Preparing To Build - 4 Series

Preparing to Build, Part 4

Consulting the Blueprints before Buying the Nails!

Today we continue our series, PREPARING TO BUILD…SEEING THE VISION…LIVING THE DREAM! This series is focusing on what we need to do to prepare our lives and to prepare our church for what God has in store.

We are so excited to see what can happen in the next FIVE years with the vision that God has given to us. We know where we are headed, we just need to prepare for how to get there. That is what this series is about. PREPARING TO BUILD.

Three weeks ago, we cast the vision. Talking about what we are trusting God for in the next five years. We talked about building this church and building our lives based on God’s word…with passion to accomplish His work.

Two weeks ago, we chose the builder. We chose to build on the Firm Foundation, the solid rock, Jesus Christ. Last week, we talked about digging the foundation. We made the statement…IN ORDER TO BUILD UP, YOU MUST FIRST DIG DOWN!

We read Colossians 2:6-7 - As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Rooted…then built up in Him. That foundation is so important as we transfer the weight of our structure, the weight of our lives, to something of far greater mass…Jesus Christ.

We must base our lives and our church on Him. He is our foundation. He is what will sustain us when the winds come, when the rains come, when the floods come. He will protect us from that which can destroy us.

We passed out this card last week that emphasizes why we must dig down. It focuses on the assurance of our salvation, the assurance of our submission, and the assurance of our sanctification.

I said last week, “Satan knows he can never move the hand of God, but he can move the hearts of man, unless we are grounded in Christ.” That is the essence of last week’s sermon. The foundation must be anchored in Christ.

1 Cor. 15:58 says: Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

We must be steadfast, immovable. In other words, anchored in God, while we work for Him. While we accomplish His tasks, His goals, His vision for our church and our lives.

Today, we move on in our construction process. You see now that we’ve moved beyond the foundation stage and we are now entering the actual construction phase.

We have lots of tools and building supplies that are here on site ready to be used to build this house. We have just about everything here we need to get rolling. And, you know that we are excited about building. When you start a new construction project, the air is just filled with anticipation about making it happen.

Here, it’s no different. We are so ready to begin building, to begin seeing what it is that God is going to do with us. We are so ready to begin this process, we can hardly wait.

But, there is always an important step that must occur before you begin building. Before you start driving nails, before you start hanging sheetrock, before you start running wires. Long before all of that, you must CONSULT THE BLUEPRINTS.

You see, in the beginning of every building project, you always draw the plans. You lay out exactly what it is you want to accomplish. You hire an architect to design what will become the final product. This step is so important because if you don’t plan it out ahead of time, you could make tragic mistakes in the middle of the construction.

These blue prints are also so important because this is what will be the roadmap for the builders as they work every day on the project. Every day they will take a look at the blueprints to ensure that they are doing things correctly, that everything is being done according to plan.

This is a vital step in the success of the building. If there are no blueprints, if you don’t consult those blueprints, you’re never quite sure what you will end up with. You must always CONSULT THE BLUEPRINTS BEFORE DRIVING THE NAILS!

Today, as we look at our construction site, we notice that all of the supplies are sitting here. The tools are here. Everything is ready for the project to begin. But, over here on this big table, we have our large set of blueprints. A set of blueprints that will direct us to our final goals. That will get us to the completion of our project.