The Resilient Foundation
Good morning.
It is a good morning.
We were worried about rain.
Didn't come.
But you came to church and we're happy to see you and happy to imagine all of you watching on live stream the many hundreds and thousands that are tuning in over the internet.
We appreciate that and you being with us.
We hear your voices and we sense your presence with us.
Second visit for me
And that's always pleasant to get invited back again.
It's refreshing and renewing and encouraging to know people want to see you again.
And I want to know, how was Christmas?
Did you have a good Christmas?
Amen.
We had, I don't know how many inflatables we had of all types in our neighborhood.
And I got up Christmas morning and I went outside.
And here was inflatable Santa Claus strung over the garage roof of our neighbor's house.
And I thought, what happened to him?
Soon our neighbor came out and collected him and took him in and packed him away for next year.
But those characters are all around our neighborhood this year and I assume they'll probably be back next.
But it's good to come back and as I said last time,
I've decided to preach however many more sermons I have to preach around the parables of Jesus.
We all like storytellers, and Jesus was the ultimate storyteller.
And he told his stories most articulately in parables.
They were like little short riddles.
And I thought as we look at these stories,
On the last Sunday of the year, it would be appropriate as we assess our life and we look ahead, considering that the parables are about the kingdom of God, the rule and reign of God.
We find ourselves at the end of Luke chapter 6, and Jesus is culminating a message to a large crowd of followers.
Many had come from the surrounding towns and villages, and they all wanted to hear him and to be healed of their diseases or fed because they had no food or given some kind of resource to replenish their lives.
This is the climax of his message, and he tells four stories, really short, dry, and somewhat humorous,
But the last story comes almost with a bite on it because it contains a very stern warning.
Some people have called this the scariest of all parables.
It's a warning to those who profess faith by calling Jesus Lord.
And so Jesus calls them out, as it were,
And he asks the question, what really are authentic Jesus followers as participants in the kingdom of God?
Who are they?
What do they do?
What do they look like?
So we pick up the scripture reading in the 46th verse of chapter 6 in Luke.
Jesus says,
but couldn't shake it because it had been well built.
But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.
When the river burst against it, immediately it fell and great was the ruin of that house.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
As you and I assess the past year while looking ahead to what might be just over the ridge, we think about the events in our family, our circle of friends, our church community, and how they have impacted us.
Am I different today than I was 12 months ago?
Am I growing in my relationship with Christ?
What does God have for me in 2026?
Those are all really important questions.
Questions we all ask in one form or another.
But there's a more basic, fundamental consideration that Jesus is calling attention to in this parable.
He first of all asks his
Listeners there.
Why do you call me Lord Lord?
And you don't do what I tell you.
He's speaking to those.
You pay attention to those words to those who claim to be followers.
And call him Lord.
It's like he's saying, do you realize that?
what it means to call me by that name?
Good question.
Question that we might ask ourselves, that I might ask, that I have asked myself this week many times as I've gone through this text.
As all his parables do, Jesus uses this little story to draw us in.
He personalizes his words
And he calls people to decision.
And he uses this image of building a house.
I don't know how many builders there are here or developers or contractors.
But in the first century in Palestine, you would only build in the summer months.
Because the topography is mostly desert.
And there's many what they call wadis, gulches, here we might say, or arroyos would be more appropriate to Southern California.
There were empty creek beds that were dry most of the year when there was little or no rainfall.
Kind of like Palm Springs.
If you've been out that way, you've seen the many ravines and arroyos that come down out of the mountains.
Most of the year,
There was little or no rainfall.
But when it rains, or when the snow melts in the mountains, all the water rushes like a tsunami into those creek beds.
And they become roaring rapids, and they sweep you away in a moment.
We've seen footage of that, haven't we, in the last couple of weeks as it's rained so severely here in Southern California.
So if you're building a house in the first century, you needed to find a location that would be strong and durable enough to hold your structure when those raging tempests would come.
And Jesus very articulately likens this to the assembling of a life plan.
We must find something strong,
and durable to withstand what life brings our way.
And the first task we have is to find a location where the environment, the weather, the soil, and the terrain are amenable to a sturdy structure.
Then we would build a foundation and finally a durable structure for our home.
First of all, we need to locate bedrock.
We must find the reliable plot that can withstand all the elements for our house.
Now, if you're like me and you like to travel, and we know that Jim and Becky are up in Northern California, I love to visit the Golden Gate Bridge.
I love to turn the slide.
There we go.
The Golden Gate Bridge.
How many of you have ridden or walked the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco?
If you haven't, you must.
That's one of my favorite places.
It's an architectural model of the 20th century.
I had a fellow in my church in Costa Mesa when I served there for so many years, Bill Kuhn.
Bill was on the crew of the Joseph Strauss Company that built that bridge.
It sits on the boundary of the North American and Pacific plates.
They had, first of all, to find bedrock so as to handle the surging waters of the Pacific Ocean as they swirled through the mouth of San Francisco Bay.
And they found them, and that is the foundation to which these enormous towers and that bridge deck is secured.
Jesus says in his parable, people in my kingdom are like one who digs deeply to locate solid ground, bedrock.
