Living With Eternity In View
By Rick Gillespie- Mobley 6/13/2021 Matthew 7:15-28,1 Corinthians 3:5-17
Have you ever purchased an item that looked great in the package or on the advertisement but when you got it, you said, “this is nothing but a piece of junk, it so flimsy, I want my money back. I recently ordered and purchased a flying drone with a 4k camera to take video from the sky and it could even skim across Lake Erie to take underwater pictures. It’s flight time was 32 minutes. If I paid an extra $15 which I did, it would ship in 3-5 days.
I received a drone 3 weeks later that would fly up to 8 minutes, had a terrible quality camera, and if I sent it to Lake Erie that thing would promptly sink. It was a different brand, color and style from what I ordered.
Sometimes when things like this happens to us, it makes us angry and upset, we can simply throw the thing in the trash can and go on about our business. There are other times though, when what we got can’t easily be gotten rid of and we’re stuck making payments such as that great deal on the car that we didn’t know had been underwater in a flood. We still have to make the payments.
There are still other times, when our lives are severely damaged or maimed. We see this when people think they are purchasing a good time with a high with drugs not realizing they are actually paying for an overdose of fetanoly that will kill them. What we see is not always, what we get.
Whether you know it or not, you are both a builder and a building and what you’re building is based on how long you expect it to last. Each time we eat, we’re deciding to build and on what we plan to look like in the future as well as how far out that future is going to go.
Each time we think or we act, we are using materials to build our spiritual body or our temple of the Holy Spirit as the bible describes it. We do not think of it often, but we are actually a temple, that has been created for God to reside in us. God actually wants to live inside of you and inside of me. The sin in us wants to keep God on the outside. It constantly want to serve God an eviction notice.
Our problem with sin is that we want to use our body for one purpose, but God says your body is my temple and it must be kept holy by using the right kinds of materials to build the temple.
In our New Testament reading the apostle Paul told us we build ourselves spiritually with different items that will have a different result for our lives. In Corinthians 3:12 He said some lives are may be built using gold, silver, costly stones and others with wood, hay or straw.
What we build with is going to determine how long - we think something is going to last. In this passage Paul is clearly speaking to believers, because he says they are building upon the foundation of Jesus Christ. So this is telling us that some of us in the church are not using the right tools for eternity.
If you’re dating someone and you decide to take it to the next level with an engagement ring, it is going to have a tremendous impact what the ring is made of. If it is made of gold, silver and costly stones, you may indeed take things upward to another level. But if the person knows that you have money but the ring is made out of wood, hay and straw, that relationship is definitely going to another level.
The foundation means everything when it comes to building a building that you expect to last. There are two main reasons that might cause someone to make a mistake with a foundation. The first is by honest mistake. We that we think something is something that it is not. Our intentions may have been good, but we put our hope and confidence in the wrong thing.
The second reason is we’re just lazy, or in a hurry, or think it costs too much or that it doesn’t really matter and we’re willing to take a short cut. We deceive ourselves into thinking, just because it looks okay, it’s okay and nobody will ever find out.
Jesus talks quite a bit about building on the right foundation. Jesus tells us that it is an absolute necessity to build your life on the right foundation. . Because the foundation is what holds everything up, it’s what holds everything together.
No matter what quality of materials you use; no matter how carefully you join the frame together; no matter how skilled your craftsmen may be – if the foundation isn’t solid and stable, your “house” will lack integrity. The earth is constantly moving and shifting and it’s taking your foundation with it.
Over time, cracks will develop in the walls. The windows will stick. The roof will leak. And sooner or later, the storms of life will bring it crashing down, and everything you’ve worked so hard to build will be lost.
Do you know why Jesus said “ Come follow Me?” Jesus knew that all of us are following someone or something. Jesus knows that you’re making a choice and it’s not the best choice. We are not standing still in life watching everything go by from a neutral standpoint.
No we are caught up in the movement of the ideas of this world and they are taking somewhere, but they are not taking us closer to God. Our culture is determined to make disciples of us, and we have to admit it’s doing a pretty good job.
