How Firm is Your Foundation?

How Firm is Your Foundation?

 

Good Morning Friends,

 

A few weeks ago in church we were singing a hymn with the name My Hope is Built on Nothing Less. The name of lyricist, Edward Mote is probably not familiar to you. However his life is one that should inspire all Christians if for nothing else than the fact that we are still singing a song he penned 181 years ago. Mote was not brought up in a godly home and did not have the advantage of early exposure to Scripture. In fact, his parents managed a pub in London and often neglected young Edward, who spent most of his Sundays playing in the city streets. I imagine however that he had learned a few pub songs growing up that may have influenced him.
Of his theological upbringing, he said “So ignorant was I that I did not know that there was a God.” Eventually Mote became exposed to the Word of God, and was baptized at the age of 18.He wrote the song at 38 but did not become a minister until his mid-50’s. How Firm is Your Foundation?

 

Scripture: ‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!’

 

Matthew 7:24-27 (NRSV)

 

I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not 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.’ 

 

Luke 6:47-49 (NRSV)

 

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

 

1 Corinthians 10:1-4 (NRSV)

 

Message: The story goes that Edward Mote was walking to his work as a cabinet maker one day in 1834 and the thought popped into his head to write a hymn on the “Gracious Experience of a Christian.” Now I do not know if the story that follow is true or not but it is told that as he walked up the road, he wrote the chorus, “On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.” By the end of the day, he had the first four verses written out and safely tucked away in his pocket. Later that week, he visited his friend whose wife was very ill, and as they couldn’t find a hymnal to sing from, he dug up his newly written verses and sang those with the couple. The wife enjoyed them so much she asked for a copy, and Mote went home to finish the last two verses and sent it off to a publisher, saying, “As these verses so met the dying woman’s case, my attention to them was the more arrested, and I had a thousand printed for distribution”. What is true is that almost two centuries later, we continue to sing these words of hope and assurance, our declaration that in the midst of all trials and storms, we will cling to the rock that is our Savior. The song was originally entitled, “The Immutable Basis of a Sinner’s Hope.” Amazingly this gospel hymn of grace we know as, My Hope is Built on Nothing Less appears in over 60 % of all hymnals. William B. Bradbury, the composer of the tune for Jesus Loves Me set Mote’s words to the tune of “Solid Rock.” An alternative tune sometimes used is “Melita” by John B. Dykes, to which the hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” (i.e., “The Navy Hymn”) is commonly sung. Here are the lyrics to My Hope is Built on Nothing Less:

 

1 My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.

2 When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
in every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil.

 

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Refrain: 
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

—Edward Mote (1797-1874)

 

Pray we realize that Christ is the foundation. Pray that we build our lives on Jesus so that they might endure. Pray we realize that everything depends on our foundation. Pray we stand unshaken in life’s storms because we are both hearers and doers of the Word. Pray we have a right understanding of the things of God. Pray that our labor not be in vain. Pray as we contemplate all the grains of sand in Florida that we find a foundation of fellowship unified in and through our faith in Christ. Pray that while we still sing the old songs, that people would also write some new songs that would rock our world with the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Blessings,

 

John Lawson