And those Pacific plates are indeed that bedrock.
Jesus gives another clue for our search.
This person is like someone who comes to me.
We're reminded of Psalm 18, which says, The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer.
My God is my rock in whom I take refuge.
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
The true follower is the one who comes to me, first of all.
We find the bedrock.
I remember the evening.
Gosh, I was thinking the other day, this is scary when you come to this point in life.
67 years ago, I was listening to Billy Graham
in the state fairgrounds in Sacramento, California.
And Billy Graham issued the invitation to come forward and trust Jesus Christ for the first time.
And I had no idea of all that would come after, but there was something that seized me on that evening.
I had found the bedrock for my life project.
Even though I was only 10, I found the bedrock.
It was there.
Once we find the stable location and we turn the slide, we find that we need to listen and build.
On the bedrock, we build the foundation for our house.
It's really critical to find the bedrock
and to secure whatever we do as we lay a foundation.
Again, we look at the Golden Gate Bridge.
I'm just obsessed with this structure.
Another view.
The strength in this foundation is tied to the rock.
And it's on that rock that they built
the foundations that you see in this picture, these enormous footings that hold the bridge deck in place.
You know what?
They say that in San Francisco, when the earth shakes at a level of 6.2 on the Richter scale or more, only the structures...
preoccupied with their foundations, will stand.
Only those structures which are secured to the bedrock will stand.
And they say one of the safest places in an earthquake to be in San Francisco if the earth shakes is on that bridge.
Now how many of you would be comfortable running to the Golden Gate Bridge when the earth shook?
I'm not sure I would be, but I'll tell you what, I had to see for myself.
Because it says that every cable and every piece of steel and every bolt is riveted to the foundation.
It's made to sway, picture this in an earthquake, made to sway 21 feet horizontally and 10 feet
vertically, without fracturing.
Because it's secured to the bedrock, to the foundation.
And when I visited the bridge a few years later and went down below to Fort Point, which you can see in that picture, I saw the way it was designed and constructed.
And it was inspiring.
Those enormous footings tied to the bedrock.
And then I remember going up the ramp and walking on the bridge.
Didn't feel an earthquake, but you could feel the bridge sway just a bit, probably with the auto traffic that was going across it.
My wife and my daughter refused to walk with us.
They wanted to drive across, and so they were part of the swaying of the bridge.
But we were on the bridge, and we felt the easy sway, but we stopped and we looked out over the waters, and we felt those cables
We saw the footings.
And I remembered reading about those who gave their life to make those secure and safe.
Amazing experience.
And work on the foundation for us as we work on our life project.
begins with hearing the words of Jesus as he shared them that day with the people on the plane.
It is the one who hears my words, Jesus says.
It's not so much the words of the law or the words of the prophets, though those are important and inspired,
it's the words that Jesus is speaking that are the word of God in the final sense as we listen and reflect and internalize those words we are setting the most stable foundation in the world God's plan before us we hear the words of Jesus himself
And we take it in as we listen with our hearts and minds.
The influence of listening to those words, reading those words interpreted by the Holy Spirit, mysteriously gives us direction in a most practical way.
So we continue the work to become partners with God
For it's this ongoing work that we do.
And then we come to the final piece of work that Jesus alludes to in his parable.
We listen, we build, and then we do and we strengthen.
Jesus says, the wise builder is someone who comes to me, hears my words,
and acts on them.
The wise builder does the hard work necessary for success.
Unlike the foolish builder who takes shortcuts, who doesn't do his research or hard work, he avoids having to build a foundation or build well, as Jesus says.
There were people in the crowd that day who were followers who even called him, he says, Lord, Lord.
Used the title twice as if to kind of impress Jesus.
Hey, I'm in.
Lord, Lord.
But they had come to the place, they had not come to the place yet where they became wise builders and true followers.
Jesus challenges them here.
Here is what a wise builder, a true follower, looks like.
He searches.
He digs deep.
That's not all in the Greek there, but he digs deep.
He says it twice.
He digs and he digs deep.
And he locates the bedrock.
And he lays his foundation and builds his house sturdy and strong.
I confess to you, I have found it quite challenging in my lifetime to make time consistently and to discipline myself to read, to study, and reflect on God's Word.
Now, I've done it when I've had to preach or teach a Bible study, but personally, it's been a challenge for me.
Because there's so many distractions and oftentimes it's difficult to understand and I'm sure you can relate to that.
And I begin with a confession.
Lord, if I'm going to build a healthy life, I must find a way.
Help me, Lord, to understand if I'm to be a true follower, I must find time and life, real life,
In your word.
Help me find that.
We've seen the more famous examples probably in Augustine in his book Confessions.
One day he was crazy in his lifestyle and he was abusing all kinds of things and people.
And he heard a little child's voice chanting take and read
He saw a Bible in front of him and he just flipped it open and it came to Romans 13 and he read verses 13 and 14 and it pinpointed his lifestyle, his abuses, and it challenged him to come to the Lord and he ended up, because of that miraculous intervention, through God's word, he changed his life.
He committed his life to Christ as it spoke to his
inner struggle.
He trusted Christ and his life completely changed.