In Matthew 7:15, he gave us a stern warning, in Matthew 7:15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Our problem today is that we think we know who the false prophets are. We are looking for either somebody that looks as though they were John the Baptist with strange clothes and needing a haircut and bath, or a preacher on a street corner yelling turn or burn, or an evangelist in the church constantly taking the fifth offering of the night..
Jesus is not warning us against these people because they are not a threat to us. The false prophets that we readily accept because they come to us in sheep’s clothing are the voices of our society. It could be our best friend who has made compromises with their faith and now wants to change ours.
It could be the celebrity we admire the most who has come out with a recent announcement concerning their new sexual identity.. It could be the family member giving us bad advice because they do not want to see us succeed.
It could be the person who keeps telling us, if you expect to make it in this field, you have got to be willing to make compromises. They all want you to live your life for today, without keeping eternity in view.
The loudest false prophets come to us through our entertainment world. It is ironic that social media wants us to believe that is the gateway to truth and will keep us from seeing postings of misinformation when they are among the biggest false prophets of them all. We can read a post, get filled with anger and send it off to 50 people asking them to post it and we don’t realize until six months later that the posting was false.
The foundation of our lives should not be built upon what facebook or twitter or Instagram or CNN or Fox sends our way. It should be upon Jesus Christ and what the word of God teaches us about what is wrong and what is right.
Keep in mind, the media is not seeking to help us build a temple for God to reside in, nor does it want us to consider one day having to give an account to God for the lives we live.
Our entertainment industry is a huge false prophet. We eagerly soak in stuff that is contrary to Jesus Christ, because it is a part of our favorite program or movie. We will tell how people how good a movie was even though it was filled with a glorification of sin, but it left us feeling good inside.
Hollywood wants us to believe we can joyously sin and still have everything turn out all right in the end. It’s goal is to replace the foundation of Jesus Christ in our lives, with a foundation that says, as long as it feels right, it can’t really be that wrong.
The message is no different than when the serpent told Adam and Eve, if you disobey God, then you can decide for yourself what is good and what is evil.
The popular phrase, “Love is Love” so why should you care who I am with sounds catchy. But it rejects the idea that we are called to be a temple for God to dwell inside of us. Who should get to decide what is holy and what is not.
Not everything in the entertainment world is bad, but we do need to be discerning and recognize what is of God and is good for my foundation in Christ and what is not. We are attempting to live a life for a lifetime and to build a temple that will take us into eternity.
The entertainment industry wants you to build only for the next 60 minutes or 2 ½ hours so that they can sell you their advertisers products and present you their own hidden agenda and make a profit at the box office. Now there agenda is not even well hidden anymore.
We must all remember that God holds us responsible for the choices we make in accepting or rejecting the agenda. We have been told in the Scriptures that heaven and earth shall pass away, but God’s word will stand forever.
God created us with the desire to be loved, to be accepted, and to be liked by others. That’s why we are called the body of Christ. That desire was created for us to be in fellowship with God and with others. Sin however has pushed God out of the picture but the desire to want to belong is still there.
We look for opportunities to belong with others even if its not always healthy. That’s why more personal false prophets are able to enter our lives. They are the likeable college professors who tell us that the bible is nothing but a piece of literature full of myths and fairytales.
They are the friends who convince us that God can’t be real or that God is simply trying to keep us from having a great time. They are leaders who tell us we are all worshipping the same God regardless of what we believe.
Or Everybody is to be free to follow the desires of their own heart and there is no right or wrong and Jesus can be whatever we want him to be for us.
That’s a far cry from Jesus saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” Are we sinners in need of a Savior, or not.?
Why is God concerned about false prophets? Because God is concerned about us and our relationship to Him. All the systems of this world and all false prophets are designed to lead us away from God’s call on our lives. Jesus says, please hear me. Listen to this. Don’t be surprised.
Matthew 7:21-23 (NIV2011)
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
How many of us have said Lord Jesus, while having something else far more important to us than obeying God at the moment. We have to see that although good works are important, they are not what God is after from us. God is more interested in how we serve the people we live with than he is the class we taught or the sermon we preached.
