Running Up Towers

Rev. Matt Tuggle | Click/tap here to view the Sermon Reflection Guide.

This year we are beginning a journey called “Blueprint: Building Lives of Faith, Hope, and Love.” We all want lives that are steady, resilient, and able to withstand life's challenges. Jesus teaches that this kind of life is built on a solid foundation. When our lives are founded in him, we can stand firm even when storms come.

The challenge is that many things compete for that foundation: money, power, pleasure, reputation, and control. Yet Jesus says that true stability comes not from simply hearing his words, but from putting them into practice. Through sermons and Bible studies, we learn God's teachings, but transformation happens when those teachings shape the way we live each day.

C.S. Lewis paints a beautiful picture of this process, describing God as a builder transforming a small cottage into a palace, "running up towers" and creating something greater than we could ever imagine. That is God's desire for each of us. As we follow Jesus and put his teachings into action, God is growing in us the three things that last: faith, hope, and love. Our prayer is that by the end of this series, we will look back and see that we have grown in faith, become more marked by hope, and learned to love God and others more deeply.