Some of you remember, I see Marilyn, my friend Marilyn is here today.
Good to see you, Marilyn.
Glad you're here with us.
Marilyn was part of Hollywood Presbyterian Church when we grew up there and we were under the ministry of Dr. Henrietta Mears.
We've just come out with a new film about her life and perhaps some of you have seen it.
It's on
Amazon Prime.
In our program at Hollywood Church, Henrietta Mears taught us to believe God and to even risk to follow Jesus.
And she taught us with her own example the significance of the Word of God living each day and following what we hear and what we read.
I remember on the wall of one of her buildings, it said, Be doers of the word and not hearers only.
From the book of James.
We read it.
We studied it.
She even had us memorize it from a young age.
And she helped us enliven our faith.
And it became so alive and multidimensional for me, even as a young boy and as I grew up.
And then as I trained and went into the ministry.
That basic fundamental training taught me and God spoke to me and led us as a family.
Miss Mears believed the word of God and acted on what she heard.
I remember John.
John was a banker at Hollywood Presbyterian Church and he was well respected in the community.
And he was administrator of a big bank, Security Pacific Bank.
Remember those banks?
And John was a high-level exec.
And he saw his professional life tied to his calling as a Christian.
And as he read the Scriptures, God led him and showed him ways that he could use his training, his expertise, and his love for financing in the way of faith.
and helping and assisting others, including my own family, and then eventually to help support a ministry that I became involved with later in the streets of Hollywood.
Then later, I came to meet Carolyn.
Carolyn was drifting through life.
She was in her mid-40s, I think, and she had fallen away from her faith that she knew from her childhood.
And now her life was unraveling.
Her marriage had fallen apart.
She had embezzled funds at work and lost her job.
And one day she was found on the beach after attempting to end her life.
She came into my office one morning, a humiliated and defeated person.
She told me her story.
could sense in her words the despair that she felt.
And she challenged me.
She said, do you have anything to say?
And I kind of sat up and I thought, well, I hope so.
But we talked about life.
We talked about what the scriptures had to say.
We read some verses together.
And I attempted to draw connections
between her situation and the scriptures we had just read.
She seemed to show an interest, and she perked up just a bit.
She had been part of a church as a child, but until then, she made no relevant personal connection to her personal circumstances.
She had no sense of God's undying love for the world.
We reflected on John 3.16, I remember, and that truth, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son's life, that whosoever believes in him should never die but have life eternal.
She was searching for the bedrock, and now here God was speaking to her.
about his unconditional love for her through the scriptures.
And I watched almost as a separate observer as the Holy Spirit held her and assured her that God was for her.
God was her advocate and her friend and was there wanting to offer all he had
To bring her real life.
That we in our church community were there for her.
That morning, Carolyn surrendered her life to Christ.
She became part of our congregation.
She began almost immediately as she studied the word.
She found ways to serve actively doing the words of Jesus.
The storm came.
A couple months later, the authorities were at the door.
They took her away under arrest.
She was convicted.
She served a couple of years in the state prison.
But then, and we visited her many times up in the Central Valley.
But then she was released.
We welcomed her home.
We had yellow ribbons tied around the trees.
We welcomed her home.
We made sure that she had a path forward.
She walked that path for the rest of her life.
She died a few years ago, and we celebrated her life and God's faithfulness.
Hebrews 4.12 says, For the word of God is alive and active.
What I have learned is that when we act and trust in the word of God, especially the words of Jesus, we are changed.
God's spirit enlivens our lives.
The life comes from our connection with God speaking in life.
Jesus desires our commitment, a trust in him that consists in the active doing of the works of love.
The works of love.
Doing itself is our confession of Jesus Christ as Lord.
Notice in the parable that no one is exempted from the storm.
Jesus isn't offering some kind of a talisman to exempt you from the storms that will certainly come.
Each of us have storms we must face.
They come to us all in one form or another.
Wise builders and foolish builders alike are subject to peril, which can be random and unexpected.
Neither one can pretend to know what kind of a storm is coming or its intensity.
There's no forecasts that we're given.
The promise is that we will make it through.
Why?
Because God is faithful.
It's true.
And so we must be the church.
We must find the bedrock and hold to each other.
Notice that big golden gate has two supports, more than one, that hold it in place.
We must hold each other up through our storms, together, helping others find the rock.
and helping each other through each and every storm that is to come.
Pray with me.
Lord, we've come to the final Sabbath day of 2025.
And Lord, we've all been around.
We've seen a lot happen in this past year.
We remember dear friends and colleagues who have passed on.
Friend of this church, Jerry Tankersley, John Huffman, others, Lord, that many of us would know.
Even relatives, perhaps even a spouse.
Lord, it's been a tough year, and yet we've survived the storm.
And I pray as we look at the new year, each of us can
Remember this parable.
We can look for ways to again reaffirm the bedrock we're tied to and look to find ways to build a foundation that stands strong and a structure that's well built so that when storms come in this next year, we will stand, not because we're good, not because we're faithful, but because you're faithful.
because you promised to be there for us.
Lord, thank you for that.
Thank you for each other.
We look ahead together.
In the name of Jesus, our Lord, and all God's people together said, Amen.