How To Build The Church

How To Build The Church

Matthew 7:21-17 John 13:34-35 Glenville 10-23-2011

We are continuing our series, “Moving Things To The Next Level”. We have looked at “How to Kill a Church”, “How to Heal The Church”, and today we are going to “Look At How To Build A Church”.

If you were going to build a building, two very important things you need to decide is what is going to be the location, and what are the materials the building is going to be made out of. What happens if you build a building on someone else’s property without their permission? What happens if you build a building in a flood zone? What happens if you build a building out of wood infested with termites?

We know these are not great ideas for building anything, and yet we will make the same mistakes in the building of our lives. We will place our lives in situations that have led many others to death and destruction, and because it has not happened to us yet, we think everything is okay. We bring people into our lives through relationships that are full of infestations that will destroy our spiritual walk, but we are okay with it, because it looks good at the moment.

Jesus was a carpenter by trade, so he knew quite a lot about building things. In our Scripture reading this morning, Jesus spoke of the dangers of building your house in the wrong place. It may look good for a while, but there is the promise that the decision to build in the wrong place is going to eventually cause that house to come crashing down. When it does, you lose everything. Have you thought about where you are actually building your life today.

Jesus had a goal in mind in telling us the story of two men building houses. The first built his house on sand, the second his house on rock. Location made all the difference when the flood waters came and beat against the house. If you had a major crisis hit you today, who is the person you would have to turn to for help. You ought to be doing your best to love that person right now.

Jesus’ goal was to get us to understand that what we are doing now, is one day going to have eternal consequences for our lives. He had told us that God is not all that impressed with what we do in church. If you are expecting to stand before God, and tell God at the judgment, all the wonderful things you did at church, you are going to be sorely disappointed.

Jesus said, “let me tell you what some people are going to say to me about how they helped to build the church, Some will say “Lord we prophesied in your name”, “lord we cast out demons in your name”, “Lord we did many miracles in your name.” “Lord did we ever help to build the church.” Yet Jesus said, “I will say to them plainly, “I never knew you, you evil doers.” Can you imagine spending years in church only to hear Jesus say “I Never knew you.” Now it’s obvious that Jesus knew the people by name, and that he recognized them, but he did not know them personally and intimately because of the life choices they were making in regards to refusing to put Jesus’ words into actions.

They believed as long as they believed in Jesus, came to church, and participated in something, they had it in with God. How many of you know that the devil believes in Jesus, comes to church, and participates in a host of activities every Sunday. The key in building a church is not performance, but putting Jesus’ words into action.

Which words of Jesus are the most important for us to put into action. We are tempted to think, we get the most credit for not doing the things that Jesus told us not to do. The thing is, Jesus did not give us a long list of don’t do this and you will make it in. Instead, Jesus put a lot of emphasis on just one thing when it came to building the church. He put his whole mission of coming to the earth on us doing just one thing to convince the world that Jesus was sent by God the Father. Jesus said, if you just do this one thing, then people are going to believe that I am who I am. If you do this one thing, it will change your life.

Jesus says in John 13:34-35, 34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”