Matthew 7:24-27
A Storm Is Brewing
I do not mean to be a pessimist but the Bible does tell us that life
is going to have storms, trials. By giving us that warning, it seems
that God wants us to prepare for them. Let’s see how this morning.
Two different passages in the Bible compare life to a building. This
one in Matthew and Paul’s passage in \\#1Cor 3:11-15\\. These two
passages together teach us a great deal.
I. The Foundation has been laid.
A. Before any great work can be built, a foundation must be
prepared.
1. I queried the internet with a question, "What is the
most important part in building?" The number one
and two results were the foundation!
2. Most everyone knows that no structure is more secure
than its foundation.
B. As that it is true in building, so it is also true in
life.
1. Your foundation, the basic precepts, principals, and
philosophies upon which you build your life, will
direct every other action of your life.
a. Consider how a person who believes in work lives
as opposed to a person who believes in getting
out of work.
(1) The first will want to work.
(2) The second will want to take that which
someone else has earned.
b. Consider how a person who believes in love and
fidelity lives as opposed to one who does not.
(1) The first will likely keep themselves pure
until marriage and then be loyal the
remainder of their life.
(2) The second likely will not.
2. God has already given to every human being the perfect
Foundation.
1Cor 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
a. Notice "is laid" means the foundation was laid in
the past and is ready for use in the present.
b. The Foundation, the perfect Foundation, is Jesus
Christ Himself.
c. God’s desire, His command, is that you would build
your life on the death, burial, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ and on all that that truth
demands.
II. A choice has to be made.
A. Every human being, most without realizing it, makes a
decision at the onset of their life about which
foundation they will build upon.
1. God says build on Jesus.
a. The news of Jesus is as old as mankind.
b. I realize that Jesus only died 2,000 years ago,
but God began to prophesy the coming of Jesus
at the fall.
Ge 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it
shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his
heel.
(1) God told Adam and Eve that He would put
something between mankind and the serpent
(the devil).
(2) He called that barrier "enmity"; however, He
also uses a male pronoun to speak of that
enmity, "thou shalt bruise HIS heel."
(3) That enmity is a veiled prophecy of Jesus.
(4) Anyone who chose to believe what God had
revealed from that point until today has
been trusting in Jesus.
(5) As time has progressed, God has revealed more
and more so that today, we have the complete
revelation.
(6) But literally, every generation since the
fall of mankind has been told to build on
Jesus.
2. Yet most have not built their lives on the perfect
Foundation.
a. Many lost the truth.
(1) Sadly many parents either did not know or did
not care about spiritual things enough to
get this truth into them.
(2) So many in total ignorance, began to build
their life on other foundations - education,
wealth, pleasure, whatever.
b. Many have simply chosen to ignore the perfect
Foundation.
3. Regardless of how it has happened, most of the human
race today has chosen to built on some other
foundation.
B. You can choose to build your life on any foundation you
want; however, enough people have built their lives on
the Bible to PROVE that God’s way works.
1. Too many Christians are worried about DISproving
God-doubters’ theories.
2. The changed life is a fact that we should be forcing
them to face and to reconcile with their pagan
beliefs.
(a) Whoever built their life on the Bible and failed?
(b) Whoever built their life on the Bible and
regretted it?
(c) What but God has ever come by living the
Christian life?
Ps 37:25 I have been young, and now am old; yet
have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his
seed begging bread.
C. Today, by being in this place, I am forcing you to either
affirm or to change the choice of your foundations.
1. You may have built your life on many crumbling
foundations up til today, but you can choose today to
make Jesus your foundation and get started building a
new life.
(a) That is one of the many good things about
salvation.
(b) It is never too late to jump on the right
Foundation!
(c) However, it is the human thing to pause, even
delay, making a jump.
(d) I image even a trained paratrooper pauses at
the plane door before jumping!
(e) Some people pause because they are not sure they
want to give up what they have. It may not be
much, but at least it is theirs.
(f) Some people pause because they fear the landing.
In this case, you need not fear.
(g) Today, right now, if you are not saved, you need
to jump onto the Rock, the Foundation, the
Stone that the builders rejected, Jesus Christ.
2. If you are lost and will not jump, you are going to
have to affirm to yourself and to God that you don’t
want Jesus.
3. If you leave this place lost, you are choosing
some other foundation to build your life upon.
4. That is your choice but make certain it is the choice
you want to make for this might be the last
opportunity you have to choose Jesus.
III. A structure must be built.
A. Regardless of what foundation you choose, a structure,
your life, must be built on it.
