Foundation of the Home is Love

Pastor Burcham's Sermon

  Sunday, September 18, 2005

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Fine Homebuilding magazine says this about foundations to homes: “A foundation can be loosely defined as whatever a house box sits on to support the weight of the structure. It has been said that as long as the foundation is in good shape, almost anything in the house can be fixed.”

Or, if you prefer, if you like This Old House , This Old House says this about foundations: “A proper foundation does more than just hold a house above the ground. It also keeps out moisture, insulates against the cold, and results in the movement of the earth around it. Oh, and one other thing, it's supposed to last forever.” In other words, is it any wonder This Old House contractor, Tom Silva, says that foundations are so important? He says, “Without a good one, you're sunk.”

It seems the experts agree the single most important aspect of a house is the foundation. If you don't have a strong and firm foundation, it really doesn't matter what the rest of the house is built upon. It could be the most elaborate structure you've ever seen. It could be ornate. It could be expensive. It could cost millions of dollars but, if it doesn't have a strong, firm foundation, you run the risk of losing it all. It all begins with the foundation. As long as it's structurally sound and solid, then the rest of the building stands a chance.

This morning, we start talking about the house or the home God has designed for us. And the most important part of that structure is going to be the foundation. What is the rest of the home God has designed for us going to be built upon? What is so important that all the rest rests upon this? And the foundation of God's design is love. The strong foundation God says we need to lay out, we need to build all the rest of our home upon, all the rest of our relationships upon is love. But the love He's talking about is a different kind of love than maybe what we normally think about. It's a powerful kind of love. It's a special kind of love. It's a love that is only found in Jesus Christ. The whole structure is supported upon the love Christ has shown us. And without that firm foundation, without the foundation of love, we'll never enjoy the other fruits of the spirit, peace, joy, patience, kindness, unless we build upon the firm foundation of God's love.

Borrowing a phrase from Tom Silva from This Old House , “Without love, you're sunk.” The kind of love God is talking about in scripture is different than maybe the kind of love we normally think about. It's a deeper kind of love. It's a more powerful kind of love. In fact, it's a love we're unable to give unless God empowers us to. It's a love that is unnatural to us, but it's natural to God. The only way we can express the kind of love scripture describes about us is for us to first experience that love. And once we experience God's love, then through the power of His spirit living within our heart, then we can express that love and show that love to other people.

So this morning, let's dig into God's love He's given to us and the foundation He wants us to build for our homes. The kind of love scripture talks about has three main characteristics, three attributes upon the foundation we need to build upon. The first one, God says, “Build your home upon the foundation of unconditional love.” Unconditional love. It's a basic need of every human being. Everyone needs to know they are loved unconditionally. In other words, they need to know somebody cares about them, somebody accepts them, somebody loves them, not because of what they do for them, but that somebody loves and cares for them and won't stop loving them even if they mess up, that the love has no conditions put upon it. It doesn't say, “I'll love you if” or “I'll love you when” but to know they're loved unconditionally, even at those times when they're unlovable, somebody still loves them, somebody still accepts them.

Every child needs to know that no matter how much they might misbehave, Mom and Dad still love them. They need to know, although they have been told thousands of times not to play in the mud, they have been told at least a million times to stay out of their sister's room and don't mess with her stuff, they need to know when they walk in with muddy shoes and mess with sister's stuff, although Mom and Dad won't be pleased, Mom and Dad still love them.

Every teen needs to know that no matter how much they mess up, no matter how many poor decisions they may make, no matter how much Mom and Dad may disagree with the direction they're going, they'll still be loved. Every teen needs to know no matter how far away they may wander, they always have a place to come home to, they always have a home in which they are welcome, they always have a place where they know they're loved and accepted.

Every husband, every wife needs to have the confidence that even when they're at their worst, someone still loves them, someone still cares about them. Even when they've been irritable, when they've been unlovable, when they've been unkind and they've been harsh, although the rest of the family may not like them, they still love them. Every family member needs unconditional love.

The problem is unconditional love does not come naturally to us. In fact, what comes naturally to us is exactly the opposite. According to our nature, our relationships are conditional relationships. We have conditional love, and it infiltrates really every aspect of our life. Things are based upon a condition. I'll love the other person as long as I'm getting something back in return. And it goes even beyond family members. Hasn't it been said to you or maybe you've even said to your own kids when they grump around because they have no friends, what's the phrase we always use? “To have a friend, you need to be a friend.” It's conditional, right? If you expect somebody to be your friend, that means you need to be a friend. That's how it works. It has to be a two-way relationship here. Even the relationship between husband and wife, it's a two-way relationship. You're going to love the other person because they love you back. You're going to be attracted to that other person because that other person is attracted to you. You want something in return for what you're giving. Our relationships are conditional relationships.

