Sermon for Sunday September 27th, 2009
How To Storm Proof Your
Faith!! by Gene Edwards
Luke 6:46-6:49
How To Storm Proof Your Faith!!
Luke 6:46-49
Introduction:
A. ain 1981, a developer in Canada built a subdivision in the Toronto suburbs,
and the houses started in the $200,000 range.
B. Unfortunately, when the snow, rain and ice arrived the following winter, one
of the homes collapsed into an enormous sinkhole ... then another... and
another, until several homes had been swallowed by the abyss, which triggered an
investigation that revealed the builder had knowingly built over an old garbage
dump!
D. Our text is referred to as Jesus’ “Sermon on the plane”, which is a short
version of the sermon on the mount and Jesus makes the point that a lot of
Christians, do the same thing as the unscrupulous builder in Canada, so let’s
see what else He has to say:
I. First–Jesus gives us a home builders seminar.
A. In the days of Jesus, people tried to get as close to water as possible, so
they sometimes built stone houses near an old riverbed called a zor, which is a
small canyon where silt collected after a storm!
B. Now we know you can build on a riverbed or beach, but you have to dig deep
enough to reach the bed rock, to set your footings on, which is why Jesus said
in verse 49, “The moment the torrent struck the house, it collapsed and its
destruction was complete.”
D. We all have seen cracks in our dry wall, driveways, sidewalks, brick siding
and we’ve wondered why, and the answer is: your builder did not spend enough
money preparing the unstable soil under your slab!!
E. We have spent a million dollars, over the last 20 years, trying to repair the
water leaks in our buildings, because the man who built these buildings did not
use a structural engineer!!
G. Life teaches us that taking shortcuts may save money initially, but you will
pay double at some point, and we have!
H. Since our text is a parable, we know Jesus wasn’t primarily talking about
houses, He was talking about people like us!!
I. I want you to notice the three most important stages of our relating to Jesus
in verse 47:
1. Step one: this person has come to Jesus.
2. Step two: this person has heard the words of Jesus.
3. Step three: this person puts his words into practice.
J. My thinking is: only a fool comes to Jesus and doesn’t obey his words, but
Jesus warns us not to call a man a fool, but a few minutes later, He himself
calls a man a fool who builds on the sand, so is he contradicting himself?? No!!
of course not!!
K. For years I thought Jesus was talking about an unbeliever, until I realized
the foolish man had taken two of the three steps the wise man took, so now I
believe He was talking about a person who attends church, hears the Bible
taught, but does nothing about it!!
L. It is such an insult to God, for people who know what the Bible says, and yet
they treat it like a tear-jerking movie, and they by refuse to make God’s word
the focus of their life and when the storms come, their life falls apart and
their faith is destroyed and the get angry at God and quit the church!!
M. There are eight important points you can learn from Jesus in our text:
1. One--storms will come into your life whether you are a wise or foolish
builder.
2. Nobody is immune to the storms of life.
3. You’d better be prepared because you will face storms.
4. Your storm may manifest itself through family, finances, or parenting.
5. You will have no control over your storm!
6. Your storm may manifest itself through depression, and you will quit on God.
7. The junk life throws at you can destroy your faith.
8. You cannot live a storm-free life.
II. Two–Bad things do happen to good people, and good things do happen to bad
people.
A. In Matthew 5:45 Jesus said, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the
good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
C. God is not singling out people because they deserve storms; we all face
storms, so all He’s saying is: get ready for them, now!
D. A friend of mine told me that in 1979 a young inexperienced Pastor was out of
town when a tornado swept through Wichita Falls, but he rushed home after he
heard about it, and a wayward member of his church who was a Police Officer, saw
him at the city limits and flagged him down and said, “Pastor, please pray for
me and my family, that tornado destroyed our home and all we have left are the
clothes on our back.”
F. The young Pastor decided to use the tragedy to teach the man who seldom
attended church a lesson, so he said, “Frank, because of your lack of commitment
to the Lord, I’m not surprised your house was destroyed. I believe God is
punishing you. I hope you take this as a warning from God to get back in
church.” And his grieving church member sadly said, “Certainly, Pastor and by
the way, your house was demolished also, and your wife is dead and your two kids
are in the hospital.”
1. That Police Officer never set foot in a church again!!
H. Now listen carefully, every person in this room, saved or unsaved, is either
(1) in the midst of a storm, (2)or waiting for the next one.
I. Today, meteorologists have Doppler radar and other sophisticated technology
to warn us when a severe storm is threatening, but it is nearly impossible to
predict life’s storms, so the time to prepare for them is before they hit!!
J. What we never seem to understand is: we are all progressively building a
shelter against life’s storms, with our belief system, world view, core values
and our personal philosophy–and it is those elements that become the life
preserver we hold on to, when the big storms blow through our life!!
K. I read the true story about a man who developed subdivisions, and his
construction foreman who helped him become a multi-millionaire!!After more than
thirty years of long hours and hard work, the businessman called his foreman in
and told him he was going to retire, but before he did, he wanted to build the
most expensive, luxurious house they had ever built on a hundred acres he had
and then he said, “I’m taking my wife to Europe for a year.
