James O. Davis is the founder and president of Second Billion (TM). You are invited to learn more about Second Billion by visiting www.billion.tv.
TEXT: Mt. 7:24-27
TOPIC: Storms
THEME: How to prepare for the storms of life
WHAT TO DO WHEN THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT
Introduction:
1. Do you know someone has been deeply impact with the tragic events of this fall, 2001? Do you know an entire family or somebody who was faithful to attend church, seemingly serving the Lord, presumably happy in Jesus, and some calamity came and they dropped out? They stopped coming. They seemingly collapsed and threw in the towel. The bottom has fallen out of life and they do not know what to do.
2. Maybe someone went to the doctor and doctor diagnosed cancer and did not know what to prescribe. Maybe a child was hit by a car and killed. Maybe the death of the child was the fault of the child or maybe it was the fault of the wreckless driver. The bottom has fallen out.
3. Maybe you have been apart of some company for sometime and suddenly you find yourself without a job. Maybe your company is downsizing and you were caught in the middle of the downsizing. The bottom has fallen out. Has the ecomical recession impacted your life?
4. Maybe you thought you had a godly family and a wonderful spouse and your spouse announces that he or she is leaving for another man or woman. The bottom has fallen out.
5. What do you do when the bottom falls out? The most important thing you can do is to examine the foundation. Look at Mt. 7: 24-27.
6. Life in its very nature is tragic. Sooner or later each of us are going to become sick. All of us if Jesus does not come are going to die. Death is inevitable. The latest statistics on death are one out of one. Death runs in my family and it runs in your family. I am not morbid or negative about this. Yet, we might as well face it, apart from God, life in its essence is tragic.
7. The Lord describes our lives as though they are houses. We all need houses to live in. A house is for shelter, security, sufficiency, and satisfaction. It is our place where we retreat and become refreshed. We all want some sort of house to live in.
Your soul also needs a house. There needs to be some kind of sanctuary for the soul. There needs to be a place of security and sufficiency that your spirit can dwell in. Jesus is using the analogy of an earthly house to speak of a spiritual house, a sanctuary for the soul.
8. We are all building some sort of house for the soul. I cannot live in the house you have built and you cannot live in the house that I have built.
9. In this story Jesus told of two kinds of builders. The builders outwardly looked very similar. We look very similar as well. We look so nice and dressed appropriately for church. Yet, we are not the same on the inside.
The builders Jesus spoke of had the same purpose. They were building a house. These builders built in the same place. The storm Jesus spoke of hit both houses so one must conclude that both houses were in the same place or area. These builders basically had the same plan. Every house basically has four walls, a floor, and a roof.
There were so many similarities between these two builders. There are so many similarities in this congregation. We are all building our own houses. We all have 24 hour days and 7 day weeks. We basically have the same duties during the day. Most of us are working during the day, going to school, raising a family, paying the bills, recreation now and then, and the like.
10. But there is a distinctive difference in all of us. This difference cannot be seen because it is under ground. It is the foundation. One of the homes was build upon a firm foundation and the other home was buildt upon shifting sand.
In this congreation there are the sand builders and the rock builders. If you would have walked up to these houses you would not have been able to tell the difference. Do you know what displayed the differnece? It was the storm. The storm reveals the foundaion. The house built upon the sand fell and the house built upon the rock stood the storm.
T.S: What do you do when the bottom falls out? What do you do during the age of terrorism? You go back and examine the foundation. In the message we are going to examine the foundation of rock solid faith in Jesus Christ. There are several elements of rock solid faith that will help us through the storm.
I. WE NEED THE SURETY OF ROCK SOLID FAITH
(Mt. 7: 15-20, Lk 6:48)
How can we be sure that we have rock solid faith in our lives?
A. We Must Have The Word Of God
Jesus said that the foundation was the Word of God. He said, “Whoever hears the saying of mine and does them is like a man who built his house upon a rock.” (v. 24)
In Mt. 7: 15, Jesus said, “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
When Jesus warns us of something we better pay attention and take heed to his words. Jesus is speaking of false religion.
There are two ways that the Satan wars against the Church. The first way is persecution. The second way is penetration. Penetration is more dangerous than persecution. Jesus is speaking of those who pretend to be prophets of God but they wear sheep’s clothing.
It is possible to build upon the shifting sand of philosophy, the mud of false religion, or the some quakmire of new ageism. Jesus warns us of false prophets. When you are looking for false prophets never fail to look in the pulpit. Look beneath the flease. There are devils disguised in sheep’s clothing (2 Cor. 11:13). They appear to be dvinely anointed and appointed. Some of them are on Christian television.
In the world we have all kinds of religions. We have Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so many more. In Christianity we have Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Church of God, Church of Christ, Episcopalian, and many more. Yet, in the final analysis there are only two kinds of religion: True and false.
How can you know if you have the Word of God?
In Mt. 7: 16-20, Jesus said:
“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good three bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.”
The root produces the fruit. If you have tree that is bearing the wrong kind of fruit, what can you do with it? You could prune it. Yet, this will not change the fruit. This will only strengthen the root. You could transplant it. Yet, the fruit will remain the same. You could cultivate it. But the fruit will be the same. You could get a bramble and tie figs to it. You could decorate it. However, you cannot change the fruit without changing the root.
Not only does the root produce the fruit but the fruit reveals the root. Sometimes it is hard to tell the kind of tree by simply looking at it. However, there is one sure way to know. Just wait until it bears fruit. If it bears peaches it is peach tree. If you want to know what a man’s ministry is just look at the fruit of his ministry.