The closest we can get to an unconditional love is how we love our children, but I even sometimes wonder about that. When a newborn comes into this world, there's a whole lot of unconditional love there. There's a bond between parent and child but, if you think about it, what does that child give back to the parents? When they're first born, they can't say “I love you” back. They can't hug you. In fact, they don't even smile unless they have gas and that's not intended for you. Babies really don't give anything back, if you will, to their parents but yet parents love them. But what I wonder about, and I don't mean this as a criticism, as parents, don't we look forward to the day when they smile back at us? Don't we talk about the day we can't wait until we can take them with us to the zoo? Don't we look forward to the day when they give us a hug when we come home from the office? You see, all of our relationships, really what comes naturally to us, are conditional relationships. It's a conditional love. We love but we expect and we want something back for that. And that's okay up to a point, that our relationships will be built upon that. But to take the next step, to go deeper with that relationship, to go deeper with that love, then you're talking about unconditional love, a love that's not looking for something in return, a love that says, “Even if you don't hug me, I love you. Even if you don't smile at me, I love you. Even if you're not much of a friend to me, I'm still going to be a friend to you.” That's a deeper, more powerful kind of love and it's the love we can only experience from God. And only by experiencing it from Him can we show that love to another individual. Until we've experienced God's unconditional love, we are unable, because it's so unnatural to us, to show that kind of unconditional love to someone else.

John was very clear about that in the first letter he wrote, 1 John 4, “This is love, not that we love God but He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.” You see, God made the first move. Verse 10, he puts it more clearly, “We love because God first loved us.” You see, God made the first move. God loved us. Then we could love God in return. Then we could love other people. If you think about it, God is the epitome of unconditional love. Why would God love us? Why would God care about us? Okay, you could say God created us from the very beginning. But He created us to be perfect human beings to live in His perfect world. And what was mankind's response to that? Adam and Eve rebelled against God. They slapped Him in the face, if you will. And even today, look at all the things God does for us but what do we do for God? God gives us the air we breath. He provides all of our food and clothing, the fact we're able to work and make a living. God gives us everything. And what do we do for God? Most of the time, don't we turn our back on God? Don't we not even have anything to do with Him unless we need something. The fact of the matter is there's nothing that's lovable about us. There's nothing that would cause God to love us. But yet God does. It's the essence of unconditional love. God doesn't say, “I'll love you when.” God doesn't say, “I'll love you if.” God doesn't say, “I'll love you after you do this.” God says He loves us. And the fact is that nothing you've done in the past will stop God from loving you. There's nothing you can do in the future that will stop God from loving you because God doesn't put conditions on His love. Now God may not like what you're doing. In fact, God will despise the sin in your life, but God will still love you. That's the security we have in our relationship with God. Think about that. We can always come back to God. We always know He's going to love us. That's what gives us this security and confidence in our life to know that no matter how badly we might mess up, no matter how much God despises the things we do, God will always, always love us. That's the kind of security God wants built into our homes. That's the important part of the foundation of the homes we build, that family members know they're loved unconditionally.

Family members may not like what each others do. They might despise even some of the things other family members do, disagree with them wholeheartedly, but yet there's that base of love and acceptance that, in the home, you can always come back to. That's the kind of love God wants us to build a home on.

That kind of love has some implications then. Not only do we build our homes upon the foundation of unconditional love, but we build our homes on sacrificial love. It is a love that is willing to sacrifice for the other person. We all know that love calls for sacrifice. Love says we're going to put the needs of the other person above our own needs. Now that doesn't come too natural to us either. By nature, we're pretty selfish individuals. We think about ourselves first and foremost and then maybe somebody else. But love says we put the needs of the other person above our own needs and we'll make the sacrifices necessary for the other members of the family. Love says you'll stay up until 2:00 in the morning talking to your spouse even though you have an early meeting, but they need to talk to you. Love says you'll do your work after the kids go to bed, not while they're still awake. Love says you'll skip the big game at school because Mom's getting a recognition at work and you'll be there for her. Love says you go to Disneyland instead of Cancun . Love means you're willing to make the sacrifices.

