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THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD - "The Wise and Foolish Builders" - February 15, 2015 - Senior Pastor Scott Christenson

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St. Paul's Lutheran Church Orange, CA

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father and having you brought us here tonight to hear your word help us to be attentive to you help us to set aside all of the other things in our hearts that might distract us from hearing your voice tonight in your word  help us to focus now you and your word your will for all of us we pray in Jesus name amen  I'll before I begin tonight I want to credit where credit is due on my sermon tonight I know is deeply indebted to Tony Evans the senior pastor of Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas Texas and I say that because many many years ago now I heard him preach a fantastic message on this Parable and it had a very profound effect on me but that was so many years ago now that I honestly can't remember anymore what my own thoughts about this Parable at what I have likely borrowed from him and so let me just begin today by saying that if I say anything tonight that sounds even play insightful or profound or helpful that's probably Tony's stuff and if I say anything that's less than insightful profound or helpful please don't hold it against Pastor Evans I probably took his stuff and ruined it we don't talk tonight about Jesus parable of the wise and foolish builders in the wise and foolish Builders serves as the conclusion to what many people consider a to B the greatest sermon ever preached Jesus famous Sermon on the Mount of The Sermon on the Mount of course is filled of all kinds homiletical gems the Beatitudes The Lord's Prayer seek first the kingdom of God store up for yourselves Treasures in for where your treasure is there your heart shall be just to name a few of its more famous passages  then the sermon ends with this illustration a simple but but profound story of two men who each build a house and the story bags of all of us to ask ourselves this question what kind of foundation are we building she the story is not just a story for carpenters and roofers and plumbers and bricklayers Jesus was a car under himself of course and so he used an illustration that would have been very familiar to him but he was not talking about building a literal house he was really talking about building a life building a life that's meaningful A Life That's living  we can certainly apply these words to our marriages and our families also this these so words of the parable could be very helpful to anyone trying to build a household  the course the New Testament more than once talks about the church as the household of faith and so we could probably apply it to building the ministry whether it be a congregational minister rira personal Ministry  in fact most of us here tonight are probably trying to build all three you're building a life and you wanted to be a life that you can look back on at the end without any regrets so building a family and you want your family to be stable and strong and full of joy and love  you're probably building a Ministry  you're trying to discover and grow and use the spiritual gifts that God gave you so that you can make an eater difference in the lives of others on all these cases this Parable has great relevance  if you want to build a life or household or a Ministry that will last that will stand that will make a difference  you need to listen carefully to this pair and understand the differences between these two men before we talk about their differences next we have to note how much they had in common first they have the same vision  about the same team the same plans they both wanted to build a house  not just any house they wanted to build a good house a saw house a house that would last that's very important for us to see because it reminds us that good intentions are loud enough  very few if any people mess up their lives because they decide to do so on purpose and yet still many do  no one stands before the altar on their wedding day saying you know I hope we hand up hating each other and get Vore someday  but it still happens fact it happens a lot  sometime ago story about a pastor at a a prominent Church in Houston Texas I think it was who was arrested Pastor arrested for soliciting sex from a enter online  I don't know much at all about this pastor but I can guarantee you that I'm right about this that wasn't his vision for Ministry when he graduated from Seminary  these two men had very different fate what in the beginning they had the same vision  more than that they not only have the same vision they also have the same they both listen to Divine truth your people often miss this in this Parable it wasn't that one man was a fever and the other man was a pagan it wasn't that one man listen to God's word and the other one listen to the voice of the world know Jesus says very clearly both these men her these words of mine  we could say they were both students they both appear to have teachable Spirit it wasn't that one man opened himself up to Divine truth and input while the other one ignored it no we're not talking about one man having a love for hearing the truth and another having a total distain for it we're about two men to housebuilders both of whom had the same instruction and the same teacher you know so often as a pastor I have conversations with people who are building lives that I fear are all about to come Crashing