What To Do When The Bottom Falls Out

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.