If you are a baseball fan, a movie fan, or a Kevin Costner fan––you most assuredly remember the 1989 Oscar nominated movie “Field of Dreams.” If you fit into any two of the above categories, you loved the movie. A different movie, a great movie, a controversial tag line!
“Build it and they will come!” The idea: build a baseball diamond in a corn field and people would come to see legends play (imaginarily speaking)! As a pastor, I can see the comfort in this line. It would be nice to build a nice church building in a corn field with all the bells and have people just flock to it. But as a Christ-follower, I see how this doesn’t necessarily work that way––church building or people!
Scripture shows us this in…
Matt. 7:24-27, “24 “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. 25 Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. 26 But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. 27 When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”
Scripture tells us this in…
Psalm 127:1, “Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted.”
Scripture points us to this in…
Prov. 19:21, “You can make many plans, but the LORD’s purpose will prevail.”
Scripture assures of this in…
1 Tim. 2:3&4, “God our Savior, 4 who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.”
Scriptures reminds of this in…
Romans 3:23-26, “23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.”
Jesus declared this in…
John 5:39-40, “39 “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! 40 Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.”
So in a way, Hollywood had it right. If you build it (the heart of a man or woman, boy or girl) on Jesus, they will come (to Heaven)! And after all, isn’t the “Field of Dreams” a glimpse of Heaven!
Jesus help me build my heart on you, so I will come to Heaven!