Down almost always  it's not a person who's never been to church very often it's one who's heard a lot of sermons and been in Moore Bible studies and small groups and they could remember  but just as Jesus in the parable hearing the word of Jesus all by itself is not enough to keep your house from crashing both men listen to Divine truth  there's a third comparison these two men dim the same neighborhood  you might think wait a minute I don't remember it saying anything about the location of their houses but I think good actually I think we can say that they lived in the same neighborhood because they were both affected by the same storm worms that these two Builders experience are described in the parable in exactly the same way exactly the same words first 25 talks about the experience of the first man saying the rain came down the streams Rose and the winds blew and beat against that sing you'll see that's exactly word for word the same language use in verse 27 to describe the experience of the second man short it wasn't that one man faced a big storm and the other one faced a small store you say the different way it was not the intensity of the storm that caused one house to crash and not the other no it was the same store  that's true of the kind of houses we build to isn't it every life every marriage every family every ministry will face storms if only I could be like some of the TV preachers like to say it will be no trust in Christ and you'll be wealthy  trust in Christ and you'll get all your diseases trust in Jesus and life will always go well for you does not sound great I love that a little problem Jesus never said that  in fact Jesus said the exact opposite of that in John 1633 Jesus says to us in this world you will have trouble I like to say that's the one promise of Jesus we don't like that's not the language of bright sun in Blue Sky Dutch storm language and truthfully this is one of the really frustrating and sometimes exasperated things about trying to live by faith God often doesn't do what we want him to do  what we think we would do if we were God and if we were God we think our primary objective would be storm prevention you know that God could do that rights is all things are possible with God he can do anything but sometimes God doesn't seem to care much about that at let me give you another biblical illustration of this that someone once showed me will come back to the pera in just a moment in the gospel of Mark the fourth chapter there's another famous storm story from the life of Jesus you remember this store the disciples are in the boat with Jesus on the Sea of Galilee and a terrible storm comes up on them very quickly and so bad that they're afraid they're about to drown Jesus is asleep in the stern of the boat what's interesting is what it says in verse 38 it says Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion a pillow basically now why is that important it's important some of you here have flown internationally I'll bet some of you here have had this experience as your boarding your 14-hour flight to the other play the world and it's about to take off one of the flight attendants comes down the aisle and says to you would you like the pillow  now what's the question here  the real question is are you planning to sleep  see if you have a question it's because you planned on sleeping  Jesus wasn't sleeping by accident no he wanted them to experience this storm and Jesus does this to us sometimes too doesn't he we can all think about times in our lives when terrible storms came about and we shouted To God In Prayer something very much like they did they don't you care if we drown but no answer came what's interesting about this story if look at it is that Jesus had already told them that they were going to make it  hey Mark 4:35 Jesus said before the tell me even started let's go to the other side  another words he had told them we're going to leave here and we're going to go everything's going to be fine but see this is what storms do this is the way I remember Tony Evans says that I love does he says storms have a way of causing you to forget what the store what the Lord has said storms have a way of keeping you turn my plane in a storm what you learned in the sunshine  the problem was not hearing the truth they heard Jesus say let's go to the beside their problem was applying the truth in a bad situation seaweed all like a life or a marriage or a family or a Ministry without any storms least not any big ones but in all likelihood storms are coming  because they seem to come to every life and every marriage and every Emily and every Ministry sooner or later but the good news is this what's the storms that you need to fear the storms themselves are never the problem I can reflect back on years of Pastor a Ministry and think of many many people I've seen experienced some just horrific storms in there and yet they're still standing today and standing strong and vibrant the store wasn't the problem with these two men and it won't be your problem either so what was the problem well despite the many similarities of these two Builders there were also some very important differences first there was a prince in the character of the two builders  one man was wise the other man was moron do you know that's literally what it says actually Jesus uses that word the Greek word is translated foolish into English is actually the same that we get the word moron from and this is very interesting in fact because Jesus doesn't use the word moron or fool like do we think of a moron is