Can you imagine a home where every family member puts the needs of the other family members first? We normally think of parents putting the needs of their children first and, by and large, parents do. Could you imagine a home in which children put the needs of their brothers and sisters first? Could you imagine a home where a husband puts the needs of a wife above his own, where the wife puts the needs of the husband above his own, where each and every family member looks for the family as a whole and the needs of the family and their relationship, when it looks to the needs of the other people in the family, could you imagine a home that had that kind of sacrificial love in it? That would be such a loving and warm environment in which, in reality, everyone's needs would be met. But they'd be met through the fellow family members. That's the home God has designed. That's the kind of love God has demonstrated for us.

Can you think of a better demonstration of sacrificial love than the love Jesus has for you, the love the Father has shown to you? Did not God put your needs above all else? Didn't He put your need of salvation above His needs and His wants and His desires? When God saw you in your condition, lost, lost forever from Him, lost in sinfulness, forever separated from Him, in need of salvation, and so the Father says to the Son, “Go into the world.”

Or how about the Son, Jesus. Jesus who had no sin and yet He saw the burden of your sin and of mine, so Jesus took on the burden of our sin. Jesus shouldn't have died, but He put our needs above His own and He willingly took to the cross and shed His blood so we could be forgiven, so we could have an eternal home with Him. God has demonstrated sacrificial love. He's shown us how to love sacrificially.

Sacrificial love leads to the other aspect of this powerful love God builds the foundation of the home on. It's forgiving love. Every home needs as its base and its foundation that of forgiveness. There needs to be an attribute of the home which says this is a place where forgiveness reigns because forgiveness will have to reign there because in the mix of a home, there are all kinds of hurt and there are all kinds of pain. It is in our close relationships when we get hurt the most. That's when the words sting more than any other time. Because the reality is, when we love another person, we open ourselves up to being hurt. If we didn't care about another person, then it wouldn't matter to us what they did or what they said. But when we love somebody else, when we're invested in somebody else, then their actions affect us. Their words can hurt us. So, in the home, there is the potential, in fact, it's the guarantee, there will be hurt feelings because sin will be there. It happens the first time a child realizes their parents have lied to them. They're hurt. It happens the first time the parent realizes their golden child isn't quite as wholesome as they once believed. It happens when, in the midst of an argument, words become more like poison darts than anything else. The last thing we want to do is forgive and yet the only way we will relieve the hurt, the only way we can take away the pain is through forgiveness. And true forgiveness. To forgive one another as God has forgiven us. And that's a complete and total forgiveness. God says in His word, “Confess your sins to me and I will freely forgive them.” That's a hint for us in our home in how we should treat forgiveness. We need to confess our sins to one another. That means you make the first move instead of waiting for the other person to make the first move, whether you're at fault or whether you believe you're not at fault. You make the first move. You take the responsibility for your actions. You swallow your pride, you go to the other person, and you say, “I'm sorry.” And you ask that person not to forget about it but you ask that person to forgive you. That's a whole lot different than just saying, “Let's just let it go.” But you ask the person to forgive you.

This kind of love then says you push aside the hurt and you forgive that other person. And to forgive another person means you're going to choose not to remember that anymore because that's what God does for us. God says He will remember our sins no more. He makes a conscious choice and decision. It's not that He's forgetful or absentminded. God says once we confess our sins to Him, He makes a choice to forget those sins, to never remember them again. When we forgive another person, we make a choice to say, “Never again will I remember this. Never again will this be brought up between us.” In other words, when the next argument comes up, it doesn't turn into a history lesson. All the previous past does not come up. Instead, it's never spoken of again. It's true forgiveness. It's a life-changing relationship building forgiveness. It's the forgiveness that can only come from God. It's a forgiveness that can only come from this powerful kind of love, the love God has given to us and now, by the power of His spirit, enables us to love others in that same way.

This is the foundation God has designed for our homes. It's a foundation of love. You've experienced God's unconditional sacrificing, His forgiving love and now, by His spirit living in your heart, you can show that love to others. Without that love, the whole thing is going to fall apart. You won't experience the other fruits of the spirit God has in store for you. But with that love, you build a solid foundation, a foundation in which the rest of the fruits of the spirit just naturally flow out of.

Build a home designed by God. Start with the foundation, a foundation of love. Amen.

Copyright 2005 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church