The House on Pilings

When Hurricane Harvey slammed into Rockport, Texas, in August 2017, entire neighborhoods were flattened. Roofs peeled away like paper. Walls collapsed into heaps of soggy insulation and broken drywall. But scattered among the devastation, certain houses stood — battered, yes, but standing. The difference was underneath. These homes had been built on deep concrete pilings driven straight down into bedrock, not just resting on shallow slab foundations poured over sand.

One homeowner, Warren Adams, told reporters he had watched his neighbor's house literally slide off its foundation while his own shuddered but held. "Everything above ground took a beating," he said. "But what was underneath never moved."

Paul tells the Corinthians something the builders of Rockport already knew: what you build on determines whether what you build survives. "No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." Every sermon series, every small group curriculum, every outreach initiative, every act of mercy — all of it is construction material. But the foundation is not our programming or our passion. The foundation is Christ alone.

And Paul pushes further. This building we are constructing together is no ordinary structure. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" The Almighty has chosen to inhabit what we build. That changes everything about how we build — with reverence, with care, with materials worthy of so sacred a dwelling.