands to give up our worship or prayer life?  Would we stand strong like Daniel in the lion’s den or like the apostles sent out by Jesus in the first century?  Could we do it?  Do we have the courage to tell the truth, to stand up for what we know is right – not just moral values that living together outside of marriage is sin, that porn ruins marriages and degrades women, that babies need baptism, that homosexual thoughts and actions are wrong, but also that all religions are not on the same level, that the Bible is the only way God communicates with us, that the Bible is all true, and that Jesus is the only way to heaven?  Wouldn’t it be great to live in the security of a safe spiritual house where we can get our confidence and courage nourished every day to hold onto those truths and confess them boldly?  Fix Your Thoughts On The Builder.

            What kind of references does our builder have?  What is his character?  Can I trust him to keep his word?  Is he kind?  Does he listen?  “Why is that important?” you ask.  Because I have needs that need filling, and so do you.  I have wounds that need healing, and so do you.  I have felt left out in the cold, and you have, too.  We need a perfect builder if we are ever going to live in a perfect spiritual house.  Fix Your Thoughts On The Builder.  Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.  For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.  Jesus’ character is flawless.  He was and is God with divine authority in his words and works, without a speck of impure motives or actions on his resume or in his portfolio.  You can count on him to be the perfect builder.

His accomplishments

            If you had the means to build a house and did not have the skills to do it all by yourself, you’d have to look for a builder.  While the builder’s character is of utmost importance, you would still be very interested in his projects.  Does he go it alone?  Does he make use of other experts?  What has he built before?  What do his projects look like?  How did they turn out?

            Moses did a lot as the builder of the house of Israel, but he had a lot of help.  Aaron and Hur were his right and left hand men, literally.  His father-in-law gave him advice about organizational skills.  Joshua was his understudy.  Moses accomplished quite a bit in his lifetime, especially in leading the people of Israel to the promised land, but he himself never entered.  He set the foundation for their relationship with God and added walls but never finished the project.

            What kind of builder do you and I need to build our relationship with God, our spiritual house?  Can we do it on our own?  Some of us have tried and made a mess of things.  We want to be secure and nourished, but we fall all too easily into thinking “Jesus-and” because we live in a hyphenated world – Jesus-and-my-faith, Jesus-and-my-behaving, Jesus-and-my-repentance.  But Jesus does not need any help.  This Bible writer’s entire letter is all about removing the hyphens.  Jesus alone is the foundation for our faith.  Jesus alone constructed the walls of our spiritual house with his own sweat and tears.  Jesus alone pipes the water of life into our souls.  Jesus alone lights up our spiritual house, chasing away the darkness of sin.  Jesus alone gives us the protective ceiling of his blood to cover us from the blazing rays of God’s anger.  Jesus alone fires up the furnace of our desire to love him back and share the warmth of his love with others.  Fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.  He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house … For every house is built by someone, but [Jesus] is the builder of everything … Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house.  And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.

            It turns out that when Jesus builds, he is building us.  Good thing!  I want to be a mansion, don’t you?  I want to be secure and to have people come to share in the security and nourishment of Jesus’ building.  I want people to hear the reason for my confidence in him.  But if I’m supposed to be a spiritual house, I also have to admit that some days it feels like the termites of sin have gnawed away all my support.  Some days I feel like my roof is leaking, and cold drafts of fear are seeping into my heart.  Some days I don’t even feel like a house at all, more like an old shed or a flimsy tent or a mobile home up on blocks, going nowhere with little protection from the storms of life.  How can I be a spiritual house?  How can you be a spiritual house?  Fix Your Thoughts On The Builder.  Look at his accomplishments!  Look at what he has done to build us!  Look at the eternal home he will give us!  Look how he adorns us and equips us with everything we need to live as a spiritual house and every reason to invite others in.

            As long we live in this world, you and I are under construction.  We’ve got cracks in our character that need caulking.  We’ve got beams that sag.  We’ve got the dry rot of sin and mold of shame sticking to our frame.  I’m not a finished product.  You’re not a finished product.  How can we survive the tornados and hurricanes and floods and fires of life?  Fix Your Thoughts On The Builder, on Jesus.  Read this fabulous letter to the Hebrews over and over.  Then turn a page or two in your Bible, and listen to the apostle Peter, “You … like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house … For in Scripture it says: ‘ See I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame’ ”(1 Peter 2:4-6).  Fix your thoughts on Jesus, and you’ll be able to say, “Ah, it’s good to be home!”  Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (http://www.gracedowntown.org/) on February 1, 2009

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Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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