Preparing For The Storm Series

Storms of Life 4

Dad told me that once as a teen he was with his father on their fishing boat when the weather turned nasty. Dad was whining and complaining about how rough it was and how he wished that they had of stayed home instead of going fishing.

And his father told him, “you wouldn’t want to be ashore in a storm like this, it’s much safer out here if you were ashore a tree could fall on you.”

And the reality was my Grandfather probably wouldn’t have headed out in the Bay of Fundy in a small fishing boat if he knew that rough weather was coming, on the other hand, they were already there. To turn around would be to lose valuable time and spend valuable money on fuel when they were already where they had to be. And so they safely weathered the storm without a tree falling on them.

This is week four of our “Weathering the Storms of Life” series. Over the past three weeks, we’ve focused on storms that happened at sea.

In week one we looked at the Old Testament story of Jonah and the storm that he found himself in when he was disobedient to God.

And you’ll remember that we learned five things from that story.

1) Not Every Storm Is Our Fault

2) Every Action Has Consequences for Others.

3) Don’t Make Major Decisions When You Are in The Midst of a Storm.

4) No Storm Lasts forever

5) The Remedy for Disobedience Is Obedience.

Two weeks ago we looked at the time that Jesus calmed the storm that he was in the with the disciples on the Sea of Galilee. And from that story we learned:

1) Sometimes Obedience Leads Us into Storms

2) Jesus Is Always With Us In The Storm

3) The Storm Teaches Us About Ourselves

4) The Storm Teaches Us About Jesus

5) It’s Easy to Nap When You Know Who’s in Control.

Last week we looked at the story of Paul’s voyage to Rome and the multiple storms he encountered. And there were five lessons there as well:

1) Sometimes a Storm is just a Storm

2) Storms Don’t Always Come Alone

3) If There’s Something You Can Do, Do It

4)The Consequences of the storm Can Outlast the Storm

5) Never Forget, God is There

But not all storms happen at sea; I happen to think the cool ones do.

This week the storm story is a story of a story. We are going back to the Parables of Jesus, the stories that Jesus told to illustrate the Kingdom of God. Matthew and Luke both record this story, and we are going to settle into Matthew's account.

If you have your Bibles turn with me to; Matthew 7:24 & 26 “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. . . But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.

So let’s start with The Back Story Jesus begins by telling the story of two men, because one man wouldn’t have been enough and three men would have just confused the issue.

And the two men had some things in common, they both heard the teaching of Jesus, they both embarked on a project, they both made choices, and they both encountered a storm.

In the story, the project they embarked on was the task of building a house, which of course was an analogy for the life that each one of us creates for ourselves.

Some of you have either built or have been closely involved in the task of constructing a new home. I'm not a builder, but I love building. Angela and I have had two new homes built through the years, one in Australia and then our first home in Kingswood.

And although we didn’t actually “Build” them, we designed both of them, and we were on site every day, checking progress and bringing the contractors home-made chocolate chip cookies. It’s incredible how far home-made cookies go.

And over the past thirty years I have been involved in 3 church building projects, and in each of those I was involved in the design, I was on site every day and I took part in the building project. Swinging a hammer, lugging stuff and painting. I love building.

And I have discovered that in each of those cases you need to be careful about what's happening while the building is under construction because you will pay later for any shortcuts that were taken during the building process.

And trust me when I say that nobody will care more about how your house is constructed then you will.