N. When I get back, I want to check out the house with you before we sell it.
Money is no object, so use the finest materials, install the finest equipment,
and furnish it with the nicest furniture money can buy and get your wife to pick
it out.”
O. After the business man left, the foreman thought, “This is my last chance to
make a fortune....” so, he built a massive house,
P. but he used cheap materials, inferior equipment and inexpensive furnishings,
and he pocketed the difference!!
Q. A year later, the two men walked through the house, and it was beautiful on
the outside, but the foreman knew it had been built with inferior materials!
R. As they stood outside looking at the house, the businessman asked his
foreman, “Do you like the house?” and the foreman said, “Yes sir, it is the
finest house we ever built.” and the business man handed the keys to him and
said, “You made me a very rich man. My wife and I want you and your family to
have this house because of your hard work, honesty and loyalty.”
T. The moral of the story is: Each of us are building a house that we will
shelter us from life’s storms, so we better be careful how we build it!!
III. Third–It’s dangerous to build on the sands of popular culture.
A. I realize that some of you may not agree with my summation, but many of the
movies, TV shows, books and music your loved ones are exposed to, can shape
their belief system, so be careful, because millions of Christians have
unknowingly built their entire lives on the shifting sands of our pop culture
and when the storms come, they have nothing to hold to!!
B. We Americans like to worship our celebrities, and we believe their words are
wise, because they are quoted in magazines, newspapers and entertainment news
programs, and what used to be unacceptable behavior in our culture, is now
behavior that will guarantee a book, movie, or record contract!
C. Several years ago, when Madonna became an unmarried mother, she was asked by
time magazine, “What kind of spiritual training are you going to give your
daughter...”, and she said, “I will teach her about all religions; especially
Buddhism, Judaism and kabbalah ... because my religion combines all of these
beliefs. I think everyone should “believe whatever they like.”
E. The danger of Madonna’s theology is: she is elevating her intellect to the
level of Jehovah God, and I assure you, there is no one on this planet, who is
smart enough to bow down before the altar of their own intelligence!!
G. Our world has reduced God to nothing more than a “life force....” because of
so-called Christian leaders who teach prosperity is a biblical entitlement!!
H. They also teach that we are our own little God– which sounds nice, until the
storms of cancer, divorce, alcohol, drugs and failure blow through their lives!!
I. They are nothing more than Pharisees, who build their lives on the quicksand
of pop-culture, by embracing a small portion of the truth about Jesus and that’s
called, easy believism!!
J. It might make you feel respectable, and it might make you a millionaire, but
when the really big storm comes, they suffer like all the rest of us, even
though they appear to be insulated from the storms of life!!
IV. Fourth–It is only in the storms you discover the stability of your
foundation.
A. There are all kinds of houses here this morning; some are old, young, large
and small houses–but we all pretty much look the same, until the storms of life
rage against us, and we discover how unstable our house is!!
B. After 40 plus years of preaching and 65 years of living, I have come to the
conclusion that God allows storms to come into our lives for two reasons:
1. One-- to test us and strengthen us.
2. Two--so we can see the quality of our foundation.
C. So, every storm serves as a wake-up call to convince us that we have to
rebuild, in order to survive the next one!!
D. Remember now, you cannot avoid the storms and floods that God allows in your
life, but you can get ready for them, and that’s the message of this parable!!
E. Verse 48 tells us, “He dug down deep” so we can conclude that shallow belief
produces shallow living!!
F. I agree with David Gooding who writes in his book, an unshakable kingdom:
“There is only one way to build a house that can withstand any storm, and that
is to dig deep and lay its foundations on the rock.”
G. The storms of life are also warnings of the worst storm we’ll ever face, if
you are not saved!!
H. In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord,’
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only 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 drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then
I will tell them plainly, ’I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
J. On September 8, 1900 a hurricane came barreling out of the gulf of Mexico,
headed for Galveston island, and without warning, Galveston island was leveled
and 6,000 people died, and that hurricane still ranks as the most deadly natural
disaster in American history!!
K. What is interesting to me is: every person who resettled that island said
later, “The storm became Galveston’s finest hour, because we decided to
rebuild,” but they knew they couldn’t rebuild as before!
L. Civil engineers were hired and they raised the island 12 feet, by pumping 16
million cubic yards of dirt from the sea bottom, and then they dug until they
reached the bedrock, where they laid the footings for a seawall along the
Southern coastline, and it took 60 years to complete, but did it work?
N. Well, in 1915 another hurricane rocked Galveston and everyone held their
breaths, and when the sky cleared, the island was flooded, but almost every
structure survived!!
O. I have seen it hundreds of times: people strolling through life as if it were
a piece of cake, and then suddenly, a storm strikes–and their knocked off their
feet, and their foundation crumbles which indicates: “Something was missing...”
So, is God using your storm to tell you: “Something is Missing??”
~~~~~Amen~~~~~