What is the fruit? The fruit is to be the simple result of people becoming more like Jesus Christ. If people are not becoming more like Christ something is wrong with the root. The fruits of the Spirit are to be evident in our lives when the Word of God takes root in our lives.
The seed produces both the root and the fruit. The seed is the Word of God. When I am preaching the gospel, I am simply sowing seed. Someone may say, I am looking for a church that suits me. Well you better look for a church that suits God.
B. We must hear the Word of God (Mt. 7: 24; Lk 6: 48)
Jesus said, that we must hear the Word of God. You may have a copy of the Word of God on your lap or a copy in your home, but have you really heard the Word of God?
In order to hear the Word of God, you must dig deep into the truths of God.
In Luke 6: 48, Jesus said: “He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood rose, the torrent burst against the house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.”
What is Jesus saying? He is saying that in order to lay the foundation correctly we must dig deep. Many Christians are simply content to come on Sunday morning a get a little of the Word of God. But they are not digging deep and getting ready for the storm.
Why did the man built the house upon the sand? It is easier. It is cheaper. If you are looking for an easy way, a lazy way to serve God, I pity you. The man who built his house upon the rock dug deep.
Jesus is saying that we must make up our mind to hear what Jesus is saying. He is not simply saying let the sound waves of the Word to enter your ears. Have you ever said to your child, Did you hear me? You know that your child heard you, but did he/she really hear you?
C. We must heed the Word of God (Mt. 7: 24)
Jesus said that we must hear and act upon the Word of God. When we act on what we have heard we are laying the proper foundation. If we hear the Word of God and do not heed it, then we deceive ourselves (Js. 1:22). If you do not heed the Word then you are self-deceived.
What good is a body of truth without the life of the Spirit? Every so often, we should perform an autopsy on our faith and see if it is real faith.
Illustration: The Story of Lawyer and a Doctor
Recently, in the Massachusetts Bar Association Lawyer’s Journal there were various list of questions that lawyers have been known to ask in court. Here is such series of questions:
Question: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
Answer: No.
Question: Did you check for blood pressure?
Answer: No.
Question: Did you check for breathing?
Answer: No
Question: Then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
Answer: No
Question: How can you be sure doctor?
Answer: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Question: But couldn’t the patient been alive nevertheless?
Answer: It is possible that the patient could still have been alive and practicing law somewhere.
Just as the body without the brain is dead, faith without is works is dead.
II. WE MUST HAVE THE STABILITY OF ROCK SOLID FAITH (Mt. 7: 25, 27)
Notice how Jesus describes the storm.
A. Pressure From Above (“The rains descended”)
B. Pressure From Below (“The floods came”)
C. Pressure From All Around (“The winds blew”)
Our faith will be tested. A faith that cannot be tested is a faith cannot be trusted. Our faith is not tested in the sunshine but in the storm.
If you get your theology from circumstances, you will conclude sooner or later that God does not love you.
For example, in John 11:5, the Bible says Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Then in John 11: 14, the Bible says that Lazarus was dead. Mary and Martha pleaded that Jesus heal Lazarus. Yet, the Bible states that Jesus was glad that Lazarus was dead. If we get our theology from our circumstance we will be misguided.
Do you know what faith is? Faith is not getting necessarily from God what you want, but it is receiving from God what he gives?
III. WE MUST HAVE THE SECURITY OF ROCK SOLID FAITH (Mt. 7:25, 27)
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock
Why do people cave in? The collapse because they have nothing to stand on. They are all house and no foundation. They have profession and not possession.
Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven; Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
These individuals had no foundation.
So many people quit when the storms come to their lives. The baby died. The job ended. The marriage fell apart. Sickness came. They leave the church and the family of God. The storms were too much for them.
Illustration: A Comparison of Peter and Judas
Judas was the tresurer. He was one who could be trusted. Peter was always saying and doing things that he were like fumbling the football in the last two minutes of the game.
Outwardly these two men looked the same. They were in the same ministry. These two men went through the same storm. The storm came to Judas. It was filled with fear, greed, self-gradizment. It was the storm of his betrayal, remorse and guilt, and finally a suicide’s grave. The bottom fell out.
Then there was the storm of Peter. Jesus said to Peter, “Satan has desired to seath you like wheat, but I have prayed that your faith will not fail.” Jesus knew that Peter had faith for the storm. Jesus knew everything about Peter but he also knew he had faith.
There came a day that the theological training was coming to a close. The disciples have come to the finals. Jesus asked his disciples one final question in Caesarea Phillipi: “Who do people say that I am? Well, some say that you are Elijah and others say that you are John the Baptist, and others say that you are one of the prophets. Then, Jesus said to Peter, who do you say that I am? Peter said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus responded by saying, Upon this rock I will build my church.” Peter had a rock to stand on.
The storm came to Peter. Peter saw the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. His world was coming apart. He entered the vortex of a storm. The rains of hell fell. The floods of doubt came. The wind of worry blew. Peter’s house was shaking in the storm. Some of the shingles came off. The window panes were craking. The shutters were flapping in the wind.
Yet, Peter’s house was on the rock. He became the flaming evangelist of Pentecost.
Conclusion:
1. Storms come to everybody. Storms will come to you and me.
2. What will you do when the bottom falls out? Will you and your house be standing? If you are shifting sand, then it is imperative that you move from sand to solid rock.
3. Do you have rock solid faith? We must have the surety, stability, and security of rock solid faith in order to stand in the storms of terrorism.