We mistakenly believe we are becoming more like Jesus when we cast out demons or do some miraculous work, when God is saying, “I want you to forgive him”, “I want you to let that go”, “I want you to look at how selfish you are, and where demanding your own way is getting you.”
God is all about our relationships. Our relationship to him and to each other. Yes you do have to try to get along with that person if that’s where God has placed you.
I don’t think anybody wants to spend a part of their lives in a church and then hear Jesus say, “I never knew you. Away from me you evil doers.” What is an evil doer. It’s anyone who says, “I am in control of me and nobody has a thing to say about it.” We can be such proud and arrogant creatures.
That’s another way of saying, “Jesus, you didn’t need to die for me, I got this.” As God said to Adam and Eve, “Who told you, you were naked?” God is asking us, “who told you, you got this? Can you really see what tomorrow is going to bring in your life?
But the day we recognize we are not in control of what happens around us or to us, is the day we recognize a need for God in our lives. I can’t even determine how much pain will shoot in my body today. It would be foolish of me to write God off and go build on another foundation.
Jesus went on to tell us about how to build with eternity in view. Matthew 7:24-27 (NIV2011) 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise person who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish person who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
One thing I find interesting in this story is that both people knew how to build a house. The difference is only the foundation upon which it was built. Some of us here today, know how to build the temple God wants to live in, but we do not want to follow the blueprint that God has given to us for a number of reasons.
It is possible to accomplish a great deal in this world without Christ. You can build a business or a career. You can make money. You can have a reasonably good marriage. You can develop a wide circle of friends. You can do good things – give money to charity, coach Little League, be a Big Brother, adopt a third-world baby, do pro-bono legal work for the poor, volunteer at a retirement home.
You can have a good time and enjoy life. You can do many big, important, impressive, and admirable things. But eventually, a storm will come along which will bring it all tumbling down.
Now, for some people, the storm never comes along in this life. They have little or no interest in religion, and yet they do things, and have things, and enjoy life and go to their grave seemingly happy. For them, the storm that finally destroys everything, including their souls, will be the final judgment.
And when that judgment comes, the only thing that will matter to me or you is whether we are in Christ, whether by faith we have received his forgiveness and his righteousness.
Did we ever truly admit, I am a sinner in need of a savior? After we die, our confession will be too late. Our foundation will be revealed for what it truly was. (Shifting Sand)
We are all standing on some kind of foundation as we build our lives. We are all going to face storms. Storms of sickness, storms of sin, storms of unexpected deaths, storms of temptation and storms bearing any of 10,000 other names all attack the house we’re building.
The greatest storm our houses face is that of standing before God to give an account for our sin. Some houses in this room are going to weather the storm, others are not!
Some builders here can be called wise while others are fools. Some houses will stand in the judgment and others will fall away into Hell. What makes the difference?
The foundation of Jesus Christ. But even when we know Christ, we still are called to build the temple for God according to God’s plan. In the Old Testament, when God gave instructions for building the tent of the tabernacle he told Moses, be sure to build it exactly as I tell you.
We are going to far outlast that tent with the presence of God in us. You see our temple is just one of the blocks in the temple that’s being built using the body of Christ.
Each of us is affecting the quality of the building that is being put together at New Life At Calvary. Nobody is free to do their own thing, because we are but one body and one temple.
Are you living your life with eternity in view or are you hoping against the teachings of Jesus that somehow when you die, everything is going to be alright with your soul because you had some good intentions.
We are able to stand against the judgment of God because Jesus has paid the full price for our sin. Accepting and living for Jesus Christ is the way to build a life with eternity in view. Don’t believe the lie, when you die it’s over. No, when you die you go before God to give an account for how you will spend eternity.
Special thanks to Alan Perkins of First Baptist Church and Dr. Alan Carr for some of the ideas and passages in this message.
Summary: This sermon deals with recognizing we are a temple that God wants to reside in and that we need the need to use the right building materials to keep the temple holy and the proper foundation to become what God wants us to be in life having our minds fixed on eternity..