someone who doesn't know very much but for Jesus a fool isn't a person who lacks information or no college is a person who doesn't implement the knowledge that he or she has stomach Jesus is not about what you know  you can be very very smart you can have all kinds of knowledge and you can still be a moron  wisdom According To Jesus is the ability to take what you know whatever you know to listen to Divine truth is it's revealed to you and then apply it in your life  that's wisdom see there's a lot of people a lot of Christian people a lot of people go to church every week out there who have terrible which is terrible households but it's not because they don't know if he's five or 1st Corinthians 13 or any of the other great passages of the Bible about love and marriage  they know them very well but they don't Implement them they don't put the teaching in the practice  speak and tell you all about Jesus teaching on forgiveness but they can't bring themselves to forgive  they could go and teach the confirmation class on the doctrine of grace but they can't extend thanks  they can tell you everything there is to know about what the Bible says about being a servant they just can't actually be a server that's what happened with these two men  on the outside they looked very much the same but inside they had very different characters and that different character led to another difference they built we see on different foundations  the wise man built his house on the rock  the moron built his house on the sand no you got to ask yourself though  why would anyone do that  I mean I know next to nothing about house building I'm no Carpenter I can hardly put a nail in a wall but even I can see that's not a very good idea why on Earth would anyone build their house on sand well the answer is very simple really digging a foundation in Rock very hard work where is digging into sand is a piece of cake putting the foundation in the rock is very very costly whereas laying the foundation in the sand then cost you nearly as much  digging the foundation in the Rock takes a long long time but you can put a foundation in the sand pretty fast and you know what clean a life or a marriage or a family or a Ministry on sand it's a lot more tempting then you might think it can be  because building those kind of houses takes hard work to it cost something and it takes a long time to do it well  and the temptation to take shortcuts is always there for you  but no matter how hard it is or how costly it is or how much time it takes it's always worth it it's worth it because of the results  the biggest contrast of all between these two Builders was in the results The House of the moron fell that doesn't just say it fell or even that it felt with a crash it says it fell with a great crash but the house of the wise man stood firm  which brings us back full circle to the question I asked you at skinning  what kind of foundation are you building on is your life marriage your family your ministry built on rock or on sand and for that how do you know want me to tell you right now exactly how you can know you can tell when the storms come  this is why Jesus sleeps on a cushion sometimes why he allows storms to come into our lives because only in the storms can we really learn whether we're really relying on God's word and Promises only listening to them  and Jesus knows that the only kind of life or marriage or family or Ministry that can stand up against any storm is the one that is built on him on his love and his promises his mercy and Grace unforgiveness  Jesus you see Noah's what a rock solid foundation looks like better than anyone but it's not because of his carpentry experience it's because of his cross experience one of the most incredible moments of the cross for me is this one when Jesus cries out just before his death father into your hands I commit my spirit what is so amazing to me about those words is just a few moments earlier he said my God my God why have you forsaken me talk about a store  talk about God sleeping on a cushion talk about taking the promises of God and putting them into practice Jesus trusted his even when the storm to end all storms came  and his resurrection proved if that was exactly the right thing to do and if Jesus could do that in his worst of moments certainly we can do that now with his grace working in us no matter what storms may come our way  you know there's an old old Christian Kim that I love I don't know where it came from it's not in our hymnals but it talks about this confidence that we can have in and because it talks about storms I thought it would be a good way to end my sermon tonight here's what the him has his love in times past forbids me to think he'll leave me at last in troubles to sink in bear let me wrestle then he will perform with Christ at the vessel I smile at the storm those are great words aren't they what you saying with me let's see him together his love in times past forbids me to think he'll give me at last in troubles to sink in prayer let me wrestle then he will perform with Christ at the vessel file at the store  Brothers and Sisters in Christ I want to tell you tonight if you put the words of Jesus into practice you build your life and your marriage and your family and your ministry  that's the kind of confidence you can have to

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THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD - "The Wise and Foolish Builders" - February 15, 2015 - Senior Pastor Scott Christenson

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