B. As I said at the beginning, life is a building.
1. There are no time outs.
a. You cannot stop life.
b. Lost or saved, you are building a structure.
c. You need to build on the perfect Foundation.
d. Build on any other foundation and you will regret
it.
2. But you must build.
C. The best materials are not available to those who do not
build on the perfect Foundation.
1Cor 3:12 Now if any man build upon this
foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay, stubble;
1. Some people are concerned about predestination.
2. It is real. God has predetermined somethings.
a. God has predetermined that lost people will go to
hell and that saved people will go to heaven.
b. God has predetermined that saved people will be
saved forever.
c. God has predetermined that saved people will have
the Holy Ghost abiding in them.
d. God has predetermined that all saved people will
be endowed with gifts for God’s service.
e. And God has determined that lost people will not
have access to life’s best building materials.
3. All that is afforded the lost is wood, hay, stubble.
a. You may have the nicest wood, hay, and stubble
this world can offer, but it is still just wood,
hay, and stubble.
b. These materials may provide you a comfortable
life.
(1) Some are relatively happy and content.
(2) But like the blind man who does not know
color, you don’t know what you are missing.
c. God says of the materials that are available to
you, they are not more than filthy rags
\\#Is 64:6\\.
d. Your structure, your life, is destined to failure
and collapse.
4. Even so, do the best you can with it.
a. If you will not turn to Christ, part of me wishes
you well.
(1) Part of me hopes you have money, ease,
happiness—all the best that this world can
offer you.
(2) I partly wish that because I know this is the
best it will ever be for you.
b. Yet, I confess, part of me wishes your life would
collapse instantly and totally.
(1) Part of me wishes you could see how badly you
needs Jesus today.
(2) That is much more likely to happen if things
go against you instead of for you.
D. Christian, you too have to continue building your
structure, your life.
1. The best materials are available to you, but you must
again choose to use them.
a. Life really is the sum total of our choices, isn’t
it?
b. You can choose to use the same inferior materials
as those building on other foundations, the wood,
hay, and stubble.
c. If you do, the coming storm will destroy your
structure as well.
1Cor 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made
manifest: for the day shall declare it, because
it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall
try every man’s work of what sort it is.
14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built
thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall
suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet
so as by fire.
2. Or you can choose to be different.
a. Peer pressure is not just for kids.
b. Somebody with a following decides to grow his hair
long and everybody decides to have long hair.
A month later, somebody with a following shaves
his head and everybody decides to shave theirs.
c. You can build a much better life by choosing the
better materials, but you will have to go against
the grain.
3. What are the best materials?
a. love, forgiveness, patience, loyalty, goodness,
gentleness, joy
b. The Bible has a list of such things in
\\#Gal 5:22-23\\.
4. If you will build on the perfect Foundation with the
best materials, you will have an indestructible
structure; but even a half-hearted structure built on
the perfect Foundation is more stable than the best
built structure on another foundation.
IV. A trial will ultimately come.
A. Jesus told us what will happen to every person in this
life—a storm will come.
Matt 7:25 And the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon
that house; and it fell not: for it was founded
upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of
mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto
a foolish man, which built his house upon the
sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house;
and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
1. As the building is life so the storm is a trial.
2. Notice, it doesn’t matter which foundation you build
upon or what materials you use, the storm still comes.
3. Even for the Christian, the issue is not exemption from
the storms of life but preparation for them.
4. I do not know what your storm will be.
(1) It may be an affair, yours or your mate’s.
(2) It may be a lay off.
(3) It may be a death.
(4) It may be an illness.
(5) It may be an attack or a betrayal or whatever
but it will come.
B. The coming storm will do one of three things for you.
1. If we built on the right foundation with the right
materials, the storm will reassure our faith.
a. Trails come to the saved just like to the unsaved,
but they leave us feeling more secured not less.
b. In a trial, we get to see our God up close and
personal.
c. As Jesus said, our house stands.
2. If we built have not build either on the right
foundation or with the right materials, the storm
will give us another opportunity to start over.
a. Perhaps you have heard the old expression that
sometimes you have to fall so far that the only
way you can look is up.
b. Here comes the rain. When it leaves, your
improperly build house will be in shambles but
you will start over on the right foundation and
with the right materials.
c. The end result is you will be far better after the
storm than you were before it.
3. If we built on another foundation and will not choose
the perfect Foundation, the storm will leave us
nothing.
a. And here is where many will find themselves.
b. The home gone, the savings gone, their reputation
gone, their youth gone, their hope gone.
C. Get this, the issue is not about the materials you build
with alone!
1. First and foremost, it is about the foundation you
have built upon. Unsaved person, turn to Jesus
today.
2. Then, Christian, choose to build with the best
materials.
