Trashy Series

TRASHY

Set against a spacious country setting in Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado is a beautiful 2,700 home nestled against a flowing mountain range. In many ways the home looks fairly average: large kitchen, spacious family room, handful of bedrooms, bathrooms to match. But if an inspector were to take a closer look between the walls, he would notice that instead of pink fiberglass insulation, the owners Jon and Laura Hagar used 17,000 old, used tires!

Not kidding. Being environmentally conscious, the Hagars decided to use a couple thousand pounds of garbage in order to keep the heat in from the frozen Rocky Mountain temperatures. In addition to the compressed tires, there are bottles, plastic plates, cans, and other items that were tossed away. I guess one could say there house is rather….trashy, but that is probably not a very good use of that adjective in this particular situation.

How our physical homes are built may be important, but what is most important to the Lord is how we build our spiritual home, particularly the foundation. In the book of Matthew chapter 7, Jesus makes this statement about our that foundation: "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. 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. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

What is the rock? To those who do not know the Lord, the rock could mean a wide variety of things, maybe even good things such as family, loyalty, success. The list could go on and on. But Jesus is not giving us an open ended, fill in the blank statement here that is to be used for interpretation. Christ is saying that He is the only true foundation, and that anything else is just sinking sand. Anything placed on sinking sand, regardless of how magnificent it may appear, will soon be reduced to rubbish.

As for the Hagars, I am glad they built a home out of refuse. I really am. I do feel bad for them that none of the local banks will come out and give them an accurate estimate (I guess there doesn’t happen to be any neighbors nearby with other homes made out of debris that could serve as a gage). I suppose the Red Rocks Credit Union could drive a few hours away to the neighboring town of Granby to inspect a home insulated with 50 tons of paper packaging from the Coors Brewing Company, but that’s a different story all together.

Here’s the point. Since we only get one life, one “house” in which to live, we had better make sure our foundation isn’t made up of waste. For surely as we stand before the Lord, and the great reaping takes place where the chaff and the wheat are separated, we have absolutely got to make sure that our foundation has been built on the rock named Jesus, and not on a bunch of other junk.